Artist Spotlight: Meet Cecille Elliott
“Letting go is why this song exists in the first place.”
Cecille Elliott is no stranger to the stage. She regularly performs as a singer, violinist, violist, and guitarist around the Northwest, sharing her voice in an array of venues and across many genres. Those who follow Cecille on Instagram also know Cecille’s writing, usually displayed atop her artwork and sketches. There is no doubt—Cecille is a multifaceted artist.
What you may not know about Cecille, however, is her immense catalog of original compositions—decades in the making, and rarely shared in public spaces.
If you were at our recent Dirty, Stupid Music show, you were treated to a premiere of one of these works, We Are Murmurs, commissioned by Resonance Ensemble. Now, just a few weeks later, we unveil this new work on our YouTube channel. To mark the occasion, we asked Cecille to share more about her creative process—and what it took for her to create and share this work with all of us.
Will you share some of your journey as a musician?
Looking back at my early days, I know I was trying to find my own identity in music—I have a pretty strong internal compass, and when I’m drawn to music that draws me or excites me, I want to participate in it. My parents—who are musicians themselves—gave me a rigorous music education experience, although ultimately never placing pressure on me to do a particular thing as my career, which I’m very thankful for. I did feel however, from others as well as myself, a weight and an intense pressure to live up to certain expectations around music. Internally, I grappled with a lot of insecurity. Externally, I’d found myself loving and participating in several different music cultures that often did not embrace one another, or sometimes where I didn’t feel embraced.
One of the things that was constant throughout all of that was songwriting, and writing often became a bridge for me to navigate all of those things. I think without knowing it, when I was listening to music on the radio, I was internalizing pop-style song structures, first translating that on guitar and eventually to what I was writing on piano too. Songs just started flying out of me. Once I realized I could create my own songs in pop genres, in my own voice and style, I was writing all the time.
Why do you think songwriting ended up being the constant for you?
Cecille (left) performing with musicians from Master Wu Man’s band during Silkroad GMW. Photo by OJ Slaughter.
There was definitely a therapeutic element to it, probably largely unconscious back then but very conscious to me now. There’s something that continues to fascinate me about it—how something I am experiencing won’t fully reveal itself until I’ve written it in poetry or music. I like exploring the creative capacities of language, the multiple ways to write and communicate.
When I write music that doesn’t have words or vocals, I treat the instruments as the story-tellers. They have to accomplish the same communication and expression of words without them being there, so there’s a different type of creativity I’m engaging with in that respect
When those two things meet, you can say one thing with words, then have the backing music either support or subvert those words. That play and exploration I find fascinating.
While you perform publicly, you haven’t shared much of your songwriting publicly. Do you consider the music you write to be private?
I write about a lot of different things, and yes, sometimes they can be really personal and can make it harder for me to share. It’s hard to express myself sometimes. Music can also be a way for me to process intense emotions.
“2013, writing out a chart for my song ‘Stardust’”
How do you find inspiration for your music?
Inspiration can come from nowhere, or other times I actively seek it out. It’s sometimes hard to predict what will be the catalyst for an idea. I vehemently don’t trust work that feels like it’s trying too hard to “be something”, which can mean a lot of things I suppose. I think I mean that at its core something is insincere, and if I ever find my own work veering in that direction it begins to repel me. Doing my best to stay connected with that intuition helps my internal inspo compass, at least a little. I want to create from a genuine place. I do better work if I don’t force it. I’m less in my own way. Starting parameters can be super helpful, such as searching my old poems or voice memos for previous ideas, but by giving myself permission to find flexibility in the topic or process, that malleability allows me to discover and uncover the most genuine version of whatever it is I’m trying to express. At that point, with patience and some trial and error, the rest sort of unfolds itself.
Women who are very much at the helm of their creativity and expression, I’m drawn to them and inspired by them. From guitar ladies like Alanis Morissette and Avril Lavigne to piano ladies like Alicia Keys and Fiona Apple. They were huge writing influences on me during my teenage years when I really began writing a lot. I resonated with the fact that they tapped into their emotions and unapologetically created from that space. It snowballed from there in terms of women that continue to inspire and influence me in that way; Imogen Heap, Taylor Swift, Lianne La Havas, Esperanza Spalding, Kimbra, the band Joseph (Closner sisters), Björk, and on and on, there are so many.
What about for the music? Is that usually developed at the same time as lyrics?
