Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Ceremony Of Sound
Woven weaves together harmonies, percussion, spirit
It’s not often that a band uses an actual tree branch full of leaves for an instrument, but for a trio of Fayetteville musicians, it seems only natural. Woven — made up of Jessica Hawk, Regina Caeli and Talina Madonna — “weave” together vocal harmonies, hand percussion, crystal and brass bowls, ukulele, guitar, spirit drum, finger cymbals and a branch of actual leaves to create their music.
Their band name, like their sound, flows from the idea of bringing together different threads of music to make a unified, but multilayered musical tapestry.
“It really explains what we’re trying to create and do together vocally. That’s our primary instrument, our voices, and weaving those harmonies and sounds together and then, of course, incorporating the instruments because that’s always fun too,” Caeli says.
“I would say our main source of inspiration is the Earth … and the seasons and the elements and that presence with Mother Earth. There’s definitely an undercurrent of a spiritual element in everything that we sing — even if it’s a love song,” Madonna adds.
While the instruments may be secondary to the vocals, having the extra sound encourages their songwriting.
“Regina was gifted this beautiful drum and she wrote a lot of songs on it. And she let me borrow it. And I wrote a lot of songs on it. And so that’s kind of one of our primary instrument sources,” Madonna says.
Referred to as the “spirit drum” by the group’s members, it looks like a tabla drum, which is used in Indian and Indigenous music. Caeli explains that she was taken by the sound, which is warm and low. The drum is carved from wood and bound with leather. She says that she traded a djembe (a rope tuned, goblet shaped drum) for the wide, cylindrical and quite heavy hand drum that she first heard in a drum circle.
“We’re still kind of trying to figure it out, but as far as we can tell, it’s typically used for ceremonial purposes. And we do consider our music to be ceremonial. It’s an homage to that which is greater than ourselves,” Caeli says. “It allows the voice to shine. So I think that our instruments are really there to just help us add a little bit of texture to what we’re already doing with our main instrument, which is our voices.”
Also adding texture is the aforementioned branch of thick, crisp leaves that are shaken as a percussion instrument by Madonna.
“I was watching and listening to a sound healing session. I don’t even remember who it was, I should probably look into that so I can credit them. But they had these leaf bundles, really big leaf bundles, that they used to create this whooshing sound, and it really moved me,” Madonna picks up the story. After wondering where she could find such an instrument, nature answered. “I was out on my deck, and I’ve got this big beautiful oak tree, and I just noticed that it had left me this branch. And I picked it up and I was kind of singing a little bit and shaking it and I realized this is perfect, and so I added some leaves and it’s a little homemade instrument, it gets leaves added to it. … I gave it a little facelift today.”
“Everywhere we go we leave a few leaves,” Hawk interjects playfully.
“We leave a trail of leaves in our wake,” Madonna laughs. “So we apologize in advance of ourselves.”
They also incorporate “tings” or finger cymbals as an accent to their ethereal soundscapes.
“They’re just very subtle, we don’t really do the whole like really intense rhythmic stuff with them, but they’re just there to add a little bit of resonance,” Madonna explains. “Regina and Jessie both picked up the ukulele kind of around the same time, and it’s just a wonderful instrument that lends itself towards vocal expression.”
They add that they use other instruments — such as sound bowls — to create their music that lends itself to relaxation, meditation or yoga, and of course, spirituality.
Their performances seem unintentionally ritualistic too with monthly shows at Terra Studios in Durham and Unity of Fayetteville.
“I was there for about two and a half years doing music ministry. And Talina and Regina both kind of came in at different times. And that’s where we sang with The Graces, and we would sing for the service basically,” Hawk says. She says that sometime last year they were asked to lead prayer services at the religious center that focuses on conscious spiritual living. They say that the center has been a support system for the group.
The group says that they are working on a demo and would like to branch out and do an album. In the meantime, they will perform from 1-4 p.m. today, Nov. 6, at Terra Studios. They are in the process of weaving together a website, but in the meantime they are on Instagram @songswoven and at songswoven@gmail.com.