Name: Helen Svoboda
Nationality: Finnish-born Melbourne-based
Occupation: Bassist, vocalist, composer, improviser
Current release: Helen Svoboda's The Odd River is out via Earshift.
Recommendations:
Barre Phillips – Call me when you get there (1984)
This solo double bass album changed my life. It is honest, playful and wonderful. Favourite track – ‘Grants Pass’

Julia Reidy – Brace Brace (2019)
A stunning, meditative guitar and vocal album. Favourite track – ‘Of neither’

Flower Colour Theory - Darroch Putnam, Michael Putnam (2021)
This book has 175 different colour palettes and hues relating to various flower arrangements. A beautiful way to immerse oneself in a world of focussed colour combinations – excellent breakfast reading.

If you enjoyed this Helen Svoboda interview and would like to stay up to date with her and her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

When I listen to music, I tend to see a vivid coloured line that typically follows the melodic or textural contour. Often this either reveals a series of smooth overlapping lines, or angular spikes akin to a cliffs edge.

I listen with my eyes closed, which evokes a series of different colour palettes depending on the type of music - rich melodies and textures often take on a deep blue/purple palette, whereby busier sound worlds often take on a bright green hue. Atonal spaces often evoke pointillist paintings with flashes of random colour.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I come from a family of professional musicians - three of my four grandparents were musicians (piano, cello, violin), my parents are musicians (flute, guitar) and my brother is a cellist. As such, my earliest memories are surrounded by music.

Before starting school, I used to travel around with my parents as they conducted kids music workshops at preschools, and often I would join in - singing melodies, diving into a suitcase full of whacky instruments, and dancing to my dad’s guitar and banjo. I think this instilled a sense of playfulness in my perception of music early on - especially in the way my dad would improvise songs and lyrics on the spot and ask me to join in, whether it be through dancing or playing whatever instruments were lying around.

Although I went on to formally train in piano, flute and bass, I think the deepest learning came from the experiences that I was able to share in since childhood and a sense of curiosity that never left. Individuality is the most valuable part of art making, and this cannot be learned.
 
According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

At the age of 13-16, I was deeply immersed in classical piano and classical flute - however, I was never able to follow a practice routine or stick to the page.

At age 14, I started the bass guitar, and this was undoubtedly a turning point in my music-making; I started to learn how to improvise and play in an ensemble, and looking back, I was far more motivated to play this instrument than the others - likely due to a sense of fresh learning and different repertoire. It felt more like ‘me’.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

As a composer, I am motivated most by storytelling and sound – regardless of stylistic boundaries. I am obsessed with playing the double bass in unorthodox ways – most often inspired to imitate other instruments like a guitar, or a violin.

Similarly, with my voice, I am led by a stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach, and take on different characters to express the meaning of a particular song or pondering.

Underpinning all of this is also a childlike curiosity and sense of humour.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

I believe that this can be both. When I come up with a musical idea, I have uncovered it through the process of creating and exploring. Whether or not it has been created before, every next person will undoubtedly find different nuances within a single idea, which allows for a constant morphing and transformation of the original seed.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I relate to this, in the way that I also listen to the overall sound. When internalising my music or music of others, I like to become immersed in the overall blend of timbres and sonic streams.

Akin to this, I would define my personal sound as a mixture of delicate, raw, playful, dark and light; a sonic patchwork of aesthetics that interweave to create a full quilt.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

I recently undertook a three-month residency on Suomenlinna – an island off the coast of Helsinki, Finland. I was deeply inspired by the crackling of the ice in the midst of the winter, as the ferry would break through the surface of the lake when moving towards the mainland. The intricate rhythms and pitches ringing through these sounds were almost overwhelming … sometimes heavily distorted.

In contrast, the delicate sunrays streaming through my window in the morning would reflect and glisten upon the sheet of powdery white snow – although these sounds didn’t have an audible nature, I started to imagine what these would sound like and translated this feeling onto my instrument through a blend of high overtones and harmonica.

Non-human-made sounds are everywhere; whether they are literal or imagined. Sometimes they just need to be brought into being.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

As a double bassist, a central focus of mine is on the overtone series – due to the extremities that this sound area allows across the frequency spectrum, both high and low.

My music mostly centres around the higher end of this sound world, in the way that the higher overtones blend seamlessly with the female voice to create a nuanced sonic unity. The responses that these higher frequencies elicit are those of surprise, through seeing such a large instrument produce such delicate, finite tones.

I find this defiance of sonic expectations as a double bassist one of my major motivations in exploring the melodic potential of the instrument in unorthodox ways.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

The Odd River is a project that is particularly dear to me in the way that it was created. I wanted to compose the soundtrack to a film that hadn’t yet been made – the music came first, and the story followed (crafted by filmmaker Angus Kirby in response to the sonic material).

My creative process in the compositional aspect was driven by the imagined sonification of genetically modified produce. I am struck by the weirdness of what we, as humans, have done to the natural world – and as such, the music took on a particular character regardless of genre.

‘Oddities’ is a track on the album which sounds like a cluster of genetically-modified particles bouncing around inside a glass dome;



‘Pick Me’ is a song told from the perspective of an organic unwaxed apple that is left unchosen due to a blemish upon its skin.



Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

When exploring new techniques or approaches in my music-making, I make use of a sound library whereby I document my practice across small, focussed recordings. I also keep a journal that includes various visual stimuli (paintings, photographs, drawings, graphic notations), lyrical ideas, and notes-to-self surrounding use of electronics to ensure I don’t forget how I created a particular sound in a previous session.

Many experiments don’t initially make it out of the google drive, but it is fascinating to me how years down the track I might rediscover an idea and find a place where it ‘fits’. Context is everything.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

I feel as though my music reflects my life through the way in which my artistic voice continues to expand and change.

My life is constantly surrounded by music – in the way that I exist in a vibrant artistic community, in the way that I hear melodies and rhythms in everyday sounds, and in the way that my experiences inform my music-making as I age. I feel as though my series of albums are personal audio snapshots from a particular moment in time; and when I return to any given one, I am transported back to a previous place or moment through which I am reminded of an experience or feeling.

Through this, my music deepens my memories in a tangible way.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Mundane tasks – such as making a coffee – are often done the same way each time … in autopilot mode.

Often when writing or performing a piece of music, that is only the beginning of the process. The more times that a work is performed or interpreted, the more it can grow and morph into something starkly different from its first iteration.

My compositions feel like malleable pieces of material that change over time – never stagnant, never frozen.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

I can’t think of a particular piece that affects me in this same way – however I often choke up to lyrics in other languages, even though I’m not able to follow the story without translation.

Sigur Ros is a prime example of this in the way that the emotive melodies and arrangements instil a deep sense of wonder and awe to me as a listener.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would like to see a world in which music is centred around sound and less around stylistic boundaries. Genre-labels can sometimes become limiting, and I feel that more artists would connect if art-making was centred around experience, sharing, and process.

We are all humans exploring sounds and the ways in which we tell our stories.