meet uniqui

Hi! I’m Nicki 🎶
 
Just as my music taste is wide-ranging, my passions and skills span a multi-chromatic spectrum. From Musician, Music Therapist, Certified Yoga Teacher, to Resonance Coach, I live to highlight the power of music’s vibrations. Here is my story:

2000 was the year that changed it all: when 5 year old Nicki received a karaoke machine featuring Angelica from the Rugrats.

My home video archive spotlights me singing my heart out with Angelica to “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, and 🥹 let’s just say little Nicki liked to ad-lib.

Then there’s a clip where I perform Shania Twain’s “I'm Gonna Getcha Good” with choreography to match my elated smile.

Love can be fun, honey.

Thankfully these two moments were caught on tape because I get to look back and see how music has always moved me. It’s in my blood. In fact, music feels like the only language I really truly understand.

So, like a magnet, I touched and tried any instrument I could get my hands on since preschool. At at 8 I joined the school band representing the flute section, at 10 I took up piano lessons, and at 14 I joined the choir. If music is language, this was me collecting new dialects and accents.

<<NGL, practicing for band was kind of a drag>> but I loved playing piano when no one was home so I could be as loud as I wanted and maybe also scream/sing about growing up 😮‍💨 <<#teenangst>> 😅

Music grew my world at the same time as it created an intimate and vulnerable place for my self-expression. The voice is a particularly exposing instrument, and as I got older and more self-aware, I hid it, especially when put on the spot and asked to sing. The voice felt like my haven, and it was hard to let people in.

While I iced out my family members from hearing me sing, I still loved performing in my school concerts. The space that opens up for harmony, texture, and sonority within an ensemble can be infinite, so learning to temper my voice or my flute part within a larger body gave me the opportunity to express myself while fitting in. And it was crucial for me to be in musical community at a time when I was isolating myself at home. It was something I always looked forward to and was inspired by. The feeling of being in a choir or band is just beyond human. It’s truly an example of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

As my music world was exponentially expanded through The 2010’s with access to Soundcloud and streaming platforms, I simultaneously developed a hungry curiosity for what makes humans tick. How do we get ourselves into problems? How do we get ourselves out of those problems?  By the end of high school when “so what do you want to be when you grow up” was the primary question from ‘adults,’ the route to a psychology degree became clearer for me. But the music piece still felt elusive and hobbyist.
 
Entering collage was the first time in 18 years I had no music in my schedule. My soul felt stifled and incomplete so I signed up for piano lessons. I felt my purpose coming back and by the grace of my thoughtful and attentive piano teacher, I was introduced to a world in which I could marry my passion for music and my acuity for human nature: a degree in Music Therapy.
 
I lovingly picked apart my relationship with music. It has been…
- the haven for all emotions
- the reliable friend
- the noise that drowned out the rest of the world.
The rhythms, the vibrations, the resonances… I could choose them, feel them, and sing them. The more I felt into my voice, the more I could feel into ME. And it became crystal clear: music is my teacher and my own voice is my healer.

And so, I began to share my music, and by sharing my music, I shared my story.
 
 🎤🪩💫🧘‍♀️

I am here to be your sounding board. Whether it’s through finding your voice, playing with instruments, moving your body or a combination of it all – let’s explore and co-create.