Carla Mya (aka Carla Wells) is a songwriter’s songwriter. She loves everything about the process of writing songs and uses the process as a form of improving general health, striving for career excellence and for personal enjoyment.
On this episode, Carla is very articulate about her internal writing process and shares the origin of how songs begin, how she develops ideas and the details of her decision making process. As Carla explains, she strives to be authentic in her writing and to tell a strong story.
After joining the Songwriting and Production Membership (SoPro) at Love and Laughter Music, the whole team jumped on board to support Carla's vision to create three songs.
Grab some tea, sit back and enjoy the conversation.
Carla Mya (aka Carla Wells) is a songwriter’s songwriter. She loves everything about the process of writing songs and uses the process as a form of improving general health, striving for career excellence and for personal enjoyment.
On this episode, Carla is very articulate about her internal writing process and shares the origin of how songs begin, how she develops ideas and the details of her decision making process. As Carla explains, she strives to be authentic in her writing and to tell a strong story.
After joining the Songwriting and Production Membership (SoPro) at Love and Laughter Music, the whole team jumped on board to support Carla's vision to create three songs.
Grab some tea, sit back and enjoy the conversation.
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 m I'm happy to be your host for today. Hi everybody. I'm so glad you had another opportunity to take a listen to the podcast. Today we are highlighting the music of Carlo Wells. She is a songwriter, songwriter and has been a friend and colleague for many years. I remember when she first came to the US from Australia and I've been a big fan and followed her music ever since. When I say she's a songwriter, songwriter, I mean she loves everything about the process of writing songs, admittedly better than performing. On this episode, Carla is very articulate about her internal songwriting process. She shares the origin of how songs begin for her, how they develop, and how she uses songwriting as a form of general health and therapy and enjoyment. Earlier this year, we sat down together and I put on my listening and consultation ears to provide some insight about her newest set of songs. After that, she joined our songwriting and production membership. We call it the So Pro for short. Our whole team of producers, songwriters, and musicians jumped on board to help make Carla's music shine. It was such a pleasure and it was so much fun to see the songs grow and expand as more instrumentation and production were added to her music. We didn't have to do too much to Carla's music because the bones and heart were already there. Today we're highlighting two songs, somebody's name and melt away. Sit back and enjoy the conversation.
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Check one, two, check one, two, testing, testing,
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Soften singing since I was a child and I always loved to perform, and when I was a teenager, my parents put me in formal singing lessons and I was in lots of different musicals and sang in cover bands. And when I was about 16, 17, I discovered songwriting. So then I was like, wow, this is amazing. I recorded my first EP when I was 17, and that was truly like life giving. It was like the thing I loved the most about singing, and I realized I love recording more than I like performing<laugh>. So I just really got into songwriting. At that point, I was using a guitar to write songs and I, I sort of knew how to play a guitar, but I learned more chords so that I could, you know, write more interesting songs melodically. And after that, I was all about songwriting. I used it as therapy. And um, you know, after every heartbreak I would write a song and it was like a truly healing process because then I'd come out with something really beautiful at the end and I was almost like looking forward to next heartbreak so that I could come up with a really cool song afterwards. Well, I initially ended up in America after doing music school in Venezuela. That was just something fun I did when I was in my twenties. And then when I moved here permanently was when I was married. The creative part of my life's being put on the back burner. While I've raised two little ones, which is the creative project in and of itself, I, I thought initially that I could continue like playing guitar and like the little kids could dance and like watch me play, but uh, like my el oldest would come over and like mess with the strings when I was trying to play guitar. So I was like, okay, this isn't gonna happen. I'm gonna like wait till they're a little bit older and now that they're in school I can actually like song write and focus on that and, and they're love my music. They're always asking to, to hear it. And you know, they're very gracious fans and<laugh> and now they're like, I wanna be a mom and a singer. Like that's what I wanna be when I grow up. So it's very cute. I realize that even though I no longer perform, um, and gig as much as I used to, that the songwriting aspect of it was still in me. When I met with you to like do some songwriting consultation, I just felt like such a safe space. Like this is where I need to be, this is the next step for me. And even if I don't go on to, you know, perform stadium concerts, like the songwriting aspect is what I keep coming back to. Yeah, most of the time when I'm like confused about a situation, I'm not exactly sure why I feel the way that I do. Um, the best therapy for me is to just start writing and sometimes I'll just like strum and sometimes I'll, a lyric will come to mind and I don't really know where it came from and I don't really know what it means, but then I'll start playing and then all these other lyrics come out. And the process is just so fun and transformative that sometimes if the end result isn't an amazing song, it doesn't really matter because the process itself is enjoyable and sometimes, uh, a really great song comes out and that's, you know, a bonus. Uh, so as I come up with different lyrics and process my feelings that way, and I finished the song, I'm like, oh