Charlotte Levy
Arts Editor
Junior Parna Pande synthesizes her key life experiences into a single five-track album released on Feb. 18 titled “Lost Memories.”
Last January, Pande released her first song, “Wildfires,” on Spotify. She spent a year writing, producing, and curating “Lost Memories” and an additional three months to mix and master the recordings. Pande takes advantage of all of her free time to balance school and music.
“I wrote the majority of my songs in summer break so that I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to write about and what melody/harmony that corroborates with the mood of the song,” said Pande. “Each song is either solely based on memories from events earlier in my life or from during the school year.”
Her creative process for each song started with lyric writing. According to Pande, this step was the easiest for her because of her strong feelings on the album’s topics. After writing the lyrics, she played around with different melodies and tunes on her piano to produce an instrumental outline for her song. Finally, Pande discussed her ideas with her piano teacher and producer to finalize and rehearse the instrumentals for each track on the album.
“I really wanted to make all the songs different as they were written about events that occurred in a relatively short period of my life,” Pande said. “All of my songs share the commonality of having drums and synths; however, each song is still unique.”
Pande’s album features a diverse array of instruments; “Don’t Let Me Go” and “Consequence” use the guitar, “Wildfires” has orchestral strings, and “Why Me?” uses South East Asian instruments. She collaborated with her piano teacher to experiment with different instrumentals and record the songs.
“I really loved ‘Consequence’ because it’s a very passive-aggressive song and I feel like people don’t often associate me with passive-aggressiveness,” Pande said. “Showing a different side of myself was kind of cool I guess.”
“Wildfires” and “Don’t Let Me Go” were inspired by current events including the threat of climate change and social challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other tracks like “Stay With Me” are more personal, as she expresses her gratitude for supportive friends and family that were there for her while suffered depression.
“[‘Stay With Me’] is about how I was able to understand that the [unspoken] words [and] presence of [friends and family] was imperative to my recovery.”
Pande’s fifth track “Consequence” empowers listeners, as she explains that she does not care about people who try to degrade her. Pande connects with listeners through her vulnerability; for example, she explores her emotions in “Why Me?,” singing about personal insecurities and empathy for others.
“Although my songs are specific to my life, [I hope that] my listeners can apply the idea of each song to their own lives,” said Pande.
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