Back to Our Classical Roots: "Carmilla" Song Collaboration

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Transcript

Wren 0:04

You're listening to Magical Moments with Music, the podcast where we share stories about the power of music and how it changes us for good. You'll get to hear how real people use music to express themselves, connect with others, find joy, and so much more.

Introduction

Wren 0:30

Hey listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to the podcast's very first music bonus episode. The bonus music episodes are all about creating an opportunity to make music for the sake of music and to actually live out all of the cool stuff that we talk about on the podcast. It's all about growing and learning and trying new things and creating space for music to allow us to take us wherever we need to go. I've been on my own journey the past year working on redefining my relationship with music. And it's been so exciting to transition from having that work be just by myself to actually making music with others. So today is an extension of our interview with Isaiah Craig. I'll be sharing all about our collaboration together and the step-by-step process of us coming up with our song based on the 1870s Gothic Horror Novella Carmilla. So a little bit of background on how this came to be is I have a questionnaire for all guests to fill out in preparation for the interview. That way I can have a better idea of what we can talk about. And also I get to see if they want to participate in a shared music experience. Isaiah originally suggested having us collaborate on a song. I gave Isaiah some options to choose from. The first option for rearranging one of his songs into a duet. Second option for creating a song together based off of a piano improv from him and then going back and forth and slowly adding on to the piece. And the last idea was to create a song based off of a classic piece of art or literature. It also had to be in the public domain because of rules around copyright and podcasting and everything. So we really wanted to make sure that if we were creating something original that was inspired by something else, that we could put that on the podcast. Isaiah was immediately interested in the literature-based idea because he had actually recently been working on an idea for a song with one of his bandmates, where he was combining ideas from two other classic novels of mice and men, and to kill a mocking bird. And this was already something that he was thinking about. So it felt very natural for him to want to do that too. What was so cool is that Isaiah had actually just recently listened to a podcast about Carmilla. So he already knew a little bit about the story, and he knew that that was something that he would be interested in writing music about.

About Carmilla

Wren 3:18

So I'm going to share a little bit about the background behind the story of Carmilla. Carmilla is a gothic horror vampire novella. Okay. And it was written by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu and published in 1872. Because it's so short and because it has been published for well over a hundred years, I have included spoilers here. The story begins with a recounting of an unsettling dream that Laura had as a child, where a woman watched her and got into bed with her before she woke up with two puncture wounds on her chest. Laura grew up sheltered in a castle with her father and was very lonely, not having same age peers to grow up with. After a visit from the general, who was a family friend, falls through due to the death of the general's daughter, Laura is left to her loneliness until one day a carriage crashes outside their home. The carriage members continue on, but leave Carmilla behind to stay with Laura and her father. When Carmilla and Laura meet personally for the first time, they are both struck by each other's faces and recognize each other from their own dreams. They immediately feel bonded, having first met in their dreams and build a deep connection that grows to have a clear, romantic and intimate connotation. After Laura falls ill and begins having unsettling dreams about Carmilla, Laura and her father meet with the general. While hearing the story of his daughter's death, they realize that her symptoms and experiences with the one who killed her were eerily similar to that of Laura and Carmilla. Carmilla then shows up, and their friend confirms that it's the same vampire who killed his daughter and that he must kill Carmilla too. Laura, her father, the general, and a priest then go to Carmilla's grave at night and drive a stake through her heart and then burn her body. Laura recovers from her illness caused by Carmilla, but after losing Carmilla, she's never the same. She continues to see Carmilla in her dreams night and day, still longing for her for the rest of her life.

Planning

Wren 5:48

So after Isaiah and I decided to use Carmilla as our inspiration, we set up a phone call to talk through ideas. Before the call, I read the book and I wrote out my ideas for Isaiah to run with in terms of general inspiration. And I created a note with some links to some summaries that I liked and some of the imagery and quotes from the book that I liked as well. Here's a little bit of that phone call. Okay, so for uh me adding instrument, I feel like I'd love to add some voice.

Isaiah 6:18

Okay, yeah.

Wren 6:19

How much of a lyricist are you? Or should do you want me to kind of take over on that?

Isaiah 6:25

I I consider myself a pretty good lyricist, but I would also love to have other ideas in there.

Wren 6:32

Because something that actually from your social media that I really enjoyed is I really enjoyed your improv stuff. Maybe I can give you kind of like some more context and ideas for what I really hold from the book. There's also a couple illustrations in the book too, and see like what kind of like musical piano like basis you kind of think of through like improv. Yeah. And then um you can share that with me, and then I can find something in there and try and you know get like a melody, some words on there, and then you know, get your your feedback from there.

