ALIAH SELAH was
born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona where at
7, she started piano lessons but then at 9 opted out
of lessons - to instead secretly keep playing the piano
and finding her own songs. All
her childhood she was performing - as young as 3 in
Creative Dance classes that lead to endless recitals
from ballet, tap, and jazz. She started singing, dancing,
and acting regularly in musical comedies and
loved making people laugh. She was
naturally funny and even at times the class clown -
when the teacher was cool.
Her
first role model was
her bohemian art teacher who would take out her guitar
and play folkrock songs at the end of each art class.
Aliah would go talk to her about her dreams that were
vivid and symbolic - she got Aliah drawing and writing
poems.
She felt is was more genuine for her to sing from that
place and sought to find her own voice as a folkrock
singer-songwriter.
This
realization caused her to change deeply inside - she
became a pacifist, and a vegetarian, and
started drawing a lot. She would draw while she listened
to singer-songwriters who have something real to say...
like Carol King's TAPESTRY, and Joni Mitchell's
CLOUDS. She
inspired her sister who started writing great songs
on guitar and the two performed as a duo for a while.
In
High School she was known for her conceptual dances
that she was choreographing to ZAPPA, YES, and
PINK FLOYD songs. When she choreographed PINK
FLOYD'S Dark Side Of The Moon - "Time"
- it
was described by her teachers as "poetry in motion"
and she began to be seen in a new light as the year
book printed this hauntingly cool solo dance
picture that had somehow - in a spontaneous instant
- captured her special spark.
She
focused on being healthy because she knew she would
need to be - to do all that she wanted to do with her
life. This
was a choice she made on her own.
She was the only one among her friends - or really among
anyone she knew - who loved to eat healthy and did so
willingly because it made her body feel good.
#1
LIFE CHOICE: Self Care & Living Healthy are foundations
to any dream.
She
continued to be inspired by the depth of messages solidified
in the progressive rock songs she was dancing to. This
inspired her to
continue to write her own poetry. It became
a way for her to look at everything that happens in
life - in a new light. Finding what was real
- and discovering how to express it in her poetry that
she would take to the piano and just see what comes
out. By
studying the songs that touched her deeply she learned
so much about life and understood how "mistakes"
helped her to learn from everything that happens. It
was wonderful what was happening to her inside but for
a while she kept it to herself.
Aliah's
songwriting awakening...
One day... Aliah dared to share a few of her intimate
songs on piano with her chorus teacher after school.
As a songwriter himself, he was blown away and began
encouraging her singing & songwriting. He
was so moved with how deeply she looked into things
with her poetic lyrics. Yet mostly, how she let every
experience inspire a poem that lead to a song about
something she learned - from each experience.
He told her to save all her poetry for future songs.
So she kept her poems a secret “in a shoe box
under her bed” as referred to in the chorus of
the title track “Shades
Of Images”.
The
chorus of
"Shades Of Images"
was in that Shoe box.
"Shapes
taking form,
and forms making sense,
senses getting felt -
feeling taking shape
in Shades of Images
inspired by... mistakes."
In
talking about her early years
of development Aliah says,
"I am eternally grateful to the
artists and teachers
who taught me to believe...
in the invisible."
#2
LIFE CHOICE: There are no mistakes... everything is
how we respond to what happens and making the best of
it - this is how to see an invisible dream come alive.
In
her singing studies she learned to sing the gospel wailing
of "The Great Gig In The Sky" off of PINK
FLOYD's Dark Side
Of The Moon - note per note. She
was mesmerized by how much emotion was conveyed without
any words and knew that was the deep place that she
wanted to sing from. To
Aliah, it was more than just music - it was a quest
for the real authentic spirit of social justice and
peace activism, while unfolding the mystery of real
love and revealing another angle into life's deeper
understandings. She had played solo piano for a while
when at 15 - her vision of a band came to her - as she
picked up the sax.
Aliah's
rock sax awakening...
Aliah's new
best friend was Danena,
a bass player & totally crazy fun,
rock inspired lady who was
totally focused on her dream of rock.
Danena's brother Don - who also loved rock
later became Aliah's boyfriend.
