The Making of Swansongs
Written by Sorana Santos on Friday the 25th of November 2011
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore
Thus sand ger first and last, and sang no more:
"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
"More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise."
Orlando Gibbons, The Silver Swan
Aside from music I have written for or with other people for film, theatre, etc., Swansongs is my first solo collection since 2004. I never had any intention of working alone again, save for writing scores, yet one day I was larking around with a 4-track app on my iphone and had so much fun layering piano and voice on it, I became somewhat mesmerised and subsequently addicted to the process. This experience was so exhilarating that I began to wonder why I had stopped doing this in the first place (this was how I originally worked), given away my 8-track and pooled my efforts into working solely for others.
Not long after this experience I saw, in my mind's eye, the image of a constellation in the shape of a swan and thought how the title Swansongs would befit a first album (A swansong being a final activity or performance of a person's career). I saw the silvering quality of the stars in the night sky and thought about how, as a synesthete, the upper register of the piano can often evoke similar colours to me. I suppose that looking back, this was the time when the idea began to take shape.
Whether I am commissioned to write contemporary music, or am asked by a director to aim to evoke a particular atmosphere in a scene, or am playing piano as a session musician for another artist, I think very deeply about technique. I measure rises and falls of various factors, ratios of shapes, types of formula used to produce desired outcomes, with constant referral to the original brief, and so on. With this work I felt prepared to think a little less, so when it was suggested to me that I try, for the first time, to use some very unusual dreams I had been having as the basis for the lyrical content of my work, I saw no reason not to, given the instinctual nature of the concept so far.
Lion, Light & Pearl is about a dream I had where a man's soul was operated on by a lion who replaced the worms inside his soul with pearls and a golden light; Black, Black, Black came from a dream about slavery and feelings of culpability; Into the Ground saw the burying of an idea and desire as an actual burial; In You Know Where to Find Me, I was giving rather elusive and esoteric directions about where I could be found. Etcetera... (I am aware that while telling someone your dream can be one of the most interesting things for you to do, hearing about other's dreams is definitely one of the most boring, so I'll stop there).
Although I'm typically a slow and considered writer, Swansongs came together so quickly that it almost played itself into the microphone. The trick here, I realised, was to have a clear and detailed vision of the look, feel, and sound of the work before you begin. Both the music and the lyrics were recorded in the first two weeks of April in a small room my dad had found a way of soundproofing - talk about lo-fi! I thought a lot about hiring studios, engineers, other musicians buying new instruments and playing new lines into the sound, but I was also curious to know exactly how much one girl could achieve on her own, especially as I had always been so dependent on other people to finish work for me.
So.
Here it is.
Released on 11.11.11 and available for free download or Radiohead-style donation here: http://soranasantos.bandcamp.com
Thus sand ger first and last, and sang no more:
"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
"More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise."
Orlando Gibbons, The Silver Swan
Aside from music I have written for or with other people for film, theatre, etc., Swansongs is my first solo collection since 2004. I never had any intention of working alone again, save for writing scores, yet one day I was larking around with a 4-track app on my iphone and had so much fun layering piano and voice on it, I became somewhat mesmerised and subsequently addicted to the process. This experience was so exhilarating that I began to wonder why I had stopped doing this in the first place (this was how I originally worked), given away my 8-track and pooled my efforts into working solely for others.
Not long after this experience I saw, in my mind's eye, the image of a constellation in the shape of a swan and thought how the title Swansongs would befit a first album (A swansong being a final activity or performance of a person's career). I saw the silvering quality of the stars in the night sky and thought about how, as a synesthete, the upper register of the piano can often evoke similar colours to me. I suppose that looking back, this was the time when the idea began to take shape.
Whether I am commissioned to write contemporary music, or am asked by a director to aim to evoke a particular atmosphere in a scene, or am playing piano as a session musician for another artist, I think very deeply about technique. I measure rises and falls of various factors, ratios of shapes, types of formula used to produce desired outcomes, with constant referral to the original brief, and so on. With this work I felt prepared to think a little less, so when it was suggested to me that I try, for the first time, to use some very unusual dreams I had been having as the basis for the lyrical content of my work, I saw no reason not to, given the instinctual nature of the concept so far.
Lion, Light & Pearl is about a dream I had where a man's soul was operated on by a lion who replaced the worms inside his soul with pearls and a golden light; Black, Black, Black came from a dream about slavery and feelings of culpability; Into the Ground saw the burying of an idea and desire as an actual burial; In You Know Where to Find Me, I was giving rather elusive and esoteric directions about where I could be found. Etcetera... (I am aware that while telling someone your dream can be one of the most interesting things for you to do, hearing about other's dreams is definitely one of the most boring, so I'll stop there).
Although I'm typically a slow and considered writer, Swansongs came together so quickly that it almost played itself into the microphone. The trick here, I realised, was to have a clear and detailed vision of the look, feel, and sound of the work before you begin. Both the music and the lyrics were recorded in the first two weeks of April in a small room my dad had found a way of soundproofing - talk about lo-fi! I thought a lot about hiring studios, engineers, other musicians buying new instruments and playing new lines into the sound, but I was also curious to know exactly how much one girl could achieve on her own, especially as I had always been so dependent on other people to finish work for me.
So.
Here it is.
Released on 11.11.11 and available for free download or Radiohead-style donation here: http://soranasantos.bandcamp.com
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