wow, that's, that's what I was feeling. That's why<laugh>, I wasn't sure what it was, but that sort of helped me come to the conclusion that I needed to come to. And again, this is one of those things where like you can't really measure it scientifically and you can't, like, you're not gonna go to a doctor and say, I'm feeling anxious or depressed, and they're gonna say, oh, here's a script for a go, go write a song that'll make you feel better. And what I mean by it being transformative is that I go into another zone, I go like to an altered state of consciousness somewhat. And and that can be like, if you don't have like a set, uh, song structure in mind, you know, a discipline that you're starting out with that can get a little like psychedelic, right? You can come up with like just a bunch of Mars Volta songs and<laugh> that no one really gets. But for me, like I, I start off with like, okay, these are the chords I'm going to use. This is the sort of theme I'm going with. And then I'll allow myself to like get lost in my subconscious and see what comes out of that. And sometimes stuff comes out that I'm like, I've never experienced that before, even in a relationship, but I'm sure it's happened to. Someone been listening to Billy Eilish a lot and I was like, how does she do that with her music and lyrics? But mainly I think it was the malady that I was listening to that really transcends you. And so I was trying to explain the feeling of being cheated on and how like you might not know that they're cheating on you, but you might sense it. You're in a relationship where like that person's moved on so you haven't broken up yet. The song's not about oh my gosh, you've broken up and I'm heartbroken. Which in some ways might be a relief cuz you have an answer at least. But this is all about that feeling of the ambiguity of not knowing and sort of like feeling like you're being lied to. And my favorite line of the song is the, uh, Toson turn and cry out every night somebody's name, we both know that's not mine,
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Utah Center and cry out every night somebody's name. We both know it's not my,
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But can you imagine like someone lying next to you, like you have obviously a very intimate relationship because you're presumably sleeping in the same bed, but they're saying someone else's name at night. How horrible that would be. Like I was trying to like explain that feeling in a very metaphoric way and try to capture the pain of all of that. Yeah, so when I first started riding Melt Away, I was thinking about, um, New York and all the different encounters you have in cafes and restaurants, it's all, you know, very magical. I wanted to capture that idea of just meeting someone in a cafe, which apparently people don't do anymore. Beautiful experience of like running into someone and not even like exchanging details, wondering if you'll ever see them again. And so in this scenario, she meets someone at a cafe and I guess they have several encounters at this cafe and then he disappears. Really wanted to, to center it around the idea of the cafe vibe and the, you know, the different characters you might meet there. At one point I felt stuck because even though it felt very vivid in my mind, um, when I sang it and recorded it, it sounded a little flat and I was like, oh, this isn't, it's not sounding as good as I wanted it to sound. Some of the um, sound engineers started like working with some of the beats and added like a really cool beat to it. Like, what do you think of this? I was like, oh my gosh. Like that is exactly how it sounded in my mind. Like, she's running through the streets and she's wondering where the sky is. And then the beats actually added to that. And that was an aspect of songwriting I hadn't even considered that the beat could really add to the story. So initially the, the singing aspect, um, was in the beginning it sounded like I needed to take it down a, a key. Um, so we did that. We went back and recorded it again and um, and then I was able to sing it well. Um, so typically I'll just record it on my phone initially, uh, and then I write things down often in a, a journal and then I'll transfer it to a computer so that I have an electronic copy. I just think consistency is key because you might not feel like you're gonna write a good song, but if you're in the discipline of trying, you never know what's gonna come out. And you might have had like a really blah day, but there's still stuff staring in there. And a, you know, a really amazing song might come out of it, you know, be your authentic self cuz you can hear in a song when someone's forcing it or whether they're trying too hard to come up with like a clever lyric, like write what comes naturally and if it needs polishing later, then you know, consult with someone or get a producer like you can always polish it later. But that raw honest process is like really key to, to a good unique song.
Speaker 1:
And for your listening pleasure here is Melt Away by Carlo Wells.
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You may be right, you may, but soon as you out that don't we met that
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Day
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Cafe
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And
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Remember who that person was.
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My breath.
Speaker 1:
Know your art, build your skill, spend time doing what brings you energy and happiness and fun like Carlos spoke about. I like to think that when you spend time doing the thing that brings you energy and joy, the universe will respond. Passion is an organizing principle, meaning when you cut out the fluff, the distractions, and the silly day-to-day things and spend your time doing what brings you calm and passion inside synchronicity will occur. You'll see a license plate or someone will say just the right thing to you to help move your creative art along it's magic and God in the universe all in one. So go get your happiness. 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. Darkness can only be counterbalanced by the light becoming brighter in all of us. Music creates light, so keep it going.