In today’s world of instant electronic access, even songwriters and musicians aren’t always making music together in the same room. Song tracks are recorded in home studios and uploaded to computers and smart phones. The bulk of music-based networking, and often even hiring the band, happens via email and social media.
Singer/songwriter Stacie Rose decided to turn some of that disconnected connecting on its ear. Pulling her favorite musicians and singers into artsy hotel rooms with a camera rolling, her “songwriting soiree” video series Suite Songs was born. Rose and her fans are now celebrating the new release of “Suite Songs Episode 2″ on SonicScoop.
“The idea came to me at a photo shoot at Hotel Chelsea,” she says. “When the shoot was over there was beautiful light flowing through these pink curtains and all I had in the room was a bunch of clothes and a guitar and a few hours to kill until a party downtown. I started to strum, sing and felt this amazing flow, as if the energy in the room and lack of clutter around me was a perfect scenario for songwriting. I felt a weird sense of clarity and calm as if the room was like a clean slate.”
That calming clean slate sparked an idea for how to capture the same creative energy again and again.
“I had such anonymity, yet so many souls had entered the room. I thought, at that moment, I’ve gotta do this again for real. Just get a suite and use it as a canvas to write. Then I thought of how cool it would be to just invite a bunch of musician friends over to work on some new songs and see where the room, and the vibe takes us. No expectations, no pretensions.”
Documenting the experience was a way to let her fans in on this new collaborative process in an intimate setting. She asked director and cinematographer Patricia Chica to film the hotel sessions. She invited friends like guitarist David M. Patterson and singer Mike Harvey to join her at the songwriting canvas.
The first two “Suite Songs” videos, both recorded in New York City, show Rose and friends enjoying each other’s company as they experiment with her new song pieces. The vibe is comfy and exactly what you’d hope a NYC songwriting session would be: fun, funky and freestyle.
Rose loves the idea of people getting back to making music together in settings like this and hopes to film some episodes in other cities like LA and Nashville. She’s also excited to share these glimpses of her personal artistic process. “I hope people will get to know my persona, as a song-writer, a collaborator and a person. For a while I thought the music was enough. But I think these days, people look for deeper meaning, more data, a better understanding of the person behind the music – perhaps it brings more perceptive to the songs to know the artist a little.”