Isaiah 7:08

Yeah, I think that that would be a great start, like write out a synopsis, or even like just send me a voice note or something. I'll kind of look up like the Wikipedia page on it too, uh, just to get more ideas and background. And then maybe I'll come up with like a couple different like piano motifs and then like the guitar backing and then send that to you. And then you can send me like the lyrics and stuff over it, and we can just go from there.

Wren 7:36

Yeah, yeah, that sounds perfect. If you want, I can share while I was listening. I made a short playlist of music that I okay, yeah, yeah, totally. And you can reference it or not.

Isaiah 7:52

Yeah, no, I'll totally listen. Yeah, I I like that idea. I think that, yeah, just the only issue I'm trying to get past is sometimes piano's a little hard to record. Um we'll see. I'll I'll look around, I'll see what's up. I'm also thinking like for going vampire creepy stuff like that. Like my mind instantly jumps to like a D minor, B flat F type area. Oh my gosh.

Wren 8:20

I love that you said that because I'm doing like a daily improv challenge, and I did an improv last night after reading some of it, and it was in D minor. So

Isaiah 8:28

Okay. Oh yeah, perfect. I know, I just like I really like D minor is so fun. I don't really I don't think I really have any songs in D minor right now.

Wren 8:39

Okay. Yeah

Isaiah 8:40

It'd be cool to maybe improv on that, and then like obviously like the B flat and then the F could be like a cool little like major part, you know?

Wren 8:49

Yeah. When I was playing and and had that, I don't know, it's like this minor key, but then this like really soft major kind of moment. I kept thinking about just like this very strong draw to a vampire, but also like taking away all your energy. So it's like, I don't know, this control of like vampires are naturally like very attractive to humans, you know. But the very last paragraph of the book, she is referring to how years later she still suffers from the memories of like her the horrific experience with a vampire, and but she's also mentions that she also misses her when she hears footsteps, she wishes it was her. I yeah, that like kind of back and forth energy of of feeling from the main character. I really loved with that.

Isaiah 9:37

Yeah, like being attracted to something, but also like knowing it's not good for you.

Wren 9:42

Yeah, yeah. Too relatable.

Isaiah 9:46

Yeah, just to put it plainly.

Wren 9:48

Yeah.

Isaiah 9:50

Cool. Yeah, I think that would be really sick. Um, I'm even thinking maybe like make our own like simple piano backing track thing to keep the time, and then do another track over it with like the melodies and then add in guitar and then vocal. Yeah.

Wren 10:08

Yeah, that sounds perfect. I'm open to any genre and I feel like whatever comes out of it comes out of it, you know. I think my my intention is very much like I just wanna it feels so feels so simple, but I'm like, I just want to like have some fun and make something really good with you.

Isaiah 10:26

Yeah, no, that's my idea too. And I think if we're doing it kind of simply with guitar and piano, it could be cool to just folky, I'm almost thinking, but like folky, but maybe some like cool melodies in there. Like it doesn't have to be uh a specific genre per se, you know?

Wren 10:44

Yeah. I feel like um kind of like that, um like the like gothic country kind of vibes.

Isaiah 10:55

Yeah, yeah.

Wren 10:56

Um I think just also just because it's a a classic piece of literature and it was published, I think, 1871. Um I also feel like it would be cool if the piano or the vocal had a little bit of like a like a classical kind of vibe to it.

Isaiah 11:15

Yeah, I was thinking even if like like our thing, like that the backing, like almost like bass in the piano, maybe you could make it a little like staccato, almost like Baroque waltzy kind of like I don't know.

Wren 11:31

So 1870s was romantic era.

Isaiah 11:38

Yeah, like um Debussy stuff like that. Like Chopin.

Wren 11:45

Cool. Well, I'm super excited. If anything comes up, just let me know.

Isaiah 11:51

Yeah, no, I think we're good. That sounds great. I'm still to work on it. Once you send me some references, I will start doing some research.