It’s been both at times. Poems are starters often, but there are also times where I find a chord progression or melody first. I used to write a lot on piano, and currently I have the midi keyboard and my guitar I use for writing. As a teenager, I was also heavily influenced by film music—film composers like John Williams and Howard Shore—and jazz musicians like Oscar Peterson and George Gershwin. College was my introduction to many different vocal jazz and classical choral styles. I draw a lot on my orchestral background as well as my choral background to think about colors and mood–the way the quality of a melody can change based on what instrument is playing it and how. But, there’s been a lot of times when I just put chords into Ableton or on my loop pedal–then I just write and write; could be just a melody, but if it’s poetry I might write multiple pages before something feels like it’s flowing, or even just writing for the sake of the words themselves.
Can you expand on what you mean by the words themselves?
Artwork for Cecille’s new piece, “We Are Murmurs”
Sometimes it’s about the shape, sound, or rhythm of the words. It’s good for me to leave room for play. I like challenging myself–can I rhyme in the middle of this phrase instead of the end, can I have the same sound in every line for the next ten lines? Play and experimentation helps me take the entire thing less seriously, relax and explore. There are so many voice memos of me singing into my phone, or just saying a phrase multiple different ways.
I’ve really liked writing that way too, because often even before I come up with a melody I’m working through the rhythm–what will this sound like when I read it and experiment with emphasis weight shifts? Almost like in a slam poetry sense.
When you were commissioned to write We Are Murmurs for Resonance, how did you go about writing it?
It sounds silly, but my first thoughts were that I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I was grateful for the opportunity and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to “produce” something that would be relevant or meaningful in context. I definitely ran into the trouble of trying to set parameters for myself about the piece’s overall sound and focus–and it felt forced and I couldn’t finish ideas and they began to repel me. After hitting that mental reset button, We Are Murmurs really just flew out of me in comparison to the other ideas I had been working on.
With your music being so personal, do you find that you prefer to create on your own? Or do you also like collaborating with others?
While I do write mostly alone, at times I actually prefer to create music with other people–like improvising or composing with other people–even if it's just a temporary project because I feel a lot less precious about my ideas and I feel like I can go through them a lot quicker, be less in my head. When it's just me, it has to sit with me a lot longer because I don't have this sort of immediate feedback that you get of sharing something in the room–playing off of other people’s thoughts and being a bit more objective about it.
That’s part of what was nerve-wracking bringing We Are Murmurs and the other two ideas I was working on to our first rehearsal. I had only heard the piece as a MIDI track before the first rehearsals and I didn’t really know what these parts were going to actually sound like when they were all together, actually singing through the words. Would the words flow? Would the harmonies make sense? Would it be hard to read? Was this part going to sit in someone’s voice well? It was hard to know.
What was it like to perform We Are Murmurs for the first time?
This is my first time having an experience like this–of writing something, rehearsing it with other people and directing what we’re going to do with it. It was going to be really hard no matter who those other people were, but I do have a lot of gratitude for Kathy [Dr. Katherine FtizGibbon] who really opened this door for me and encouraged me. I feel like she placed a lot of trust in me, and I really didn’t want to disappoint her or the other singers. When I was hitting my first real snag in my process, she met with me to talk through things–and even after 20 minutes of being able to talk with her, it just felt like I was able to get back on track really fast, even though I changed ideas two more times after that! Touching base helped me put less pressure on myself and get out of my own way.
What is this piece inspired by?
It’s about experiencing very sudden grief. It explores the notion of not being ready for change, and change coming anyway. That’s about all I think I want to say for now. This piece is a way for me to process, to understand a certain type of grief—and the disbelief that can accompany it.
So how does it feel to have it out in the world now?
It’s exciting and scary. Ultimately I’m really glad I did this, because it’s been a goal of mine for most of my life. I only started performing sets of original music a few years ago, though I’d been writing well over a decade before that. To have the ability to compose/write music that needs more than just me as a musician to execute it, and then to be able to share it with others, that experience has been eye-opening, humbling, a huge honor. I want to keep writing and sharing. I’m so grateful to the four other vocalists who joined me on this. I felt very self conscious and they embraced my work and gave it life. Their support meant so much.
What’s up next for you?
I’m still writing and performing, still learning, just working at trying to create a space for myself within it all.
I’ll be playing a solo set at McMennamin’s Al’s Den on March 19, in the evening shortly after Resonance’s next concert highlighting Portland Protests which I’m also performing in. So, come to the earlier Resonance concert, and then come hang out with me downtown afterwards! I’ll have my guitar, loop pedal, my electric violin, it’ll be lots of fun.
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All professional photos in this article by Rachel Hadiashar | All photos on this feature provided by Cecille Elliott
LISTEN TO “WE ARE MURMURS”
BUY THE SHEET MUSIC FOR “WE ARE MURMURS: https://www.cecilleelliott.com/store
