The Harmony in Healing: Entifan Serrano
- Roxie Jenkin
- 36 minutes ago
- 12 min read
“For You”: The Beginning
“If I say that I’ve grown
Would they believe me?"
(2:46 - 2:56)
Entifan Serrano (she/they) has always found music to be a healer. At 22 years old, she graduated from Berklee with a degree in Music Therapy and a minor in psychology, finding innovative ways to utilize her knowledge of music’s healing power for both her listeners and herself.
Their attachment to music as a soother started far before their Berklee career, however.
“My mom told me that, when I was a baby, I would just suck my thumb and hum myself to sleep as a self-soothe.”
In their hometown of Orange County, California, they started taking piano and singing lessons at the age of five. From there, they transitioned to the violin, where they learned much of their music theory. With their newfound knowledge, they began playing the banjo at the age of 12.
Even before pursuing a degree at Berklee, she attended an arts-focused high school, which nurtured her musical draw. During school, Serrano played in the symphony orchestra and spent significant time around jazz musicians, which encouraged a career as a jazz vocalist.
“When I came to Berklee, I really thought I was going to do jazz. I came here and was like, ‘I'm going to be a jazz vocalist and be straight ahead,’ and then I started to just be around more songwriters.”
When she started at Berklee in 2020 and found herself surrounded by more singer-songwriters, she felt like she had been introduced to a whole new perspective on music, specifically songwriting, which pushed her beyond jazz as a style.
“I didn't really understand the weight of [songwriting] or the importance of it until I saw other people connect with their songwriting.”
Alongside this growing appreciation for songwriting, Serrano also began to feel less connected to the piano, feeling like they were playing the same thing over and over again. They began to feel more drawn to the guitar, citing their knowledge of banjo theory as the reason they connected with the instrument so easily.
“I figured out that you could do open tunings on guitar, and that makes a lot more sense to me because banjo is in an open tuning, banjo is tuned to open G. And then when I figured out you could do that on guitar, I was like, ‘You guys, wait, this is kind of life-changing.’”
She found herself growing into her own as a musician at school, so much so that she put out her first ever single, “For You,” in 2023.
“Wet Paint”: Auditory Atmospherics
“This house
My clothes
Your mouth
Lies told”
(0:11 - 0:23)
A song released by Entifan is more than just instruments recorded beneath a set of vocals; it’s a story. In each chapter, you might feel a gust of wind blow through your speaker, maybe the soothing ring of wind chimes on a porch, or even the spray of waves crashing on a beach. Even beyond the natural world, you might hear a bellowing arrangement of strings or a course of crashing drum beats that lift you out of the song.
Serrano knows how to make a song more than just background noise; they bring the background to the forefront. She calls this creating an “auditory atmosphere.”
“There's a difference between the auditory atmosphere in [a coffee shop] versus outside, versus a classroom, versus a hospital setting, you know. That's something you have to take into consideration when you're facilitating music, and that's prominent in what I do as well.”
Integrating this space into her music has allowed Serrano to utilize more of their creativity in production, something they were criticized for when they were younger.
“I really got made fun of a lot for my creativity and was very much [labeled] as weird. Obviously from other third graders who were all…we're all assholes, but I think as I got older, I figured out I can kind of do whatever.”
By freeing herself from the conventions of childhood judgment and collaborating creatively with producer Tyler DeTulleo, her music has blossomed into complex soundscapes.
Most of the unconventional sounds that listeners might hear in Serrano’s songs are voice memos they recorded in real life, moments that struck them as belonging in their music. “Exposition,” an instrumental track on their most recently released EP, is a prime example.
“It's literally just like, 20 seconds of chimes and birds and different voice memos of running water that I heard when I was at a lake, you know.”
By integrating these sounds into her music, she finds that it not only sets her apart as an artist but also allows her songs to feel well-rounded.
“I've been told recently that my music is pretty cinematic, which is not initially a word I would think about, but I think that's really accurate. I think I enjoy setting the auditory atmosphere and a foundation for the guitar and voice to sit on.”
“Just Sex”: Intentional Lyricism
“How hard can it be to respect me like you say you do?
But I was just sex to you
And you weren’t just sex to me.”
(2:07 - 2:25)
It’s rare to hear a songwriter admit they didn’t initially connect with songwriting as a concept, but that’s true for Serrano. They felt there was too much pressure to write metaphor-heavy, symbolic lyrics with an underlying intent to impress and found that this method of writing did not feel authentic.
“I'd written kind of, but it was all for other people. It was to be impressive, you know, not really for me.”
It wasn’t until her friend and fellow musician, Judah Mayowa, offered words of encouragement that she didn’t necessarily need to embellish her lyrics in any way to make a song worthwhile that she began to write with intention, saying whatever she wanted to say exactly how she wanted to say it.
