Name and Year: Sarah Lindstedt, C’15
Hometown: Palos Verdes Estates, CA
Major: English
Website: www.sarahlindstedt.com
Street: How did you first get into music?
Sarah Lindstedt: I grew up in a family where music was a high priority. From attending symphonies with my grandma to writing personalized birthday songs for family members, I’ve always been surrounded by music. I started writing poetry and playing music at an early age and went through a handful of instruments (piano, cello, clarinet) before I picked up the guitar when I was in middle school. It was actually pretty silly; I came home from school one day, and my mom had a guitar for me in the trunk of the car. I hadn’t exactly asked for one, but she and my uncle (who is a music teacher) thought it would be something I’d enjoy. I went online to look up the tabs to some basic chords and learned my first chord progression. Earlier that day, I had written a poem about a friend of mine who had been recently making me really upset, and with this guitar and newly learned chord progression, I thought it might be a fun experiment if I tried to put the poem to a melody that went with the chords. And that was it! I fell in love with songwriting that day, and it has been a passion of mine ever since. The song that I wrote that day was absolutely terrible and incredibly embarrassing, but hey, you have to start somewhere.
Street: How would you classify your genre?
SL: I would say that my “genre” is singer/songwriter acoustic–pop.
Street: Who are your favorite musical artists?
SL: I seriously have so many favorites! But I’ll try and narrow it down to my top ten (in no particular order): Brett Dennen, Fiona Apple, The Weepies, Kimbra, Mumford & Sons, Bon Iver, The Proclaimers, Ed Sheeran, Ingrid Michaelson and Walk the Moon. I do think that one of the best performances I’ve ever witnessed was Sondre Lerche on his headlining tour last year. I went to his concert with my mom and we were honestly blown away! I’m always on the prowl for new music, so this list changes constantly.
Street: How do you think musical artists can utilize technology?
SL: I think this is a really unique time for musicians and for the music industry as a whole. We have this incredible technological platform for music to push creative boundaries and to be shared with the masses. My loop pedal has enabled me to build a “back–up band” of sorts while I’m performing by myself, and it has also challenged me to come up with cool arrangements for fun cover songs as well as for my own original music. YouTube is also an amazing outlet for musicians to get their material up online and available for the world to see. I started posting videos on YouTube about two years ago, and this summer I’m planning on updating the page to add some of my new material that I have yet to put online. So be on the lookout!
Street: Where do you find the inspiration for writing your music?
SL: I’m definitely inspired by the things that happen in my own life. For me, songwriting is a rather therapeutic process, so I’ve always found solace in putting any emotion that I’m feeling in a song. I’m also really inspired by other creative endeavors. I took a poetry class last semester, and some of the poets’ methods for producing their poems inspired me to try creative ways to write music. For instance, last semester I wrote a song by rearranging all of the words in a letter my grandma had written me for my birthday last year.
Street: How do you go about writing and composing a song? Walk us through the process.
SL: First and foremost, I need the melody. I can’t start writing a song unless I have a little diddy in my head to start with. And these little tunes honestly come to me really randomly… sometimes something will pop in my head while I’m in class, and in order for me to remember it, I’ll sketch out the pitches in my notebook and repeatedly play it in my head until class is over, and I whip out my phone to record a quick voice memo of it. My phone is filled with ten–second clips of me humming seemingly nonsensical tunes, occasionally adding words to them. So when I’m back in my room, I’ll whip out my guitar and start playing around with the melody and with words that fit whatever mood I’m in or whatever kind of story I want to tell with this song–to–be. The words usually come pretty easily; I’ve always had a knack for rhyme, and when I’m really invested in the emotion that I’m putting into the song, the lyrics really flow. And my lyrics are typically pretty direct—when it comes to the content of my songs, I don’t beat around the bush.
Street: When you’re on the stage, you feel…
SL: Terrified right before I go on, but as soon as I start playing, I feel really charged with energy. I have so much fun performing, and I have to attribute that to my amazing friends and family who have been and always are the most amazing support system I could ask for. When you have an amazing crowd to play for, it makes performing that much more exciting and invigorating.
Street: Where do you see yourself heading in the future?
SL: If I could wave my magic wand and have my dream career, I would love to be a songwriter. Don’t get me wrong, if the stars aligned and the opportunity for a successful solo career presented itself for me, I would be all over that, too. But my true passion for music comes from creating the music itself, and if I could do that for a living, I would be the happiest person on earth.
