Life & Work with Amanda Kaya of New Jersey, USA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Kaya.

Hi Amanda, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Thank you so much for inviting me for an interview, firstly. Secondly, my name is Amanda Kaya and I am a multi-style/ multi-instrumentalist living in the New York City Metro (North Jersey). How did I get here? This is a very interesting question because I imagine it’s not the typical path for most people or musicians, but I do believe that many people resonate with my unconventional path. I just say I’m a lifelong musician trying to find my way in the world. I guess unlike most musicians, I’m not striving to be the best player or soloist, I’m just trying to be the best me I can be. For more clarity, I currently am a-I don’t know how to put it exactly-music influencer? Google calls me an “Internet Personality”, whatever that means. Simply, I run a social media page where I play music from video game and film scores on classical guitar. Sometimes I use violin, or viola, but it’s mostly classical guitar. As someone who trained professionally on viola since I was eight, it’s really hard to understand how I came to where I am now-that being someone who is known for a secondary instrument. Actually, probably tertiary since I started on piano. How I started, well, it was in the pandemic and I had just finished my bachelors in anthropology and philosophy. (Don’t ask how I even ended up there) I was asked to livestream guitar lessons to children and I thought, I needed to be a better guitarist for them. My husband, who is a well known classical guitarist extraordinaire and virtuoso, taught me for fun. I was still learning when I was offered this job and thought, too better myself, I’ll record myself on instagram or something. If I gained followers on instagram, then they would come to my live stream. That was my initial thought and my goal was only 5,000 followers back then. But one viral video later, I had 20K in a month and now I have over 200K across multiple platforms, instagram being my base, really. Over the course of my playing, my music transformed from classical guitar into video game and film scores. I dabbled with it a little and realized I should do what I love. Classical guitar is great, but as someone who grew up loving video games and film scores, I just knew I had to be true to who I was. From then, I decided to continue with that genre. I realized, if I’m going to be this sort of influencer with a platform, I need to be authentic to who I am because I don’t want to lose myself. I want to do something I love. I want to invite followers who also love that as well. I find being myself and playing what I love has been more rewarding than pretending to be this classical guitar soloist. So yes, that’s how I got here. It’s opened many doors for me as well as I now run social media pages for other companies, the biggest one being Augustine Strings. I am also giving lectures on Authenticity and Social Media for festivals and schools now, which I thoroughly enjoy.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
To say that I haven’t cried more than once over this would be a lie. It’s a mental struggle more than anything. People always say to influencers or online personalities that they shouldn’t worry about the likes etc. But it’s really hard to explain the kind of depression that comes from putting yourself out there online and having a visual/numerical number there as a visual metric for your worth. Especially some like me, who doesn’t hide behind the internet personality or makes some online persona, but is truly herself online. It’s impossible to separate those numbers and comments from self worth because everything you see is me. Those numbers reflect how much people like me and my product. The worst part is that sometimes these numbers and trends are manipulated either by paid growth from others, politics and current trends that you can’t control. The algorithm is this living creature that reacts to the users inputs in addition to paid artificial growth as well. So yes, to some extent you can’t let the numbers bother you, but it’s almost impossible to separate them from your self worth because it is our self and soul that we are presenting to the virtual space. At least some of us. Who I am online, is I hope who people meet in public when they meet me. To me, this has been my biggest struggle.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a classical musician/internet personality who plays video game and film music on classical guitar (mostly). I am most known for my niche in that music genre and more specifically as a classical guitarist who is in that niche. I guess, what I’m most proud of is just being able to find a way to be myself and have others enjoy what I produce. I’m so happy people find joy in participating in my music, whether is be just to listen for a moment, or even join in with duets they record or just play in the privacy of their home. That’s what I’m most proud of. I guess a smaller thing I’m proud of is doing this all on an instrument that is not my main professional instrument. I am trained on viola and majored on viola from age eleven until college. I never thought I’d be playing guitar for 200K people online across the world. I’m incredibly grateful for the support and love <3 What sets me apart from others? I'm not entirely sure. I've asked myself this a lot. Even as a social media manager and advisor, always say that you need a niche to be recognizable but it's more complex than that. I think of it like this. We are the sum of all of our parts, similar to like a pie with different pieces. Some of us, when compared to others, share many of these pieces. For example, I'm not the only classical guitarist online and I'm not even the only one who plays video game and film music. I'm not the first either, far from it. But there are many things in my pie that are different from others. My experiences, maybe my age, my gender, my experience in orchestral music outside of guitar. All of these things change the end result of who I am. These small experiences change the entire pie and that's what makes us unique from everyone else. We are the sum of our parts and I believe all my experiences, even though some are generic, separate me from other people even within the same niche. I still can't pinpoint what people see in me but I can only be grateful that they find worth in enjoying the musical journey with me.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Taking risks is part of the social media experience. This is why a lot of people get cancelled, but for me, nothing I can do will really lead to that. My genre is potentially a low-risk one. I think the biggest risk I took was going from purely classical guitar, being all serious and classical minded, to playing the music I loved. Video game and film music. It was the best risk I took and it was well worth it. I played Merry-Go-Round of life from the movie Howl’s Moving Castle by Joe Hisaishi AND I was dressed as Sophie Hatter from the movie. She was my halloween costume that year and I thought, why not? Dress up and play guitar. It’s silly, especially in the serious world of classical guitar. I was thinking, people will think this is stupid and I am crazy, but I did it. MY husband Celil Refik Kaya, who does my arrangements, arraganed this small snippet of the piece for me and I dressed as Sophie in my green dress and just went for it. You wouldn’t believe the doors this single video has opened for me. Even Joe Hisaishi, my IDOL, shared the video on his page. I was floored. It was a risk I’d take over and over again. It changed the trajectory of my page and the way I view social media for good.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandakayaguitar?lang=en
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amanda.g.kaya/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Amanda.g.Kaya/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@amandakaya