One day, after Aliah found Don's sax
collecting dust up
in his closet.
He looked at her excitement and said,
"A girl play sax, never!"
That was it - the sax was coming down
and she was gonna prove him wrong.
He
said if she learned to play it,
he'd give it to her.
So at 15,
in the middle of sophomore year,
she switched her theater class
for band class and started playing sax
by jamming to the radio.
By the age of 16, she was playing Sax in the
Phoenix College Jazz Band
and he gave her the sax.
Danena
&
Don helped her to believe in her own dream of rock through
helping her to see that the "you can do it"
attitude found in the passion of rock music - is just
what she needed to go inside and pull out
what was real - so she could
inspire others to do the same.
CHECK
OUT ALIAH PLAYING SAX ON SONGS:
"Fridge Poetry" & "Star Child"
off the
Living In The Shade CD that will be featured
in the Rockaholix
movie.
Aliah's
courage to perform her own songs paid off big time when
she was playing at an Arizona Singer
Songwriter's Showcase and the host was a
popular
Radio DJ who called her "The next Joni Mitchell".
This
meant so much to Aliah who loved & respected how
Joni was an artist who continually took her art deeper
- growing and changing through following her muse with
each next album. And like Aliah, Joni was also a painter
- in addition to being a folk rock songwriter who dipped
into Jazz as Aliah had done with the sax. Joni had given
Aliah permission to explore & express who she was
as an artist fully - as a way of life.
Aliah to began playing her songs in
the Lunch Concert Series at Phoenix
College - that DJ. also hosted
there and encouraged her to play a whole concert and
again announced her as the next Joni... and this was
what got her to start gigging. She had left dance at
her high school to study music and yoga. After
a life of dance, yoga came really easily and made total
sense to her as a way to appreciate the body each day.
Then, she
won 2nd place in a Phoenix College Talent Show with
a solo dance piece. She had
found that yoga had made her dance even stronger.
She
loved how yoga focused on the sacred connection to the
body she had always felt with dance - it was why she
became vegetarian at 13 and she kept learning about
being healthy and healing ever since. From
her yoga class, she met new friends who were into health
and they invited her to go to Living Love Workshops
(Hankbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keys) and she
began studying Self-Hypnosis Visualizations and meditation.
She
had started sax pretty late compared to the kids at
her award winning high school - many who started their
instrument in the 2nd grade and had been playing ever
since. She was told that she had progressed very fast
and was good - she was not good enough to play in the
Jazz band at her High School. She practiced all summer
and then joined the Phoenix College Jazz Band where
she sat next to the top player at her high school last
year. He took her under his wing and taught her improvisational
basics. She proved to herself that every no is a yes
somewhere else - that's better for you - and that's
why the no happened - so the secret is in moving
on well.
#3
LIFE CHOICE:
Every no becomes a yes as we learn to say... next!
Each
ending is a beginning somewhere else if we have the
strength to find it and go for it.
So
when you get a no be grateful for the clear direction
and simply say - "Thank you - NEXT!"
The
teachers at Phoenix Collage were gifted at giving the
next step to their students. After studying Bach Corals
in her first year of music theory during her senior
year of high school - they went on the next year of
music theory to 2 & then, 3 part inventions that
she was also playing on piano. She asked the teacher
where it was all leading... and he said - the fugue.
She was inspired to challenge the whole class to write
a fugue. Scott Brazieal was another senior at a different
high school who was also going to Phoenix Collage. He
became her bandmate in his band CARTOON who played the
whole Rocky and Bulwinkle theme in their shows. He was
a young prodegy who could actually play fugues on piano
and he started one, yet she was the only one who was
able to write a finished fugue. So her teacher supported
her in getting players to record it - 3 voices on harp
and 1 on flute recorded in the practice rooms where
the harp was - it was recorded. Later, she added the
spokenword poetry and sung vocals at Synchestra Studios
where she hung out a lot at after that to learn about
recording. She called the songs "From The Breeze"
about insights while chasing like the wind - a never
ending artistic dream - years later she choreographed
& performed the song in a Master Choreography Class
at ASU.
