Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Two kids tackle the paradox of being an artist at Swarthmore: our community is a high octane intellectual moshpit that infuses us with a lust for making music while simultaneously robbing us of the time to do it. There is nothing wrong with the monastic lifestyle promoted in this haven of scholarship, but we believe that Swat life would be happier, healthier, and a lot more zesty if extracurricular creation were a higher priority in student culture. This podcast is part of our effort to tip the scale.
Our aim is to examine the process of songwriting, in addition to showcasing the finished product at the end of each episode. Every installment starts with a musical seed – a half-baked idea that we will nurture to completion throughout our excessive number of jam sessions. For your listening convenience, we will condense the hours of bootleg footage to a palatable 10-15 minute extraction of the most substantive trials, errors, improvements and bickerings that comprise our blind and messy process of songwriting.
We look forward to working with other members of Swarthmore’s music community, so please hit us up if you’d like to workshop a song idea for a future episode. Until then: write, sing, play, enjoy.
Love,
— Asher & Mobin
Image by Asher Wolf ’18 and Moses Rubin’19.
