A few days ago I was interviewed by my friend Rudolph. Fortunately for me, he also maintains a music column in The Sun Star, a local paper. There were a lot of questions, and at first I was worried that my answers were too long. He assured me he had lots of space, so I said okay. To Rudolph, thank you for considering my music and taking the time to ask about it.

Anyway, The Boy has been at me forever to post something resembling my music process, because he writes about his art process all the time.

So, I’ve taken some of the questions from that interview (I’ve skipped the boring bios and long list of bands I’ve ever been in cos that’s boring, I’m sure – or I might post them later). These are the ones that dealt with my musical/composition/songwriting process.

R: What are your music preferences? Can you describe your sound?

I have eclectic taste in music, which means I’ll listen to anything from Daft Punk to Amanda Palmer, and everything in between. I’ve been listening to a lot of acoustic lately, and I gravitate towards Sufjan Stevens, Dallas Green, Damien Rice, Ray Lamontagne, Cynthia Alexander, Kaki King, Andy McKee, and Tori Amos. I’ve been in a lot of different bands with different sounds and I appreciate music in all its forms. More than anything, I admire artists who struggle with their art and yet continue. My sound can be described as haunting at times, due to the alternative tunings I compose them with, but they can be quirky and pop during other times. The best bet for the listener is to remember that like myself and my life, my sound is never one thing at one time.

R: Who are your artistic influences, like in music or literature?

My influences can be attributed to a lot of literature, too many to mention. My parents owned bookstores among other things, our house looks like a bookstore. Books everywhere. If I get started on Sci Fi and Fantasy authors I’ll never stop haha. Music cds thrown about. I think my listening to Dave Matthews, Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, lots of metal (lol) in highschool, also reading a lot of sci-fi and fantasy in college have attributed to my wanting to create introspective music that doesn’t sound like anyone else. I initially had a phase where all I wanted to play was music with lots of distortion and screaming – but I got over that, heh.

R: How do you write your songs? Where do they come from? What is their main thematic message?

When I write my songs I use different processes, which I alternate. Sometimes I “noodle” on my guitar which I’ve been told time and again is a bad habit, but I think mindlessly playing it is ok if you consider your instrument to be a part of you. Noodling, i was told, means just playing bits and pieces of songs or even just tunes without really knowing where they go. It could be likened to scat singing on the piano, i think. It’s creative freedom. Sometimes I come across a guitar riff that strikes me as worthy of being made into a song, and that is when i build upon it and frame it into a song. I really think I’m a guitar player at heart, even though people tell me I should focus on singing, because when I compose songs I always put the guitar parts first and the singing later. The guitar should cement the plot, the voice will narrate, and the song is the story.

Another thing I do which may sound a little weird is I have this tendency to be frustrated by the standard tuning, which I feel limits me. So I like to change the tunings, a LOT. Then I find melodies which are more to my liking. I like haunting tunings and some very percussive ones as well. Fingertapping, sometimes, but not too much, because the song still needs to be sung, not merely performed. Well, in my opinion anyway.

My songs come from my experiences, from what I’ve gone through. I don’t make stuff up so I can write about them. I feel that isn’t a song if you do that – it becomes a soulless product. I feel that the more honest music is, the stronger it becomes over time. People can tell when you’re faking it. The ones that listen, anyway.

R: How do you intend to market your album?

I honestly am not good with this kind of thing. But the good thing about having a boyfriend that is based in Cebu is that my arm reaches out longer to farther places. With his help and with my “family” of musicians here, I plan to distribute the album or market it to different places in the country. My relatives also reside in Luzon, where my uncle is the COO of a major radio station. He can help me too. The Paus have encouraged me to tour the country and play gigs to promote it, and I am thinking about that too. I hope it does well. If it doesn’t, that’s all right too. The music was the most important part of it, after all.