Daily Bruin

Sean Tasse and Ali Hepps’ musical partnership began at a UCLA family resort.

While working at Bruin Woods in summer 2017, the two became friends and eventually wrote their song “The Game,” which they will perform at this year’s Spring Sing. Although reluctant to perform at first, Tasse said he wants to showcase his talent as a music producer; Hepps, having never performed a solo act for a large audience, will take the spotlight as a solo singer. Tasse, a fourth-year economics student, said the duo wants to bring what they consider a new type of collaboration to the stage before they graduate.

“(It) kind of worked that both of us (have) never been in that position to put our music out there together but have it actually recognized as only one – that’s what motivated us to do it,” Tasse said.

When conceiving “The Game,” Hepps, a fourth-year cognitive science student, said she and Tasse recognized that they come from different social circles, but they still wanted to write a song pertinent to both of them. Since both are graduating soon, they agreed the song should be about moving onto the next stage in life, tackling the anxiety and uncertainty of postgraduation plans with full force, she said.

“We took that idea of this part of our life is ending, and we’re entering a new one that’s beginning, and expanded upon it to create ‘The Game,’” Hepps said.

In September, the two began making music together. Hepps showed Tasse a chord progression and Tasse started playing around with it, incorporating various electronic dance music elements, including synthetic sounds and bells, into the upbeat tune. The next time they met, they settled on a version they both liked and decided to audition for Spring Sing, Tasse said.

The completed song involves live sound mixing by Tasse and vocals from Hepps, Tasse said. He said he first started producing music in high school with hip-hop instrumentals and, quickly enough, EDM. He would watch EDM producers mix sounds live on YouTube, initially mimicking them and then adding his own chords or melodies. However, he never found someone to rap or sing to his sounds, only making “empty” songs at the end of the day, he said. When the duo began collaborating, Tasse said he found Hepps’ lyrical additions fulfilling, making his “empty” songs finally feel complete.

Jess Grimes, Spring Sing co-talent director and the duo’s liaison with Spring Sing, said Tasse did not produce many EDM tracks until recently, but has learned which sounds he likes and what mixes fit together throughout the preparation for competition. Though most EDM songs – including his – follow a similar structure, the decisions Tasse made about particular notes and mixtures of sounds have allowed his individual music style shine through, said Grimes, a third-year dance and communication student.

“Just by having the opportunity to try a hand at it more, he’s definitely more confident at the sounds he’s making and that shows. It’s very much his own music,” Grimes said. “I wouldn’t see someone else up there making it because this song is so much part of him.”

Unlike Tasse, Hepps said she has mainly expressed herself musically through a cappella for the last eight years. She has performed at Spring Sing since her first year as part of the a cappella group ScatterTones. In her second year, she also sang backup for one of her friends in Spring Sing, which motivated her to pursue individual performance in her last year.

Although accustomed to writing slow, balladlike songs, Hepps said her usual compositions didn’t feel right to perform at a large venue. She said transitioning to EDM was not difficult because her voice is well-suited to the genre. However, EDM follows a set musical format, so she had to write structured lyrics and melodies, unlike in her previous compositions.

Arriving late to the EDM trend, Hepps said she quickly fell in love with the genre as it makes people energetic and eager to dance – qualities she wishes to imbue, especially in the performance. Tasse also said he hopes to see people dance and personally aims to bring a concert-level energy with their debut.

“I just want to bring a different energy and make people feel like they’re at one of these fun and exciting cool concerts,” Tasse said. “It’d be crazy to recreate that in Pauley Pavilion.”

Nina Marie Rose’s songwriting allows her to break free from the pressure to be a perfect musician, she said.

The second-year music performance and English student will be performing an original song as a soloist at Spring Sing. Much of Marie’s free time is spent practicing and refining her piano technique due to the pressures to reach perfection in classical performance, she said. But having written thousands of songs in her free time since she was 9 years old, she said she finds herself returning to songwriting as a raw form of expression that gives her more freedom as a musician.

“Singing is something that is very creative for me and I love to do but I’ve never tried to be perfect at it. … It’s kind of a very safe place for me to be me,” Marie said. “I’m also a writer and an English major and it’s the only way I can really unite those two things in a way that works for me.”

Marie said she did not know about Spring Sing until she saw her friend Hayden Everett, then-first-year jazz and piano performance student, perform with his duet partner and win the competition in 2018. Despite feeling like she didn’t have enough prior training or resources, their performance inspired her to audition for the 2019 competition, she said. Marie will be performing “The Raven,” a song she wrote in 20 minutes at 14 years old after her first love broke her heart.

