Sue Schnitzer, Singer-Songwriter: Building a Music Life One Open Mic at a Time
Sue Schnitzer, Singer-Songwriter: Building a Music Life One Open Mic at a Time
Most musicians plan a tour by figuring out where the gigs are.
Sue Schnitzer sometimes plans the drive by figuring out where the open mics are.
That distinction tells you quite a bit about Sue.
Also known as Traveling Sue, she is a ukulele-playing singer-songwriter who decided retirement did not have to mean settling down. Instead, she sold the house, loaded her instruments into a Prius, and started building a life around music, hiking, festivals, national parks, and whatever community she found along the way.
In less than three years, Sue has put more than 100,000 miles on her Prius while playing music across 28 states and two Canadian provinces!
That would be impressive mileage for a touring musician with a booking agent.
Sue has largely done it by following curiosity.
And open mics.
Sue Schnitzer’s Unusual Road to Becoming a Traveling Singer-Songwriter
Sue's path to this stage of her musical life has never been particularly conventional.
Before becoming a traveling singer-songwriter, she spent 13 years as an FBI special agent. Her official biography says she left the Bureau in 1993 after her daughter was born and returned to music, eventually building a career performing for children in Colorado.
She later worked in libraries, started ukulele and songwriting groups, lived in Memphis, moved to Arizona, and continued finding ways to put music into the communities around her.
After moving to Prescott in 2022, Sue began focusing more heavily on music for adults. Then, in early 2024, she retired again and hit the road with her ukuleles and guitar.
Her current bio describes her pretty accurately:
She makes her home wherever she happens to be.
There is something appealing about that idea.
A lot of musicians dream about freedom as some giant career breakthrough.
Sue built hers from smaller decisions.
Drive somewhere interesting.
Find people.
Play a few songs.
Stay long enough to listen.
Then keep moving.
Arizona Open Mic Nights Became Part of the Travel Plan
One of my favorite things from the Desert Vibe conversation was learning how intentionally Sue uses open mic nights.
For many musicians, an open mic is something you attend when you happen to have a free evening.
For Sue, it can be part of the route.
If she is moving between cities, she looks for places where she can perform along the way.
That means a travel day might become:
Drive.
Hike.
Find the open mic.
Play.
Meet some musicians.
Sleep.
Do it again somewhere else.
The strategy gives Sue something that is difficult to recreate in a practice room.
Repetition in front of real people.
The more often you perform, the less energy you spend worrying about the mechanics of getting on stage.
You know how to plug in.
You know how to introduce yourself.
You know what happens when a lyric disappears from your brain.
You learn how to read a room.
Eventually, performing becomes less about surviving the stage and more about communicating from it.
What Makes Arizona Open Mics Different?
Because Sue has played open mics around the country, we had to ask how Arizona open mic nights compare.
One difference she noticed was practical.
Arizona events often start earlier.
Considering the average Arizona musician seems capable of complaining equally about a 10 p.m. start and an 8 a.m. load-in, I can see the appeal.
But Sue noticed something more important than the schedule.
People stay.
At some open mics she has visited elsewhere, performers arrive, put their name on the list, play their songs, and leave.
That is technically an open mic.
But it does not build much of a scene.
Sue has found more Arizona rooms where musicians hang around, listen to each other, talk after the songs, and become part of the evening instead of treating their own performance like an appointment.
Emma and I have experienced the same thing at some of our favorite Arizona open mics.
The best rooms are not simply stages.
They are meeting places.
An Open Mic Works Better When Musicians Actually Listen
There is a strange habit musicians can fall into.
We desperately want people to listen to our music.
Then another musician starts playing and suddenly we have three urgent text messages to answer.
A local music scene cannot work that way.
If twenty performers each arrive wanting an audience but nobody wants to be the audience, eventually you just have musicians playing to empty chairs.
Sue's approach is the opposite.
Showing up matters.
Staying matters.
Listening matters.
