What a songwriting session looks like…
I’ve been teaching composition and songwriting for seven years now, and it’s unlike any other craft. Songwriting is wonderfully collaborative and vulnerable, with each person learning and sparking off the ideas of the other to alchemize life experience with imagination to make music. Every artist in my studio comes already magnetized towards certain subjects and textures and tones (whether they know it yet or not) that will wind up informing their art as they develop their style and sound. As their mentor, it’s my role to help them dive deep into this process of self-discovery and provide the safe space and support needed for their artistry to thrive.
[soundclip from a session]
It’s a very cathartic and therapeutic process as often the things we’re drawn to create are things that require re-framing or closure. My students have written about bullies, loneliness, grandparents passing away, heartbreak, feeling good, having best friends, losing best friends, divorce, anxiety, and the sheer joy of being alive—it’s all part of acknowledging the seasons of their lives and creating markers along the way. Engaging in this kind of art brings tremendous relief and satisfaction to the very human part of us that just wants to know that we were known, that our lives were seen, and that something beautiful emerged from it all.
Between online and in-person workshops, I continue to collaborate with my songwriters, sending audio clips back and forth to give feedback on new melodies and lyrics to keep the momentum going, and when the song is complete, we record and mix it together, share it online, and find the next opportunity to sing it to the world.
Audrey at her first open mic, playing one of her originals
I love to teach in this way because I get to walk with my students past the obstacles where fledgling musicians might be tempted to abandon their latent creations. Together, we make beautiful things. It’s incredible to watch these artists go from being unsure about their potential, to becoming confident in their craft and in their ability to do more than they’d ever thought was possible—
it’s even more incredible to watch that idea permeate everything.
[Listen to a clip from Parker’s first open mic]
Below is a live improvisation session with one of my young pianists. We sat at the piano together, and she began spinning melodies in the air while I followed her ideas on the low end of the instrument. A small mic nearby captured the music as it unfolded in real-time.
We did not retrace our steps or redo anything. There were no “mistakes,” only free-form exploration, and only forward. This is a piece of it, but the entire improvised song was nearly four minutes. It was like emerging from a trance when the last melody faded away, and we looked up at each other, laughing at the magic we’d made.
“Willa is such an amazing, beautiful, kind, & patient teacher. My daughter had been begging me for piano, voice, songwriting, ect lessons for years but I just felt she was a little young & I had no idea where to find someone who could do all of these things. Well she took matters into her own hands and started setting appointments before school with her school music teacher to go over her songs she had written and to sing them to her. Her music teacher lead me to Willa and WOW....she is magical! My daughter has grown tremendously with her confidence in music in such a short period of time. Willa lets her be the girl she was created to be! Thank you Willa!!!”
GAVIN
Gavin and I have been working together now for a few years, and we recently changed our focus to composition. He loves so many genres and has a fantastic ear that always knows where it wants each note to resolve. Working with him has been so inspiring, and at our last recital, we got to debut his first finished piece, which you can listen to below. We are already hard at work on a new composition and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
laying tracks with Audrey
Audrey
Audrey is a bright, talented musician who has been singing and performing for years. Music is her passion, and she is always inspiring me with her imagination, lyrical creativity, and phenomenal voice. Below is her first original, “Player 1 & Player 2,” which she wrote about her best friend in Delaware.
Creating “Ivory”
SADIE
Sadie has been with my studio since the spring and is one of the most intuitive musicians I’ve ever come across. Above is her first complete composition, “Ivory,” which explores and blends some of her favorite piano styles. Many more songs to follow :)
Nate
Nate’s first composition was already half-finished the very first time he showed it to me! He had such great ideas for the second half and was always very sure when we were getting closer. It was awesome to see him perform his piece at our last recital without missing a beat. Now we just need to compose a title :)
Addie Kate
Addie Kate has been with the studio since January, and just finished recording her first song, Sunflowers. Everything this girl creates is full of energy and joy and life—just like she is.
Have a listen.
“Winds in the East
Mist comin’ in
Something is brewing...
about to begin...”
I recently got the chance to reconnect and collaborate with an old music student of mine, who’d gone on to become a virtuoso violinist in the classical world. We happened to be in Marin at the same time, and I convinced her (somewhat spur of the moment) to play her violin on a song I’d been writing, Winds in the East, which I’d based off a melodic fragment from Mary Poppins.