“It was a really sad experience because I had invested my identity in him and so the whole song is about sort of going through all of these things and figuring out who I am in regards to him,” Marie said. “Who should I be, and who do I want to be?”

Marie’s current boyfriend Quinn Rickard, a third-year business economics student, said what stands out to him about Marie’s songwriting is that she always remains honest by highlighting her personal experiences.

“For something that’s like a breakup with her ex-boyfriend, it’s dramatized in her song but it reveals a different part of the experience that she had,” Rickard said. “Like how she felt through it all, how the breakup changed her perspective of that person.”

“The Raven” is lyrically through-composed, meaning every line is different to avoid repetition, Marie said, which lends her greater freedom to express her intentions. Each chorus is in a set of similes exploring her own identity and who she wants to be seen in relation to the person who mistreated her.

Marie said her favorite lyrics from the song are similes from the second chorus: “I’m like a seashell glistening but you dropped me when I was broken/ I am like a thought in passing never to be spoken.” The lines express how Marie felt after she had invested her identity in someone who did not care much about their relationship, she said.

Before her audition, Marie said she turned to her friend Kian Ravaei, a second-year composition and philosophy student, for some pointers in the song’s composition. Ravaei helped her adjust a few harmonies and consider tempo changes in certain phrases. For example, the bridge section is filled with silences and by a slower tempo, and he said it creates a sense of introspection and feeling of suspension in time.

Because of the song’s lyrical through-composition, Ravaei said the harmony acts as a vessel for the lyrics. The chords for each chorus remain the same, providing structure to the freely changing lyrics and forcing the listener to pay more attention to the meaning behind the words, he said.

“In songwriting now … most songs have choruses where the lyrics repeat every single time, but in (Marie’s) song … the listener is taken on a journey,” Ravaei said.

Marie said the meaning she has found in “The Raven” has changed significantly over the years. The song initially reflected her feelings of being dependent on someone who mistreated her and her determination to find someone who would treat her better. Now, Marie said she no longer believes being dependent on a significant other is a healthy way to view relationships, and she hopes her song inspires others to look at their own identity and view themselves in the way that the people who love them do.

“I don’t know how it happened but (the song) perfectly captured how I was feeling at the time and it’s something that I’ve revisited; it’s been a struggle in my life, it’s been a moment of overcoming in my life so it’s always been relevant to me,” Marie said. “This is just my favorite song that I’ve written and I hope that other people like it too.”

Company’s sketches have typically had one goal – entertaining the Spring Sing audience.

But this year, members of the comedy sketch group plan to incorporate social awareness into their work.

Company comprises 12 recent alumni and undergraduate UCLA students who screen prefilmed sketches and perform live skits between Spring Sing acts. Alumnus Nathan Glovinsky said this is the first year Company has been intentional in using its sketches as vehicles for social commentary. The underlying layers of satire, he said, are meant to inspire the audience to think more deeply about social issues like representation in the entertainment industry.

“We wanted to commit ourselves to ways we could leverage our creative talents to shine light and to do social commentary,” Glovinsky said.

One of Company’s upcoming sketches is a parody of Jordan Peele’s “Us” written by Glovinsky, along with Olly Sholotan, Jeremy Elder and Melissa Peng. Peng, a fourth-year mathematics of computation student, said members of Company initially felt a parody of “Us” may be insensitive to the film’s cultural significance as one of Hollywood’s few black horror movies, especially because the comedy group itself lacks racial representation. However, Peng said the sketch now satirizes precisely the fact that the group is mostly white.

“(The sketch) says a little about representation … in the entertainment industry and the general comedy scene, which is something people of color have been shut out from,” said Sholotan, the only African American member this year and fourth-year musical theater student. “It’s a hard issue to pinpoint because it’s systematic.”

Another sketch connected to Company’s theme of comedy with a purpose deals with the recent admissions scandal and the inequality in access to higher education. Sholotan said writing the sketch presented the challenge of deciding how specific to make the references. For instance, Company members pondered whether to name specific people involved in the scandal, or to simply focus on its societal implications as a whole; they eventually settled on the latter.

“The question goes back to why are we doing the sketch in the first place,” Sholotan said. “Are we doing the sketch to humiliate anyone? No – this is a greater discussion on the value of education and how privilege can affect that.”

But not all of Company’s sketches will have an explicitly satirical tone. Elder said the group will cover topical subjects such as the Roebling block party and senioritis as well. The group tries to pick topics relevant to the UCLA community when pitching ideas, Elder said. Company chose to cover the Roebling block party because it was an event all students knew about, and one that even made the LA local news.

