Humans of USyd: Musicians

Emily Graetz interviews three musicians about performing during Covid, the art of creativity and community in the music scene.

Caterina Pilato

Caterina is a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts 2012-2016, BVA Honours and Master of Fine Arts by Research and is a practising Artist, Poet and Musician.

I am a Visual Artist of differing mediums, a musician, poet and a songwriter.  As a self-taught musician who’s learnt musicianship by ear, I play piano and have two guitars.  I use a Fender 12 String acoustic guitar due to its sensual reverberations and fullness of sound and an original vintage 6 string Takamine from Japan.  As someone who’s written thousands of songs, I am overwhelmed as to which direction to go with pursuing an outlet for this body of work.  I gave birth to my child in 2004 and used to play gigs and music festivals regularly.  

On song writing, if you ask most musicians, the music is always there, it’s not something you necessarily control. Strangely, sometimes pieces of music come to you in parts, in that you’ll write one half of a song and the other half of it will be finished with a suitable conclusion a year or so later. And yeah sure, I have more than just a few half songs written.  Like most musicians, I often dream a lot of my music and I will write and sound them out.

I have decided that I do have good enough songs which resonate with my inner world, philosophies, perceptions, struggles, emotions, values and idealisms.  I could probably record a few albums, yet I think I may firstly need to start playing live again to get my abilities refocused and up to scale, which is currently challenging and it also means rounding up auditioning good session musicians to accompany recordings and possible future live work …so sure let’s just say it’s a work in progress.  To be fair, predominantly I am interested in being an underground musical artist, where the sound would be suited to FBI or 2SER or even lesser-known frequencies, say even ‘Strange Frequencies’.  Musically, as an art form overall, lyrics are a very important marriage between the music and its overall impact and expression.

I suppose it would be fair to say these songs I have written are poetry put to music, noise and sound, as poetry is the dominant part of the repertoire and sometimes the words and music present at once.  I have been considering repainting the poems onto canvas, or even translucent film-like surfaces. I am thinking the direction musically is to introduce more abstract ambient discordant sounds in my work accompanied by abstract paintings. Overall, I would say that my practice is a co-dependency of painting, music/noise, poetry, photography and sculpture.

The Equilibrium // Oil on Canvas // Caterina Pilato

As I'm a very hypersensitive person, sounds affect me very strongly. When you're a musician, and as people I know who are musicians, you’re very sound and light sensitive. Our senses tend to be heightened. So, when I'm painting I have to have certain music on. Sometimes I listen to crazy, what other people would consider, hard core music... but I like very soft music too. It's just about whether it's good. Sound is very important to me and being in a quiet environment. It varies, but yes, music and my painting, it's all kind of interconnected.

 I believe art is the only uncensored medium which the establishment and the media has not been able to control, where we can relate to abuses on the conveyor belt of consumerism, the personal, social, communal, cultural, political, and of course, the idealistic expression of goodness, utopia, and love as well.

Inside the Insular Mind of Isolations Memory // Oil on Canvas // Caterina Pilato

Charlie Timpson

Charlie is a guitarist, singer and member of the band, The Jam Sandwiches. 

Year 1 would be the first time I started getting into music. I started playing violin and played that until about year 6 and realised I wasn't a big fan of violin anymore. So I started playing guitar and still play that now and I sing as well. I played in all these bands at school, we had a really good music program there. And eventually [once] out of school I created a band with my favourite people to play with, which is called the Jam Sandwiches. I play rhythm guitar and sing in the band and then there's a lead guitarist, bass player and drummer as well. We've been doing gigs since we graduated with the exception of lockdown obviously, writing our own songs and trying to record them now as well which is quite exciting.

Playing in the local music scene is really really cool. I love playing gigs, it's one of my favourite things to do. First of all, I love just playing music with the band in general. It's just a really intrinsic happiness feeling. And then also it's just really nice to play in front of an audience as well who actually appreciates the music, especially when they can get into it as well and get a bit of a dance floor going. I think in terms of live gigs, they offer a chance for people to let loose and enjoy themselves. I think music is a major part of everyone's lives. Then also, just listening to music as well, you can just kind of connect with people in some way. That's probably the main role of being a musician, just to have that emotional connection with the listener. 