Early Music Phase

Wren 11:59

Isaiah then got back to me with a piano improv with an ABA format. Here's what the A section sounded like. And here is what the B section sounded like. I gave some feedback about how the piano could be just a little bit different and could really drive in what we had originally talked about with the piece being in D minor. Here's what he sent back. And here's what the B Section sounded like. With the piano part updated, I went to go add some lyrics and adjust some of the music as I went. Since I'm still new to music software and I'm more used to written sheet music, I decided to transcribe what he wrote to use as my starting point. I went to work on adjusting the piano to fit the melody I was envisioning. I kept feeling the melody come to me in compound meter. So that means beats divided by three as opposed to simple meter, which is beats divided by two. So I wanted it to sound more like one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, instead of one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. I was able to adjust the A section fairly easily to the new compound meter, but the B section did not go well. It was actually working so not well that I couldn't even play it. Here's what those changes sounded like. Here's the A section. And here's the B section. Okay, for some reason I cannot play this right now. I'm gonna let Muse Score do this for me. After the changes to the piano, we had a phone call to check in again about the meter changes. Since I felt like it was a bigger change, I really wanted to make sure that Isaiah liked it before I got too much further. We had a brief phone conversation to check in about it. Isaiah really liked the first part in 6/8, and he shared that he wanted to do compound meter as well, but he wasn't able to figure out how to translate it. He agreed with me, and he didn't really like the way that it sounded in the B section. So we decided to keep it as is and have an even more obvious, strong difference between our A and B sections by having that change from compound to simple back to compound meter.

Lyric Writing

Wren 16:56

From there, I got started on some lyrics. I decided to reread the book to get me back into Laura's mindset. And I am so glad I did. The first time that I read it, I used a free PDF that I had found online and an audiobook from the library. But since then, I had acquired my very own copy of Carmilla. I'm a big reader, but I'm actually not that big of a book owner. I'm much more of a library person. Every once in a while, I do like to buy books more like a book souvenir. I went on a birthday day trip with my best friend, but I was really disappointed when I could not find a book that I wanted at the bookstore we went to. But then right before we left, I saw a copy of Carmilla and I had to grab it. The edition that I got is edited by Carmen Maria Machado. The book itself wasn't all that different, but there were some really wonderful footnotes that added imagery and deeper context. And most importantly for me, there was a really good foreword that helped contextualize the whole story for me and add a whole new layer of meaning. She talks about the real life inspiration for the author and shares quotes from the real Laura and Carmilla. Machado points out the differences between the book and real life Laura, and how in the book, Laura has more of a mix of attraction and repulsion towards Carmilla. But in the real life Laura's letters, her love for Carmilla is simply undeniable. She's not afraid of Carmilla returning, but she longs for it deeply. In a letter she wrote about waking up from her daydreams, she said, " I long for the door to open. I long to feel her run along my skin like so much smoke. I long for her to take me to the place where she went at night together we would not be lonely anymore ". When the story was set up with this information, I knew going into it that I wanted to lean even more into that deep longing and desire for Carmilla. Even amongst the grief due to all that Carmilla caused. While I was writing, I really tried to lean into that feeling of loving someone or something that hurts you. Which is an experience that so many of us can relate to. I leaned into all of my past experiences of queer love and queer longing and really tried to let that lead my lyrics. And it was very easy for me to lean into the A section lyrics while brainstorming. It felt much easier for me to focus on the more uncomfortable feelings. I couldn't quite find lyrics for the B section. So I shared all of my ideas and I let Isaiah roll with it. Isaiah came back with some beautiful lines for the A section and added to what I had. And he came up with a beautiful lyric and melody that really captured that freedom and warmth that we were looking for in Laura's dream state. I went from there and adjusted where the lyrics went and put all our ideas together. I'm going to give some background behind some of the lyrics. In this A section, we set up the turmoil that Laura is going through. How she longs to see Carmilla in her dreams despite the horrors that she saw. In the B section, we shift into Laura's dream state, where she finally finds peace because she's with Carmilla. Then we move on to the second A section. I'm going to read through the text now. Every morning I wake, her face haunts me. The horror in her eyes of the moment that she died. Our fate was preordained. Lonely forever changed. My heart, it always yearns. My dreams my nightly cure. Shadows lift. Am I asleep? Take my hand, lead me back to dreams. I see your face all the time. The one I love, for you I die. Shadows lift, I am asleep. Took my hand, led me back to dreams. I feel you here by my side. The one I love, Carmilla. Carmilla, Carmilla. Carmilla, my reverie. Won't she stay and dream with me? Leave me hollow, let me bleed. Take my every will from me. Live to dream and dream to die in the afterlife by my side. Fill my lonely heart for death has brought us two apart. Don't wake me from sleeping. Just leave me here to dream.

