Anna O'Connell discussed her experience creating her EP, Folk Tale War.
Interview Summary
The participant discussed an EP (extended play) that they created, entitled “Folktale War,” which consists of American folk-style music. It was meaningful for them to discuss this work because it was created when they were a graduate student in Los Angeles, an environment different from what they were used to. As a choral performer and student, they were surrounded by music created by others and wanted the opportunity to create their own pieces to release how they were feeling. While they were involved in all parts of the process, from writing to recording and creating the cover art, they received assistance from friends and colleagues on several aspects as well. Throughout the process, they focused on the feelings and music that they longed to get out of them. A challenge that they faced during the process was being overly critical of themselves while recording the EP. Despite this challenge, they learned that they can “be in charge of something and make it happen.”
The participant also learned the value of creativity and finding “kindred spirits” within the arts. Those who have listened to the music have had positive reactions, which means a lot to the participant. During this process, they learned that some people are open to collaboration, while others are not. They also learned what it means to be a woman in the music industry and how your work is connected to you in the ways that others perceive it. Regarding authenticity, the participant learned what their voice is physically in terms of recording, but also the importance of being genuine in the music they create. They aren’t sure if they're directly addressing an ultimate power, but music on the EP has themes of there being a blueprint for how life will go. While uncertain if they’ve experienced anything directly supernatural, they have had “flow states” during creation that they define as being akin to spirituality.
Interview Transcript
Introduction
Interviewer: Okay. So in the interview we're interested in asking you to tell us about an artwork that you created, and we'll ask you to describe the experience in detail. So I know you've chosen your artwork and this should be one that is like, it helps if your memories are vivid, but you don't really need to remember everything about it now. it can be an artwork that you created at any age. So I know you’ve already chosen the artwork. So what is it?
Description
Participant: Sure so Folktale War is a EP or extended play. It means a short CD. and it's music that I composed and then performed as a singer and a harpist; and then I also composed additional parts like a violin part in one of the songs, and then I had other friends improvising percussion. What else? Saxophone base, and then different types of guitars? it's, I guess, American folk music sort of style. Our folk pop twee folk Pop is kind of one way of describing it.
Interviewer: Great thanks. and then are there any other important details that you'd like to describe about it?
Participant: Sure. Yeah, they're pieces of music that I composed, or like pop songs, kind of probably between 2010 and 2014 when the album came out. I also designed the artwork. I made these little clay figures, and then I photograph them and have a graphic designer Stitch them together on the front and back. So I I made these little like hand broke some stuff, but I also had a graphic designer Do like the clouds and the backdrop, and stuff and stitch it all together. So I was involved in like every aspect of the process, and then I had the album recorded at a friend's house, who gave me a student rate. I don't know if that matters. But yeah. So I I had a made a connection with a friend who had a recording studio in his house. And then the process of recording it was over probably a year, several months where I would go over to that studio for a 6 to 10 hour day or a 14 hour day, and just put down tracks, different musical tracks, and then bring in other artists to to add to the musical production.
Why did you choose this one? (specialness)
Interviewer: Great thank you. And then why did you choose to talk about this for this study?
Participant: Sure, it was one of the, I guess the whole experience of making this album was really meaningful to me because I was a I was a graduate student in Los Angeles, studying choir conducting and choir direction, choral music and it was a really concentrated 2 years in Los Angeles, and I'm From the east coast. So it was a totally different world, a different experience. I figured, oh, I might as well like take this opportunity to work with the, so, the person who recorded it also was in choirs, growing up so he could understand my musical language. Even though he was really operating within like a pop music or recording studio kind of situation. So it was really fun to be able to like put this together and then also really see my musical vision come to fruition and give performances Live and sell some Cds and stuff like that, but that wasn't really it was more about the process. So that's why I chose this piece of artwork.
Process of Creating
What led up to its creation? What motivated you to create it?
Interviewer: Thank you. And you already talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to get some idea of what led up to the creation of that artwork, and what kind of motivated you to create it?
Participant: So I think, when I was a choir musician I was singing in choirs upwards of 10 hours a week, probably 15 hours or more between the choirs on campus, and singing in my friends recitals and singing in church choirs, trying to make a little money on the side. And I was in choral literature classes. So all this music was being pumped into me, and this was my opportunity to really just like release how I was feeling and and put my own music into the world in a time when I had so much other people's music being like put into my brain.
When and where did the work happen? Who was involved besides you (if anyone)?
Interviewer: Great. Thank you. And also you also touched on these questions a little bit. But I wanted to see if you wanted to say anything more about when and where the work happened, and then if anyone else was involved besides you?