Talking to another songwriter afterward matters.
That is how the person you met at an open mic eventually becomes someone who invites you to a festival, recommends another venue, joins you for a song, or gives you somewhere to stay when your musical road trip comes through town again.
Community is not something a music scene automatically has.
People create it through repeated behavior.
Songwriting Starts With Paying Attention to Words
Sue's constant performance schedule also gives her a place to test something else.
New songs.
The conversation moved into the mechanics of songwriting, and Sue shared several ideas that are useful regardless of whether somebody writes folk music, rock, blues, or anything else.
One is surprisingly specific:
Pay attention to your verbs.
Songwriters can spend a lot of time searching for beautiful adjectives and clever rhymes while overlooking the words actually creating movement.
A stronger verb can sometimes do more work than an entire extra line.
Sue also works with songwriting groups that use prompts.
A prompt might not immediately become a song.
Sometimes the idea sits around.
It percolates.
Then a phrase appears.
Once Sue finds the phrase that unlocks the idea, the rest of the song can begin taking shape.
That is an important reminder for anyone who has stared at a blank page waiting to feel inspired.
Not every songwriting session begins with inspiration.
Sometimes you simply give your brain something to work on.
Good Songwriting Also Means Cutting Good Lines
Songwriting is not only about finding the right words.
Sometimes it is about deleting words you really like.
Sue talked about learning to cut a favorite line when it does not serve the song.
Writers sometimes call that killing your darlings.
It hurts because the line might genuinely be good.
It just belongs in another song.
Sue also talked during the episode about working toward tighter songs and paying attention to length.
That kind of editing matters even more when you regularly perform new material for an audience.
The room gives you information.
Where did people lean in?
Where did the energy change?
Did the setup take too long?
Did the emotional moment land?
A songwriting group can help with the page.
An audience helps with the song.
Why Hearing a Song Live Is Different From Seeing It Online
Social media gives musicians access to audiences we could never realistically reach one room at a time.
That is useful.
But Sue made an important distinction during our conversation.
A video captures the performance.
It does not always capture the conversation.
When you hear a songwriter live, there may be a short story before the song.
You see the performer's face.
You feel the room get quiet.
A funny lyric gets an immediate reaction.
A difficult lyric changes the atmosphere.
Then the musician feels that reaction and performs the next line slightly differently.
That loop between the performer and audience disappears when the same video becomes one more clip between somebody's recipe and dog video.
That does not mean musicians should abandon social media.
It means live music still does something social media cannot completely reproduce.
Sue's entire lifestyle is almost built around proving that point.
From Children’s Music to Songs for Grown-Ups
Sue spent more than 20 years performing music for children before shifting more of her attention toward adult audiences. Her official bio traces that children's music career back to Boulder in 1994.
That background gave her skills that transfer surprisingly well.
Anybody who thinks children's music is easy has probably never tried holding the attention of twenty young kids.
Children will not politely pretend to care.
If you lose them, you know.
You need movement.
Participation.
Clarity.
Pacing.
Personality.
You need to communicate with the room rather than simply recite songs at it.
Adults are slightly better at hiding when you have lost them.
But the same rules still apply.
Sue carried those audience-engagement skills into her current performances, whether that means encouraging a sing-along, telling just enough of a story to set up a song, or changing the energy when the room needs something different.
Walking in a Dream Brings Sue’s Adult Songwriting Together
That newer chapter is captured on Sue's 2026 album Walking in a Dream.
The album contains 12 tracks, including ten originals and two folk covers, with ukulele appearing on every track. Sue also plays vocals, guitar, keyboard, and harmonica, alongside additional musicians.
The recordings themselves fit the unconventional nature of Sue's life.
Her website says the primary ukulele and vocal tracks were recorded at Byrd Nest Recording in Nederland, Colorado, with additional recording happening in places including a Denver Public Library branch, Airbnbs, and friends' homes.