Combining Music & Lyrics

Wren 22:20

With the lyrics all written, we just needed to complete the process of fully marrying the text and the music together. And this is the point where I was personally feeling a little bit stressed. Our song had a lot of inspirations from classical music and especially art songs, which are songs based on poems and are often also ABA format. With a standard art song, a composer is given the text and then sets that text to music. We had a completely different process where it went from music to lyrics, back to music, back to lyrics, et cetera. All of it influencing each other throughout the process. I was getting really frustrated because the chord structure wasn't working for the melody that I ended up writing. But I felt much more tied to the melody than I did the chords. So I adjusted the chords. What I found really interesting was that after I finished redoing the chords, I noticed two things. One was that it ended up sounding very similar to an improv session that I did while playing with the chords before I ever got to the melody. And two is that I realized that the chords in some parts actually sounded uh exactly how they did in my head. Something that I personally feel very frustrated about as a musician is that I am still learning to build that skill of writing out the music that I can hear in my head. So it felt very rewarding and very exciting to realize that in this instance, I was actually able to translate my ideas how I wanted to. I put the melody and the new chords into an audio recording for Isaiah to confirm if he liked the changes. Then I went ahead and recorded it. I recorded the voice at the local library recording rooms and I recorded the piano from home. I only have my phone mic, and I was having a really difficult time getting it to sound good in the recording. Even though it wasn't how I would have wanted it to sound, I think that Isaiah did a good job making the best of it. And I like how it almost has this faraway sound effect to it. I let Isaiah take over from there, and he did some mixing on it, and then he added some synth. Here's what Isaiah had to say about what he added.

Isaiah 24:51

Hey Wren, I just want to give you a little update. We took like the best take, and then we also found little bits of other takes, like little bits of pieces that organized well, especially with your vocals. And we kept like a case to each other specific piece, and then the other tracks or other bits of pieces, that we have in there, we EQ'd them very differently like, for the piano, one thing, we did was, EQ'd one, super bass heavy, it cut out like all the high end all the uh like yeah basically a really high cut, and kept like the, bass section, so we could really bring out the bass notes, then we did the same thing where we took the high section and really uh like isolated the notes and cut out all the pedal noise, and it worked really well. I think there's like no pedal noise which is awesome. Um did the same thing with your vocals took a few different takes and spliced in a few words here and there. Then we can like really added good harmonies um yeah I got my bassist Jacob to help out, he’s a lot quicker with the DAW than I am. Yeah did all that, we added some synth in, um I did have a question about the very end I’m not sure if something got shifted in the music or something, but I noticed your lyrics come in after all the music is done playing that little last part. Is that something you like because we heard it and were like "that's actually kind of sick" like I like thinking the song's over and then you finishing it with that little like lyrical thing at the very end. Personally, I think it's really sick. Um, we could change it to be under the chords if you wanted. Yeah, let me know what you think.

Wren 26:43

After some back and forth about some details and software errors, we decided that it was ready to share for the podcast. Here is the finished product of our song, Carmilla.

Final Song

Wren 30:10

Every morning I wake her face haunts me The horror in her eyes the moment that she died Our fate was preordained “Lonely” forever changed My heart, it always yearns my dreams my nightly cure Shadows lift, am I asleep Take my hand lead me back to dreams I see your face all the time The one I love, for you I’d die Shadows lift, I am asleep Took my hand lead me back to dreams I feel you here by my side The one I love, Carmilla, Carmilla, Carmilla Carmilla my reverie Won’t she stay and dream with me? Leave me hollow, let me bleed Take my every will from me Live to dream and dream to die In the afterlife by my side Fill my lonely heart, For death has brought us two apart Don’t wake me from sleeping, Just leave me here to dream.

Wren 30:10

Collaboration Reflection

Wren 30:24

Something that Isaiah did that that I really loved was that he changed the ending. Instead of the final words being sung with a piano, it's a cappella after the piano ends. And it feels so raw and so emotional when it's by itself. It really caught me off guard when I listened, but it really added to the experience for me. When I listen to it all, I think of how cool it is in context. This piece is unlike anything I have ever written for many reasons. I've moved further away from my classical background as time has gone on. And it felt so special to go back to my roots. The whole time I felt like I was going back to my roots as a musician. It was also my first time collaborating with another musician in such a creative way. When I've worked with other musicians in the past, it's typically that I'm playing French horn with other instrumentalists in either a chamber or a large ensemble. So to be creating new music that isn't on instruments that I know as intimately, it felt very vulnerable and scary for me at times. And it was also very special to work with Isaiah. And I really want to give him a huge shout out and a big thank you. Isaiah did an incredible job as a collaborator, and I think we did really well playing off of each other's strengths and weaknesses. When I think about how I want the music portions of this podcast to make myself and my collaborators feel, I think this was a huge success. Isaiah and I both stepped out of our comfort zone and tried new things. And we both felt really excited about the music throughout. This piece really served its purpose for me. And I hope you all enjoy hearing it too. You had said something at one point about like have free reign, at this point we're both in the music, however it comes out. And I think at one point I had said, uh, we should just follow the music wherever it takes us. I think we did a really good job of uh really following that. What do you think?

