Daily Inspiration: Meet Cece Alaniz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cece Alaniz

Hi Cece, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Music was always very important to me from a young age. As far back as I can remember, I was singing along to all my favorite songs on the radio with my mom and siblings. Music had become such an integral part of my childhood. We would always dance in the kitchen, or my sister and I used to karaoke together, or play rockband! Even through tough times, my mom would take me and my siblings on drives and we would all just listen to music together and sing until everything calmed down. Once I was old enough to write, I wrote, similarly to how a lot of kids would write in their journals to vent, I would use songwriting as a means of expressing my emotions. This helped me a lot, as I had a hard time expressing myself otherwise. Once I turned 15, I got my first guitar and briefly learned how to play my guitar at guitar lessons (less than a year), learning the very basic things, like how to hold the guitar or how to play the chords that I’d use most often. After that I was self taught! When I first started to learn/play, I got really shy about playing in front of others, and I avoided it, but at any free /alone time I had I would learn my favorite songs, or write music because it made me super happy, or helped me get through my tough emotions. I was strongly encouraged around the age of 16-17 to share my music with others to which I shared my first ever Youtube video (it was a cover and I had used my Tascam 8 track recorder that I still use to this day for recording original songs) and I used the album art for the picture. That first video was a big deal for me, because I was TERRIFIED that maybe I just sounded bad, and was about to share this thing I love to do very much with a bunch of people. The people in my life at the time were very supportive despite my self doubt. I was going through college at the time to be in the medical field as I wanted to somehow help people in some way! I became very busy with college, and work, and kinda neglected posting music for a while. I still wrote a lot though, and I played guitar often. I played a few shows here and there throughout that time as well. The medical field ended up draining me a lot, as I feel very empathetic and it got to me a lot in so many ways. Shortly after deciding that was not for me, I decided to go into the cannabis industry, as it is legal here in Michigan. For me, cannabis has received a bad rep, and I’ve personally seen it help so many people with their health ailments, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc, and it is important to me. I’ve personally seen people avoiding prescription medications that they are afraid of getting addicted to, and using cannabis as a means of pain management and way too many things to count. For me, the cannabis industry was such an amazing thing, and I knew I was still helping people in some way. My apologies for going off topic, but this was game changer for me. For the first time in the workplace, I felt 100% accepted an celebrated for being exactly who I am. I wasn’t the victim of any bias/judgement despite being a lesbian in a small town either and I eventually was promoted in the company (Lume), becoming the manager, and making enough money to buy myself a new car, and a home (making more than I would have in the medical field for the specific thing I was in it for). Apart from that my coworkers have all been so supportive of me, and me making music and I have a very solid support system right now. I finally have a home and enough space to have my music room, and so there was no excuses anymore. I decided this year, that I would start getting serious about posting my music, and cover some of my favorite songs too, and have fun with it. I recognized, that even if it makes me feel scared or vulnerable, that it might be able to help others in some way. I grew up feeling pretty out of place, for being different, for being a lesbian I got picked on a lot in school, and I don’t know if my songs or my music or anything like that can help someone to feel less alone, but if it does than I will have succeeded in all of this. This year, I started out with less than 100 subscribers, and jumped up to 600! I’ve been posting regularly, and collaborating with some amazing human beings, and now that I’m finally putting in the work, I’m seeing the results and this has been amazing, I feel very grateful.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not always, no, I took a lot of long breaks and pauses in-between because of life, or because of my own mental health, or self doubt, or fear of being seen by others (emotionally and physically). Not to say that I don’t ever struggle with any of these things now, but I’ve done a lot of work on myself in terns of healing and growth to get to where I am with my self acceptance, and I’m still working to improve everyday. When I was younger, I learned to meditate, and that has a been a huge part of what keeps me connected and grounded. I try to follow my heart in everything I do, and then the struggles normally feel more like growth/lessons on my journey.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I sing and write my own songs, and I also like to do covers most commonly on my acoustic guitar, but I can play the keyboard, drums, and bass too! Currently I’m very proud of the growth my Youtube channel has received in the past year, and I’m super excited to see where it will go from here. What sets me apart, might be a few different things. I’m a lesbian musician, and I know there aren’t as many of us out there, although that’s growing everyday and I love that so much! The way that I write songs might be kind of unique compared to others, but typically have my guitar, and I play something and sing, and record it. After I listen back to what I’ve recorded and it’s usually very insightful, but I don’t like to control the process. I let the words just come out, and it’s almost always entirely cohesive/rhymes. If it doesn’t, I’ll go back in and polish it up, but for me writing is a form of channeling my emotions and so I don’t like to limit that. It usually takes me less than a day to write a song, which I think might be pretty unique. I also usually learn covers pretty fast too, within the day I’ll learn it and post it (but not without recording it a bunch of times haha). I’ve been told my voice is unique as well.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
As far as networking, I think connecting with other musicians can be super beneficial to aspiring Youtube musicians. We are all in it together, and can help to support one another, and collaborate together. Shout out to Avid Beats, Orson Randall, Kane Crooks, Cuppa Dub Productionz, Abbie Sabados, Rareharez, Chey Halliwill, and Sarah Pyle (most recent collaboraters) for collaborating with me.
I think it’s good to find your niche, find your people, and to have fun with it. When I very first started, I used Reddit as an anonymous means of getting feedback, because I thought if I actually sounded bad strangers on Reddit would be brutally honest and let me know, so I posted anonymously like “hey what do you think of this?” and would send over a song I had written to get feedback (luckily the feedback was good haha). And fast forward to now, I use it to help network. So Reddit has been a huge help to me as well, and it helped me to get over being afraid of what other people thought of me. Myself and Sam (Avid Beats) even won a competition for our song “Lenticular Cloud” on a music Reddit page titled “Musicorloseit”, I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.youtube.com/@cecealaniz1017
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ceces.music?igsh=dmdhbm1tNXR4dXRs
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cecealaniz1017
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3D3cjIlmXdnZchg4cHnlDN?si=90R3Pe9YRxiO9S5N_aQGEw

Image Credits
Wyatt Morgan
Sarah Pyle
Avid Beats
Kane Crooks