Participant: Yeah. So I wrote the songs, I guess, between 2010, when I was an undergraduate, in Rhode Island Providence College, and up until I guess, 2014, 2013. So I was composing these pieces. They're really sort of tightly knit between me and my harp. Some small harps I can show you if you want to see that actually on the bandcamp page you can see me holding one of those and then, while I was there, I doing this master's degree. I also became friends with the early music performers, and it was such that one of the people at USC, the school that I went to, University of Southern California, he was doing early music, and he had an after-party after a concert, and I love early music. I went to this house party, and like it happened to be that was the house where his twin brother was a recording studio person, had his own recording studio
Basically worked with both of them because they were both really instrumental in in helping me. I put my musical and pop music into recording terminology. so yeah, I guess the people. So Jonathan Nes Fadva was the person who recorded it, and his brother Jonas Fadva was also hanging around, and we would like one of the songs. There's a lot of found percussion. because I was really into something called toytronica at the time, or use like toys to make electronic. so actually, there's a lot of like using mallets tipping on beer bottles, or like going *Who?* on a beer bottle. And so that was just. It was a a lot of I just play kind of music as play and just being able to like explore those different timbers, and and they had a old rusty piano, upright piano, and I was using mallet to bang on the strings, and so that sound made it into the album, and because it wasn’t a professional recording studio like one day there was like really loud birds outside the window. So I credited them on track 4, because they're sort of there. And they had a toy piano. So I got to play on the toy piano, and it was like, yeah, All these like wonderful aspects, sort of just came together in a way that was really inspirational to me at the time, and like a really creative outlet. When I felt like my own voice was not being heard, I guess, as a graduate student. And then, so the other people involved were friends of mine from my music program, my choir music program, for instance, the violinist. Another friend, was an actor I met at an open mic night in Los Angeles, Hayes Hargrove, who's, I guess, been in a couple of commercials and some other projects, and some small Indie movies, and maybe some other movies, too. Yeah, and and so, and friends from my, I was also a church choir director at the Catholic community at USC. So there were some students who are like extremely fabulously talented Instrumentalists and singers.
And so I had some of them play on this album as well, and then we kind of, you know, invited them to have their own spin on how they felt something should go. One of my friends from the Catholic community was really good at electronics. So in one of the songs there was, there's a lot more like electronic music sound, the like use of guitar pedals on the harp to make this sounds different. And then, yeah, actually, my, the percussionist was someone I knew from High School who also lived in LA at the time.
What were you thinking and feeling at different times throughout the process of creating the artwork?
Interviewer: Great. Thank you. so You've already touched a little bit on some of your thoughts and feelings that you had during the process of creating it. but would you like to say anything more about what you were thinking and feeling as you were creating.
Participant: Yeah, I was thinking that, I just had this music inside of me that really wanted to get out, and I wanted to. And it was the kind of the perfect storm of of personalities, people I could get along with well, people I knew from my life on the East Coast, people I knew just through HappenStance on the west coast. The designer of the artwork, he was another choir conducting a master student. So Jason, so he helped me put together the graphic design. Yeah, and I guess I was feeling like that. This was a real opportunity to sort of share what I had to say and feeling like my songs, which have their own quirky little bent feeling, like they had meaning, and that I could, yeah, and then I could explore them in a way that I had. I can't do just on my own. So like this kind of joy at the collaborative process.
Can you describe any high points, low points or challenges, or turning points along the way?
Interviewer: Great Would you like to talk about any high points, low points, or challenges or turning points in the process of creating this?
Participant: Sure, I yeah, I guess. I remember one day that was like just especially difficult, or or I mean it's always challenging because you're when you're recording music, it's often you alone in a room, and because it was a home recording studio. It was a literal closet that I was in, with like foam panels everywhere and so I actually wrote like other songs to sort of reflect on the experience of like what it is like to be isolated in this way, but also sort of like this microphone is in your in your face, and, like every sound you make is being analyzed and deconstructed. And so that could be really difficult, because I was really critical of myself like oh, that was not good. Then there was another time when I was really surprised to hear that my friend, who was recording me, was auto-tuning my voice. So that was a difficult moment, because I realized, like even though I thought I sounded really good,there were still imperfections that needed some sort of like fine-tuning that I couldn't do myself or I couldn't hear at the time, but in the retrospect I could really hear it, so it helped me like grow my ears and performance ability to be more precise, more exacting. But it was really difficult at the time, because I didn't want to admit that I was less than perfect, or that maybe my ears weren't hearing what somebody else was hearing. So yeah, like here, but like because as a choir conductor, too, you're in front of a choir, and you have no voice. But the choir has a voice. So you have to really instruct
wordlessly or with words. You know how to get that sound to come out from that choir and so when you're on the when you're on the other end, when you're trying to produce something for your own direction. Sometimes it's the cognitive dissonance of who I want to be, and where I actually am, or hearing something that's not me when it's autotuned a certain way it's and then feeling like, oh, well, maybe that imperfection was actually adding something to the music, but in retrospect I think, like everyone in Hollywood is auto tuning, so there's there's no room for that imperfection, so I don't know it makes me feel a lot of things. But
that's kind of the general. Just so I don't know if I actually answered the question.
Let's talk about the impact of the artwork on yourself and others.
What did you learn from the process of creating this artwork? Did you learn anything about yourself?
Interviewer: Yeah, and you've been talking about some of the things that you learned from the process. So did you want to? Say anything more about like anything you might have learned about yourself through creating it?
Participant: Yeah, I think I learned that I can be in charge of something and make it happen. I learned how valuable, this was something that actually was reiterated by, I’m a current graduate student at Case Western studying historical performance practice actually so early music, which is those people who are recording my album like they were. I was friends with them back then, when I was not studying that. But now I'm able to study it. And sorry. So yeah, one of my professors. She she mentioned how important lifelong musical friendships are when you find a kindred spirit or an artistic spirit, who someone who can, you speak words and they understand you. Really, I think I really realized the value of those artistic friendships because when I moved to upstate New York for my first choir conducting job, I was pretty much isolated. like suddenly all of the creativity in life, all of the colors like sort of drained away. Because I just, you know, release this album, and then I move away, and no one knows me, and it's a small community in which, like even though I have this degree in choir conducting, I can't even sing in the main choir, because it's filled with you know sopranos who have been there for 30 years, and even if I sounded better than them, I could never manage to squeak my way in, because there's just this institutional memory kind of of how things go in that location. And so I struck up a new friendship with a friend like it took like a year to find someone who was a kindred spirit kind of. But yeah, in retrospect I can see that having those having that musical creativity sort of be free-flowing is such a benefit to me on an emotional and mental health level. And I needed that creative outlet in that time because there was so much creativity. And then, when I tried to create After that it was less successful because I didn't. I just wasn't being stimulated in the same way, I guess.
