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Brandeis Student, Concord Native A Web Hit
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WALTHAM —
When Ellie Ann Hutchinson realized she had romantic feelings for her best friend, she did...WALTHAM —
When Ellie Ann Hutchinson realized she had romantic feelings for her best friend, she didn’t take him aside in a heartfelt one-on-one confessional, she told him through a song.
Growing up, it was always difficult for her to stand up for herself or put her true feelings out there, and it was always easiest to express herself through music, said Hutchinson, a 21-year-old junior at Brandeis University.
In writing songs, “I think it kind of comes into play in a way of getting my opinions expressed. Those three minutes, it’s my moment,” said Hutchinson.
Hutchinson, a Concord resident who transferred to Brandeis last semester, said she realized she had feelings for her best friend while attending college in Iowa, when he began talking about another love interest.
“I was a little bit jealous,” she said. “I was like, wait, what is this? How can I like my best friend?”
As a result, Hutchinson wrote “Hopeless Woman,” her first professionally recorded song. It debuted on iTunes on April 27 last year.
“He heard it on iTunes when it came out,” she said. “He said it was really good.
“That was it. We never talked about it again,” said Hutchinson. The two remain good friends.
The music she writes “is about making something beautiful out of something that is really hurtful,” she said. “You have to be passionate about what you are talking about.”
Hutchinson’s song “One More Time,” which debuts Tuesday on iTunes, is about “going back to my ex-boyfriend multiple times even though I knew he wasn’t good for me,” she said.
As the song says, “He’s the mistake I always make,” said Hutchinson.
“It’s really upbeat, almost sarcastically so,” she said. “I definitely played with the contradiction” of going after something that isn’t right by pairing the sad theme with a more upbeat sound.
The song was produced by Brian Sargent and recorded at Aberrant Sound, a studio in Concord.
Hutchinson, who has played classical piano for 10 years and has been a choir member since the fifth grade, wrote her first song in the second grade. “My mom keeps it in her cookbook,” she said.
“It was horrible, totally cliché, it had really bad analogies,” said Hutchinson.
Her early start in song writing, said Hutchinson, stemmed from her father’s love for oldies music such as Simon & Garfunkel and other artists who wrote their own songs.
She said she also listened to a lot of Elton John growing up.
“I love how he makes pianos rock,” said Hutchinson, who wanted to move away from the ballads common to piano music, and instead draws from John’s style.
Other inspiration comes from 90’s alternative rock like Alanis Morissette and the Goo Goo Dolls, “when people actually were in the studio playing instruments and singing wasn’t pitch corrected,” she said.
“I try to incorporate as many real instruments in my recordings,” said Hutchinson, who plays maracas in her next release. “I don’t want computer maracas. I want real maracas.”
Although she doesn’t play it herself, Hutchinson loves to incorporate electric guitar into her music.
For Hutchinson, who majors in music composition and Spanish, the piano “is wonderfully organized.
“I like the piano as a writing tool,” she said. “I sit down and I play a part and if I don’t like it, I keep moving randomly, playing until I find something I like. I write the lyrics down. If I look at the lyrics, I always remember the piano part that corresponds.
“All I need to do is remember the words,” she said.
Hutchinson said her songwriting “is very personal and spontaneous.”
One of Hutchinson’s proudest works is about her close relationship with her 27-year-old brother Louie, who is blind and mentally handicapped due to an infection from childhood. She said he puts his head on her lap when she is seated at the piano and “just listens to me play. He has this big grin because he loves when I sing.”
Many of Hutchinson’s fans found her through her use of social media. Her song “Hopeless Woman” has received 21,454 views on YouTube. Most of her 13,100 followers on Twitter are pre-teen and teenage girls, she said.
“They are always messaging me,” she said. “The most rewarding part of making music is the feedback.
“I am grinning ear-to-ear just talking about these girls I’ve never met across the country who lighten up my life,” she said.
Hutchinson said many girls find her music relatable. One fan told her, “I feel like you are writing my life, like literally, writing my life,” she said.
