Songs from the Willow Tree: Staging Collective Inspiration for Creative Songwriting Aubrey W

East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Undergraduate Honors Theses Student Works 12-2016 Songs from the Willow Tree: Staging Collective Inspiration for Creative Songwriting Aubrey W. Carpenter East Tennessee State University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/honors Part of the Community-Based Research Commons, Music Performance Commons, Music Theory Commons, and the Other Music Commons Recommended Citation Carpenter, Aubrey W., "Songs from the Willow Tree: Staging Collective Inspiration for Creative Songwriting" (2016). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 365. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/365 This Honors Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Carpenter 1 Songs from the Willow Tree: Staging Collective Inspiration for Creative Songwriting Aubrey W. Carpenter East Tennessee State University November 15, 2016 Carpenter 2 INTRODUCTION Songs from the Willow Tree is a creative thesis that explores how inspiration can be sought and applied to the songwriting process. I produced creative works that centered on people’s shared experiences in life. My thesis does not serve as an academic commentary on human emotion or the psyche or make objective claims about the human experience. Rather, Songs from the Willow Tree presents a picture of people’s common experiences and ideas that were sampled in a specific social context. Although a creative thesis is not the most common form for an honors thesis, this thesis is nonetheless a product of an honors-supplemented undergraduate experience. Different courses gave me crucial pieces of understanding that shaped this project. An Artistic Experience course taught me to explore self and to recognize that personal experience is critical for understanding and creating art. It cemented my infatuation with and dedication to art and creativity. A course called Quest taught me that life and experience is complex. I learned what to question, how to question, and why to question. History courses showed me that often truth lies in a synthesis of differing perspectives. I again learned to question and learned to deny surface level understanding as sufficient. Anthropology and Women’s Studies reminded me that all people’s perspectives have value and taught me how to respectfully and intelligently explore them. And this list is not comprehensive. Each one of them grew me, showed me how to understand, how to desire understanding, and that expansion of my creative mind led to Songs of the Willow Tree. I am sure it will lead to much more. Carpenter 3 The concept for Songs from the Willow Tree was inspired by two primary sources. The first source was a project out of New York City called Humans of New York created by Brandon Stanton. The project began with Stanton’s desire to photograph 10,000 people. Stanton said in an interview with National Public Radio that he “struck upon this kind of crazy idea that [he] was going to go to New York and stop 10,000 people on the streets and take their portrait, and create kind of a photographic census of the city" (quoted in “In 10,000 Snaps..,” 2015). He began posting through a blog that immediately became popular and grew exponentially. Humans of New York is now a best-selling book with multiple iterations; it has a huge following on multiple social media platforms. Stanton recognizes that the project is one that has grown from its original form and intentions. He emphasizes that it has really become a means of storytelling. And the premise is simple. Stanton talks to people, mostly random strangers, and asks them questions or asks them about their story (Stanton). He often asks questions--simple questions--like the ones used in this project such as “What is the happiest moment of your life that you can remember?” or “What do you like most about your brother/sister?” He then posts and publishes the answers or stories that people give him with a picture. Photographs attach humanity to the words. The beauty is in people’s simple yet profound responses, and the depth and solidarity borne out of the project greatly inspired me. The non-academic take of a stranger on commonly known experiences, feelings, and relationships has the potential to yield beauty and power and community, and I wanted to try some version of that myself. Carpenter 4 While the second source did not explicitly end up being relevant to the final product, it was important in creating a base of inspiration for the project. This second source of inspiration is an allegorical series of paintings by Thomas Cole called The Voyage of Life. I first encountered the piece in 2014 in the National Gallery of Art. The series follows a pilgrim through vast landscapes representing four stages of life: childhood, youth, manhood, and old age. Each piece possesses shared, changing, and unique elements that speak to the substance of what it means to exist in those life stages. I found the pieces stunningly beautiful and the allegorical elements incredibly intriguing. I was so impressed that the memory of the series unintentionally worked its way to the forefront of my mind as the project first began develop a year and a half later. Perhaps some pieces of inspiration did linger in the sense that both The Voyage of Life and Songs from the Willow Tree sought to explore specific themes related to people’s common biographies. Another, more secondary source of inspiration was a gathering called “Carter Night.” This night was born out of the Artistic Experience course, a requirement in the University Honors Scholar curriculum. It consists of our class coming together and sharing art in a space of particular openness. These gatherings planted a seed in my mind that vulnerability in the expression of art can create an environment that encourages openness. To some degree, the collection of people’s experiences (which will be discussed shortly) hinged on this potential. Carpenter 5 IDEA COLLECTION PROCESS The collection of inspiration for the project combined a systematic and artistic approach. With the help of my thesis mentor, Dr. Martha Copp, I learned how to gather and analyze qualitative (text) data. The collection portion of this project included developing questions and deciding how and where people could answer them. In general, the questions that came to be used in this project were the same as or similar to the ones used by Brandon Stanton in the Humans of New York project. They were intended to focus on some of the highs and lows of human experience and are listed as follows with their abbreviated forms in parentheses: · What is the happiest moment of your life that you remember? (Happiest) · What is the saddest moment of your life that you remember? (Saddest) · If you could give everyone a piece of advice, what would it be? (Advice) · What is the biggest concern in your life right now? (Concern) · Who would you like/want to be when you grow up? All ages please answer! (Grow Up) These questions were largely chosen for their open-endedness and potential to access a broad range of experiences. A balance was struck in each question between encouraging thought and openness, while also being accessible and simple enough to answer in a few sentences. While the first three questions were easily decided upon, the latter two required more deliberation. The question regarding concern originally used the word “struggle” instead of “concern.” This seemed problematic because it assumed the individual was experiencing a struggle and suggested that they faced Carpenter 6 multiple struggles. The word was changed to “concern” in order to make it easily accessible and less leading. The final question originally appeared with the word “what” in place of the word “who.” A change was made in hopes of yielding a broader set of responses; rather than prompt people to identify career or occupational goals, I hoped they would share more abstract, personal developmental goals. In the preliminary stages of discussing the project, Dr. Copp suggested in passing the idea of an open mic session. We eventually decided that an open mic would be an ideal way to efficiently and effectively generate a shared experience for a group of people and then use that opportunity to have them voluntarily answer the questions I developed. I then printed the questions on a single sheet of thick paper on which people could anonymously write their answers. A major guiding factor in this was ensuring that potential respondents would feel comfortable enough to contribute to the project. We hoped to accomplish the establishment of a comfortable environment in several ways. First, The Willow Tree Coffeehouse in Johnson City, TN was chosen because it possesses what I perceived to be a generally relaxed and participative atmosphere. Secondly, having the questions printed helped to contribute a couple of things. (1) It allowed me to be removed from the delivery and uptake process which enforced the idea of anonymity for the participating individuals. (A friend gave out the sheets and pencils and pens, and then he also took them up and put them in a box.) (2) Because I did not have to hand out or take up forms, I was free to perform original pieces while the questions were answered. The hope was that this would facilitate the feeling of an exchange between me and the crowd--my openness encouraging their openness. Carpenter 7 Thirdly, an explanatory script was composed and placed at the top of the form to explain the project, request participation, and assure anonymity.

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