From first song to first album: How I started writing music

Writing music has always been my passion and it all started in Elementary school.

By Rachel Ryan

The first song I ever wrote in my old songbook

It began in the fourth grade. Two girls with ripe imagination sat on the couch in a house’s unfinished basement. The microphone was plugged in, and the fake crowds were yelling as they, the stars, belted out original song lyrics.

“You are always here. We do things together forever.”

The words just seemed to flow off the tongue.

“You’re careful and kind. You’re always on my mind. We’re never apart you’re always in my heart.”

This is how my first song came to be — just a girl and her elementary best friend goofing off.

Then, after years of amateurish lyrics, I took my first steps to incorporate more than just vocals into my writing. I let my hands glide over the piano keys, allowing it to guide my lyrical composition. Middle and high school were filled with love songs, but college’s theme was heartbreak.

My first album

It was then that I met Zachary Miller and Tho Shia Lee, two other singer/songwriters at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I can still remember the day when Zach approached me in our choir practice to record my music.

He was sitting behind me when he expressed praise for “Playing the Part,” the original song I posted on SoundCloud. He said he’d heard the song and he wanted to record an album for me. That conversation changed my life.

Together we embarked on recording my first angsty, lovesick album. And it was not without its difficulties. My heart sunk into my stomach the day Zach told me his computer malfunctioned, and he had lost everything he had ever recorded — including my album.

We were forced to start from scratch. But in the end, the recordings shined brighter. And on March 27, 2020, I released my first album. It was a musician’s dream come true.

A Collaboration & Evolution

From there, I continued to grow and fall in love with new kinds of music, collaborating with my friend Shia Lee. I watched as the music I wrote took on a different sound, influenced by those around me.

Like Shia’s writing, my lyrics became more complex and emotional. I wrote things like “When it seems that all has passed and the pavement runs dry, the floodgates open wide every time.”

Me, 3, playing a recorder in my backyard

Like Shia’s piano playing, my song chords became more fluid and involved, taking on a new depth I had never seen before. I found myself inventing more melodies that sounded like the ocean, a common trend in Shia’s music. Simply being around him and his higher-level piano playing heightened my own.

I write music because it’s my oasis in the night. When I don’t know where to turn, music is always there. It’s the one thing I can count on to pull me through a rough day, week or month.

Like my first original song suggests, music gives me “a smile to stay every single day.”