This was her first collaboration of this nature and was far outside her comfort zone. It took some convincing, but when she jumped in and discovered her creative flow something really incredible music happened. It was magic to watch, and I wrote a piece about it on the studio blog that you can read HERE.
(Listen to a clip of the song below)
Willa & Friends
The collaboration on this song is the largest I’ve done to date. It was between myself and fifteen other musicians, mostly vocalists, and some people I met for the first time when they showed up to record at my apartment. We were all reeling from the toxic emotion and fear that divided the States politically, and I wanted to write a song that found middle ground in our humanity, a song rooted in empathy. I put out the call online and got a dozen vocalists to come to my apartment to record, then collaborated with Jacob Robertson (bassist), Daniel Long (percussion), and Christian Ward (violinist) to get the sound I wanted.
It helped us all keep our sanity in those days, and helped us continue to resist hate in every form, especially where it might take deepest root in ourselves and our communities.
Addie Kate’s brother, Grayson, was recently in the ICU. It was a really scary time for herself and her family, and we spent some time processing her fears in our music session. This song came out of that difficult time. Here’s what she wanted to say about it:
“When my brother was in the hospital, I was worried all the time. It felt like a dark place, so we started writing this song about it. I pictured my brother telling me that everything was going to be alright in the end. ”
Stay tuned for more beautiful things.
Photo credit: Logan Garrett
WHY SONGWRITIng?
In my early twenties, I was living in Portland when I found myself in a painful season that could not be circumvented. All around me was falling away, and I wavered between depression and anger and was searching for some kind of meaning to hold on to. At that point in my life, I had zero experience in songwriting and yet song ideas and melodies began to come to me at all hours of the day and night. I did not believe my voice was good enough to get in front of a mic, but I couldn’t shake the desire to sing about my experiences—it felt like the way through.
Weeks later, I formed an indie band with my singer-friend, Danna. We called ourselves “rosewood,” and had a show lined up before our first set-list was finished. She and I fell in love with writing music and what followed was a perfect flurry of late nights, poetry, whiskey neat, crumpled pages scribbled with chord progressions and tentative lyrics, and voice memos bouncing continually back and forth between us.
The retro rosewood days. 2014. PC: Tara Butterworth.
There was a pub down her street that we would frequent when we needed to clear our heads and step away from the piano. I remember crunching through the snow, singing snatches of new melodies, and watching our breath spool before us. The warmth of the pub embraced us, and we’d throw our scarves and jackets on a rickety table, order lagers, play ping-pong for hours, and invite everyone we met to come to our next show. The following months opened up a whole new world for me. Singing at these shows felt like riding electricity, and I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I was more satisfied and alive than I’d ever been, despite all that was falling apart.
One night, we were playing at Valentine’s (across the alley from Voodoo Donuts), and the sound guy didn’t show up. The bartender didn’t know where the mic cables were, so, with the audience's consent, we did the entire show acoustic—just our ukuleles, the built-in keyboard speaker, a Cajon, and our voices. The whole bar on both levels was quiet as we sang, leaning forward to hear. They were still and silent, suspended with us in this intimate world. I could see my pain mirrored in their eyes as they nodded and shared my experience, adding their own to it.
And I knew then that I was not alone, that it was not just my pain but ours. We carried it together that night and through the nights to follow in dim rooms lit by candlelight and glowing faces, each of us feeling lighter as we sang—as if we’d all been seeking a way to release grief that none of us had been able to find until the music brought us together. Songwriting saved my life that year—I have no doubt of it.
That was the pivot—after that, I knew I wanted to spend as much of my life as possible in this creative world, inviting others in. I wanted self-expression, creativity, freedom, and collaboration to drive everything; I wanted to mentor my students not just on the fundamentals of music but towards becoming artists in their own right—
That desire has become this studio
where every week we celebrate creativity
and practice the art of alchemy
bringing radiance and attention
to the hard things
until they too become
something
we do not carry alone.
The instrumental piece above is one of my favorite compositions. The piano part came to me in its entirety in less than an hour and seemed to write itself. It’s such a gift when that happens, and every time I play it, I feel more of the pain that composed it leave my body.
This is how artists heal.