Her newest song “One More Time” will premiere for the first time on WBOS-FM’s web-based “Radio You” program, which streams at myradio929.com, on Jan. 21 at 9 p.m. Host Josh McBride will interview Hutchinson.
For more information on Hutchinson’s upcoming local performances and song releases, visit ellieannmusic.com.
Jen Judson can be reached at 781-398-8004 or jjudson@cnc.com.
Copyright 2011 Wicked Local Waltham. Some rights reserved
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A songwriter's music video debut
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Ellie Ann Hutchinson '12 is very excited. The self-managed singer-songwriter will debut her first mu...Ellie Ann Hutchinson '12 is very excited. The self-managed singer-songwriter will debut her first music video this Saturday on her YouTube channel. The video, produced by Tribal Films from Burlington, Mass., took over 7 hours to film and features Hutchinson singing on piano with two modern dancers. The video is for her latest single, "When He Lied," which premieres on iTunes on the same day. Hutchinson, who is a Music Composition major, sat down with justArts to talk about how she got started with music, her plans for the future and singing Raffi when she was 2.
JustArts: So you'll be releasing your first-ever music video on Sept. 3.
Ellie Ann Hutchinson: I've come out with a lot of videos on YouTube before, but they were only slideshows. I've received over 70,000 hits just on those videos. I wanted to make a full-length music video because that's what people go to YouTube to watch. So I contacted someone from Burlington with a film company. We shot it this summer, and I'm excited that it's premiering soon!
JA: What was filming a music video like?
EH: It was very long. We shot it at Brandeis on a Sunday at Slosberg Recital Hall. For the same 3 minutes of video we shot for 7 hours straight. I was singing and playing piano for 7 hours straight. He took so many different angles. We had a lot of water.
JA: How many takes was that?
EH: Seven hours divided by 3 minutes, I guess. We shot from inside and outside the piano. There were close-up shots, stage shots, mid-shots, etc.
JA: You mentioned you had two modern dancers filming with you.
EH: The filmmaker's friend is a choreographer, so she choreographed the music video and brought in two dancers. Imagine dancing that routine for 7 hours straight!
JA: Is the song for the video a new composition?
EH: It's called "When He Lied." It's premiering on iTunes on the same day. About a year and a half ago I released my first song on iTunes and YouTube, but it was just the audio. It's an original song off of my demo CD. The song itself is autobiographical. It's an extremely slow and sad song. The other two [on the CD] were upbeat and fun. I wanted to round out the whole demo CD with a slower ballad.
JA: How much time do you dedicate to promoting your music?
EH: It's pretty much my life. It takes over everything I do. It's not like at a concert when you're telling people about your music after the show. You can't tell how exactly it will affect publicity, but when you're promoting online, you can tell how many hits you get per week and how many followers you get on Twitter. I can remember all the numbers —I just reached 18,000 followers on Twitter, I have 117,000 channel hits on Youtube and 2,100 Facebook Likes.
JA: As a senior, your career must be on your mind. What are you plans for after graduation?
EH: I want to be a full-time musician. That's my goal. I've found a bass player (Jake Weiner '13), drummer (Josh Goldman '11) and guitarist (Ben Gartenstein '14) at Brandeis. And I'm planning to do gigs around Boston —we're playing a gig in October. I assume I need a day job coming out of graduation and that it's going to take longer than my senior year to do music full time.
JA: How did your passion for music begin?
EH: I've played piano for 12 years and sang since fifth grade. I've always wanted to be a singer-songwriter. I never wanted to be anything else. I think I was 2 when I performed Raffi songs in front of my family. I started composing in high school and began studying composition in college.
JA: What are you musical influences?
EH: Alanis Morissette. Jagged Little Pill is my favorite album. I listen to everything, which is hard sometimes when I'm composing to see what style I want. I also love Elton John.
JA: How do you compose your songs?
EH: All my songs are autobiographical. This can be frustrating because all my friends and family can analyze them and figure out how I'm feeling about them. When I compose, I just like to sit in my room and express something. In 3, 4, 5 hours, out comes some song.