Interviewer: Great. Thank you. and before I go to the next question. I just wanted to be mindful of your time, so if we complete the whole interview, it looks like we we would probably go past 1 30, and so I don't know. If you need to go at 1 30. I can modify what I ask, or if you want to do a.
Participant: I only have to work on my thesis. You know what feels like years now.
How did others receive the artwork? For example, what were their reactions? Did you intend the work to affect others or the world in any particular ways?
Interviewer: Okay, so yeah, next one to ask. So if other people have received the artwork, if they listen to it, what were their reactions? And then did you intend for it to affect others in any particular ways or the world in particular.
Participant: Yeah. Well, I feel like at first I I was really proud of it. So when people said, this is really good. I was like, yeah, it is. and it's only, I think in the last, because it's been 8 years now since I put this out and out that I when people still, you know, i'll get a text from Jonathan who recorded it. He said I was having a rough week with my my job, and I just put your CD in the car and listen to it as I was doing all these errands, and like, Wow! That was like such an experience like what, what good music! And it still holds up, and stuff like that, so like that was really gratifying. And I was really, you know, sometimes when someone says something out of the blue, it's even more exciting. And then it's yeah, just random people found my music like maybe a friend of my dad's or my brother's wife's mom. They, you know, people who are sort of following my career from afar, and and really really enjoy the music. Because for me it was just, it was a process of putting this music together, of assembling something. But then, at the end. There's this product that I have no control over. People can listen to it, or they can not listen to it. So it's really, I'm always sort of touched when people, you know listen to it or or hear it, or if I can share it with someone for the first time, and they enjoy it, or they say, oh, your voice reminds me of this person or wow! Have you heard this music? It reminds me of this other music that I like, you know. That's always really exciting.
Did your experience affect your understanding of others or “the world?”
Interviewer: And then I just wondered, did your experience with creating this affect your understanding of other people, or of the world?
Participant: Yeah, I guess in creating this I realize that some people are really open and willing to work with you and play around in your vision, and some people are going to be less. Yeah, I think I I tried to pick people to collaborate with who are really open to the idea of collaboration, to being creative and off the cuff, or like, oh, let's try this thing, you know. And then, when you're not surrounded by people who are of that mentality, it's, it's more difficult for me to operate as a human being, I think. And so I have to remind myself to like. Oh, I still have to keep that openness to creativity where it comes. I yeah, I'm just really bothered when things are boring, or when it's a one-way channel. And so I think this process helped me realize that, and help me realize like what it means to be a woman in music, and you know how people perceive you, and maybe they put you in this, because your music is kind of like endearing and twee, they put you personally into this box of like. Oh, this is this sweet person, you know. And then sometimes I just feel like, well, i'm Not that, you know, I moved on. I've composed other music since then. Yeah. So I think it. Yeah, I've learned that that sort of objectifying your own art is kind of a weird experience, but people will do it, and you become an extension of that, or you can decide to be associated with it or not, or you know. Yeah. And just realizing how really intimate it is to to like, say, oh, these are words that I've been mulling over for a long time, and now other people are singing them or singing along to them like that's I don't know there's a strangeness to that. Where, whereas, like I listen to the radio and sing along to other people's words all the time, you know, or as a choir person, you're singing someone's poetry all the time. So I don't know. Yeah.
When some people think about themselves, they see some parts of themselves as deeply true, real, or authentic.
If this idea resonates with you, did you learn anything about your true nature during the process? Did you have any insights about your own authentic (or inauthentic) self?
Interviewer: Yeah, we've been talking about some of the self understandings that you've gained through this process and that kind of segues into this next question about. So when some people think about themselves, they see some parts of themselves as deeply true, real, or authentic. If this idea resonates with you, did you learn anything about your true nature during the process? Did you have any insights about your own authentic or inauthentic self?
Participant: Hmm. Well, I guess, like yeah, thinking about my true self is like what my voice is, and hearing when I mean in a very physical literal sense, like hearing my voice through, for instance, a guitar pedal, or some kind of shifter, or something that changes the sound in music. There's something called EQ, which is, adjusts the amount of overtones that you can hear so like instead of like, *note* you can make it sound like *note* you can change how a particular sound is heard by shifting the physicality of it and I learned in this process, like the sounds that are truest to me, are not always what's truest to others, for instance, like I really prefer to sound that was like if it had any sort of like quavery synthesizer.I just immediately shut it down and like my friends would be like Well, you can hear that like, oh, you don't like that? like, you know. So in a sense like, yeah, I understand, like what the sounds that are truest to me resonate right with me of yeah. But then, in terms of the music itself and the process. A lot of the songs are sort of spiritual in nature, so like the twitch of the thread, is based off of a quote from brideshead revisited, which is a book by Evelyn Wall and I think it was important for me to say, yeah, like I have a voice in this kind of spiritual way that
I don't, I'm not going to sing this at a church, but I will sing this, and people will hear something in it that they can recognize and enjoy. And I think, like, for instance, my dad's friend from work, or whatever who listen to my album was someone also who had read that book, maybe, and it really resonated with them. And I I think if I can say and like another song, is sort of a disingenuous song about the hook up culture, basically so I I feel like I can't sing something that's not true to who I am. And like the things that I say, I believe. I guess you know like and sometimes it's it's a more coded. So I feel like, okay, I want, I want to say this thing, but I ,you know, the people involved know what's going on, but outside of that is, is a different story. Maybe you'll hear a different story in this story. So: yeah, I think in terms of truth, it's kind of like understanding that, like I need to be genuine, in my, the way I convey this music rather than, yeah, I mean it's. It's all true to me, even though it's 5 totally different songs, representing totally different aspects of my personality. Maybe.
