"A Journey of Heart, Head, and Soul: The Life Story of Corina Sharland, From Early Talents to Artistic Liberation and Personal Truth"

CHAT SESSION 129 with Miss Corina Sharland

Topic- Overcoming Expectations, Embracing Creativity, and Living Authentically at Any Age"

Monday 27^th October 2025 1pm https://rppfm.com.au

Born in 1960, Corina Yvonne Sharland aka Miss Corina, aged 13, auditioned and was accepted into Fremantle John Curtin College of the Arts, which offered Theatre Arts and Dance subjects for gifted and talented students. After 2 years she moved to “Community School” at Dalkeith House in Fremantle.

She repeated year 11 and finished her last years at a traditional School, and at the University of WA, graduated with distinctions in Mathematics & Computer Science.  Then moved to Sydney to the Australian head office of Computer Accounting Services, who were taken aback by her highest score ever achieved in their logical evaluation. However, much to the chagrin of the Management, who were shaping her to be an indispensable employee, Corina came to the life realisation while working there, that this mathematical path was not going to be hers anymore. It contained too much head, not enough heart and she was feeling the toll it was taking on her body and emotional well-being.

And so, straight out to sea she went on the back of a prawn trawler in search of something real. Followed by being given a mud map, a new 4WD, and being instructed to drive it to the middle of the Great Sandy Desert in WA to work as a “Chainee”, running 20km a day in the desert heat, while surveyors followed, to survey her marks, which huge Seismic Vibrator trucks, used to looked for oil. 

As wondrous and solitary as the desert was, with its beautiful sunrises, dingoes, wild cats and camels — the ocean and the WA coastline, called her. In Margaret River, surfing the huge cold, wild waves, maths tutoring, working at wineries, building sites, cleaning, living in a shed with other musicians, her passion for music reignited. But now, instead of regurgitating Beatles songs she started writing her own songs.

It was the late Eighties, playing in friends’ rural backyards, dancers & drinkers stirred up dust storms that covered all the bands gear in a slurry of beery dirt. Corina’s popularity grew. She found herself in demand and experimenting, with lots of different bands. Within a few years she was packing out halls and venues throughout the coastal region in many bands, either playing guitar or lead singing, or drumming in a thrash band or drumming & singing in a 50’s/ 60’s cover band. This last band, although it was not playing her original songs, provided the most work of them all, getting gigs from primary schools, weddings, parties, pubs and even old people’s homes. During this time, she was also mixing bands with the huge PA at the Settlers Tavern.

Through it all Corina found that, “Some people will love what you do, and some will hate what you do. It doesn’t get any better than that. That’s as good as it gets, …. for absolutely everyone. And when you realise that, and really accept it, you’re off, on your way, and heading in a good direction”

An important life lesson for her is embodied in the acrylic painting called FISH that she entered in the 1991 Augusta Margaret River Centennial Exhibition, with instructions on the back for it to be hung in a landscape orientation. Before the opening night Corina went to look at the exhibition and noticed disappointingly that FISH was hung in a portrait orientation. She corrected it. The attendant in the foyer informed her that the paintings had all been judged that morning. Corina was very disappointed but made a strong effort not to show it, or get angry, even though she felt like she wanted to be angry at someone. She internally reasoned with herself that it was only a painting and in the big scheme of things meant nothing. Corina made a point of not attending the Opening Night, she just wanted to forget the whole debacle.

The next morning Corina was informed she won the Resident Oil Acrylic first prize.  Gob smacked, Corina felt like she probably should be thanking the unknown person she had previously been, internally angry with, that hung her painting differently to her instructions. 

“We can never know where the consequences of events that appear bad for us will lead us,” she thought,” so I must try to be an observer in those times rather than a victim.”

That decade in Margaret River was a foundational, experimental, effortless time for Corina in which her name had become synonymous with Music in the region. “Just do what you love, and good things will happen”, she believed.

In 2015, the fortuitous discovery of Kidney Cancer, which she believes was caused by the administration of 2 trivalent vaccines which contained an oncogenic fragment of the monkey kidney SV40 gene which is known to migrate to the kidney and which is still used today to produce vaccines, helped make Corina an ardent antivaxxer and realise that life can end at any time, and she must be brave enough to live it how she believes it should be lived, and not how others believe she should live it. For Corina wasn’t always Corina and this brush with cancer was instrumental in her transitioning decision.

