The Next Alicia Keys?

So when you're a girl who happens to play piano and sing at the same time, there are a few questions that people often ask.

"Is it hard to concentrate on playing and singing at the same time?"

"How old were you when you started playing piano?"

All reasonable questions. Here's the one I have the greatest love/hate relationship with:

"Are you the next Alicia Keys?"

Let me get one thing straight. There were many people who sang and played piano long before Alicia Keys came around. Did everyone forget Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Billy Joel, Elton John, and at least 100 other people?

Don't get me wrong, I adore Alicia, and actually went to see her live during her "Diary" tour at Radio City She is a fantastic woman - she's beautiful, talented, and compassionate, (Click here to read Alicia's Blog and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about). There's no doubt that she's been a huge influence in my music, and that she's one of the best talents in the mainstream music industry right now. Aside from being a classically-trained pianist, Alicia Keys has an undeniable raw talent and keen sense of style that sets her apart from a lot of other artists. The reason why I am grateful to her, however, is that she made playing piano look like the coolest thing someone can do. When Alicia Keys hit the charts, everyone admired her for her talent. If a beautiful girl from Harlem could be a classically-trained pianist and still be hip at the same time, then who could say that all pianists are stuffy nerds with wire-framed glasses? I'm not sure how old I was at the time when Alicia Keys hit it big, but I do remember that all of sudden I was proud to say that I played piano. And I wished I had practiced a little more Beethoven...

Sometimes the biggest challenge for me as an artist is trying to be distinguishable from other artists in my genre, while still trying to associate myself with these artists so that people have a clue as to what I sound like. Chances are, if you like Alicia Keys I'm probably girl. Even though my style is not as blatantly R&B, there are a lot of musical qualities that we share. I could say the same for Norah Jones. I've been listening to so much Norah Jones over the past three years, that I'd be lying if I tried to tell you that she didn't impact my music. So maybe that's it: maybe my sound is a happy medium between the classic/urban R&B sound of Alicia Keys and the more mellow, soft jazz/pop quality of Norah Jones. I am perfectly fine with this description. But you know what? Maybe it doesn't matter so much.

I am not the next Alicia Keys. Or the next Norah Jones. And although being known by any one of these titles would probably make me feel flattered, I would still have to say that neither one is accurate. I am the next me - the only me, and my music consists of three things: my thoughts, my voice, and my experiences. And from the bottom of my heart, I thank all of you for listening.

Yours truly,
Leila

Monday: Song Stories

 Although it's past midnight and technically Tuesday, it's pretty much still Monday to me. I've been up since seven in the morning, which probably seems like a treat to some of you sleep-deprived workers/students out there. Getting to sleep until 7AM used to be a dream come true, yet now I found myself groaning every time my alarm clock sings to me, whether or it's 7 in the morning or 12 o'clock noon.

Almost exactly two weeks ago, I wrote a song called "Monday." Yes, this song was actually written on a Monday, and it is actually about Mondays (how mysterious). That day, I sat down at the piano with the intention of writing a song, though I didn't know what it would be about. I wasn't directly inspired by anything, and I was completely distracted by the entire mess that had been my day so far. Then I realized that all my distractions and lack of inspiration had just inspired my song topic.

Let's think of everything that Monday means to most people: work, getting up early, stress, the start of a new week, the end of the weekend (i.e. back to reality), and let's face it: leaving the people you love to go do whatever you have to do to pay the bills. Whether that means going to your job or classes, it all pretty much ends up being about the same thing in the end: money. If you're lucky, you love what you do and actually enjoy going to work every day. Regardless, for a lot of us (even musicians, believe it or not) there is a bit more to life than work, and it is these simple life pleasures outside of our careers that keep us going. There is a reason why we look forward to Friday, and it isn't just that the simple fact that the work week is over. For some of us, it is that there is someone we're waiting to see who we've been missing all week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xkBq-4OQ84

Introduction: Inspiration, Ideas, and Experiences

I think the question of the day is, why would someone who writes songs also need to have a blog? Considering that I'm always working on a song of some kind, you'd think that I wouldn't need to express myself any further.

Let's think about this. In life, do we ever really get to say everything that we want to say? Usually not. There's always just a little more to say than what has already been said. What I'm starting to understand more than ever is that a song is only a 3-minute representation of the actual life events that surround it. So from an outside point of view, I'm forced to leave out a lot of details. This seems unfortunate in a lot of ways, but I'll tell you why it's not. It is often these unsaid details that make a song beautiful. Just because you didn't hear me mention what I ate for breakfast that day, or that annoying thing my ex used to do, doesn't mean that I didn't express these things in some way. Context is everything, and this makes writing very subliminal. So does performance. If you wonder why I pound my fingers down on the keyboard during that chorus, or why I always look like I'm dreaming when I sing that verse, it's because of the context. You might not know why I'm singing the words that I'm singing, but I do. And if you asked me to, I could look back and describe to you in detail all of the 7 million things that were going on in my life at the time when I wrote that song. 

I suppose now would be the time to introduce myself. My name is Leila, and Eric Clapton spelled my name wrong. I guess he's awesome for writing a song with my name in it to begin with - I mean, L-A-Y-L-A would be the most obvious spelling. But hey, I like to think my way is better.

Like Sir Eric, I write music. I think it's safe to assume that you've realized this by now, but there's no harm in stating the obvious. I've been writing music since I was eleven. Technically I used to make up songs in the shower when I was in elementary school, but I suppose those don't count since I never actually wrote them down. All of those little songs were about ridiculous things like Elmer's glue and Crayola crayons - I guess as a child I would either be considered weird or cute, depending on your standards. 

Despite all the songwriting speeches I've been giving you, I really started out as a singer. Singing was probably my first love, and I still love it more than anything. A lot of singer/songwriters don't put a lot of stock in the "singing" part of their title, but this is one of the most important parts of my music. I take the singing part just as seriously as the writing part, because as I briefly mentioned before, performance has a lot to do with the way a song is perceived. That being said, I write my songs to suit my voice. This could  be a slight problem if I ever have to write for another artist, but I'm not sure I would ever want to do that.  If context is everything, I probably couldn't handle giving my song to another singer that didn't live through the specific experiences that I did while I was writing the song. This may seem amateur, but I suppose there's a little bit of childish pride in all of us. At this point in my life, I'm just not ready to let go.

The piano was my second love. Don't get me wrong - I didn't treat it very well, and I neglected it pretty often in many ways. I rarely ever practiced in the traditional sense of practicing, and this is probably why I don't sight-read or do any of those things that crazy pianists do. As soon as I figured out that I could use the piano to accompany my singing, I began to write songs. And that was pretty much it for me. Of course I was still playing piano all the time, but let's just say that scales and Bach inventions unfortunately took a backseat after that.

For now, that's all you really need to know about me. I'll try not to pour my heart out too quickly, and I'll try even harder not to give away all the background of every song I write. My only hope is that you can reflect on your own experiences as you listen. 

With love from a humble singer/songwriter,

Leila