Christen Gniadek is a second year student at Berklee College of Music and is studying music performance for the guitar. Christen's music is a blend of folk and indie music based on minimalism and simplicity. She and her guitar comprise the instrumentation for the majority of her songs although sometimes she incorporates piano sometimes as well. In order to interview Christen our team met at Au Bon Pain on Mass. Ave where we met her sitting in a booth with her guitar in hand. After the initial greeting we went on to interview her as she prefaced herself and her music. She spoke about her process when composing and writing music as well as her influences and interests. While having no set writing techniques, Christen often will write a catchy melody or a harmonic progression and a song will manifest from a single element. Christen also prides herself in making music that people can identify with emotionally and understand musically. In one sense her music can be described as easy-listening because the melodies and the harmonies are simple yet effective; it is as though the guitar chords carry the melody and dictate the direction of the music. In one sense the guitar represents the feminine aspects and the melody represents the masculine; both dependent on one another and existing within each other as a whole.

When Christen performed her song for us at the cafe it sounded as if it became the atmosphere around us and it really relaxed the environment of the entire establishment. Structurally, it is very simple and the melody is based on two main motives; one in the verses and one in the chorus, both characterized by intervallic and rhythmic cues (motifs such as the dotted-quarter followed by an eighth note) which are developed within their respective sections in order to expand the melodies. In addition to these cues there are repeated sections of lyrics or refrains that establish each section from one another, such as "…before I lost my sight." and the "doo doo doo". Overall, Christen writes her music with a reestablished song structure in mind, and generally her songs consist of simple verse-chorus form with a bridge or sometimes a verse-prechorus-chorus form with a compound bridge that overlays two sections of the song. In this way Christen can ensure that her songs will always come full circle and leave the listener with a comfortable conclusion.

This indie-folk music is entirely acoustic driven with the idea that purity and perfection can only be obtained acoustically or organically. Following this train of thought, it is extremely important for musicians of this genre of music to be able to clearly discern the timbre of each voice or instrument because much of the beauty to be experienced lies within the raspy whispering vocals and the timbre of the arpeggio lullaby. In this way, the sonority and the delivery and all the slight imperfections together create a truly moving sound.

In her song “Awake”, Christa Gniadek uses techniques that are very commonly found in her style of music, which is exactly why it works so well. It is in the key of Bb, and starts out in the tonic. The verses follow a basic pattern of IIViiV. The progression with the minor ii leading to the dominant makes the verse sound very resolved every time, but also leaves room for the piece to move forward, whether she repeats the verse or moves to the chorus. The verse has a very different progression from the chorus, so these two main parts of the song do sound separate from one another.

The chorus is very simple, but has tension and variation in the right places. It follows a IVIviIVIviIVIIVI pattern. By placing the minor vi between the tonic and sub-dominant, Christa keeps the song moving forward. Although the tonic is introduced a few times before the song actually ends, the placing of the minor vi creates the appropriate amount of tension to keep things interesting and present some unfamiliarity. To relieve this tension, the subdominant IV chord is introduced immediately after to provide some sense of familiarity. However, although the IV does feel familiar, it isn’t quite as familiar as the dominant would be, so the song is propelled forward still. Ultimately, the song begins and ends on the tonic, so it sounds very resolved and feels finished when the song is over. There are never any complex or altered chords in this song, which adds to its simplicity and its beauty.

The only time in the song that Christa uses the dominant V chord is in the verse, so there is no real significant point of tension, which definitely fits into the feel of her genre. Singer-songwriter music is known for being very mellow and easy to listen to, and her music definitely fits into that category. Also, the three chords that she uses the most throughout the song: I, IV, and vi, all share common chord tones. The I and vi share D and Bb, where the vi and IV share Bb and A. This is another example of the pure simplicity of this song. There are only very subtle changes throughout this entire song, and these changes are only between one or two different notes. The verse does provide more variation than the chorus, which helps distinguish one section from the other. Also, during the chorus, almost all of the chords she plays are held for two measures, instead of the usual one. This technique further adds to the singer-songwriter sound; a very lazy and almost sleepy sound. It makes it easy to listen to, and also easy to enjoy.

Joe: How would you describe your music?

Christa: My music is stripped down. All my recordings are acoustic so I focus a lot on…It’s really lyrical and melodic and I would say, definitely indie. It has an indie, folk, singer/songwriter feel to it.

J: Who would you say your main target audience is?

C: It’s interesting. I see a wide range of people of ages at my shows. I have statistics on my Facebook page and the majority percentage of my fans is 18-24 year-old girls, but the guys in 18-24 are there too. Then you have random other ages here and there. There was a Dad at one of my shows that lives in Wisconsin. His daughter e-mailed me and was lie, “My dad showed me your music. All my friends love it!” I’ll just say 18-24 college girls. I’m a college girl. I feel like I write from my own perspective, they relate to it and they kind of spreads out by itself.

