Nature Beats Sonic Signatures: Spring Update

Since the beginning of Spring, the youth mentors have been encouraged to take more active roles in music production. We knew inspiration is key to creation, so on our regular zoom calls, over the weeks, a few Coventry-based musicians were invited as Guest Artists to the project.

Matt, our first musician, played flamenco guitar for the group, then Alfie, our second, played his mandolin. Finally, we had singer and songwriter Lucy, who played piano and sang for us. Young people said that they felt and imagined scenes of the warm Mediterranean, our homely countryside and a bustling cityscape when listening to the music by Matt, Alfie and Lucy, respectively.

https://twitter.com/WildEarthUK/status/1366746608021475331?s=20

During this time, we have been working with our young people alongside Luke, our Music Leader,  who is helping us create a track with samples sent by Guest Artits. Just after we chose a few samples to start out the track, we were encouraged by Luke to sing a melody to be recreated electronically, and then to write our own lyrics to be sung or spoken over the music.

The process has been useful in encouraging the us to think more about how music makes us feel and to write/speak about what we visualise or experience when listening to it. So far we have come up with some interesting things. The samples have proved useful in filling out the rest of the track. Our next steps are to add more layers. Of course, being a nature-focused organisation, we have all the while been connecting to the natural world and there has been an inclination to write lyrics that reflect our natural world.

- Oden