Window Wonder - Enna and the Snapdragons
Some of my best ideas happen when I’m staring out a window.
Enter the Coronavirus Pandemic…
With more home-time my creativity had room to expand in new ways, I starting writing songs again. A call for art from SPARK Artist Resource Exchange for new work to include in the “At Home Arts Show,” the the first poem, “With What’s Left,” became a song.
Enna and the Snapdragons is a new musical project that I’m defining, a place or me to share my songwriting and production work. I like to joke that the snapdragons are my instruments (pictured below <3). Truthfully, the project is fluid and I am already expanding through collaborations with other artists for future works.
Alt Text: Instruments are gathered on a wooden floor. Present is an electric bass, banjo, ukulele, viola, bow, and saw.
Each piece in “Window Wonder” started with poetry written in Denver, CO and Salina, KS, over the last few years. Some of the songs are straight forward from a polished poem and others are pieces borrowed from drafts, here and there. It starts with an idea, next, I find a chord progression and rhythm that works with the content. Then, the songwriting begins. Each song has its own creation arc, some stick close to home and others take turns into the unexpected. Either they take shape or I let them fizzle.
It’s been six years since my last EP release. That being said, the songs in Window Wonder were written with a creative confidence I hadn’t experienced in a while.
I used Garageband to record, mix, and master the songs at the dining room table in my home. I kept the recording process informal and used my laptop, audio interface, condenser microphone, studio headphones, and every speaker within reach. In home-recording artist fashion, I even listened to the mastered tracks on the garage speakers and in a friends car (thanks Jessica and Cadi!).
All of my favorite instruments make appearances. Throughout the EP, the foundation of the ukulele and vocals are supported by the viola, banjo, saw, and Garageband filters. I realized that I needed to fill out the low end in the compositions, so I borrowed an two different electric basses (thanks Bill and Gary) and played around on the instrument for the first time. My fiance Darren Morawitz got in on the bass experimentation and came up with a rad contribution to “It’s Strange.” On “Two Leaves” I used an experimental filter to drop the pitch of the ukulele to fill out the low end.
Darren created the album art, pulling the whole project together in a beautiful package. The artwork pictures our cat looking out our living room window on her chair with some house plants along the floor. The chair and outdoors have color while the rest of the image is in greyscale.
Three months in the making, I’m glad to close out the project and share what I’ve been working on lately.
The EP is available of all major platforms, including Spotify, Amazon Music, and Soundcloud.
Thank you for listening!
All my love.
Anna V. Pauscher
