Lily Smith reflects on her Hatching Residency at Talking Birds

Being provided with time, space, and money to do something you love has the ability to change your life. As a freelancer, finding even one of these can prove a mission, and we rarely get the freedom to indulge in our creation without a healthy balance between the three. 

I have played guitar for 8 years, but I’ve never made a song. I began performing with different singers around Coventry, working on their songs, composing for talented artists, yet I struggled whenever I sat down with myself. 

I set out to dedicate some time to build in my own creative practice by exploring how a range of different queer poets and song-writers structure their work. I wanted to explore queer artists’ expression on queer trauma so I better resonate with their experiences, being queer myself. My intention was to incorporate my poems, theirs, and my guitar.

My shoulders relaxed as I entered Space Odyssey (my designated studio) as I felt a sigh of relief to take some respite from the chaos of my life of running around from one project to another. 

I started with a collection of works from Sappho, Frida Kahlo and Oscar Wilde. And although they don’t write with a typical song-writing cadence, I wanted to use their ideas and written experiences to formulate musical ideas. Throughout my Talking Birds month I invited several of my musical friends to visit me in the studio on this endeavour, some of which were song-writers, sound engineers, artists, performers, or mentors. 

My first day was met with promise and a lot of planning. I planned out my upcoming 10 days and hung it on the wall, which for me is impressive, because prioritising organisation isn’t my strong suit. One of my first visitors, Charlie Tophill ( Bar Pandora) taught me her songwriting style. She also offered me valuable DAW techniques which helped me improve on my Logic skills (they were pretty much nil). Charlie told me her song-writing style typically started with creating melodies, finding what sounds good, then building lyrics on top. I was also joined by Dez who offered advice from the parallel point of view, where he takes poems and lyrics from other people, and translates them into music. After telling Dez about myself not being a great lyric writer or successfully putting my poems on songs he asked me “Lily, I know this sounds silly, but, have you actually tried to put one of your poems over your songs?” Logically, yes, but actually, no… no, Dez I had not. So, then I guess my first task was doing just that. 

This took me 5 days. Which were spent albeit fruitfully, but not condensed with my initial intent. In these 5 days I developed a particular guitar fingerpicking style which defines the sound I play with now. It wasn’t until I sat down with other song-writers that I understood how to approach writing a song.

On day 5 I was joined by Serena Jasmine, a beautiful soul r&b singer from Rugby who sat with me and spent some hours in teaching me how to harmonise. Serena doesn’t necessarily identify as a guitarist, but I watched her play beautifully and I had no idea what she was playing, so I asked her what chords/scales she was playing. She said “Lily I don’t know, I just follow vibes. I press what sounds good and go with it.” And from that, I let go of trying to quantify what I was playing, and now, I too, follow vibes. We worked on a few lyrical ideas which we embedded in a track we made, focussing on the theme of “letting go”. 

Day 6 saw Joe Boss sit with me in the studio, he came through to look at my set up and help me configure my microphones, sound wall, and offered me advice on Logic. He told me one way his band, Caroline Bomb, song-write is by jamming together, focussing on a word, then building the lyrics around the sounds of the words. 

My other friends Joe Beesley and Ross Walter helped me determine why the hell my recorded guitar sound was so muffled, I wasn’t pointing the mic to the 12th fret, and my mic was too far away – so I’ll remember that for next time.

It was with the help from all my friends that I created a Spanish guitar based song – which is more of a sound-scape. Although out of time and rough around the edges, still a song. So, there.

This residency, above everything else, gave me the confidence to show others what I create. And for sure I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, well, this residency and the collaborative working made me realise that that doesn’t really matter. I kind-of forced myself to share, and in doing so, I found others confiding their creative processes in me. It was a whole thing.

There is not much room in my life where I spend much time alone, but Talking Bird’s space allowed me to know myself a little better. 

Since doing this residency, I have collaboratively composed 6 songs, some with lyrics, joined a band called Reign with an incredible singer and multi-instrumentalist, we have began work on our performing debut, and I’ve been asked to compose guitar for 3 albums for 3 pioneering Coventry artists. I owe these movements to the residency, and how it transcended my mindset about how I view myself. And for me, the difference between “hobby–ist” and “artist” a lot of the time is doubt.

I expected myself to come out of this residency with a few lyrics based tunes, but over the remaining 10 days, I came to realise I’m not a lyric writer, I’m a guitarist – at least for now in this life, and that’s ok. I created 2 songs, acoustic – folk, and spanish guitar based, that my musical friends will take, build their own lyrics on, and do with what they wish. 

So my journey wasn’t a successful story in output in that I successfully achieved my block in lyric writing, but it was a success in confidence, validation, creativity, and community. 

Lil x