“I was like, ‘I don't know how to say I would do so much for you.’ And he was like, ‘You can just say that.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that works!’ And then, honestly, so seriously, from there songwriting just kind of opened up for me.”
She took this advice to heart. When listening to an Entifan song, you’re not left guessing at the meaning, which is an intentional trait. Serrano’s music doesn’t need decoding; their music meets the listener where they are.
The first song they wrote on guitar was “Just Sex,” one of the more open, blunt, and honest tracks in their discography. The song was written about a situationship she experienced early in college, one primarily based on physical intimacy. She wrote the song about the pain that came from how it ended and the realizations that followed.
“At the end of the day, it didn't feel like he was being emotionally responsible with me. And it was like, oh, our friendship didn't weigh as much as the physical intimacy side of our connection, and that's pretty much where ‘Just Sex’ came from.”
Though the song was finished, they didn’t release it until two years later, only after witnessing her peers' emotional reactions.
“I never would have thought that people would connect with all of those lyrics so intensely as me because, for me, it's so, yeah, I can't think of a better word other than specific to what exactly I experienced.”
Since releasing more music, many listeners have told Serrano they relate to her storytelling. This has caused her somewhat of a dilemma, however. Everything she writes about is personal and stems from personal experiences, which can make listener relatability both affirming and upsetting.
“Having that point of connection is really special, especially over music, but people receiving my music means that they're receiving a piece of my life, a piece of my heart, a piece of my trauma. Having people be like, I resonate with this and I needed this to be articulated in this way, it makes me uncomfortable, not in a, ‘Oh, don't tell me that,’ but just in a, ‘Oh my gosh, we're really just all experiencing the same shit, and you really see me and I really see you because we connect over the same thing.’”
This discomfort runs even deeper with their most recent EP, Claire. The songs on the EP, like the rest of her music, were written about past experiences. “Wet Paint,” for example, is about her first love in high school.
“It was a very transitional, developmental time, and both of us were just figuring out what love is and what it feels like and everything. So, obviously, when your first love ends, that shit is a big deal and it did not end in a healthy way by any means. It left me with a lot of wounds.”
Those wounds would stay open until they wrote “Wet Paint” in January 2024. Songwriting allowed them to reflect on their relationship and mental state at the time.
“This is a really big event that changed me and made me realize I lacked a lot of self-respect and a lot of sense of self-worth. It was something that I didn't even know I could honestly have access to.”
The EP, although not written with a cohesive concept in mind, feels thematically connected, with lyrics primarily focused on reflection and growth, and songs that transition seamlessly from key to key. She sings about old relationships, like in “Wet Paint,” but also inner peace, like in “Picking Flowers.”
“Honestly, it was just about peace. [...] Allowing yourself to be fully expressed and look at all these things that I realized I can do now and have a choice to do now.”
The song “Clovers” combines both personal and relationship reflections, exploring several themes like vulnerability, change, autonomy, love, and self-confidence. She wrote the song based on an experience she had with an ex-partner who told her that the reason they started dating her was because they didn’t trust anyone else to “fix” her.
She points to the lyric, “Why has no one told me before/Just how much the body keeps the score/How one day we're not just suddenly secure/But there will come a time when you're not so afraid anymore,” which combines the titles of two self-help books that influenced her realization that she doesn’t have to be helpless to be loved.
“The project isn’t about that relationship, but it's just gaining that self-confidence. I don’t have to be helpless in order to be worthy or valued or seen or looked at or, you know, loved.”
Since they feel like they have had the space to grow from their experiences explored in the EP, someone openly relating to the songs leaves them with a sense of unease, as they feel distanced from those experiences and, as a result, those lyrics.
“Weirdly, my music, as much as it is my everything, it also feels very much outside of me. I think especially since Claire is… those songs were written a while ago and it's not that I don't connect with them anymore, it's just I've already had time to sit with all of those lyrics and all those songs and everything and so it feels like I'm just simply not the same person who wrote all of those songs, and I get to be on the other end of it now.”
This disconnect is not a new feeling for her. In fact, she has been feeling the disconnect from Claire as a person since high school.
“Claire”: Growing Into Entifan
“I’m still getting used to trusting myself.
It’s been a long journey but I think I’m doing well.”
(0:39 - 0:55)
“Entifan” is Serrano’s birth name, made up for them by their birth parents using random words and syllables.
When they were adopted, their name became “Claire,” which was the name that they went by for the first 19 years of their life. As they grew older, however, the name “Claire” began to feel foreign.
