Name: Claire Kelly

Age: 19

College: Communication ‘15

Major(s): Public Relations, Marketing

Activities: Resident Asst. at Cobeen Hall, Public Relations Asst. for MUSG, Music Asst. Director for Marquette Radio

During her freshman year of high school, Claire’s friend received a guitar as a Christmas gift and asked Claire if she would like to play with her sometime. Although Claire herself couldn’t play, she enjoyed writing music and lyrics. That following year, the two sat down together and collaborated on a CD together.

“As a kid I always wanted to sing, but I wasn’t very good when I was little,” Claire says. “My mom kept pushing me into choir and everything like that. I kind of started there, I guess, but I didn’t really get into my own music until maybe my junior or senior year.”

She first began playing the guitar her sophomore year of high school so she could perform in the school’s talent show.

“Seriously, it’s so hard when you’re first learning, just getting that progression of chords, but I sat there for a whole twelve hours straight working on one song,” Claire says. “It was just like playing four chords over and over again, trying to get it together.”

Aside from one guitar lesson, Claire is completely self-taught. However, she didn’t really begin to create her own music until she came to Marquette.

The process of writing music is, as Claire describes it, almost unexplainable.

“Sometimes, I’ll sit down, and I’ll have a song where the lyrics will come to me first,” Claire says. “Then, I can just pluck it out on guitar and kind of figure it out that way. Sometimes, a song is so much a piece of my heart, and my friends will know exactly what point in my life it’s about, or exactly who it’s about.”

A song can take Claire anywhere from one hour to a couple of weeks to fully develop. “Sometimes, songs honestly fall out of the sky and into my head”

Today, Claire has a three song demo released on iTunes and is featured on her recently launched website –
clairekellymusic.com. She enjoys playing “Outside the Lines” the most because she says it conveys her personal philosophy.

The demo was somewhat of a collaborative project. Friends came in to add instrumental variations, such as violin and piano pieces. The producer even added his own bass lines to some of Claire’s songs.

“I really believe in collaboration, and I think that a lot of good things can come from it,” Claire says.  “I’ll usually come up with the solid melody and core structure of the song, and then I like to have people who are just talented in other ways just add stuff to it.”

Claire has performed her music, including the songs on her demo, across campus.

Her first Marquette performance was held at the Winter Flurry talent show her freshman year. But performing at the talent show was a bit of fate.

She missed the tryouts and later was informed that there were no available openings. But Claire, with a little luck on her side, was able to find her way in anyway.

“I emailed him again a week before the show and was like, ‘Did any spots open up or anything?’ And he was like, ‘We just had someone drop out 15 minutes ago. You’re in.’” Claire says. “[…] I got second place at the talent show, and then people started contacting me after that to play places.”

This year, she’s participated in Eaglefest as a part of the Golden Eagle Games and opened for William Beckett, the lead singer of The Academy Is at the MUSG Coffeehouse.

Such exposure at Marquette has been met with a lot of positive feedback.

“It’s honestly an amazing feeling,” Claire says,  “but when you do give your music out to the world, it’s kind of scary because it is a lot of your heart and a lot of your life
in song,” ν