Artist Feature | Godesulloh Bawa

What first drew you to music and songwriting?

It’s pretty weird to think about because as a kid, I wasn’t really a fan of music. I didn’t really care much for it. I still remember a time when I would be at church hearing music from the band and being super uninterested in what was happening. That changed when I was about twelve years old, and I was going to cut my hair with my dad one weekend. Our barbers also happened to be DJ’s, because that’s a supernatural combination. But because they were DJ’s, they had a lot of music equipment in the store that day, including a guitar. While I was waiting for my dad to be done cutting his hair, one of the barbers asked me if I wanted to play his guitar. He showed me one chord, and after playing it for a few minutes, I realized that this instrument was the greatest thing ever, and I wanted to throw myself into it. I got a guitar and started teaching myself to play, and I became very aware of all the music around me. After a little while, I started playing a lot of Nigerian church music, and that was fun because it introduced me to the world of improvisation and playing things by ear.

I remember this one day when I was noodling on guitar and realized that I had no one to play with at the time. So I began to wonder if it was possible to play melodies as well as the accompaniment as well as interesting bass lines all by myself. I started discovering fingerstyle ideas and completely fell in love with the challenging technical nature of the style. After playing for a few years, I got to college and started taking guitar lessons for the first time, and I tried to be in as many ensembles as I could manage. My time spent in worship bands, jazz bands, and choirs really opened my eyes to see how magical music can be. Around my junior year, I started writing arrangements for the jazz combo I was in on campus, and that led me to officially start taking composition lessons. At that point, my mind was opened once more to the infinite beauty of creating music. I started writing and arranging choral music, as well as jazz tunes, string quartet pieces, and chamber ensemble music.

Who or what has had the biggest influence on you as a songwriter?

All the teachers I’ve had in my life have influenced me in so many ways. After I had been playing guitar for a little while, I decided to join the band at my church. The music director at the time was one of the most inspiring people I had ever met. He would take time to teach us all basic concepts about music theory and I remember always jotting down everything he’d say, even though I usually had no idea what he was talking about. I’d go home after rehearsals and read through my notes until it all made sense. I’d say I got a pretty good foundational understanding of how harmonies work from those lessons. When I got to college and started taking guitar lessons, I studied with two phenomenal teachers and guitar players who inspired me to love the instrument even more. The two choir directors I worked with introduced me to the wonderful world of choral music and made me appreciate the beauty and elegance of conducting music. My jazz/composition instructor inspired me to think in new ways when approaching my compositions. My worship band instructors taught me a lot about ensemble leadership. Overall, my teachers and instructors have inspired me in so many different ways.

Stylistically, I’d say that Tommy Emmanuel is definitely a big influence on the sounds and textures I try to put into my guitar arrangements. Donovan Raitt, one of my guitar teachers, has also influenced my fingerstyle sound a lot. For my choral pieces, I love the sound created by modern composers like Eric Whitacre and Jake Runestad. I also adore classical music, so elements of that usually show up in a lot of the music I do. I love African rhythms and melodies because of how lively and intense they can be, and it’s always fun to arrange jazz pieces inspired by them. All in all, I’m always inspired by acoustic music and I love genres that can make instruments dance, sing, and weep with each other.

If you could only listen to five albums for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Ah, well. This is a hard one but…

“The Guitar Mastery of Tommy Emmanuel”- Tommy Emmanuel.
This one is on here because Tommy Emmanuel is just incredible to listen to.

“Light and Gold”- Eric Whitacre
Some of the pieces on here remind me every day why I fell in love with choral music.

“Arise O Lord”- Israel’s Hope
This is a pretty obscure one, and I’m not sure how I came across it but it's basically Messianic Praise music with elements of jazz, RnB, Gospel, and soul. The whole album is basically one concert so the songs lead into each other, and I find it pretty moving.

“One Church”- Kurt Carr
I love Gospel music, and Kurt Carr is one of my favorite contemporary Gospel composers.

“It’s Only Time”- Drake Bell
This was probably the first album I ever intentionally listened to, and it’s still a pretty fun time all these years later.

What does your creative process/rhythm look like?

Well, it depends on what I’m trying to do, I suppose. Generally, a lot of noodling is involved. I spend as much time as I can each day just holding my guitar and seeing what happens, and I try to make that separate from my practice time. I play around and if I stumble upon a melody or some harmonic material that I like, then I record it on my phone and save it for later. Those recordings usually turn into all sorts of things, so that’s pretty fun. I’m currently working on a jazz big band piece that came out of one of those.

For my choral pieces, I usually dedicate some of my time to looking for poetry or lyrics because I’m admittedly not the best at writing my own. I write and arrange a decent amount of instrumental music, but for my choral pieces, I spend some time looking for texts. When I find one that speaks to me, I usually try humming melodies that seem natural to me as I look through the words, then I try to play through some harmonic ideas on a piano or something. Then I get my laptop and begin to write as much as I can. Usually, I write non-stop for a few hours because I really don’t like stopping unless I get the general spirit of the piece down, which usually means getting a fairly solid beginning, pretty okay middle, and fairly solid-ish ending. I usually write until I achieve that, then I let the music rest for a night. The next day, I look through it with a fresh approach and focus on more music theory aspects like voice leading and analyzing my chords. For most of my other arrangements, I try to go with the random thoughts that pop into my head to see where I can take them. For example, one day I wondered what the Phineas and Ferb Theme song would sound like with a bossa nova groove, so I ran with that.

What are you working on now?

I graduated less than a month ago so I moved back home for a bit, and I’m taking some time to practice, record, and write some more. Over the last few months, I spent some time recording some pieces that I wrote over the summer, so that’s been fun. I’ve released two of them, and I plan on finishing up the rest and putting out my first album this month. Pretty excited about that one because one of the songs is a choral piece I arranged and recorded virtual choir style. I’m also working on two solo guitar albums. It’s all pretty tentative but I’m probably going to have one of them be based on guitar arrangements and originals inspired by music from my home, Nigeria. The other one will probably just be arrangements of songs I’ve heard over the years that I enjoy. I might also start being more active on YouTube this year. Other than that, I mostly plan on writing and arranging as much as I can over the next few months.

You can learn more about Godesulloh and hear his music HERE.