The Bedroom Recordings of Cecilia Walters

the beginning

One day, a teenage girl, Cecilia Dallsay Walters, turned seventeen years old. She is a daughter of a chef, Aurora Dallsay Santos and a music teacher, Gabriel Nathaniel Walters. Her both parents are from the Philippines and moved to Seattle by hoping to have a better life there. She got her first guitar from her dad which is an acoustic guitar and she plays it almost every day. She will start high school in a few days. Days have passed, she started high school and was quite lonely but met a girl named Angela who she will become friends with. During her high school years, she listens to Elliott Smith, Galaxie 500, Cat Power, Red House Painters, Slowdive, Daniel Johnston and Cocteau Twins and cries almost every day until sleep. She's always been bullied by girls surrounding her but Angela always has her back. Her parents gave some of their music collection with a lot of album CDs of Mazzy Star, Liz Phair, Neutral Milk Hotel, Slint, Low, The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead and Belly. During her free time, Cecilia and Angela both spend their time skating, going to live shows, record store digging, watching movies, museum exploration, playing sports or games and culinary trips. Angela introduced her to new music surrounded the Pacific Northwest and very amazed by it such as Mirah, The Microphones, Tiny Vipers, Damien Jurado, Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins, Band of Horses, The Decemberists, Pedro the Lion and Neko Case. They both bonded over Mazzy Star, Liz Phair, Elliott Smith and The Microphones.

There's one time on a Saturday night that Cecilia wrote her first song called "Wish You Were Here", a depressing song about her grief of her caring grandmother who comfort her during the sad days and her parents are working hard while she have a lot of love and attention from her. Her grandmother died from breast cancer. Few days later, Cecilia showed it to Angela about the song she wrote. She was amazed by her vocals, songwriting and the melodies of her guitars. Angela compliment her and told her to pursue a music career. Cecilia refused nicely and she wrote songs just for fun. The next day, there's a knock on the door and Cecilia opened it. It was the neighbor next door named Mitchell. He says that he heard her singing and watched it from afar. Mitchell said that he wasn't a creep but Cecilia's windows were open. The reason for him coming to his house is that he complimented the song and really liked it. In addition to a favor, he said that she should pursue a music career. Soon, they both become friends.

During her summer break, she decided to turn on her MacBook laptop and started to experiment and learn how to make music at GarageBand. The more she realized, she should started a music career and settled an account at both BandCamp and YouTube. She also started to write a couple songs for her to record. The both of them are the supporters of Cecilia's early music career. Back to her life, she found out that Mitchell is a vocalist/bassist for a Seattle-based post-hardcore/midwest-emo band, Mad Cow and fascinated by their performance. She also brought Angela to their gig sometimes. Angela thought something weird with Cecilia and asks why she's acting strange lately. She lies and falls out with Angela but Cecilia tells her that she had a crush on him lately. Angela is very excited for her and happy for it. She also introduced a vault of songs she wrote. One of them is called "And I Love Him", a love song that she wrote about Mitchell but Mitchell didn't know that it's about him. Both Angela and Mitchell met at a show together. Thanks to Cecilia. Miranda had herself a boyfriend named Jamie who is the drummer of Mad Cow. Both Cecilia and Angela always went to Mad Cow rehearsals. Few days later, she wrote another song called "Dumb", a depressive song she wrote about her being felt as a failure or a source of problem to her family even tho they never talk like that. Both Angela and Mitchell related to the song when she played it for them both.

With the help of Mitchell, she began to play shows by doing open mics. Her stage debut is in a coffee shop. She also wants to add pianos to her songs and get Angela to become her pianist and she played it very well. The performance was a good start. All of the crowd are sitting and focus on them both singing. They didn't even leave their seats. Cecilia also do covers of Elliott Smith, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Daniel Johnston, Cat Power and The Shins. The crowd clapped their hands and shouts in a positive way to her. She began to gain a fanbase from that coffee shop performance. For now, she started her music journey as an open mic singer-songwriter/guitarist. Months have passed, she began sick of playing open mics and didn't get a record deal. Mitchell asks, "Why don't you make your own music? You already know how to use GarageBand, right?" and Cecilia answered, "Oh yeah, I forgot. Thanks for the advice!"

Let's see Cecilia's home-recording journey in the next story! Stay tune, everyone!