Tega Aror: Where Are You Running To? (Feature/Interview)
Q: What is the most important thing you want your listeners to know about you?
A: I want my listeners to know that creating and experiencing art is my favourite part of the human experience. All art, but music especially, has profoundly shaped who I am as a person and my understanding of life as a whole. I think that the way artists move through the world is such a unique experience and I am so proud to call myself one.
Q: What was the creative process like for this song?
A: In the beginning, I told the story that inspired me to write this song and came up with the concepts for the soundscape, narrative structure, and overall vibe for it. I worked very closely with the brilliant Ovannes Atoian who is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and all around talented musician. In our first writing session together, I explained that I wanted the song to embody the act of running. From the lyrics, to the chord progression, down to the beat. I detailed the kind of harmonic world I wanted the song to live in (citing a minor tonality, suspended chords, and an obvious tension & release in the instrumental). Ovannes asked me to come up with ten words to describe the intended essence of the song. “Think of them like hashtags!” he said. So I came up with the words: indie pop, ethereal, atmospheric, introspective, tense, alternative, storytelling, synths, exciting, and dissonant. I brought up multiple examples of other artists and their music to further explain my influences and inspirations for the song. We had some very fun listening exercises! A few years ago, a wonderful friend of mine bought me these fancy notebooks made in Italy for my birthday and he told me to fill them up with my creative ideas. (Shout out to Manon! I miss you!). I started filling up one of these notebooks with ideas, phrases, and fragments of lyrics that encapsulated the story and my feelings that I would always bring into the studio. We had multiple sessions where I would improvise with my ideas while Ovannes played chords and arpeggios on the piano. Little by little, we solidified the chorus, the pre chorus, and the verses. I had a very specific idea for the bridge where it would start with a drone of one note and then grow as time went on. I thought that this would fit my lyrical/narrative idea for the bridge. Once we had a clear structure laid out for the instrumental, I got in the booth and the vocal sessions began. Initially the song was in A minor, but after weeks of recording in this key, I decided that it was a little too high so we eventually lowered it to G minor. I recorded the main vocal, and had some ideas for background vocals. Ovannes and I had to use our music theory brains while recording background vocals because I just really like dissonance and had to make sure I wasn’t adding too much. Over time there were some lyric changes and rerecording sessions with Roy and I am happy to say that I am proud of the final product! Though I have written creatively
for the majority of my life, this project was my first real foray into songwriting. I feel like it’s pretty obvious from the song title, cover art, lyrics, and instrumental that the majority of my previous creative writing experience lies within short stories (and poetry). To write a song, I first need to be able to see it in my mind. The setting, the characters, and the conflict. I described all of these details to Kunmi, my friend the illustrator who created the beautiful cover art. Before creating the final picture, she listened to my ideas, then sent me different sketches to see what I liked the most. “One is on a beach of a sort and the other is on a bridge, do you prefer one?” she asked me. I settled on the bridge because there is a lyric in the song about “another bridge, just burned”. This is the kind of thought and attention to detail that I enjoyed channeling into my songwriting! Recording a song from scratch is quite a challenging, creative, and fulfilling process that I am eager to continue doing!
Q: What do you want your audience to feel when they listen to your music?
A: I want my audience to feel completely captivated by my music when they listen to it. Which is exactly how I feel when I listen to my favourite artists. I think that a great song should hook the listener right from the beginning and keep their attention till the end. I
want my listeners to feel like they have been invited to take a trip into my head to see the world through my eyes. I want them to see what I see and feel what I feel - with their own interpretations, of course!
Q: How would you describe your genre and sound?
A: I would describe my genre to be introspective indie pop. I think that my sound now and moving forward will ultimately be a blend of several types of music that I grew up studying, listening to, and performing. This includes classical music, jazz, radio pop, choral music, and film scoring.
Q: What are your goals and aspirations going forward?
A: My goals moving forward are to continue creating music and developing myself as an artist. I want to release more singles, an EP and eventually a full studio album. I have spent a lot of time performing in choirs, musicals, and recording covers. I have also spent a lot of time writing short stories, poetry, and scripts. I aspire to combine all of these skills and talents that I have spent years cultivating and create my own sonic world as a recording artist. One day I want to delve into orchestral pop. Some of my absolute favourite pop songs make use of string ensembles and even full orchestras. The instruments of a song are just as important as the lyrics and voice when it comes to telling the story and setting the mood + overall vibe of a song. I have a degree in
classical music and intend to use the knowledge I acquired to learn how to score arrangements for small to large ensembles.
