A simple concrete floor with plants and a mantle that glowed under soft lighting was the stage for three teenage singer-songwriters performing original music at Firefolk Arts, an art gallery and cultural event space in Waitsfield, last June.
A Bread and Puppet poster with a dandelion read “Sing,” setting the tone for an evening of acoustic melodies. The young artists — Tegan Miller, Nolan Smith and Eireann McDonough, all rising 10th graders — wove their feelings and experiences into their songs as a form of emotional expression.
Miller, a student at Woodstock High School, has been writing songs for as long as she can remember.
“Whenever I find myself having a panic attack, or feeling stressed, or overwhelmed, I find condolence in my guitar and the lyrics to songs,” she said.
Miller’s music is often inspired by her observations of injustices and her identity as a queer person of color. Her songs explore stereotypes, bias, mental health, love and growing up.
“They said I’d get braver when I got bigger, that all my fears would melt away/ Now that I’m older, I know they’re liars; my fears have simply been replaced/ And it is worse now because I see it; rose-colored glasses thrown away,” Miller writes in “Little Icarus.”
Miller feels that her creativity has allowed her to see the world through a new lens. She says she now hears the wind whistling, instead of blowing, and can find a story in a pedestrian with their face buried in a phone.
“When everything has a story, the world feels less rotten,” she said.
Miller hopes that people will reject “the false idea that creating art of any form isn’t a real job.”
Nolan Smith, a former student at Northfield High School, also believes that there are emotional benefits to creating art. Smith strives to generate empathy and feels that writing songs has given him a unique way to express his emotions.
Smith started songwriting because he had the urge to write a song for his brother. He began by watching videos about chord theory and music-writing.
“Ever since I was little, I would mess around on Garage Band until one day, I was like, ‘let me actually make a song,’” he said. “I wanted to make music that someone else wanted to love.”
Since then, Smith has written numerous songs and developed a songwriting process. He often begins by composing the instrumental part of the song. The lyrics will frequently come to him in the middle of the night in just a few minutes, and in most cases they won’t come when he tries to force himself to write.
In the past two years, Smith created his own albums; “Fury of an Angel” and “Bathrooms,” inspired by Taylor Swift’s “Midnights.” His albums are complete with self-designed vinyl records, jacket art, lyric pages and photo collections.
In addition to creating recordings of his songs, Smith participates in theater, plays guitar and other instruments and sings in his school band. He is moving to Ohio this summer and plans to visit Vermont during the summers. He hopes to be a professional singer-songwriter. He believes people should pay attention to youth creators.
“It’s important for the world to accept the views, emotions and expression of the people who will be the future,” Smith said.
Similarly, Eireann McDonough, a student at Harwood Union High School, uses songwriting as a way to express and cope with her emotions.
McDonough doesn’t like talking about her feelings and finds singing about them easier.
“My dad died two years ago, and music has helped me cope with that and with school, too,” she said. “I feel embarrassed talking about things I’m sad about in front of people.”
McDonough typically uses music to communicate emotions like longing and sadness, which she finds harder to express than happiness. Performing her original songs makes her feel heard, and it makes her feel validated when people like a song she was proud of.
Like Smith, a songwriting process has evolved for McDonough. She begins by either writing about a feeling or recording a melody she has in her head. Then she sits on a couch with her guitar and formulates the song, writes lyrics in the Notes app on her phone and finalizes the song over a few weeks.
McDonough sat down to craft her first full song last year, based on her feelings after reading “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune. Last year was also her first solo performance, when she sang an original song at her school’s Battle of the Bands during spirit week. She was scared at first, but she enjoyed sharing a creation that represented her talent.
She plays trumpet in Harwood’s band and sings in the school’s chorus and honors choir. McDonough and her brother also often improvise with her voice and his trombone. She wants to have a music-based career because it brings her joy.
Like McDonough, Julia Wulff, another Harwood Union High School student, feels that music is a powerful way to share her emotions.
Much of Wulff’s music is inspired by nature. When she sees or feels something that resonates with her, she tends to turn it into a song.
“If I want to write a song about something but I don’t know where to start, I’ll put the idea in the title of a note on my phone and leave it until it comes to me,” she said.
Wulff began writing songs in third grade in her school’s chorus class. In fifth grade, she composed classical music, and in seventh grade she mimicked songs she enjoyed listening to.
Wulff aspires to be a professional actor and playwright. She is currently working on creating a home studio to release her songs and hopes to perform more often at open mics and at her school.
“The most important thing is to not tell kids their dreams are stupid or unrealistic because as they grow up, they may realize it was unrealistic, and change paths, but they might keep that passion,” Wulff said.
Wulff has started to see her dreams become realized. Wulff’s compositions have been selected multiple times to be performed with a Vermont-based composition mentoring program, Music-COMP .
“If you internalize that the only opinion that matters with your music is yours, you will be more successful,” Wulff said. “Chances are, if you feel something, others will feel it too.”
Harmony Devoe, Warren, is a 10th grader at Harwood Union High School. She is working with the Underground Workshop, a network of student journalists partnering with Community News Service.