Some people believe in ultimate meaning. This is defined as deep, underlying meaning that transcends subjective, personal meaning. It is about the nature of existence and identity, and it may include ideas about the significance of suffering, as well as spirituality.
If this idea resonates with you, did you learn anything about ultimate meaning during the process?
Interviewer: Okay. Thank you. You touched a little bit on some spiritual understandings, and that is relevant to this next question. So some people believe in ultimate meaning. This is defined as deep underlying meaning that transcends subjective personal meeting. It is about the nature of existence and identity, and it may include ideas about the significance of suffering as well as spirituality. If this idea resonates with you. Did you learn anything about ultimate meaning during the process of creating this?
Participant: Yeah, maybe. I think I think I am like a religious person. I'm a spiritual person. I sing. I have 3 church jobs. I identify as Catholic. I sing with Protestants and Episcopal churches regularly. I think for me ultimate purpose or meaning is God is His will for His people kind of. So I don't know if I think that the idea of community sort of is what comes through like, yeah, or like being a person who is fallible and trying to atone for that that that comes across in some of my music. Like this song, the Touch of the Thread that's really kind of representative of like, I know i'm going to make mistakes, but i'm going to always go back to trying to find the straight and narrow, and and I don't know if i'm directly addressing some ultimate power or something, but there is an idea of a plan or a blueprint along which my life will go, even if I can't identify it at this time.
Some people believe or perceive a reality beyond the physical or material world. This may include religious beliefs/experiences (such as perceived interactions with God) but also may include mystical or transcendent experiences, or interaction with spirits.
Did you have any of these kinds of experiences during the creation of the artwork?
Interviewer: Great, Thank you. so you talked about some of your own religious and spiritual beliefs. And so, yeah, people can believe in a reality beyond the physical or material world including religious beliefs and experiences that such as perceived interactions with God, but also may include mystical or transcendent experiences or interaction with spirits. Did you have any of those kinds of experiences during the creation of this artwork?
Participant: Oh.: Probably, not really because I feel those experiences, maybe, when i'm looking at a piece of artwork, or hearing a piece of music, or performing a piece of music. The fact that this is like an artifact of
it's a recording of a performance. I don't know if I sort of identified. I think it was a little bit more earthly, like embodied. I don't know, umm experience because it was my emotions, my feelings in my anxieties of putting this together, the stress of putting it together. That and then maybe the moments of like euphoria, when you're finally listening to that good Take and you're like, yeah, we can all agree that this is the one you know. So I I don't know. I think it for me the spirituality is more in like me, sitting alone in a room with my harp and carving out those songs, and seeing, like, you know, I don't hear God's voice so why not? you know, and really it's in the poetry. It's in the the desire to be experiencing something like that for it. Yeah, I guess I've had some. I think more about like flow states. I can never pronounce his name actually, Csikszentmihalyi, but sometimes like getting into that really good flow state like that that was akin to spirituality. But, but I guess I I perceive the ultimate power, maybe like in a really good church service, or a really good performance of music. But I don't know, this this process felt more like like you're in a, It's bright outside it's Los Angeles, but inside this kind of small contained space. There's no light, and there's there's these like external forces that are listening through wires. Maybe, I said, some prayers in that moment I I don't know to like make sure it goes okay. But it wasn't what I experience as ecstasy, maybe in a religious sense. But maybe in a physical sense I don't know.
How old were you? What was going on in your life?
Interviewer: Great great thanks. so I just have just one quick, follow up. You may have mentioned this previously, but I just wanted to follow up to see how old you were when you were creating this, and then, if you wanted to talk at all about anything that was going on in your life around the time that you created this?
Participant: yeah. So I guess I released it in 2014. I was 23, 24 years old, but working on it was probably yeah, like 23-ish.I feel like I was really young and impressionable, and I was just : my motto when I was in Los Angeles, was always go to the party because it there was this sort of sense of of unboundedness that it's just like what's going to happen next; and even though I i'm not like I don't do drugs, I don't I'm not an excessive drinker. But it was this excitement of all of these characters like sort of come to life like: I went to a pretty undiverse undergrad that was small and: catholic, and I really enjoyed that for what it was. But I grew up in an area that was really diverse, and so to be in this place that was again super diverse and just like weird things would happen after 3 am. And like what Who am I going to meet, you know, like i'm going to meet the person who plays the the Earth Harp at Burning Man, or something, whatever that means, you know, like i'm gonna meet someone who played his guitar in a open mic night at the same place like Zach Alfinack has made his start as a yeah, I guess, like you know, playing an open mic night and and a friend coming up and saying, oh, this this actor from this show really was impressed. I was like, I don't know who that is. But okay, you know there's so many people trying to be people trying to be caricatures of themselves or characters, and I forget what the question was. But I was at a play. Oh, I was at a point in my life where it it was. It was just like sort of boundless possibility and I was having like you know problems dating because, like, how are you supposed to meet anyone when everyone is just a caricature of themselves? And like in my program, like there were so many men, but they were all gay, you know, like, and I love them. But like I can't date them. Yeah, so it was kind of just this this kind of exploration of of possibility, and being a little bit alone in that and and sort of feeling like an observer.