JA: What was the first song you wrote?
EH: My mother has my first song. It was a song about my mother who was the "birds in my sky" and the "sand in my beach." It's in her notebook, all the way from second grade. I was a horrible speller then, and I wrote in two directions with both hands.
JA: What are you hopes for the new video?
EH: The way most people are "found" is now through YouTube. A lot of people produce videos and get a million hits. That's how people get signed onto record deals. So even if it might be a long shot, that's what I hope will happen.
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Ellie Ann, Brandeis senior, releases new single and music video
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When her mother started making her take piano lessons “too many years ago to count,” Ellie Hutchinso...When her mother started making her take piano lessons “too many years ago to count,” Ellie Hutchinson ’12 hated going and later practicing. It wasn’t until high school that playing piano joined singing and theater as something she enjoyed. Now, going by the name Ellie Ann (her full name is Elizabeth Ann Hutchinson), she uses her piano skills to write her own music, which is rapidly bringing her fame on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Sitting down with Hutchinson means being with someone who has always been bursting with potential and is energized with excitement over her success so far, but recognizes that it is up to her to continue her lucky streak.
On Saturday a new song, “When He Lied,” and a music video will join the two singles that have led to more than 10,000 YouTube subscribers, 73,000 upload views, 18,500 Twitter followers and 2,000 likes on Facebook.
“I’ve always wanted to be a singer/songwriter. I was never one of those kids who wanted to be a doctor or a ballerina,” Hutchinson said.
Growing up in Concord, Mass., Hutchinson began writing her own music in second grade and wrote what she calls her first “real song” in ninth grade.
“My gay best friend and I would go to the choir room and we would sing and play piano, and I would always play him the new song I was working on that week,” she said.
Hutchinson’s writing process begins at the piano, where she sits down and starts playing, waiting for something to come out. “Music is my therapy,” she said, explaining that to create great music she needs to be in some sort of mood.
Once she has a few chords, she begins writing lyrics, and then lets the lyrics determine the final sound of the song. Most of her lyrics come from her relationships with guys or other people she cares about because she believes she needs to “feel passionate about something to be able to write about it.” Her newest song, for example, is about a cheating ex-boyfriend.
“I couldn’t write the song at first, but I went back later and did, and I recorded it a lot later. It was one of those stories I knew I had to tell, and I thought people would be able to connect to it and understand what it’s like,” Hutchinson said.
She describes her music as “sort of pop rock, kind of singer/songwriter, but a little bit mainstream,” and smiles when remembering being compared to artists like The Fray and Alanis Morissette, her “absolute favorite singer ever.” Before transfering to Brandeis as a junior to take the advantage of the music composition major, she attended Graceland University, a small school in Iowa and her mother’s alma mater, a period she says helped her to develop her own style.
“I didn’t know what I wanted in high school, so it was hard to know what kind of music I wanted to write,” Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson’s parents have been a constant source of support but never overbearing, she said. In high school, she convinced them that she wanted to take making music more seriously and they helped her find a producer. She began recording her first single in January 2010 as a Christmas present from them but has paid for her other recording sessions by working throughout her time at school.
Hutchinson currently works with producer Bryan Sargent when recording and promoting her music. When she has a song ready, he helps her write guitar and drum parts, which he plays, but the music is entirely her own.
In addition to writing her own music, Hutchinson is her own manager and public relations coordinator. “It’s a lot of behind the scenes work, but I really like business,” said Hutchinson, who is considering pursuing an MBA at some point. “I live and breathe music all the time, and it can get pretty hectic. Luckily I’m one of those middle-brained people who can box myself in my room and write a song and then go out the next day and find out how I can get it recorded and financed.”
To help promote herself, Hutchinson has made all of her music available on iTunes and YouTube and constantly updates her Twitter and Facebook under her stage name, Ellie Ann.
Her online fan base, ranging from German teens to middle-aged people in Kansas, is another strong support system and one of her favorite parts of her burgeoning musical career. “People in the music business talk a lot about target audiences, but my music is in a genre that has a large range of fans, so I don’t really have one,” she said. “Just by clicking and sharing with others, people all over the world are helping me pursue my dream.”
