Student releases second album
Sarah Olsen, a senior in majoring in music therapy, recently performed in the Taggart Student Center auditorium to promote the release of her second album. Olsen is a singer and songwriter with a passion for music.
“My mom will tell you I was born singing,” Olsen said. “She and my dad talk about me as a small child out on the swing set in our back yard, swinging and singing at the top of my lungs. I started taking piano lessons at age 8 and started guitar when I was in seventh grade and wrote my first song as a freshman in high school.”
Rebecca Olsen, Sarah’s sister, said Sarah has always been very involved in music and had a lot of talent.
“Sarah would sing to me in my crib when I was a baby and put on shows dancing and singing on our window seat,” Rebecca said. “Many of our home videos have her singing songs in the background.”
Olsen said she started writing music in high school, but raising awareness hasn’t been easy.
“Getting recognized as a performer is a process,” Olsen said. “I think what I’ve learned is that unless you can devote your life to ‘making it’ as a performer, you probably won’t. There’s a lot of time that goes into crafting your music, your sound, recording, playing, rehearsing, traveling and promoting. It’s a full time job.”
Olsen said she writes for her own sanity. If she is not writing about something in her own life, she is writing about someone close to her.
“I heard William Fitzsimmons say in an interview once that there’s a difference between what he writes and music that is ‘entertainment,'” Olsen said. “That’s what I’ve always tried to do. My goal is to move my audience, to help them feel something, not to be entertained.”
Olsen said she enjoys performing and writing.
“It’s something I do to help me work through things and share what I’m learning with others,” she said. “It’s a lot of work though and very emotionally taxing.”
She said the best advice she’s received was to learn as much as she could about the artists she wants to emulate.
“Spend as much time as you can listening to artists you’re trying to emulate and play a lot of covers,” Olsen said. “The more you play and listen to the styles you’re trying to reflect, the more it will come out in your writing.”
She said artists should do some self-exploration to determine what writing, playing and performing means to them individually, because if they do it for the wrong reasons, they won’t be happy.
“If you really believe in something and you love it, you’ve got to go for it no matter what,” Olsen said. “There’s a reason that desire is in you, and the world needs whatever it is you’ve got to give or you wouldn’t be here.”
Olsen said she’d been looking forward to the show she did in the TSC Auditorium for a long time.
Olsen said she and her friend Kellen Tew, who plays guitar, have been playing together for about six months.
“We had known each other and then she needed somebody to back her up,” Tew said. “She wanted to enhance her sound and asked if I would play with one of her shows. It went really well, so she asked me if I wanted to do it more on a regular basis. Then we got to know each other and became pretty good friends.”
According to Tew, Olsen writes the songs and then brings them to him.
“Sarah writes her own songs and then she comes and plays them for me, and then I color her sound,” he said. “I’ll write guitar parts to compliment her music. They are still her songs, but I bring my own flavor to her music and we perform like that.”
Tew said Olsen’s original pieces are heartfelt.
“She makes herself very vulnerable in her music,” he said. “She’s honest, and you can just kind of see into her soul in her music.”
Rebecca said she and their friends try to make to every performance.
“It’s hard not to sing along,” Rebecca said. “Her music is so fun and inspiring.”
Letha Mark, a clinical training director and instructor for the music therapy program, said from the first time she heard Olsen perform, she believed Olsen possessed an unique talent.
“Her songwriting skills are excellent, but even more than the skill musically, Sarah has the ability to write poignant lyrics that speak to human emotion and experience,” Mark said. “She seems to have a talent for putting herself inside a situation long enough to find expression for the emotions involved, both through the words and the music. “
Mark said those skills will be advantageous for Olsen in her chosen profession.
But despite her talent, Olsen said fame isn’t her desire.
“She’s not trying to get famous or anything,” Tew said. “She’s just trying to reach as many people as she can. Being popular has never been a goal of hers. The reason she made the album is that it is therapeutic. It is driven by her own songwriting.”
– marissa.neeley@aggiemail.usu.edu