Interviewer: Yeah, that was great. Thank you so much.
The participant discussed an EP (extended play) that they created, entitled “Folktale War,” which consists of American folk-style music. It was meaningful for them to discuss this work because it was created when they were a graduate student in Los Angeles, an environment different from what they were used to. As a choral performer and student, they were surrounded by music created by others and wanted the opportunity to create their own pieces to release how they were feeling. While they were involved in all parts of the process, from writing to recording and creating the cover art, they received assistance from friends and colleagues on several aspects as well. Throughout the process, they focused on the feelings and music that they longed to get out of them. A challenge that they faced during the process was being overly critical of themselves while recording the EP. Despite this challenge, they learned that they can “be in charge of something and make it happen.”
The participant also learned the value of creativity and finding “kindred spirits” within the arts. Those who have listened to the music have had positive reactions, which means a lot to the participant. During this process, they learned that some people are open to collaboration, while others are not. They also learned what it means to be a woman in the music industry and how your work is connected to you in the ways that others perceive it. Regarding authenticity, the participant learned what their voice is physically in terms of recording, but also the importance of being genuine in the music they create. They aren’t sure if they're directly addressing an ultimate power, but music on the EP has themes of there being a blueprint for how life will go. While uncertain if they’ve experienced anything directly supernatural, they have had “flow states” during creation that they define as being akin to spirituality.
Interview Transcript
Introduction
Interviewer: Okay. So in the interview we're interested in asking you to tell us about an artwork that you created, and we'll ask you to describe the experience in detail. So I know you've chosen your artwork and this should be one that is like, it helps if your memories are vivid, but you don't really need to remember everything about it now. it can be an artwork that you created at any age. So I know you’ve already chosen the artwork. So what is it?
Description
Participant: Sure so Folktale War is a EP or extended play. It means a short CD. and it's music that I composed and then performed as a singer and a harpist; and then I also composed additional parts like a violin part in one of the songs, and then I had other friends improvising percussion. What else? Saxophone base, and then different types of guitars? it's, I guess, American folk music sort of style. Our folk pop twee folk Pop is kind of one way of describing it.
Interviewer: Great thanks. and then are there any other important details that you'd like to describe about it?
Participant: Sure. Yeah, they're pieces of music that I composed, or like pop songs, kind of probably between 2010 and 2014 when the album came out. I also designed the artwork. I made these little clay figures, and then I photograph them and have a graphic designer Stitch them together on the front and back. So I I made these little like hand broke some stuff, but I also had a graphic designer Do like the clouds and the backdrop, and stuff and stitch it all together. So I was involved in like every aspect of the process, and then I had the album recorded at a friend's house, who gave me a student rate. I don't know if that matters. But yeah. So I I had a made a connection with a friend who had a recording studio in his house. And then the process of recording it was over probably a year, several months where I would go over to that studio for a 6 to 10 hour day or a 14 hour day, and just put down tracks, different musical tracks, and then bring in other artists to to add to the musical production.
Why did you choose this one? (specialness)
Interviewer: Great thank you. And then why did you choose to talk about this for this study?
Participant: Sure, it was one of the, I guess the whole experience of making this album was really meaningful to me because I was a I was a graduate student in Los Angeles, studying choir conducting and choir direction, choral music and it was a really concentrated 2 years in Los Angeles, and I'm From the east coast. So it was a totally different world, a different experience. I figured, oh, I might as well like take this opportunity to work with the, so, the person who recorded it also was in choirs, growing up so he could understand my musical language. Even though he was really operating within like a pop music or recording studio kind of situation. So it was really fun to be able to like put this together and then also really see my musical vision come to fruition and give performances Live and sell some Cds and stuff like that, but that wasn't really it was more about the process. So that's why I chose this piece of artwork.
Process of Creating
What led up to its creation? What motivated you to create it?
Interviewer: Thank you. And you already talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to get some idea of what led up to the creation of that artwork, and what kind of motivated you to create it?
Participant: So I think, when I was a choir musician I was singing in choirs upwards of 10 hours a week, probably 15 hours or more between the choirs on campus, and singing in my friends recitals and singing in church choirs, trying to make a little money on the side. And I was in choral literature classes. So all this music was being pumped into me, and this was my opportunity to really just like release how I was feeling and and put my own music into the world in a time when I had so much other people's music being like put into my brain.
When and where did the work happen? Who was involved besides you (if anyone)?
Interviewer: Great. Thank you. And also you also touched on these questions a little bit. But I wanted to see if you wanted to say anything more about when and where the work happened, and then if anyone else was involved besides you?