In 2022 Corina began engaging fully with the guitar once more, now with a renewed vigour, finding, exploring & embracing the deep vocal depths of her voice, something she had fought against and despised in herself for years in the early stages of her transition. And once again, she found herself in a familiar place, peeling away yet another deeper layer of the same onion, another life lesson reminding her that she could be anything she wanted to be, even if it went against societal norms. She could be “Miss Corina”, a stage name her niece had suggested, and have a deep masculine voice to mismatch, and that was perfectly fine. This most recent realisation for her has freed her up to express herself personally, creatively, fully and absolutely in a way she never imagined she would have the courage or the self-belief to do.

The Soundbar music/food venue in Capel Sound has been instrumental in this latest chapter in her life and she is forever grateful to the owners Beth and Paul for providing such a welcoming space for musicians and artists to grow.

It was only in mid 2023 that Corina first ventured into the Soundbar, got up on stage, after a break of about 25 years and sang with her deep voice. This set in motion one of the most prolific song writing periods of her life so far. She had forgotten how much she loved the stage, the music, performing, socialising and how important it was for her. Now at age 65, she finds she has so much life experience to draw on for her songs & her creative tap is in full flow again.

Being asked to and taking on the running of the Wednesday Open Mic nights at the Soundbar in Capel Sound earlier this year, is a privilege, that she enjoys immensely. It embodies everything she loves about music, from performing on stage, to helping others sound their best, meeting and encouraging people, listening to incredible performances, trying to coax the best sound thru the mixing desk and out of the speakers, whilst still allowing her to write a new song every week or two. 

Also being asked to be the Sound Engineer for the recent Soundbar Capel Sound 12 week “Battle of the Bands” competition was a challenge Corina enjoyed immensely and brought back fond memories for her of her work decades ago. She was also extremely pleased when many of the band members told her that the onstage and off-stage sound was the best they had ever had. Quite a few of the parents also told Corina that it was the first time that they could actually hear the words, that their Daughters & Sons were singing when they performed, because in other venues the vocals were always drowned out by the music. 

Recently, Corina performed some of her songs & had her name once again on an event poster, which was something she had not seen for 25 years, when she took to the stage for the Soundbar Capel Sound 4th October Rocktober Event. It was such a great success, that it looks set to become an annual event.

Some people wonder how Corina’s prolific song writing process works.

Corina says, “I record absolutely everything I play that feels it has potential, which is easy these days with our mobile phones, compared to back in the day when I used to do the same thing but with cassette tapes.”

“One of the most very important things,” she says, “is the very first moment or inkling that you feel that you have something special, then record it. Don’t work on it and then record it. Don’t do that. Record it straight away on your phone as soon as it comes to you, because inevitably it WILL change, sometimes within seconds, or even months. Sometimes it will change for the better, great, but sometimes it will change for the worse. You may homogenise it, make it boring, you may have extinguished or regimented that inspirational spark or mistake that sounded awesome when you first did it and you will find yourself thinking it doesn’t sound so great anymore and you can’t figure out why. This happens to me all the time and I go back to the original recorded birthing moment and go, ok, now I can hear what’s happened. And then you can work on understanding exactly what you did at that birthing moment, that initial moment that captured your attention.”

The recording of “Bad Woman” that Corina has on Streaming platforms is in fact the actual recording of the initial birthing moment of that song. She had an idea, five words, two bars of music and she pressed record and made up the lyrics and chords on the fly, thinking that she would go back later and turn it into a song. But after sleeping on it and re-listening to the recording, she realised that it was a complete song already and she didn’t have to do a thing to it, except, upload it to streaming services, write down the words, figure out the chords, picking and vocal melody so that she could actually reproduce playing it at the Soundbar or in a live setting. Funnily she doesn’t think she has ever played it as good as the moment it was born, which is available for everyone to listen to on streaming platforms. 

“And that just goes to show,” she says, “why you should record every idea you have at its moment of inception.”

Stay connected with Miss Corina as she continues to share her passions, music, and life lessons. Join her community on social media to experience her latest performances, creative projects, and personal reflections. Whether you're seeking inspiration, encouragement to live authentically, or simply love great music and storytelling, Miss Corina welcomes you to be part of her evolving journey.

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My hope is that when you’re looking at yourself in the

‘The Daily Mirror’

YOU SMILE

EMBRACE BEING YOU

AND FIND 10 MINUTES IN YOUR DAY TO NOURISH YOUR SOUL!

To get in touch with Cathy email smileinthedailymirror@gmail.com 

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