My musical direction has altered slightly because I obviously wasn't able to play with the band throughout lockdown. So I started writing stuff purely for myself, in a very, very different style to anything I've ever written with the band before. I'm now kind of in the mindset that I want to make solo music on the side as well because I think a maximum amount of creative outlets, like something to pour your emotion into, is ultimately better. I'll still be doing gigs and writing stuff with the band forever - or however long that lasts, hopefully forever - and also writing my own stuff that's purely my own artistic decision, like everything is my own creative choice. 

Writing by myself, because there's the limitation of not playing with other people, I've kind of gone in the direction of making songs purely for the recording rather than thinking about how this would be performed. So instead of having stuff that's for four different instruments I can stack pretty much whatever I want into the recording. I started making things that have many, many different guitar parts, all kind of simplistic ideas put together. Writing more for the actual record rather than for live performance kind of makes everything stylistically different. 

Even though it may not be quite as good without the input of other musicians it's a really cool, refreshing experience because I'm creating something that's purely mine. Everything is kind of myself, it's the best representation of my own personality I guess, which is a really cool thing that music and song writing especially can do for you.

By being a musician I think I found a way to channel all of my emotions regardless of what they are, especially in the songwriting process. It's become like a cathartic thing, to pour everything I'm feeling into the music and it’s a really valuable experience for that.

Follow the Jam Sandwiches on Instagram @thejamsandwiches and keep up with their latest gigs and music here. 

Miranda Ilchef

Miranda is a classical violinist completing her final year of study at the Conservatorium of Music. 

I initially studied a Bachelor of Arts/Science. I've always loved a lot of different things. I've found that all my interests were able to combine really well in music because I play at a range of events and I find that the musicians I play with are also really diverse in their interests. I think it was the people and the community that drew me back because I knew that I could find like-minded people in classical music. I think it also got to the point where I was spending more time practising my violin then I was studying my science degree and as much as I do love science I figured that it was probably time to go. 

Covid-19 has definitely been really tough and I think it's especially tough seeing that the effect has reverberated throughout not just the young musicians but also the older, more experienced classical musicians who I've always kind of included as my idols. Watching them struggle to work through this has been very tricky. 

But I think I've felt really strangely prepared because I knew that even at the best of times the music industry can be tricky to sort out regular income in. I took the step a few years ago of starting to develop a bit of a portfolio career. I get my income from all things related to music which I feel really blessed to be able to do. But it's a range of activities so I do perform and I play gigs and I teach and I make violins and I write about music.

I’m also a part of Ensemble Apex which is a group that I really believe in. It's a really great ensemble led by Sam Weller. We've had a lot of knockbacks the past couple years but we've recently leaps and bounds in becoming an established new ensemble in the Australian classical music scene. 

Classical music, I think, teaches a whole lot of skills that go beyond music. From studying classical music I've learnt a lot about how I learn, I've learnt about diligence and work ethic. Because it's such an aspirational art, there's really no end to it, there's not a point where you say 'ok, I'm done, I'm as good as I can be'. It really does keep just going. For some people probably that would be really confronting and I can understand that. For me that's always been really inspiring, I'll never be done. It's taught me diligence and work ethic but also perseverance because it does get really tough sometimes and there's a lot of very serious and very committed musicians out there and you can feel lost in the crowd. But I think I've learnt to power through. 

My favourite thing about being a musician is the other people involved in the community. Not just the musicians but also the audience and people who love music. It just really brings together a fabulous community in a way that I've probably not experienced in many other fields. I think it's always been about the people for me and making music with people who you really get along with and really inspire you is just a really special thing. 

Follow Miranda on Instagram @mirandailchefmusic 

Ensemble Apex - https://www.facebook.com/EnsembleApex