Musician
Self-employed

Vicki B

00:00:02 My name’s Vicki B and I’m a musician, music teacher and I’m now a music healer as well. I’m always playing in as many different bands as I can, I just like the mixture of all different styles and different people keeping it interesting and alive. About seven years ago I became aware that I have, as everybody does, the capabilities to heal myself and others and I use crystals and I use sound healing as a musician.

00:00:31 My family is a musical family so, never taken very seriously, but it’s something we’ve always dabbled in and being the youngest I was able to be introduced to it a little bit earlier so at the age of seven whilst going to my big sister’s orchestra just tagging along, my father asked if I was too young at seven and was told “No, that was fine.” So, he went straight out and bought me a clarinet. I didn’t actually have lessons, I just joined a Saturday morning orchestra and the lovely people there kind of just threw me a new note and I just kind of picked it up as I could and that was for two years until it was serious. I then got lessons at the age of nine.

00:01:05 Yeah, I was quite a show off but it came to a point where I was having a problem with how I was putting myself across, which is why I needed to change school. So, I went to Sixth Form College and that was a fantastic time for me. I moved to the saxophone which was something that fulfilled the sort of cooler side of where I wanted to be and I dyed my hair pink and I kind of put a new stamp on myself and came out of myself, I think.

00:01:34 By the end of the two years, the end of my A Levels, I realised that education was probably not the place for me to develop my skills. I wanted to be doing it rather than studying it and that was an important step for me.

00:01:50 I was asked by a friend who didn’t want to take the step to go to Hong Kong with this pop band. So I met these people for a month and then off I went to the other side of the world at 20. It was immediately obvious that it wasn’t the best career move. It was tricky, there were all sorts of obstacles, the club wasn’t opening and when it did open it didn’t work particularly well.

00:02:17 But, you know, it was a fantastic time. I went away with…and saw wonderful places and met wonderful people so, and worked playing every night so I was really learning my skills fully. It was very exciting as well as challenging. Came back to Bristol and just started my life, started teaching and joining as many bands as I could and did that for about 10 years.

00:02:43 I reached a plateau sort of about 10 years ago when I felt I wasn’t moving forward in my life, I had reached a plateau, and I was searching for something new and started the journey of music healing and also music performance. I started my own band and started writing songs. The next five years, I feel, is more of the same because my journey as a harpist is still embryonic, I think.

00:03:13 I am proud of what I’ve achieved so far but I do feel I’m still only half way through my journey. I’ve only walked half the path and I still have a long way to go to fulfil my journey.

00:03:28 One of the main things I like to live by is not keeping myself too busy. I choose not to be busy. I choose to keep my life calm so I’ve got plenty of time to reflect and to enjoy each moment so that when I get up on stage, I have the energy to put forward what is important and people feed off that energy and they throw it back to you and that’s the most wonderful, it’s a two way stream.

00:03:54 You put out the energy, they give it back and that’s when the night goes, well, that’s when the best gigs happen, really. And so, yes, I like to be calm in my everyday life and then save my energy for when it needs to be put out there. ENDS