Participant: Yeah. So I wrote the songs, I guess, between 2010, when I was an undergraduate, in Rhode Island Providence College, and up until I guess, 2014, 2013. So I was composing these pieces. They're really sort of tightly knit between me and my harp. Some small harps I can show you if you want to see that actually on the bandcamp page you can see me holding one of those and then, while I was there, I doing this master's degree. I also became friends with the early music performers, and it was such that one of the people at USC, the school that I went to, University of Southern California, he was doing early music, and he had an after-party after a concert, and I love early music. I went to this house party, and like it happened to be that was the house where his twin brother was a recording studio person, had his own recording studio
Basically worked with both of them because they were both really instrumental in in helping me. I put my musical and pop music into recording terminology. so yeah, I guess the people. So Jonathan Nes Fadva was the person who recorded it, and his brother Jonas Fadva was also hanging around, and we would like one of the songs. There's a lot of found percussion. because I was really into something called toytronica at the time, or use like toys to make electronic. so actually, there's a lot of like using mallets tipping on beer bottles, or like going *Who?* on a beer bottle. And so that was just. It was a a lot of I just play kind of music as play and just being able to like explore those different timbers, and and they had a old rusty piano, upright piano, and I was using mallet to bang on the strings, and so that sound made it into the album, and because it wasn’t a professional recording studio like one day there was like really loud birds outside the window. So I credited them on track 4, because they're sort of there. And they had a toy piano. So I got to play on the toy piano, and it was like, yeah, All these like wonderful aspects, sort of just came together in a way that was really inspirational to me at the time, and like a really creative outlet. When I felt like my own voice was not being heard, I guess, as a graduate student. And then, so the other people involved were friends of mine from my music program, my choir music program, for instance, the violinist. Another friend, was an actor I met at an open mic night in Los Angeles, Hayes Hargrove, who's, I guess, been in a couple of commercials and some other projects, and some small Indie movies, and maybe some other movies, too. Yeah, and and so, and friends from my, I was also a church choir director at the Catholic community at USC. So there were some students who are like extremely fabulously talented Instrumentalists and singers.
And so I had some of them play on this album as well, and then we kind of, you know, invited them to have their own spin on how they felt something should go. One of my friends from the Catholic community was really good at electronics. So in one of the songs there was, there's a lot more like electronic music sound, the like use of guitar pedals on the harp to make this sounds different. And then, yeah, actually, my, the percussionist was someone I knew from High School who also lived in LA at the time.
What were you thinking and feeling at different times throughout the process of creating the artwork?
Interviewer: Great. Thank you. so You've already touched a little bit on some of your thoughts and feelings that you had during the process of creating it. but would you like to say anything more about what you were thinking and feeling as you were creating.
Participant: Yeah, I was thinking that, I just had this music inside of me that really wanted to get out, and I wanted to. And it was the kind of the perfect storm of of personalities, people I could get along with well, people I knew from my life on the East Coast, people I knew just through HappenStance on the west coast. The designer of the artwork, he was another choir conducting a master student. So Jason, so he helped me put together the graphic design. Yeah, and I guess I was feeling like that. This was a real opportunity to sort of share what I had to say and feeling like my songs, which have their own quirky little bent feeling, like they had meaning, and that I could, yeah, and then I could explore them in a way that I had. I can't do just on my own. So like this kind of joy at the collaborative process.
Can you describe any high points, low points or challenges, or turning points along the way?
Interviewer: Great Would you like to talk about any high points, low points, or challenges or turning points in the process of creating this?
Participant: Sure, I yeah, I guess. I remember one day that was like just especially difficult, or or I mean it's always challenging because you're when you're recording music, it's often you alone in a room, and because it was a home recording studio. It was a literal closet that I was in, with like foam panels everywhere and so I actually wrote like other songs to sort of reflect on the experience of like what it is like to be isolated in this way, but also sort of like this microphone is in your in your face, and, like every sound you make is being analyzed and deconstructed. And so that could be really difficult, because I was really critical of myself like oh, that was not good. Then there was another time when I was really surprised to hear that my friend, who was recording me, was auto-tuning my voice. So that was a difficult moment, because I realized, like even though I thought I sounded really good,there were still imperfections that needed some sort of like fine-tuning that I couldn't do myself or I couldn't hear at the time, but in the retrospect I could really hear it, so it helped me like grow my ears and performance ability to be more precise, more exacting. But it was really difficult at the time, because I didn't want to admit that I was less than perfect, or that maybe my ears weren't hearing what somebody else was hearing. So yeah, like here, but like because as a choir conductor, too, you're in front of a choir, and you have no voice. But the choir has a voice. So you have to really instruct
wordlessly or with words. You know how to get that sound to come out from that choir and so when you're on the when you're on the other end, when you're trying to produce something for your own direction. Sometimes it's the cognitive dissonance of who I want to be, and where I actually am, or hearing something that's not me when it's autotuned a certain way it's and then feeling like, oh, well, maybe that imperfection was actually adding something to the music, but in retrospect I think, like everyone in Hollywood is auto tuning, so there's there's no room for that imperfection, so I don't know it makes me feel a lot of things. But
that's kind of the general. Just so I don't know if I actually answered the question.
Let's talk about the impact of the artwork on yourself and others.
What did you learn from the process of creating this artwork? Did you learn anything about yourself?
Interviewer: Yeah, and you've been talking about some of the things that you learned from the process. So did you want to? Say anything more about like anything you might have learned about yourself through creating it?
Participant: Yeah, I think I learned that I can be in charge of something and make it happen. I learned how valuable, this was something that actually was reiterated by, I’m a current graduate student at Case Western studying historical performance practice actually so early music, which is those people who are recording my album like they were. I was friends with them back then, when I was not studying that. But now I'm able to study it. And sorry. So yeah, one of my professors. She she mentioned how important lifelong musical friendships are when you find a kindred spirit or an artistic spirit, who someone who can, you speak words and they understand you. Really, I think I really realized the value of those artistic friendships because when I moved to upstate New York for my first choir conducting job, I was pretty much isolated. like suddenly all of the creativity in life, all of the colors like sort of drained away. Because I just, you know, release this album, and then I move away, and no one knows me, and it's a small community in which, like even though I have this degree in choir conducting, I can't even sing in the main choir, because it's filled with you know sopranos who have been there for 30 years, and even if I sounded better than them, I could never manage to squeak my way in, because there's just this institutional memory kind of of how things go in that location. And so I struck up a new friendship with a friend like it took like a year to find someone who was a kindred spirit kind of. But yeah, in retrospect I can see that having those having that musical creativity sort of be free-flowing is such a benefit to me on an emotional and mental health level. And I needed that creative outlet in that time because there was so much creativity. And then, when I tried to create After that it was less successful because I didn't. I just wasn't being stimulated in the same way, I guess.
