{"id":88277,"date":"2025-08-22T08:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T08:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/88277\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T08:26:08","slug":"laufey-talks-music-education-and-genre-snobbery-at-grammy-museum-chat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/88277\/","title":{"rendered":"Laufey Talks Music Education and Genre Snobbery at Grammy Museum Chat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs a formally trained multi-instrumentalist and a pop starlet, Laufey<\/a> has long seemed like the poster girl for everything the Grammys represent or hope to represent. (And by \u201clong,\u201d we mean the two years since her \u201cBewitched\u201d album brought her to greater prominence, though her ascent seems like it dates back further than that.) So she was a natural fit for a return to the Grammy Museum<\/a> this week, this time moving upstairs to the downtown L.A. facility\u2019s slightly larger rooftop space. There, in conversation and song, she regaled 300 fans who had immediately sold out the space at an also-elevated price, all of them happy to catch her in the most intimate possible setting before she headlines two shows a block away at Crypto Arena this fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer interlocutor for the occasion Wednesday night was Peter Asher<\/a>, known for his record productions as well as being a member of the Beatles-adjacent \u201960s duo Peter and Gordon. Laufey, a Berklee grad, shared how she has started a foundation to help out music students, while Asher shared some of his own music education appreciation, starting with having a mother who was an instructor back in England. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the ironies is that my mother counted among her students, oddly enough, George Martin,\u201d Asher said. \u201cShe taught George long before I had any affiliation with the Beatles or anything to do with that \u2014 strange coincidence.\u201d \u201cThen if your mother wasn\u2019t a music teacher, we wouldn\u2019t have the Beatles?\u201d Laufey wondered, before Asher demurred that he wouldn\u2019t take it quite that far in assessing the impact of the band\u2019s producer having sought out oboe lessons. (And therein followed the most interesting dissection of the oboe\u2019s noisy place in the orchestra that any pop star has recently indulged in.)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLaufey, Peter Asher at The Drop: Laufey \u2013 A Special Benefit Program at The GRAMMY Museum L.A. Live on August 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGilbert Flores<\/p>\n

\n\tLaufey was on hand to promote her third album, \u201cA Matter of Time,\u201d which comes out Friday, just beating the close of eligibility for the 2026 Grammys, at which she\u2019ll again be a contender in genre categories \u2014 following her best pop traditional album win for \u201cBewitched\u201d \u2014 with a shot at moving into the all-genre divisions this time around. And Laufey is nothing if not \u201call-genre\u201d personified.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe way I see it is like, I am a jazz singer, just as I am a classical cellist, but my music is a mix of everything,\u201d the Icelandic-Asian-American performer said during the Q&A. Said Asher, \u201cListening to the songwriting, it\u2019s clear you are an admirer of the work of Taylor Swift.\u201d \u201cOh yeah, absolutely,\u201d the 26-year-old responded. \u201cI mean, growing up, I always said I loved jazz music, classical music and Taylor Swift. Exactly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the snobbery that would keep those worlds apart, \u201cI come from that world \u2014 like, I\u2019ve been that person,\u201d she said. \u201cI used to be such a classical music snob. I look back at my high school self: What was I doing? But you know, I think snobbery ultimately comes from a deep yearning (for) conservation. It\u2019s like you want to protect the same thing. And it comes from love for that. I\u2019m always like, we have the same goal here \u2014 to keep it alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLaufey laughed about her unique form of rebellion in her musically sophisticated family. \u201cI did choose cello because my mom\u2019s a violinist, and I thought that if I chose a different instrument, she wouldn\u2019t be able to teach me. That is why I play cello, but I was really wrong. She still taught me, and it was worse because I was like, \u2018You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about!’\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLaufey, Peter Asher at The Drop: Laufey \u2013 A Special Benefit Program at The GRAMMY Museum L.A. Live on August 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGilbert Flores<\/p>\n