“I think at first the shift was Entifan was just the new Instagram username, and it was, if I ever decided to put up music, I'll release it under Entifan. But I think that was just a prolonged resistance towards the name Claire. I remember being in high school or middle school or something and thinking about my name, Claire, and how it didn't really feel like me.”
By 2022, they began asking others to call them Entifan or “Enna,” as it was at this point they felt the name “Claire” carried a deeper, darker meaning.
“Claire really felt like a completely different person for a really long time, and still does. I talk about her like she's different, but there was such a large period of time where I just didn’t want to be associated with her.”
To her, “Claire” represented a version of herself that didn’t respect or love herself. As a result, the name became difficult to even look at.
“There really was a period of time where I couldn’t look at the name, I couldn’t be called the name, I couldn’t say it out loud without getting anxious or completely dissociated. Just because I was like, I don't want to be that person so bad.”
But in healing, they’ve come to accept that “Claire” was a necessary part of their journey.
“Claire is all the stepping stones for… I went through all of that to be who I am now. I got myself through all those times. I am who I am now because I went through everything I went through as Claire, and I don’t deserve to ignore that part of my life.”
“Shifting”: Letting Go
On January 1, 2025, Serrano shaved their head. Though it was something they’d wanted to do for a long time, the timing of her decision allowed the act to become a symbol for both the EP and their own personal release of Claire, the person.
They kept the change private, only telling a few close friends, until the EP’s release on March 14, 2025. On Instagram, they wrote: “With the release of ‘Claire’ comes the release of attachment, pretending, performance, shame — all with love.”
She had long delayed shaving her head out of fear, and in particular, the fear of losing validation.
“When I found value in [male validation], it was like, I don't want to do anything to damage that perception, because what else am I worthy of if I'm not sexy, you know?”
They have long feared imperfection, only recently learning to let that go.
“I struggled probably my entire life with having such an attachment to being perfect and to upholding certain standards [...] Within the last year is probably when I was like, oh, I don't need to be perfect in order to be valuable.”
And, in shedding Claire, they also felt they could officially shed that need for validation.
“Claire is the person who experienced needing that male validation and needing that comfort and didn't know that she could feel confident without hair or femininity even.”
Letting go of those standards made the haircut freeing, however, it wasn’t necessarily easy.
“It was like, ‘This is so scary.’ I'm letting go so much and I'm allowing myself to be perceived as potentially not feminine or, I don't know, this attachment to attractiveness or not being an acquired taste, you know. But it really is so freeing, and I think, because I wanted to do it for so long, it was also a celebration too.”
As her hair fell, she listened to her EP. Before they started shaving, they listened to the track “Shifting,” a tense string arrangement that represented the danger of the moment and the all-encompassing fear of letting go. However, once the song was over, and the following song, “Claire,” began, Serrano began to feel the breaking of the tension and started to leave all of their fear and shame behind them. It was then that she started to shave her head.
“Clovers”: Coping
“I never thought trusting myself was important
Cause I always had someone to rely on for my own validation”
(1:36 - 1:58)
Letting go of the person they used to be hasn’t come easy, but, along with songwriting, they have found the outlets through which they can learn to accept themself. Serrano has used several practices to break old value systems and learn to love themself, one of which they learned from their birth mom: shadow work.
Shadow work is the process of revealing, accepting, and integrating the parts of yourself that you have repressed and/or rejected. Their birth mom has been conducting shadow work courses, and for the past two years, Entifan has been working with her.
“Decolonial shadow work is the broad-scheme name of it. But it's just, I mean, it's exactly that. Stripping down all the things that you didn't know were going on and digging through all of it to be like, ‘Oh wait, this is actually who I am and not the performance that I've built over the last 19 years or so.’”
It has completely changed her life.
More than anything, Entifan now lives by the philosophy: to love something is to love yourself with all of everything and everything else. They believe we are all connected—as humans, animals, objects—and this truth helps them to love themself.
“It really is just pointing to how we're all connected [...] I'm the same as you, and you're the same as that person, and that person is the same as the brick wall, and this brick wall is the same as the part of the ocean that's on the other side of the world. We're really just all made up of atoms and energy, and we all share one another. So, if I love this table so much and I'm the same atoms as this table, then how can I not love myself?”
"Exposition": What's Next?
While Claire marks the close of one chapter, it’s clear that Serrano’s story is far from over.
"I have so much music, and I don't know what to do with all of it. I'm releasing something later this year, I'm releasing another project with Benji [Jimenez], actually, who I mentioned earlier, and then hopefully an album by next year, but I just wanna perform, I wanna keep on writing."
As she continues to write and release what’s next, one thing is for certain: we won't just listen to the music; we will feel it.
Claire is available to stream on all major music streaming platforms. Follow them on Instagram at @Entifannn to stay connected as she continues on her musical journey.