Interviewer: Great. Thank you. and before I go to the next question. I just wanted to be mindful of your time, so if we complete the whole interview, it looks like we we would probably go past 1 30, and so I don't know. If you need to go at 1 30. I can modify what I ask, or if you want to do a.
Participant: I only have to work on my thesis. You know what feels like years now.
How did others receive the artwork? For example, what were their reactions? Did you intend the work to affect others or the world in any particular ways?
Interviewer: Okay, so yeah, next one to ask. So if other people have received the artwork, if they listen to it, what were their reactions? And then did you intend for it to affect others in any particular ways or the world in particular.
Participant: Yeah. Well, I feel like at first I I was really proud of it. So when people said, this is really good. I was like, yeah, it is. and it's only, I think in the last, because it's been 8 years now since I put this out and out that I when people still, you know, i'll get a text from Jonathan who recorded it. He said I was having a rough week with my my job, and I just put your CD in the car and listen to it as I was doing all these errands, and like, Wow! That was like such an experience like what, what good music! And it still holds up, and stuff like that, so like that was really gratifying. And I was really, you know, sometimes when someone says something out of the blue, it's even more exciting. And then it's yeah, just random people found my music like maybe a friend of my dad's or my brother's wife's mom. They, you know, people who are sort of following my career from afar, and and really really enjoy the music. Because for me it was just, it was a process of putting this music together, of assembling something. But then, at the end. There's this product that I have no control over. People can listen to it, or they can not listen to it. So it's really, I'm always sort of touched when people, you know listen to it or or hear it, or if I can share it with someone for the first time, and they enjoy it, or they say, oh, your voice reminds me of this person or wow! Have you heard this music? It reminds me of this other music that I like, you know. That's always really exciting.
Did your experience affect your understanding of others or “the world?”
Interviewer: And then I just wondered, did your experience with creating this affect your understanding of other people, or of the world?
Participant: Yeah, I guess in creating this I realize that some people are really open and willing to work with you and play around in your vision, and some people are going to be less. Yeah, I think I I tried to pick people to collaborate with who are really open to the idea of collaboration, to being creative and off the cuff, or like, oh, let's try this thing, you know. And then, when you're not surrounded by people who are of that mentality, it's, it's more difficult for me to operate as a human being, I think. And so I have to remind myself to like. Oh, I still have to keep that openness to creativity where it comes. I yeah, I'm just really bothered when things are boring, or when it's a one-way channel. And so I think this process helped me realize that, and help me realize like what it means to be a woman in music, and you know how people perceive you, and maybe they put you in this, because your music is kind of like endearing and twee, they put you personally into this box of like. Oh, this is this sweet person, you know. And then sometimes I just feel like, well, i'm Not that, you know, I moved on. I've composed other music since then. Yeah. So I think it. Yeah, I've learned that that sort of objectifying your own art is kind of a weird experience, but people will do it, and you become an extension of that, or you can decide to be associated with it or not, or you know. Yeah. And just realizing how really intimate it is to to like, say, oh, these are words that I've been mulling over for a long time, and now other people are singing them or singing along to them like that's I don't know there's a strangeness to that. Where, whereas, like I listen to the radio and sing along to other people's words all the time, you know, or as a choir person, you're singing someone's poetry all the time. So I don't know. Yeah.
When some people think about themselves, they see some parts of themselves as deeply true, real, or authentic.
If this idea resonates with you, did you learn anything about your true nature during the process? Did you have any insights about your own authentic (or inauthentic) self?
Interviewer: Yeah, we've been talking about some of the self understandings that you've gained through this process and that kind of segues into this next question about. So when some people think about themselves, they see some parts of themselves as deeply true, real, or authentic. If this idea resonates with you, did you learn anything about your true nature during the process? Did you have any insights about your own authentic or inauthentic self?
Participant: Hmm. Well, I guess, like yeah, thinking about my true self is like what my voice is, and hearing when I mean in a very physical literal sense, like hearing my voice through, for instance, a guitar pedal, or some kind of shifter, or something that changes the sound in music. There's something called EQ, which is, adjusts the amount of overtones that you can hear so like instead of like, *note* you can make it sound like *note* you can change how a particular sound is heard by shifting the physicality of it and I learned in this process, like the sounds that are truest to me, are not always what's truest to others, for instance, like I really prefer to sound that was like if it had any sort of like quavery synthesizer.I just immediately shut it down and like my friends would be like Well, you can hear that like, oh, you don't like that? like, you know. So in a sense like, yeah, I understand, like what the sounds that are truest to me resonate right with me of yeah. But then, in terms of the music itself and the process. A lot of the songs are sort of spiritual in nature, so like the twitch of the thread, is based off of a quote from brideshead revisited, which is a book by Evelyn Wall and I think it was important for me to say, yeah, like I have a voice in this kind of spiritual way that
I don't, I'm not going to sing this at a church, but I will sing this, and people will hear something in it that they can recognize and enjoy. And I think, like, for instance, my dad's friend from work, or whatever who listen to my album was someone also who had read that book, maybe, and it really resonated with them. And I I think if I can say and like another song, is sort of a disingenuous song about the hook up culture, basically so I I feel like I can't sing something that's not true to who I am. And like the things that I say, I believe. I guess you know like and sometimes it's it's a more coded. So I feel like, okay, I want, I want to say this thing, but I ,you know, the people involved know what's going on, but outside of that is, is a different story. Maybe you'll hear a different story in this story. So: yeah, I think in terms of truth, it's kind of like understanding that, like I need to be genuine, in my, the way I convey this music rather than, yeah, I mean it's. It's all true to me, even though it's 5 totally different songs, representing totally different aspects of my personality. Maybe.