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Concord recording artist to perform in Cambridge Jan. 17
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Concord —
“Music is my life,” reads the motto on her pink T-shirt. And Elizabeth Hutchinson wears i...Concord —
“Music is my life,” reads the motto on her pink T-shirt. And Elizabeth Hutchinson wears it not only because it is comfortable, but because it describes her to a tee.
“It’s what I love to do,” said the college-age musician known to fans as Ellie Ann.
“I’m either promoting my music online or I’m writing new songs or I’m practicing piano or I’m singing — lots of times in the shower…it’s just all the time,” said Hutchinson. “Music has taken over. I don’t get sick of it.”
Unlike many other music majors at Brandeis University, where she is a junior, Hutchinson said she studies it because she loves it. She listens to everything from Simon and Garfunkel to Billy Preston’s “Nothing for Nothing” — music that her peers don’t often understand, said Hutchinson.
“You can tell when people pick music as a major — there’s people who really enjoy it and people who realize, ‘this is just too much music for me. I really don’t want to know about renaissance magicals or 17th century baroque opera,’ which I had to study last semester,” said Hutchinson. “It was tough, but you know, you really have to love music.”
There is a truth to oldies music, said Hutchinson, that can’t be found in much of today’s pop music, which is often altered to appear more “professional.”
“But so much of it is artificial, that I love listening to the oldies because it’s like real live performances, and people who actually wrote the songs themselves,” said Hutchinson. “Sometimes I feel there’s something lost in the music we have today.”
A full-time student, Hutchinson pays for recording time (usually a $600 per hour fee) with a part-time job as a substitute teacher while on school vacation.
Most recently that recording time has culminated into a new song Hutchinson will debut on RadioYou Boston, 92.9 FM, next Friday, Jan. 21, at 9 p.m.
The song is also available for download on iTunes — Hutchinson’s second public release. For links to download songs, or view videos or read about Ellie Ann, fans can visit her website.
Hutchinson will also perform at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge next Monday, Jan. 17.
What’s the new song about?
It’s called “One More Time” and it’s out Tuesday [Jan. 11] on iTunes, which is really exciting. It’s about my relationship with my ex-boyfriend and just how relationships with certain people you just keep going back to. You have that comfortable person you’ve been with for a long time, and somehow they always have a hold on you, but maybe your lives are going in different directions. But somehow you always seem to go back to that one person — whether or not it’s good for you.
How have you seen your music evolve over the years?
It’s kind of a hard question because I started writing songs when I was a child. My mother has the first song that I wrote in her kitchen cookbook. And it’s something along the lines of “you’re the cloud in my sky,” and “you’re the fish in my sea,” or something along those lines with terribly cliché analogies. But I wrote it when I was in maybe second grade and I was first learning to write. And so it’s a hard question because I’ve been doing it my whole life. It’s just something that’s very natural to me, to create things.
What does this new release mean to you?
I’ve always wanted this. I’ve always wanted to be a singer-songwriter. You know, you used to play as little kids, you’d play house and everyone wanted a husband and whatever career. But they all wanted a husband and a white picket fence, and that was never me. Ever. I just wanted to sing and play piano for billions of people.
When I’m driving in a car or when I’m running — that’s what I daydream about. I don’t dream about meeting the perfect person or having the perfect marriage. I just feel so fulfilled whenever people comment and tell me that they love my music. Because it’s so personal. It’s just, I’ve always felt that there was a part of me that will never be fulfilled until I really pursue my music. I get all of these comments and messages from Twitter fans who are like, I love your music, it’s so amazing. And it’s just like, these people don’t know me, they don’t have to be nice. They don’t have to sugarcoat anything, and usually people don’t on the Internet. So it’s really genuine — and I get that feedback and it just fills me up. I don’t know how else to describe it, I’m just empty without it. It fuels me to keep on going. I just couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And so it’s really exciting that it’s really starting to take form.
supersonic
