Music is something that can be present in everyday life and for Grammy-nominated, bluegrass singer Sierra Hull, playing music has always been something she felt she was meant to do.
Hull began playing mandolin at the age of eight. Before discovering her love for the mandolin, Hull was interested in learning how to play the fiddle.
“I really wanted to play fiddle first, so my family got me a fiddle for Christmas and it was a full size,” Hull said. “So it was too big for me at eight years old to fully be able to reach, my arm wasn’t quite long enough and I really needed the smaller size.”
Hull said because of this her father showed her how to play some songs on the mandolin because the mandolin is tuned like a fiddle.
“Once I started doing that I never cared about the fiddle anymore and I wanted to play the mandolin,” Hull said.
Hull grew up hearing music a lot between church and her great uncle on her mother’s side who loaned Hull’s father a guitar so that he could learn to play. This opened the door to not only Hull’s father learning a new instrument, but eventually Hull would gain interest in the world of music.
Hull released her first album, “Secrets,” at the age of 16 and has been working hard at her art since then, with the release of her most recent album “Weighted Mind” last year. Hull said there is not one specific part of the creative process that she could claim as her favorite.
“I love everything about the process, I mean I know that’s not the most specific answer ever, but I really do. I love performing, I love writing, I love the process of arranging music with other people and trying to figure it out, I love the recording process, so I really love so many different areas of the process, you know,” Hull said. “I find them all inspirational for different reasons.”
The creative process of writing and producing albums is not the only thing that Hull seems to love every aspect of. Over the years, Hull has been able to experience many different opportunities that she said is tied to “being in the right place at the right time.”
“I can say last year one of the coolest things I got to do was play the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and that’s just such a beautiful location out in Colorado where a lot of my heroes come and play over the course of the weekend,” Hull said.
Hull also had the opportunity to play for President Obama and his family at the White House and said it was a surreal experience.
“That’s something I’ll always remember as something that I couldn’t have imagined getting to do,” Hull said.
Although there have been many highlights in Hull’s career, she has also had to face some challenges as a young musician.
Hull said a lot of the challenges she has faced has to deal with getting people to realize that she has grown as an artist. She said this is a challenge because she started her music career at such a young age.
“My first album came out when I was 16, it takes a little while to, as you evolve, to get people to see how you’ve evolved,” Hull said. “They maybe remember you from 10 years ago, so I think just kind of growing into a real artist and not just necessarily, I get the word ‘prodigy’ attached to me a lot just because I did start so young, so getting people to see beyond ‘Sierra Hull: the mandolin prodigy.’”
However, Hull has been making a name for herself as a matured artist with her latest release, “Weighted Mind,” which is nominated for Best Folk Album at this year’s Grammy Awards. All of Hull’s achievements can be linked back to a lot of love for what she does and hard work.
“Whether you’re a musician or anything that you are aspiring to do, find something you really love and work really hard at it because I think that your hard work will eventually pay off if it’s something that you really feel like you’re meant to do,” Hull said. “I feel like I’m meant to play music, I have always felt like that’s what I wanted my life to be and so I’ve always tried to work hard and focus on that.”
Hull will be performing with The Railsplitters in the lower level of the Wyoming Union Wednesday night 8 p.m. – 11 p.m.