Some people believe in ultimate meaning. This is defined as deep, underlying meaning that transcends subjective, personal meaning. It is about the nature of existence and identity, and it may include ideas about the significance of suffering, as well as spirituality.
If this idea resonates with you, did you learn anything about ultimate meaning during the process?
Interviewer: Okay. Thank you. You touched a little bit on some spiritual understandings, and that is relevant to this next question. So some people believe in ultimate meaning. This is defined as deep underlying meaning that transcends subjective personal meeting. It is about the nature of existence and identity, and it may include ideas about the significance of suffering as well as spirituality. If this idea resonates with you. Did you learn anything about ultimate meaning during the process of creating this?
Participant: Yeah, maybe. I think I think I am like a religious person. I'm a spiritual person. I sing. I have 3 church jobs. I identify as Catholic. I sing with Protestants and Episcopal churches regularly. I think for me ultimate purpose or meaning is God is His will for His people kind of. So I don't know if I think that the idea of community sort of is what comes through like, yeah, or like being a person who is fallible and trying to atone for that that that comes across in some of my music. Like this song, the Touch of the Thread that's really kind of representative of like, I know i'm going to make mistakes, but i'm going to always go back to trying to find the straight and narrow, and and I don't know if i'm directly addressing some ultimate power or something, but there is an idea of a plan or a blueprint along which my life will go, even if I can't identify it at this time.
Some people believe or perceive a reality beyond the physical or material world. This may include religious beliefs/experiences (such as perceived interactions with God) but also may include mystical or transcendent experiences, or interaction with spirits.
Did you have any of these kinds of experiences during the creation of the artwork?
Interviewer: Great, Thank you. so you talked about some of your own religious and spiritual beliefs. And so, yeah, people can believe in a reality beyond the physical or material world including religious beliefs and experiences that such as perceived interactions with God, but also may include mystical or transcendent experiences or interaction with spirits. Did you have any of those kinds of experiences during the creation of this artwork?
Participant: Oh.: Probably, not really because I feel those experiences, maybe, when i'm looking at a piece of artwork, or hearing a piece of music, or performing a piece of music. The fact that this is like an artifact of
it's a recording of a performance. I don't know if I sort of identified. I think it was a little bit more earthly, like embodied. I don't know, umm experience because it was my emotions, my feelings in my anxieties of putting this together, the stress of putting it together. That and then maybe the moments of like euphoria, when you're finally listening to that good Take and you're like, yeah, we can all agree that this is the one you know. So I I don't know. I think it for me the spirituality is more in like me, sitting alone in a room with my harp and carving out those songs, and seeing, like, you know, I don't hear God's voice so why not? you know, and really it's in the poetry. It's in the the desire to be experiencing something like that for it. Yeah, I guess I've had some. I think more about like flow states. I can never pronounce his name actually, Csikszentmihalyi, but sometimes like getting into that really good flow state like that that was akin to spirituality. But, but I guess I I perceive the ultimate power, maybe like in a really good church service, or a really good performance of music. But I don't know, this this process felt more like like you're in a, It's bright outside it's Los Angeles, but inside this kind of small contained space. There's no light, and there's there's these like external forces that are listening through wires. Maybe, I said, some prayers in that moment I I don't know to like make sure it goes okay. But it wasn't what I experience as ecstasy, maybe in a religious sense. But maybe in a physical sense I don't know.
How old were you? What was going on in your life?
Interviewer: Great great thanks. so I just have just one quick, follow up. You may have mentioned this previously, but I just wanted to follow up to see how old you were when you were creating this, and then, if you wanted to talk at all about anything that was going on in your life around the time that you created this?
Participant: yeah. So I guess I released it in 2014. I was 23, 24 years old, but working on it was probably yeah, like 23-ish.I feel like I was really young and impressionable, and I was just : my motto when I was in Los Angeles, was always go to the party because it there was this sort of sense of of unboundedness that it's just like what's going to happen next; and even though I i'm not like I don't do drugs, I don't I'm not an excessive drinker. But it was this excitement of all of these characters like sort of come to life like: I went to a pretty undiverse undergrad that was small and: catholic, and I really enjoyed that for what it was. But I grew up in an area that was really diverse, and so to be in this place that was again super diverse and just like weird things would happen after 3 am. And like what Who am I going to meet, you know, like i'm going to meet the person who plays the the Earth Harp at Burning Man, or something, whatever that means, you know, like i'm gonna meet someone who played his guitar in a open mic night at the same place like Zach Alfinack has made his start as a yeah, I guess, like you know, playing an open mic night and and a friend coming up and saying, oh, this this actor from this show really was impressed. I was like, I don't know who that is. But okay, you know there's so many people trying to be people trying to be caricatures of themselves or characters, and I forget what the question was. But I was at a play. Oh, I was at a point in my life where it it was. It was just like sort of boundless possibility and I was having like you know problems dating because, like, how are you supposed to meet anyone when everyone is just a caricature of themselves? And like in my program, like there were so many men, but they were all gay, you know, like, and I love them. But like I can't date them. Yeah, so it was kind of just this this kind of exploration of of possibility, and being a little bit alone in that and and sort of feeling like an observer.
Interviewer: Yeah, that was great. Thank you so much.
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