“We always just talk about what the big things we need to hit are,” Elder said. “This year it was the block party and admissions scandal, last year it was (LiAngelo) Ball getting arrested in China.”

In addition to the recent evolution of Company’s thematic focus, the group’s overall composition shifted as well. This year, five Company members are neither film nor theater students. Glovinsky said this is one of the first years in which there are more than two nontheater, nonfilm majors. He said the increase in academic diversity brought in different perspectives from around the UCLA campus, allowing for more expansive comedy.

“People have a misconception that in order to be on Company you have to be in the theater school or you have to be doing improvisation for 20 years, but the first time I ever did sketch comedy was for my audition for Spring Sing,” Glovinsky said. “It really comes down to stories and if people have a unique point of view that can be construed to be comedic, and that’s how Company will continue to grow.”

Aaron Chadrick Revilla’s New Year’s resolution: Sing a song, post it to Instagram and repeat the process for 364 days.

With his participation in the melodious Instagram challenge to sing a song a day for a year, the fourth-year psychology student said the year has marked an increased focus on developing his musical skills. Chadrick will be performing at Spring Sing, accompanied by nothing but an acoustic guitar. The singer said his music is based off personal experiences, including many breakups, to showcase relatable situations through his own vulnerability.

“I write my own music to express everything that I’ve been going through. I make it a point that my music is supposed to be personal and supposed to be vulnerable,” Chadrick said. “I think it’s important that you share yourself with the world.”

Chadrick said music has always been deeply rooted in his upbringing – he picked up guitar in the fifth grade, participated in orchestra throughout middle school and gravitated toward a cappella in high school. As he became more involved in various choirs, he said he began to favor the use of his voice over instrumentation, which contributed to his stripped-back style meant to highlight rather than overwhelm his vocals.

“Most of my guitar playing is basic strumming or small finger picking. It’s simple,” Chadrick said. “A lot of people are into super ornamented instrumentals, but for me, my voice is what provides the ornamentation.”

Chadrick’s music, upheld by light pop-styled instrumentation, is usually a response to specific events that have impacted him, though he said he occasionally branches out to more widely consequential events. In one instance, Chadrick said he wrote about the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

As an Asian American and member of the LGBTQ community, the singer said he writes with a different viewpoint than those outside his demographic, yet also maintains a sense of relatability through the subjects and themes he addresses. However, he said his intersectional identity still retains a set of wider implications in and of itself.

“I don’t see myself as a political person, but just existing as myself carries around a sort of politics to it,” Chadrick said.

His only song for Spring Sing, titled “Gone,” engages with an experience more specific to his own love life. The singer said he delves into his intense attachment to a toxic relationship, but the story steadily progresses to indicate his eventual liberation.

Christie Tan, a second-year nursing student and a member of Chadrick’s a cappella group Deviant Voices, said the singer addresses his negative experiences with the mindset of moving forward, like moving on from a difficult breakup.

“(Chadrick) knows what that human experience is like, what the emotions are when you go through a certain experience,” Tan said. “It makes me feel like he understands as a musician what I went through and that I can experience those feelings again through his music.”

Chadrick said the song’s introduction evokes the feelings associated with a panic attack, beginning with the lyric “I forgot how to think.” Beginning in slow and soft tones, the song’s mood echoes the singer’s distress. As “Gone” progresses, the speed and beat increase, transitioning the song into a pop-rock headbanger with its fast-paced rhythm, he said.

Performed on an acoustic guitar with an accompanying amp, the song draws from his love of teen-heartthrob musicians, including Shawn Mendes and One Direction, he said, and their ability to frame emotional themes with a relatable, catchy tune. Chadrick’s bubbly taste in music reflects his personality as a musician, as he is prone to break out into quirky dance moves mid-song, said Emily Fukuda, a first-year communication student and another member of Deviant Voices.

“His dance moves are dorky and awkward, but unapologetically (Chadrick),” Fukuda said. “It’s a joy to watch him dance because you feel so confident in who you are, and makes it easier to feel vulnerable with him.”

Chadrick said he hopes his voice will convey a personal story that the Spring Sing audience can relate to within the framework of their own experiences. He said the song is not overly saccharine, unlike the Christmas ballad Chadrick wrote for his boyfriend, performed in a Santa suit with a light-up toy keyboard. But it is sentimental in its own right and conveys personal growth, Chadrick said.

“You have this whole idea of who you are in your head, but no one else really know who that person is,” Chadrick said. “I feel like it’s our duty as people just to share ourselves and be as transparent as possible.”

