Hang on tight

So you haven’t released a song since last May?

Truth. That song was Sweet Wine. I wrote this song with two friends while living in Nashville. I typically have my songs relatively composed before bringing them into production, which in the past had mostly taken place in a hometown friend’s basement or a college dorm room, but "Sweet Wine" was different.  It was the first song I had written and produced with Jon Seiler and Darlon Usher - both accomplished Nashville-based musicians and producers. Jon and I had met through a friend a few months back. I showed up at his and Darlon’s apartment…completely empty-handed. It had been so long since I was able to write anything, I felt like I had lost my mojo.

Darlon, Jon, and I recording the choir takes of Sweet Wine at The Blackbird Academy (located within Blackbird Studios)

When you attend music school, I think it impacts you in one way or another. You either write ten albums or the air manages to envelope any single word that comes out on the page. My ability to write seemed to have fallen right out of my body. My imposter syndrome started to kick in the moment I walked in the door. But Jon didn’t seem to be worried one bit; he simply handed me his guitar and motioned for me to just be a musician. That’s all I had to be. And then just like breathing, it came back to me. Sweet Wine just flowed… and it was written that afternoon.

I think as a musician, especially a songwriter, you’re in a constant world of ebbing and flowing.

Some weeks are harder than others; sometimes, you lose your craft and you really have to put in the mental effort to find it again. When you hear the stories of your favorite musicians, it’s important to note (whether you, yourself, are a musician or simply an audience member) that a lot of the time factor gets left out. Naturally. News segments only grab that five-second clip of the story that’ll attract the biggest audience, and movies simply can’t account for (nor would they want to) every waking morning to evening of the last ten years. Rome wasn’t built in a day, just as Billie Eilish didn’t wake up and write the entirety of “WWAFAWDWG" in one go. So, how do you move forward with the ebb and flow of it all? 

Hang on tight (but not too tight).

I like to think of that scene from Finding Nemo when Crush (the OG) is riding the “EAC”. I’m Marlin, and my music is “Mr. Turtle.” While my brain is going a million miles an hour because, let’s face it, there are a LOT of moving parts in the music business, the core identity of who I am as a musician is simply happy to just exist. That part of me knows it’s one day at a time, and in that day-to-day, it’s simply a flow. It’s a balancing act of continuing to hang on and move towards your end goal without holding on so tight you crumble it in the process. Lucky for you (and thanks to our friends in technology) I can share this day-to-day journey with you - it's my favorite part.

Kohanna