The band VON BORA is a brother and sister songwriting team; and Jesse and Karina have a long history of writing great songs together in both English and Spanish. You may even have heard their music on multiple movies and TV shows. So lean back and enjoy the deep conversation of a family writing team that works hard, believes in the power of music and is deeply committed to the songwriting process. Songs: "Fantasma" and "Vagabond".
Discover more music on Von Bora's Website Discover more of Von Bora's music on Apple Music Discover more of Von Bora's music on Soundcloud
Visit www.livingcrazybrave.com for more information
The band VON BORA is a brother and sister songwriting team; and Jesse and Karina have a long history of writing great songs together in both English and Spanish. You may even have heard their music on multiple movies and TV shows. So lean back and enjoy the deep conversation of a family writing team that works hard, believes in the power of music and is deeply committed to the songwriting process. Songs: "Fantasma" and "Vagabond".
Discover more music on Von Bora's Website Discover more of Von Bora's music on Apple Music Discover more of Von Bora's music on Soundcloud
Visit www.livingcrazybrave.com for more information
You are listening to the crazy brave songwriter podcast. This is a podcast about the magic of making music. One song at a time. My name is Lisa GUI. I'm happy to be your host for today. I'm so happy to bring to you the dynamic songwriting duo a VOR. In this episode, they share their stories on success and their experiences in the songwriting process. As a brother and sister songwriting team, they have a long history of writing songs together in both English and Spanish, their songwriting, versatility and tenacity has garnished success with multiple placements on movies and television. The two songs we'll be listening to today are F and vaon so lean back and enjoy the deep conversation of a family writing team that works hard believes in the power of music and is deeply committed to the songwriting process.
Speaker 2:
Check one, two, check one, two testing testing.
Speaker 3:
The moment we started really getting serious was when my dad became a pastor and we were filling in a lot of shoes filling a lot of need. And, uh, I think we got a little, not say bored, but let let's say motivated to be a little more artistic with the music we were doing every week, you know, week after week service after service. And so we started putting in our own blend to that music and then eventually led to writing our own lyrics, you know, from creating our own arrangements. Let's say of just common EV you know, Sunday morning music.
Speaker 4:
That's exactly what I was gonna say. The, um, doing our own twist to well known songs was the prelude to us actually starting to write our own music. I think one of the funnier stories related to music and it set Jesse on the course that you are in now, we call it the native American drums. Boom, boom,
Speaker 3:
Boom. Oh yeah. Boom, Boom, boom. A little bit on that story. We, a friend of ours was getting married mm-hmm<affirmative> and, uh, asked us to perform at her wedding mm-hmm<affirmative> and I don't sing. I'm not a singer. I mean, everyone sings. I just don't sing well<laugh> but I, I, I have a good enough year to know that I don't sing well. So, uh, you know, usually my contribution is usually in the music, right? So anyway, my sister was gonna sing play guitar. We decided to bring in some, some, um, uh, percussions. So it was just the floor, Tom, when we rehearsed it and it sounded great. And now what was the song?
Speaker 4:
Ingrid Michaelson, Ingrid
Speaker 3:
Michaelson,
Speaker 4:
And, uh, love
Speaker 3:
That song.
Speaker 4:
You call me baby or something like that. So
Speaker 3:
Decided to just kinda do some rim shots and hit the, the floor Tom to, to add percussions. Boom, my sister played guitar in saying, and it sounded amazing. We rehearsed it. Yeah. We had some, the room we were rehearsed it and some, I think it great reverb.
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
When we performed it at the ceremony<laugh>
Speaker 4:
In this high ceiling,
Speaker 3:
Completely different in
Speaker 4:
It, their chapel. Yeah. The acoustics were so different from when
Speaker 3:
We were rehearsing. It sound, it sounded like a native American drum circle
Speaker 4:
Drum.
Speaker 3:
And I, and I heard it as soon as started playing, but at that point it was just too late. I was
Speaker 4:
Hitting something different. What can you do? Stop playing? No, cuz that what we were like literally in the middle of the ceremony,
Speaker 3:
But the, the funny part is there was a, a beautiful gal in the back, like what the heck is going on here? And she is now my wife
Speaker 4:
FMA started off as a way of retelling a story, filling in the blanks is what I was say. And so it's actually based off of a, a biblical story. And there's, there's a scene where disciples are in the boat and there's a storm. And then, you know, they're freaking out and they see this image coming through the water. They think it's a ghost. Peter is walking on the water, but before he sees Jesus again, there's this storm, the, the disciples art and the boat, they, and they already lived a life with Jesus. So they were very well aware of the things that could happen, um, while you know, being followers of Jesus. But they found themselves in a storm. They see him walking on the waters and they're scared, but then they, when they realize it's, it's him, Peter gets out of the boat and actually walks on the water firmly towards Jesus. But then the Bible story says that he, um, became discouraged because he saw the waves.