The soloists of Random Voices were initially skeptical about their Spring Sing song choice.

The all-female a cappella group plans to perform a variation of Florence and the Machine’s “Shake It Out.” They were concerned the choice would appear too predictable, since it’s a pop song by a female-led group. They were also worried it might not challenge their vocal ranges enough, said third-year human biology and society student Audrey Smith.

Smith, Noga Tour and Leah Woodcox will each take turns soloing throughout the performance, with harmonies and vocal accompaniments from the rest of the group. Having an empowered group of girls fosters an incredibly supportive network, but it also comes with its set of musical challenges, said Tour, a third-year history student.

“Before I even joined a cappella, I heard from friends that all-female groups hardly ever win first place titles because people assume that we don’t have strong vocal balances,” Tour said. “But our group is able to hit low notes and arrange intricate vocal percussions. … It’s nice when we get to prove people wrong.”

Although Random Voices will focus on pop for its Spring Sing show, the group is not afraid to veer from the norm with songs in genres that are usually performed by male artists, said Sam Hersch. A supporter of UCLA a cappella organizations, Hersch became interested in the groups after enrolling in summer music courses on campus a few years ago.

Last year, the group added “Stairway to Heaven” to its traditional performance repertoire, which challenged audiences’ expectations since it was originally recorded by Led Zeppelin and is often performed by male a cappella groups, said Woodcox, a second-year theater student. Challenging themselves with songs traditionally performed by men provides an avenue for continual self-improvement, she said.

“I was worried that ‘Shake It Out’ would be too frivolous, but it turned out to be the complete opposite. The lyrics take precedent over the melody,” she said. “They’re something I think everyone can relate to.”

The song is almost like a conversation, Smith said. She and the other soloists interact with one another throughout the performance, sharing a story of togetherness through eye contact and emotional gestures. Their arrangement of the song is more about community than the original track, she said.

“The lyrics are motivational, but rather than (Florence Welch) convincing herself or the audience that ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn,’ it’s us telling each other that,” Smith said. “It’s about women lifting other women up.”

Fourth-year geology and anthropology student Maddy Biebel, a Random Voices member, had a vision for the performance that inspired the group’s arrangement: meaningfulness and authenticity, she said. Lyrics from the chorus of Maggie Rogers’ “Dog Years” are interspersed throughout the performance of “Shake It Out” to add an original twist and bolster the overarching theme of resilience, she said.

Biebel said the words “We will be alright” from “Dog Years” are repeated to emphasize the piece’s message of strength and perseverance. This theme is especially resonant because the song will be performed by women with a message aimed directly toward other women, she said.

The choreography also contributes to the arrangement’s storytelling ability, Smith said. The piece begins with Woodcox singing alone, but ends with the whole group coming together to represent collective healing. The ensemble forms a tight circle at the closing of the song to signify unity, she said.

“We continuously separate and come back together to show that healing is not a singular process. In the song itself there are multiple moments of doubt and reconsideration, and we want to show that in the choreography,” Tour said. “Those physical oscillations add complexity to the lyrics.”

Drawing from the musical elements of the song, Woodcox said the performance is representative of the broader journey of life, and how female friendships can play an integral role in navigating the world.

“There’s something meditative and beautiful about a group of people standing in a circle singing to each other,” Tour said. “I remember one time we were singing and I closed my eyes and just took it all in.”

Offbeat combines beatboxing with string and brass instruments.

The six-piece band will perform its original song, “End of the Day,” at Spring Sing 2019. The band uses guitar, saxophone, violin, vocals and beatboxing to create an R&B sound with undertones of jazz and Western classical music. Fourth-year psychology student and songwriter Sanjana Deshmukh said the group’s members met through their a cappella team Naya Zamaana, and she assembled Offbeat to bring the song to life. The combination of different musical genres and instruments complements the song’s messages of love and support, said Deshmukh.

“It’s about kind of having that one person in your life where you want to be with them all the time but you recognize you … both have different goals you want to achieve,” Deshmukh said. “But at the end of the day you still want to come back and tell them all about your day.”

Inspired by Deshmukh’s own romantic relationship, “End of the Day” expresses mutual support between partners who encourage each other to accomplish their individual goals. While the song’s narrative follows a romance, Deshmukh said its message can be applied to any supportive relationship, including that between the band members who draw from their group dynamic for their performance.

Deshmukh’s lone voice opens the track, but other members soon layer in beatboxing and violin. The instruments maintain separate identities while still complementing one another in a strategic negotiation, said violinist Tridib Biswas. Each member gave their honest opinions and offered suggestions to tweak the harmonies among the five musical sounds, said Biswas.