Isaiah 32:34

Yeah, I'm I'm really stoked on it. It's definitely it's that's just like kind of how it seems to go when you sit down to write something, or at least when I sit down to write something, I have an idea, and then by the end it's like inspired by that idea, and it has morphed into something completely different or noticeably different, you know.

Wren 32:54

Yeah.

Isaiah 32:55

I'm very happy with it. I actually I think it sounds a lot more spot on to like our initial um idea there.

Wren 33:04

I noticed that too when I went back and I listened to some of the original recordings, and uh I was surprised just how much uh things aligned with our original intention, despite all of the different ways that the music uh changed throughout. And I think throughout it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is going such a different direction, like meter changes, chord changes, uh

Isaiah 33:28

key changes

Wren 33:30

key changes, like all of these other things. And I think what I love is looking back is that all of those changes still serve that original purpose. Um, I don't think we ever strayed from the original per- intentions. We just ignored it from there, which I think was really fun. And I think for me, uh as someone who is not in a band, uh really only makes music with people in the context of my work as a music therapist. It was really fun for me to get out of my comfort zone and uh trust myself to come up with something that I think you would also like too. And um I felt very yeah, I felt very honored that you trusted me with your music to expand it and that you know that trust went both ways.

Isaiah 34:19

No, yeah, of course. I I feel like you added so much to it. And it also kind of uh went in theme with the whole idea of expanding genres. Like, how can we add synth to this? But keep it like classically inspired to where I think it doesn't, I don't know, it doesn't really stray from that. Like it sounds very classical yet modern.

Wren 34:42

Yeah, yeah, it I it doesn't fit into any box. I don't even know what box I would put it in.

Isaiah 34:48

Uh yeah, I don't know at this point.

Wren 34:51

Yeah. Um yeah, but I love that about it. If we uh were to uh continue working on it, what do you what do you envision uh could uh add to the piece?

Isaiah 35:07

I think your suggestion of a cello line would be so fun. That would be really cool. Um I also think maybe some sort of percussion or maybe just like subtly here and there would be kind of cool. I I almost imagine like bells or or something like that, or chimes, like doing that middle part.

Wren 35:29

Yeah, and yeah, I think just adding some instrumental portions and uh I think just making it longer, I think the text uh feels good. I look at it and I'm like, I think I think it's we basically came up with a poem that uh I think really works for it. So I think uh rather than expanding that, just yeah, adding with instruments and yeah, just lengthening it to incorporate uh some really cool lines that way. I feel like um in terms of percussion rather than uh actual percussion instruments, it could be uh more of more strings, but creating percussive uh percussive element.

Isaiah 36:14

Yeah, like uh kind of staccato-y type stuff.

Wren 36:19

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, um I think the piano part too could be uh expanded a little bit more too. I think that would be really fun. Uh everything we did, I think uh serves that original purpose. I think it would be really cool to see where it would go, but I think uh we're both content with where it is and I think it's definitely uh ready to share for the podcast and uh uh put to rest for now.

Isaiah 36:48

Yeah, for now. I yeah, I really like it. I'm stoked with how it turned out. I think that um we both uh like poured a lot into it. And yeah, I'm actually very satisfied with it. It kind of exceeded my expectations of uh what it was gonna be like.

Wren 37:04

Oh, I love that. I love that. I think I had zero expectations. So like I think I guess in that way it exceeded my expectations too.

Isaiah 37:15

Yeah, I think the lyrics combined with the music really kind of hit spot on that gothic, romantic, sapphic type of vibe we were going for.

Wren 37:25

Absolutely. Well, uh, thank you so much for uh collaborating on this with me. This was so fun, and I'm so excited to, you know, see what else you do, and it was so cool uh seeing what we came up with in this uh very unique uh situation.

Isaiah 37:42

Yeah, no, I'm stuck for the opportunity to do this. Um yeah, and also thank you for all the time and effort you poured into this.

Wren 37:51

Thank you so much, Isaiah. I hope you have uh a good day.

Isaiah 37:54

Yeah, thank you. You too.

Closing

Wren 37:56

Bye

Isaiah 37:56

Bye.

Wren 37:58

Thank you so much for listening to the very first bonus music episode of the podcast. I hope that this inspires you to try something new even if it's a little scary. You'll never know what might come from it. I can't wait to see what other music comes up through this series. And I'm excited to get creative and share new ways I'm making magical moments with music on this podcast. If you'd like to share your own magical moments with music here on the podcast, fill out the guest interest survey. You can find the survey, social media handles, and links related to today's episode in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in. Now go make some music magic.