J: What music do you find inspiring?

C: If I’m listening just for my own thing, I listen to everthing. I think everything influences me no matter what musically. The more I like something, the more it seems to find its way into my songs.

J: Examples

C: I listen to Ingrid Michaelson. When I was a freshman in college, I listened to Bon Iver a lot. I listen to Iron & Wine…I love focusing on guitar harmonies and finger pickings are a big thing for me. I don’t really own a lot of music; I put on Pandora a lot, I listen to a Bon Iver station and Sufjan Stevens. Oh yeah, and Debussi.

J: When you’re writing your songs, do you use other songs as templates?

C: Not really. Say that I’m listening to Bon Iver ad it’s a down tempo, raw, depressing stuff. If that really hits me at the time, I’ll be more inclined to write a down tempo, depressing song. It’s more of a feeling of a song than the structure or words. A lot of my songs start with a feeling.

J: How do you begin writing your songs? How do you come up with them?

C: It kind of starts with one element. I focus of three parts: the melody, the words and the harmony. If I’m playing guitar, some chords and I’m like, “I really like that progression,” then I’ll add a melody to it, the I’ll add words. Sometimes I come up with lyrics and I’m like, “Oh, I really like that line,” then I’ll add a melody to it then I add chords. Sometimes I come up with a melody just humming and I’m like, “Oh, wow, that’s really catchy,” so I’ll put words then guitar. Once one of them comes into play that I really like, then I totally run with it.

J: So the other two just follow through.

C: Yeah, follow through. Once I like one of the three, then I’ll be all in on making it happen.

J: In terms of the guitar that you play, why do you play the Takamine?

C: When I was sixteen, I decided I wanted to teach myself guitar, so I told my Dad that and he’s the dad that goes on the computer and researches, “Best Guitar”. So he found, it wasn’t this one (points to guitar), it was the Jasmine by Takamine and it was a good starter guitar. My hands felt comfortable with the Takamine because it was my first guitar he ever bought. (Reaching for guitar) This neck is similar to the Jasmine. The whole guitar is like the Jasmine, just a totally better model. So when I played this one in the store, when I was getting a better guitar, this one felt the best because the neck was exactly the same. It was just an accident. This is a great guitar. I actually bought it used and it had this big chip down here (points to body) and it seemed like it was 20 years old. It sounded awesome. The pickup didn’t work. I was playing a show and the pickup just stopped working. I had to stop playing; it was a huge mess. So I went back and was like, “Can you fix this? My guitar doesn’t work when I play live,” and they said it was totally broken. They just gave me a new one, and I got this guitar more than half off. Used it was $600 and retail it was $1300 or something. I got lucky, but I was really heartbroken because I liked the used one a lot. I’m breaking this one in, so it’s okay.

J: Do you ever employ accompaniment or do you play with other people sometimes?

C: Yeah, I play with this one guy; his name is Colin Fleming. He goes to BU; he does hand drums. I’ve played with him a couple times. I used to go to BU, so that’s how we met. On my record, I play piano, so I did a lot of piano accompaniment too. When I play live, I usually stay by myself. I added piano just because I play that and I can sort of play harmonica.

J: How do you determine the song form, the structure?

C: I feel like a lot of songwriters pick their favorite thing, favorite structure. For some reason, what comes naturally, what came out in the beginning, I just knew first chorus kind of thing, and bridge. That’s what I knew, so I would do two verses or one verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. And then I just kind of kept doing that because I kept getting comfortable with it. Some people do, pre-choruses seem to come really naturally, but that didn’t really happen. My stuff is just what ended up feeling really comfortable when I first started writing and I kind of stuck with it. For some reason, I love having bridges in my songs, like veering away harmonically and coming back. So in basically every song I have a bridge, just ‘cause I like them.

J: Do you use a lot of chromatic upper extensions?

C: Not so much. If I do, I don’t really know that I did that. It’s not really a conscious thing. I don’t have a lot of my stuff written out, so maybe in my voice, I would be hitting a ninth and making it that way, but not with chords.

J: So you generally don’t employ much chromaticism, it’s mostly diatonic?

C: Occasionally, I’ll do secondary dominants. I do a lot of modal stuff, in that I’ll be hanging on a chord then making it minor. It’s going between keys, modulating. I’m kind of like, everything goes. I initially started doing everything is separate parts, but lately I’ve been singing and playing guitar at the same time, so I’ll be singing a melody and put chords in where they fit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIuAtiVIA34

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPtnz9zoJlI