That may be one of the most Traveling Sue ways possible to make an album.
The studio follows the musician instead of the musician needing to stop traveling long enough to create one.
A Traveling Musician Can Build Community Without Having One Home Base
The contradiction in Sue's story is what makes it interesting.
She does not have one permanent home base.
Yet her entire musical life depends on community.
Prescott musicians know her.
Phoenix musicians know her.
Ukulele communities know her.
Songwriters around the country know her.
She returns to places.
She stays with friends.
She finds jams.
She attends songwriting events.
She performs at libraries, listening rooms, open mics, and festivals.
In one June 2026 travel update alone, Sue documented moving from a Camp Verde open mic to Prescott ukulele groups, a Prescott open mic, Tucson's Songwriters Central, and then a solo performance at Fiddler's Dream in Phoenix before continuing into California.
That is not simply tourism with a ukulele in the trunk.
It is a network.
Home starts becoming less about one address and more about knowing there are rooms where people recognize you when you walk through the door.
What’s Vibin’ Across the Arizona Music Scene
After Sue's interview, the episode moves into What's Vibin' in the Desert, our statewide roundup of open mics, venues, shows, jams, and opportunities for Arizona musicians.
That section fits this particular guest especially well.
Sue has essentially built her current musical life using the same information we're trying to make easier for other musicians to find.
Where can I play?
When is signup?
Who hosts it?
What kind of room is it?
Will people listen?
What other musicians might I meet there?
Those details sound small until you are traveling through an unfamiliar town with instruments in the car.
The goal of What's Vibin' is to make Arizona feel a little smaller by connecting musicians and information from different regions.
Sue's story shows why that matters.
The Best Open Mic Advice May Be the Simplest
After all the mileage, songwriting advice, performance experience, and discussion about music communities, one simple idea keeps coming back.
Show up. Stay. And be nice to people.
Go play your songs.
But listen to someone else's.
Introduce yourself.
Support the room.
Tip when you can.
Tell someone when you liked their song.
Come back.
Musicians spend a tremendous amount of time trying to figure out how to "network."
Sometimes networking is just being a decent person who repeatedly participates in the same community.
Sue Schnitzer has driven more than 100,000 miles while building a musical life around that idea.
She does not need one hometown venue.
She finds communities wherever the road takes her.
And then she contributes to them before moving on.
Maybe that is the real lesson in the Traveling Sue story.
You do not always have to wait for a music career to arrive.
Sometimes you put the ukulele in the Prius and go find it.
Listen to the full Desert Vibe conversation with Sue Schnitzer for more about her travels, songwriting, open mics, live performance, and the communities she has discovered along the way.
About the Authors: Emma & James Mattison
James Mattison is an Arizona guitarist, musician, and blog writer for the Desert Vibe Podcast. He is one half of Emma & James Music, a husband-and-wife Arizona music duo performing original music and select covers while helping connect musicians throughout the state's independent music community.
Emma Mattison is the other half of Emma & James Music and manages the Desert Vibe website, social media, marketing, promotions, and online distribution. Her work behind the scenes helps the podcast, its guests, and musicians throughout Arizona reach listeners beyond the studio.
Together, Emma & James use the Desert Vibe Podcast to document Arizona musicians, songwriters, venues, open mics, creative opportunities, and the people helping the state's music community grow.
REFERENCES
Sue Schnitzer Music. Official artist biography, travel history, children's music background, and current music.
Sue Schnitzer Music, Walking in a Dream. Album credits, musicians, recording locations, and track information.
The Desert Vibe Podcast. “How A Retired FBI Agent Built A Life On Open Mics And National Parks,” Season 2, Episode 7.
The Desert Vibe Featured Artists. Sue Schnitzer artist profile and current travel statistics.
Schnitzy Doodles. Sue Schnitzer's writing and travel journal documenting open mics, songwriter events, performances, and life on the road.
Amazon Music. Walking in a Dream, released April 30, 2026.
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