“I Can Remember This Moment Forever”: Capturing Found Sounds With Seneca B
As you listen to Seneca B’s “May”, you’ll notice the constant patter of rain blending seamlessly with with crisp drums, jazz samples, and pitch-perfect vocal snippets. While other producers might sift through YouTube videos or sound FX records such a sample, Seneca recorded actual rain with her iPhone in the midst of an emotional moment. “I was being a little opportunistic at that time,” she explains. “I’d just been having a conversation with someone and it was kind of like a period in my life was ending. It was pouring rain and we had just been in my car talking.”
Sitting in her car and processing the moment afterwards, the Boston-based producer realized that recorded sound could help her capture the way she was feeling. “I remember just sittin’ there for a bit and I was like, ‘Here’s this one way that I can remember this exact moment forever,’” she says. “So I recorded it for a minute as I drove home.”
The other elements of “May” fell into place once Seneca put the needle on a 60s jazz record she’d recently ordered. The music was so resonant that she decided to make multiple beats by sampling different tracks on the album. “Those songs really spoke to me,” she says of the record. “I just remember I made a couple songs — some of them I didn’t release because they didn’t end up so good — but I was using basically every song off of the album. For “May” and “Haunted”, I made them both in about a day and a half.”
“Here’s this one way that I can remember this exact moment forever.”
Although the circumstances surrounding “May” are especially memorable, sometimes Seneca’s decision to utilize found sounds comes out of regular everyday occurrences. Take the track “Pineapple Soda” from the Bloom album she made with ADMB. “One of my favorite drinks is pineapple soda, so I had one at my house and I was drinking it,” she says. “I just remember hearing the weird noises it makes when keys flick off of it or when you open the cap.”
Once again, inspiration struck and she used her iPhone to capture the moment. “I figured, ‘Why not just record it?’ Then I loaded it in to Fruity Loops and I was able to cut it,” she says. “Most of those percussion noises are just random things from that bottle of pineapple soda.”
Though found sound isn’t Seneca’s go-to method for sampling, it has proven an effective tool for capturing small fragments that later evolve into full compositions. “Generally it’s very spontaneous and when I hear something cool happening, I take my phone out and record it because it’s right there,” she says. “I just use the standard app that comes with the iPhone.”
“I actually have no idea what any of those notes are, they just sounded good together.”
The spontaneous nature of capturing everyday samples filters through all of her work as Seneca believes that being too process-orientated is a bad thing for the creative spirit. “That’s generally how I do things,” she tells me. “It kind of just happens how it happens. I feel like if you stick to a certain way of doing something, you can miss out on doing it in a different way.”
Seneca also applies the same process of not overthinking it to finding the right sample on vinyl and YouTube. “It’s kind of hard to explain because there’s not really a word to put to it, but there’s usually one little chord phrase where I can tell, ‘That’s the one that I need to use right now,’” she says. “When I listen to samples, I never really know which one is going to make sense. But in the moment I can hear it.”
Seneca is still a fan of traditional sampling, but these days she’s pouring more energy into live instrumentation and creating her own samples. “I’ve made the transition to playing my own chords on pianos and controllers,” she says. “I’m also using a guitar that was my old friends and a bass that I have.”
Though Seneca admits there is a steep learning curve with playing vs. sampling, she was confident enough in her abilities to use some original instrumentation on the Bloom album. “The song ‘Wednesday’ was played through the SP-404 but it was all me playing,” she say. “I played the keys for that and did all the drums on it to.”
“When I listen to samples, I never really know which one is going to make sense. But in the moment I can hear it.”
An integral part of the process has been learning to embrace the challenge and trust her ear instead of worrying to much about technical structure. “I’m not great with music theory so for the most part I’m kind of winging it,” she says. “I have another song called ‘Snow’ that was all done in one day on my guitar and my bass and I did the drums myself. But I actually have no idea what any of those notes are, they just sounded good together.”
As she continues to explore different avenues for expressing her vision, fans of Seneca’s work can rest assured that a recent admission to law school hasn’t slowed her output a bit. “I have two close to finished but not quit there yet albums that I’m releasing with two different labels,” she says. “Then I have another one that I’m working on with a friend that’s in the starting stages but it’s getting there.”
Add to that another 30 songs in the stash awaiting release and Seneca has enough material to keep her supporters happy for some time. “I just want to make sure they come out the right way. I’m a big stickler for presentation and timing,” she says. “I think I’d rather make something perfect than rush it.”
Connect with Seneca B on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, Soundcloud, and on Twitter @senecabeats.
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