Speaker 3:
It's a test of your faith. And it's a challenge to step out in faith, step out into the unknown, right? And even, even, even if after it was proven to, to Peter in the disciples of the miracles that that Jesus has, uh, performed. When you're walking in the middle of a storm, it's easy to lose foot and start drowning.
Speaker 4:
There's so many areas of my life where I'm thinking, you should know this. I always tell myself, you are a grown woman. You should know this. Like this should not be that hard for you. But I find myself kind of like I'm missing the basics. Sometimes
Speaker 3:
My sister takes care of most of the lyrics and I review and comment and vice versa with the music part,
Speaker 4:
Take an ax to it.
Speaker 3:
Correct. But
Speaker 4:
Line it on fire.
Speaker 3:
I have heard songs that connect with the thing I wanted, that I was feeling more than speech. I, I can relate that to that sound a sound sound. If it's a court progression or if it's a, a melody, right. Or even the way they're singing it,
Speaker 4:
We have this ongoing dialogue with other writers. They don't know. They don't know that because we'll hear their song. It speaks to us it, they said something to us and then we're responding back out with something else.
Speaker 3:
But I think as, as far as lately organically, we've like are working on one song and come with these different lyric ideas and or melody or different melody ideas where I'm like, this is great, but this is completely different song. And we start out of one song split into like four other songs. Sometimes as far as the approach to who brings the rhythm, the lyrics, the melody harmonies, it's, uh, um, Karina handles most of the lyrics. Mm-hmm,<affirmative>
Speaker 5:
Take your head.
Speaker 3:
And, um, you know, and I'll give my, my review on that or, or my 2 cents. And then I usually will take care of more the, the arrangement, the music part, uh, then deciding instrumentation, deciding where, what rhythm it should have. And a lot of time it's very experimental. So outside of getting together once a week to music, right, you know, I'll work on things throughout the week to later present, uh, to Karina.
Speaker 4:
Um, when I first started writing, uh, and other songwriters might relate to this, uh, was very protective of my babies. The songs were my babies and how dare you call it ugly? How dare you call it lopsided? How dare you say it's too hefty or too thin or not enough. I would always get my guitar and use it as a way to put my kids to sleep years ago, I would hear about certain songwriters that quote unquote wrote a new song every day. And I'm thinking, how could they, that's impossible. But I'm seeing that it's very possible when you just get in this flow and just give yourself this permission to write. I think that we've, we've hit a little closer to that. We're not doing a song a day, not even a song a week.<laugh> right. But we're closer to just being free to write. I had been working with at risk youth. And, um, if anyone's ever worked with any at risk populations, domestic violence victims, child abuse, uh, teenagers, homeless, things like that, there's this balance, um, of wanting to be helpful and then wanting to do everything for them. People who need to be able to have that drive within them to change their own situations. And I remember I was working with a particular young person and who was really struggling and kind of like on the wagon, off the wagon, on the wagon. And I didn't wanna be someone that was an annoyance to him. I really wanted Tim to see me as I'm here. If you need my help. I said, when you disappear on me, you, I have your permission to go hunt you down. And he said, yeah, sorry. I don't know why I'm getting emotional. Just think about it. But I remember asking him, do I have your permission to find you? Because I was really concerned for him. And he gave me that permission and I that's, I had that in my head. And I don't know what drew me to ask him that question, you know, can I find you, can I search for you? And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1:
Now for your listening pleasure, the song VA played in its entire.
Speaker 6:
Um, for me, seek me out in the alleys where I hide. Would you recognize me? Adored in fear ring was mama mistake, and you it's taken so long to find some gray sign a to my whole of life.
Speaker 5:
The,
Speaker 6:
My heart.
Speaker 1:
This is Lisa again. And I wanna take this moment to applaud the team at love and laughter music, group.com, a safe and knowledgeable spot for musicians who wish to learn more about writing songs and recording great music. This episode is a product of living crazy, brave.com. Another hub where musicians can cultivate new awareness about what it takes to honor the sacred art of making honest music. Let me leave you with this work hard at your music, and don't let up, despite the distractions and pockets of time that slow you down as Leonard Cohen says, it takes a great deal of time to find out what a song is. In other words, be steady, slow down, take your time and stay committed to the practice.