\n\tHer mother was no anti-pop snob, though\u2026 quite the opposite, Laufey pointed out. \u201cMy mom always thought I was gonna be a pop star,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the least Chinese-mother part of her.\u201d Even though Laufey planned on being an economics major because a music career seemed so unlikely, she said her mother \u201cwanted me to be delusional. Constantly. She always said, \u2018You\u2019re not delusional enough.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis desire for her daughter to loosen up went across more lines than just music. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to drink in high school,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I have this distinct memory of her sitting at the dining table being like, \u2018Is there something wrong with you? Do you have friends?\u2019 And she said, \u2018Just try it.\u2019 I remember so well! And she always wanted me to jump and take big chances and I was like, \u2018I think I need to study something practical.\u2019 And my mom was like, \u2018No, you\u2019re a pop star. Go write. Make music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also received encouragement from a Berklee professor, Mike Block. \u201cHe had stabbed and played with (the cello) at the same time, and I thought, \u2018What? Are you allowed to do that?\u2019 My Berklee years were just me being like, am I allowed? \u2026 He asked me, \u2018What do you want to do?\u2019 And I said, \u2018you know, \u2018I don\u2019t know \u2014 I\u2019m a jazz singer and a classical cellist, but I wanna write my own music.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you sing and play?\u2019 And I\u2019d never seen anyone sing and play at the same time. And he was like, \u2018It is totally possible.\u2019 And so I spent a year learning how to play chords on cello. And there weremany exercises and drills that wil haunt me to the day I die\u2026 But I remember thinking, \u2018Oh wait, this isn\u2019t only a classical instrument; it\u2019s so much more than that. I can play chords on it, I can sing, and it\u2019s actually not in the way of my breathing. So it\u2019s a very versatile instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, she said in response to an audience question, her classical training did stand in the way of moving into pop, primarily in her own head, Block\u2019s encouragement notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt definitely hindered me at first because I had trained and was such a good rule follower and I was so used to pleasing my elders\u2026 You spend years and years and years playing the note, looking at your professor and them being like [shaking her head] or okaying it \u2026 So you create this system within yourself where you\u2019re always waiting for validation before you move on. And that can be really damaging, I think, in creating your own music, because I think all innovative music, or all interesting music, comes from just going straight through that wall of questioning. So it was definitely really hard. It took me so long to understand that, that it was not that I could break rules and that no one was gonna judge me. Or maybe they did and I should just not care. And I really don\u2019t think it was until this year, really, where I was just like, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLaufey performs at The Drop: Laufey \u2013 A Special Benefit Program at The GRAMMY Museum L.A. Live on August 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGilbert Flores<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow when I have like a question in my head of whether I\u2019m allowed to do it or not, I feel like I\u2019m onto something\u2026 When I identify a rule now I\u2019m like, how could I break this in an interesting way? So it takes a really long time, and it\u2019s all confidence-based.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough much of the conversation focused on finding different ways to play the cello, Laufey spends almost all of the time in her headline concerts alternating between playing grand piano and electric guitar, as she did in a solo set that succeeded the Q&A at the Grammy Museum.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the selections she performed were several tracks from \u201cA Matter of Time,\u201d one of them yet unreleased. She assured the fandom they had not quite heard the full album, even if much of it was out there, authorized and otherwise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA lot of it\u2019s leaked,\u201d she said, \u201cbut no, I didn\u2019t leak all of it. Some of it wasn\u2019t me. It was like only half me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve only had mine for a couple days,\u201d said Asher, insisting it wasn\u2019t him.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLaufey performs at The Drop: Laufey \u2013 A Special Benefit Program at The GRAMMY Museum L.A. Live on August 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGilbert Flores<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a formally trained multi-instrumentalist and a pop starlet, Laufey has long seemed like the poster girl for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,52256,52257,341,52258],"class_list":{"0":"post-88277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-grammy-museum","12":"tag-laufey","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-peter-asher"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}