Olivia Kiene’s Path to Songwriting Success

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Olivia Scott '17, Student Life Editor

Many Marymount students have had the pleasure of hearing the remarkable musical and songwriting talent of senior Olivia Kiene. She continually impresses the community with her voice, her original compositions, and her undeniable talent. While she may make it look effortless, Olivia affirms that she has had a complex journey and process that have truly led her to achieve success as a musician.

Olivia describes that initially her, “Mom always wanted [her] to play an instrument.” Even though this may appear as the initial desire of her mother, Olivia has very much chosen her own musical path. She states that she, “played violin from first to third grade, just to learn the ‘Star Wars Theme.’” Once she succeeded at that small feat, Olivia claims that she “was over playing the violin.” She then pursued piano for the next year, until her teacher moved. Finally, Olivia describes, “in fourth grade, I watched Hannah Montana: The Movie, and it inspired me to play the guitar.” Ever since then, she has enjoyed playing the guitar and using it to help compose many of her songs.

In addition to her instrumental ability, perhaps Olivia’s most impressive talent is her innate ability to write songs. She shared that:

Ever since I was little, I would make up songs because I just wanted to perform in front of people. I would tell people, “this song is called ‘Snow’,” and then say stuff that rhymes. Then, when I was in 5th grade, they needed a song for our fifth grade school mass, so I wrote a song called “SPA Believes.” I got so many compliments that it inspired me to get more compliments, so I kept going at it.

Olivia also added that this was at, “the same time Taylor Swift came out with her album Fearless, so everyone thought it was a big deal to write songs.”

When asked about her songwriting process, Olivia described the spontaneous ways in which she generates her ideas; she usually does not stick to a set process. She claims, “it is different for every song.” Sometimes, her songs will come to her at the strangest of times: “At 2am, I will come up with an idea for a melody and put it in a voice memo on my phone.” Olivia does not revisit the melody until the next day when she attempts to play it on the guitar. Most of the time, she succeeds, and that melody forms the chorus to the song. Her next step is deciding the tone of the song. She explains how she tackles this challenge, saying that she figures out “whether the melody sounds like a sad song, a happy song, or an angry song. Then, I work with that until I figure it out!”

Olivia made a lot of progress with her music particularly this past summer by performing at open-mic nights and listening to other people’s songs. Olivia reflects on the inspiration she feels at these open mics, explaining, “Because I am so young, I haven’t had a lot of the experiences that I hear older people at open-mic nights singing about.” Therefore, when she has the opportunity to hear others’ stories, Olivia is able to extract inspiration for her own music. Singing at these events has also been a particularly valuable opportunity for her to meet other musicians. “I’ll be working with someone I met at an open-mic night to write and produce songs together,” she says.

Out of all of Olivia’s amazing performances, she shares without hesitation that performing her song “Sweetie Pie” at her Marymount junior class retreat was by far one of her favorites. She particularly enjoyed how her “classmates were able to start singing along,” and shared, “it was a fun way to bring the class together.”. In addition, Olivia unquestionably desires to pursue music in the future, largely because “it brings her true joy” and she “absolutely loves performing.”

Whether drawing inspiration from Adele and Ed Sheeran, listening to “Muddy Waters” by LP,  recording herself singing in the middle of the night, performing in front of the entire school, or even singing when her microphone was not working at an 8th grade Christmas show, Olivia continues to astound everyone who hears her voice with her undeniable talent and love for music.