Compass, Water & Sound

I’ve been creating songs since before I could even write. I still remember the melody and “lyrics” of what I can say was my first “international song” - a constant repetition of “Tchuck lero lero, tchuck lero lero”, as it was some sort of sophisticated dialect. Oh, and of course, lots of clapping hands to set the rhythm. It was at the age of 13 that my first real song was born, with melody, a real language and a real instrument - a tiny guitar that my dad gave me as a Christmas present when I was 7. Little did I know that only at 29 I would officially release that long-awaited international song. And with a Canadian producer, eh? I can’t even express how grateful and happy I am.

Photo by Gabriel Mesquita

Music has always been my escape, especially with overflowing emotions that were not simple to understand at such a young age. I was discovering the world - the internal and the external one - and music was my personal compass: guiding me along unknown and unimaginable paths, helping me to find myself, even when I thought I was completely different from everyone else.

Music was there when I wanted to explore unknown lands, unexperienced feelings, when I was with a heart full of enthusiasm and love but with no safe place to rest them.

Music was there when I felt I was totally lost and alone, disoriented in my own conflicted thoughts.

Music was there, and there I was, writing feelings and letting my voice carry them out. Sharing thoughts, beliefs, frustrations, celebrations, uncertainties… and questions to which I could not find answers alone. It was there for me.

Music was (and still is) my safe haven, the way I found to figure me out, truly, with no prejudgments or limitations. Only me and my art.

It seems like yesterday that I started showing my first songs to some friends in secondary school. I believe that was the actual moment when I realized that music is such a powerful and empathic tool that genuinely connects people. A way to listen to all of our stories in a different light, with different voices and words, but through lyrics that, at some moment, I wrote, I felt. Every. Single. Word.

My first official song (the one I mentioned above) was “Amiga Fiel - Loyal Friend”, written after a silly fight with two of my best friends back at that time. Surprisingly that was the same song another colleague said that reminded her of the bond she had with her mom, who unfortunately had passed away a few years before. Another colleague told me almost the same phrase, but that the song was about her dad, their relationship. He had also passed away.

Not even the barrier of age, time, pronouns or different experiences were able to dissolve that connection between all of them, all of us.

How come something from a “silly fight” could be compared to such a terrible loss?

Well, they felt the love, the care and the support. Those are, no doubt, universal.

A guitar, a pencil and a calm creative day can definitely do unexplainable things and give us directions we would not have discovered with a different routine. Yeah, music is truly my compass.

Since the day they shared with me how that first song touched them, I've been using my songs to share these broad feelings, hoping to give support to different realities, voice to different stories, experiences and emotions.

Maybe that was the way I found to remind myself that I'm not alone in this imaginary lost island with only my own feelings around me.

It’s certainly more peaceful and meaningful when we are reminded there is an ocean out there, but full of others’ feelings, together, as part of the same whole.

I can’t wait to fully dive into these new (northern) waters with you all.

Well, looking from the sky, this endless sea becomes only one calm and blue thing.

So, I guess you’re already on it with me.

We are all made of water, right? But I would also add “sound”.

Flow and vibrance. Deluge and thunder.

After all, there is no such thing as the sound of the ocean finding firm ground.

Just as there is nothing like us finding a firm bond.

We are all made of water and sound.

- Gabby Malta