Joanna Newsom
Joanna Newsom
Joanna Caroline Newsom is an American harpist, pianist, vocalist, lyricist and actress...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth18 January 1982
CountryUnited States of America
american-musician felt songs urge
Well, yeah, I wanted to resist the urge to thicken everything up with instrumentation, because I just felt like I was interested in seeing how the songs did on their own.
song voice i-can
I can understand someone not liking the voice or the songs.
song play keys
I can't play my songs on the smaller harp. I have a Celtic harp. I can't do the key changes.
song writing years
I have writing songs on my own for about six years.
song writing thinking
I wanted to write songs which I think is a different thing. I wanted to write music that is informed by folk music. The chord progressions are obvious references.
song simple thinking
I recorded harp first or singing first. I recorded it all together. Part of the reason is that I don't know how to play the songs without also singing. I forget how they progress. I don't think that any of them are verse, chorus, verse, and so on. They are not simple.
song lines rhyming
I have a lot of interest in interior rhyming; not just rhyming at the end of the lines, but playing around with rhymes within the lines, playing with where the syllabic emphases in the sentences are, lining those up at strange moments in the line of the song. I'm not sure if that comes across or not.
song ideas voice
My voice in combination with the harp - which, by the way, I use because I've played it my entire life, not to make some statement about the harp - somehow has ... coloured people's interpretations of the music and projected an idea of childlike or fairytale quality or innocence. Which sometimes prevents people from listening to the songs the way I would like them to be listened to.
song
I have a recording that I did of instrumental songs.
song writing thinking
I have a voice that's obviously untrained - and I think untrainable - so I kind of secreted it away for a long time. Actually, I would write songs with lyrics when I was younger, but I would just sing in my head.
cross deterrent expensive huge record tour
I would like to be on a record label, because it is very expensive to tour with a harp. It's a huge deterrent for me to go cross country.
american-musician bring music playing sound trying ways work
I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it.
american-musician good influenced invalid pleased sounds strokes valid
It's valid that the Strokes and the Pleased have been influenced by some of the same bands. But it's invalid in the sense that we listen to the Strokes and try to sounds like them. I think that they are a good band.
people totally
It's totally different. I usually don't tell people about the Pleased if they know me from the harp. And if they are there to see the Pleased, I usually don't tell them about the harp. I am nervous that these people will expect something similar.