She first went to ASU after going 2 years to Phoenix
College... it seemed like the next step... so in the
summer she moved to Tempe to take Freshman English for
the summer and as part of her new life in Tempe she
started leading songs at Full Moon Gatherings for her
hours at the Gentle Strength Co-op. Her love of writing
had been nurtured by her High School English teacher
and after 10 minutes with the Freshman English teacher
in summer school it was obvious how negative she was
and Aliah knew she needed to protect her love of writing
- so when the teacher asked everyone to write a page
of a change that happened where they thought one way
but then changed their minds. She decided to write hers
about how she loved to write... songs, poems, stories,
and was excited to be taking a writing class this summer
- until I saw how negative she was... and now dropping
the class for the sake of her writing. She was rewarded
for following her muse when she then stumbled into a
mixed media performance art class where the teacher
let her sit in for the whole class. It was very transformational
for her and her views about art and being an artist
were forever changed. However, once the Fall classes
came she found that with the dance, theater, and music
departments each separate - and across the huge campus
from each other... it really did not fit the needs of
an interdisciplinary artists. She had a very cool yoga
teacher who sugested a school in San Francisco where
you can make your own program - and learn from professional
artists in the Bay Area of your choice. Now that's eductaion!
So
she moved to San Francisco and lived in a flat on the
corner of Haight & Ashbury... to go to this amazing
school out of the 60's called NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFRONIA
- an alternative school where she was able to study
with the best teachers in the Bay Area as part of her
self-directed curriculum. They had one class that was
required - "Compared To What?" Where they
were told to make short term, long term and life time
goals and with everyone supporting each person in looking
at their goals with them. The final was doing your short
term goal. Going to this school was perfect for a budding
artist to explore the path of being an artist among
so many other artists - she had finally found a place
where just about everyone was an artist who cared about
being healthy, the environment, and the world - - being
deep thinking & eccentric was "normal".
Her roommate was a wonderful painter and they the big
room that was the corner of Height & Ashbury was
where groups of artists would gather to discuss life
and art... this was better than the 60's - it was the
life of bohemian visionary artists - finally in San
Francisco she was free.
After being an anti-nuke protester for a while.. she
wanted to focus on what could help instead of what was
not working. She wrote SONGS OF ALTANTIS - a show that
was music for a presentation to help promote OTEC (Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion) to school assembles. This
choice rippled in every part of her life. Walking towards
solutions and away from arguments with those who say
it can't be done. She understood how that drains our
energy - she was done with being a protester trying
to be "right" instead she was an activist
- inspring change by looking for the yes!
#4
LIFE CHOICE: Focus on Solutions for what's possible
rather than convincing those who disagree. Keep inspiring
change by looking for the yes... eventually, it shows
itself - as we contiue to look for it. By being an activist
- and doing something positive we inspire change - yet
more so we live there... in the positive.
She
came back to Arizona with her BA in Humanities from
NEW COLLEGE after taking the masters choreography class
in the summer at ASU - where she was able to use her
Fugue "From the Breeze" that she turned into
a spokenword peformance art dance piece. Dancing to
the music she had written to was the dream that started
her on her way and she had done it. She was going to
continue through the Fall in the Dance Department but
found that the dancers were not at all health focused
- in fact just the opposite. Choosing to be healthy
has always been important to her - especially when driving
her body so hard with dance classes all day - so she
left ASU and again - was brought back to yoga.
Aliah's
yoga
awakening...
Her
life completely changed after choosing Yoga again over
dance classes. It all started when she met Shri Raman
- a practicing yogi for over 50 years who was full of
life and joyful about yoga. He was 5'2", 120 lb's,
and 80 years young and was very healthy and full of
vitality. He had been a vegetarian activist for just
as long. She took a class he offered at a Gentle Strength
Co-op special event. She told him she wanted to start
studying with him. He smiled and took Aliah as a student
by saying: "Come to my house before the sunrise
- and as the sun rises - we make yoga". So she
drove to his house in the dark for quite some time and
learned to live as a yogi. This prepared her for her
first one woman show that she performed in Tempe, AZ
and then took to Israel, France, and Amsterdam.
#5
LIFE CHOICE: Doing what you love is good for you - if
it is not - then find what is. Follow your bliss...