A fourth-year chemical engineering student, Biswas said the violin adds a mellow quality meant to combat the saxophone’s heavier sound. Typically found in orchestral settings rather than in bands, his instrument’s classical undertones offer an unexpected twist to an already atypical lineup, he said.

“(The violin) is a very versatile instrument that can add a lot in terms of the texture and complementing the sound without overshadowing anything,” Biswas said.

The group also forewent the drums entirely, using only beatboxing to maintain song structure. Saxophonist and beatboxer Ishan Saha’s parts give the band more control over the rhythmic volume and range. Offering a more versatile soundscape than a heavy drum set, beatboxing helps slowly build the song’s energy and bridge the violin and saxophone more coherently, said Saha, a second-year psychobiology student. Band members spent the rehearsal process hashing out the song’s details to create harmonies with five different musical sounds.

“We’re all acceptive of each other and whenever someone thinks someone should do something a bit differently or in a different way, we’re always open about it, … which is definitely a big contributor to the way that we’ve grown,” Saha said. “Without input from other people, you can’t often hear how you sound when you’re the one playing the instrument or singing.”

As the only member in the band not graduating this year, Saha said the song represents his relationship with Offbeat and all the memories he has of creating music with them. In one moment of complete unison, the six-person band will expose their a cappella roots as they sing together after the climax of the song.

“It’s been emotional for me because they’re all going to leave,” Saha said. “Sharing these experiences with each other is I think more meaningful than winning or getting a prize.”

Plenty of students discuss the stresses of college life in the comfort of their dorm rooms.

But BUTR will bring their concerns to the Pauley Pavilion stage for the annual Spring Sing competition.

Lead singer and fourth-year psychology student Jada Banks-Mace said the eight-person band’s style can be defined as alternative R&B with jazz roots, drawing inspiration from artists like Hiatus Kaiyote and D’Angelo. Apart from occasional covers, the band mostly plays songs featuring her original lyrics, she said, and will perform a track titled “Yesterday” at the show.

Because many of BUTR’s members have known each other since childhood, their close-knit relationships makes them feel comfortable collaborating, Banks-Mace said. They try to convey their camaraderie to their audience through lyrics that are often personal, she said. The intimate lyrics of “Yesterday” reflect on stressful times in her college career, but Banks-Mace said the song’s energetic feel still encourages listeners to live in the moment.

“(‘Yesterday’) is about my mental health and just knowing that I’m gonna be okay,” she said. “We’re all going through that and the song is about forgiving yourself for being stressed and going through those things.”

Of their five original songs, they selected “Yesterday” because Banks-Mace said their college audience may have experienced similar feelings of being overwhelmed. The track also creates a feeling of unity by highlighting the way students can get through the dark times together.

“People don’t admit it, and people definitely don’t talk about it, but college is one of the most stressful things,” Banks-Mace said. “Mental health awareness is not where it needs to be.”

Lyrically connecting with audiences is one of the most rewarding things about BUTR, said Oliver Cooper, the band’s drummer and a first-year global jazz studies student. The band members wanted to temper the darker lyrical themes involving mental health, so Banks-Mace included lines about the positive experiences in her life, such as feeling accomplished as she nears graduation, Cooper said.

“You can either see it buy a smile, or you can just see the gears in (audience members’) heads turning while they’re listening to a song you’re performing because they’re interested in trying to figure it out,” Cooper said. “There’s no better feeling than having someone else also be touched by something that you created.”

Banks-Mace’s lyrical style has grown with the different groups in which she has performed during her four years participating in Spring Sing, said Maddy Biebel. Fourth-year geology and anthropology student Biebel performed with Banks-Mace in the band Jaded at Spring Sing 2018, and said her new project with BUTR has proved her lyrical growth as she is more effectively able to express herself. BUTR’s collaborative energy combines Banks-Mace’s original tracks with the other members’ own musical styles to transform their songs into the band’s signature groovy style, Biebel said.

To ensure each member can implement their musical ideas in the songs, BUTR rehearses prior to their performances to loosely assign instrument solos and when to perform them, Cooper said. Through their instrumental improvisation on stage, the audience will hopefully feel involved in the band’s friendship, further allowing the song’s message to resonate with its listeners, Cooper said.

“I also think just the fact that we’re a group of really tight friends who grew up together and ended up at college together makes the sound a little bit different,” Cooper said. “(The performance) is just more connected and more of a fun little jam than just hiring a group of musicians to just play the songs.”