(Image courtesy of Margaleet Katzenblickstein. “Music Business major Emily Johnson stands in front of a locker, smiling.”)

Margaleet Katzenblickstein
Connector Contributor

Nicole Banks, a junior music business major, songwriter and one of the lead singers of the band Momerath, always has her ears ready for songwriting inspiration with every note she hears. “I’m always pulling inspiration for everything I listen to,” she says. “My taste is very eclectic and I think everything has something to offer and teach you … I’m just always passively looking for inspiration when I’m listening to music, for my own writing.”

To most people, music is something nice and relaxing. Perhaps it soothes us. But most likely, unless you are a musician, you aren’t using your listening time as inspiration for what you compose or sing. You probably aren’t trying to notate it. But this is actually how musicians listen to music. And the songs they hear influence what they compose.

Victoria Santiago, a junior electrical engineering major, fellow songwriter, and another lead singer of Momerath, is also inspired by the different music she listens to. “Oh, I go to Spotify and I … hear a new artist and I’m like, ok, that’s great, let me just leave this on shuffle and see what it has to offer and sometimes that gets really good ideas…” she says.

Santiago also takes inspiration for her songs by the spur of the moment and from important things she wants to share. “Sometimes things come to me when I’m in a good creative flow,” she says. “I’ll just have a melody … pop in my head, but other times, it’s just a message I want to write about.”

Banks jumps in. “Well, you’re a storyteller,” she tells Santiago. “You like to think of a concept, and tell us a whole story with that.”

Her songwriting is inspired by her experiences. “For me when I’m writing, I usually will write more personal stuff … I’ll take something that’s happening to me in the moment and if I’m, like Victoria said, feeling that creative flow, I’ll just kind of go with it, and it’ll kind of pour out of me.”

When they collaborate, they marry their approaches. “And, when we work together,” Banks says, “We take a bit of that … personal aspect from both of us and a bit of that storytelling aspect and make really cool stuff.”

Even musicians who primarily perform instead of compose listen to music differently. For example, Landen DaVong, a music education major, singer and member of ensembles such as the University Choir, enjoys music to assess what he wants to sing. “I mainly listen to music not for enjoyment but rather for a search of repertoire, like audition pieces and stuff like that,” he says.

When singing music, he focuses on the emotions behind the piece. “I would say working very hard to at least try to understand the feeling of the person that I’m singing as … it’s either trying to imagine myself in that moment or just wonder how I would feel if that situation happened to me,” he says.

Santiago, one of the lead singers of Momerath, listens closely to many aspects of whatever song she is hearing. “I feel like the things I’m kind of paying attention [to are] … what are they saying in the lyrics, and what are little vocalies and adlibs they’re doing in the background that sound … nice,” she says.

Banks also pays close attention to the songs, using her understanding of music theory to help her make sense of why something sounds so good. “… I think a lot of non-musicians … listen to songs and take them in on kind of a surface level … whereas if I listen to a song, whether it be the first time or the hundredth time, I’m always, like, wow, that harmony was really good, or that chord progression was really good! That second pause was really, really good … I feel like I’m very detail-oriented when I listen to stuff,” she says.

When seeking inspiration for her interpretations of songs, Emily Johnson, a music education major and flautist who also plays guitar and sings, focuses on the stylistic features of the piece. “If it’s jazz, I kind of tend to do something that’s very syncopated, very upbeat, very, like, funky, because that’s the style that jazz wants it to be. If it’s something from the Romantic era, it’s usually very sweet … very flowy,” she says.

When listening to music, she is often ready to notate it. “If I’m learning a song, I … have my guitar in handy so I can actively try to transcribe what I’m hearing … I’m usually listening for chords, and I … can tell what the form is based on either the lyrics, or … if I recognize the song already … than I’m able to already know what the form is,” she says.

Momerath’s pieces are a mix of diverse styles of music. As Banks says, “We’re … a fusion of pop-rock, psychedelic, indie.” Every person’s interpretation of the same piece will also be different, and each composer will combine the styles of music they draw inspiration from in a unique, individual way.

In fact, for Alejandro Bonilla, a junior music studies major, musician and ensemble director, this is one of the most fascinating aspects for him. “Of course, you know, different conductors have different interpretations. You have to accept that there’s an element of yourself that you put in when you perform a work … and I think maybe that’s what draws me the most. It’s the fact that even though everyone can look at the same pages, with all the same ink on it, we all get a different meaning out of it, and we present it differently to an audience,” he says.

The inspirations each musician draws from in their compositions and performance depends on the soundscapes they surround themselves with, but no two people will listen to music the same way or take the identical musical inspiration from a song. Musicians often listen closely to what they hear, focusing not only on the message of the song and the musical aspects, but the technical parts and the music theory. The awareness musicians possess about what they are listening to ensures that, if they compose, they will know exactly what musical elements they want to include in their songs. If they conduct, they will know what they want to bring out in the piece. And whether they compose, conduct, play, or do any combination of the three, they will never listen to music the way they did before receiving such an awareness of it.