Susan Anderson is a singer, songwriter, and violin player. She has performed across the country as a classical, jazz, punk, bluegrass, children’s-music, sacred-ritual, folk and country artist. Equally at home in a concert hall as an intimate jazz club or DIY basement space, Susan has always embraced the expansive creativity and endless possibilities that music has allowed her to explore.
Susan and seven other finalists will gather in Asheville on Thursday, December 11, to connect and perform at the 24th annual NewSong Music Performance & Songwriting Competition, held at The Grey Eagle. Tickets are on sale HERE.
NewSong Music: What sort of music was playing in your house when you were growing up?
Susan: My mom is a piano player, so the foundation of my musical DNA are the songs that she was playing while I was growing up. There were songs that I knew really well like Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose,” or Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” or practically Carole King’s entire catalog that I had never heard a recording of. I just learned them all from her playing. Later, when I learned to read music I would play out of her music books and make my own arrangements of the songs, still, without ever hearing a real recording of any of the songs. As a family, we listened to a lot of Oldies, Country and Classical music. You were just as likely to hear George Strait as you were Dvorak 9 cranked to 11 on our family stereo. Driving to violin lessons, my mom, sister, and I were singing along to The Commitments soundtrack, or the Oldies or Country stations. That’s also how I learned how to sing harmony.
What was your journey to music — were you classically trained? From a family of musicians? Self-taught?
We had a lot of instruments in the house when I was growing up. When I was 3, I found a full size violin and wouldn’t leave it alone. It was way too big for me, so I would haul it into the kitchen, pull out the silverware drawer, balance the neck of the violin on the drawer, then go to town on the open strings. My mom would wheel our upright piano into the kitchen to accompany me as I sawed away on the open strings. Our biggest hit was a rousing rendition of “Hey Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle.” After a few months of this, my parents saw that I was genuinely interested in learning how to play and got me lessons. Since then, I just never stopped. Classical violin lessons were consistent throughout my schooling, but I also studied jazz violin, took piano lessons, and started playing in bands when I was in college. I kept looking for any opportunity to play. I actually didn’t start writing music until I was out of college and performing my own music is the newest part of my musical journey.
What is the first song you wrote that you were proud of, and why?
I’m not sure if there’s a specific song that I can pinpoint that I was first proud of, but something that really makes me feel good is when people comment on my lyrics. I feel really accomplished when I find a good turn of phrase, or can get a metaphor to span a couple verses, or find that one line that turns everything in a direction you weren’t expecting. It might be because I considered myself an instrumentalist for decades before I considered myself a songwriter, but I feel a special sense of pride when I really nail a lyric that speaks to someone.
What is your writing process like?
Lyrics almost always come to me first, and it’s almost always a chorus. I always joke that I could never teach someone how to write a song, because my method is to just think a lot. All of the time. Occasionally, I’ll get a general idea or theme for a song and go from there, but usually it’s one line that is part of a chorus that gets everything started. I’m really fortunate that I’m able to write in my head, without an instrument. I worked as a preschool teacher for a long time, and there are a lot of my songs that were written while I was walking around the playground watching the kids. Then, when I’d have the chance, I could sit down at the piano and get everything out of my head. Now that I have more time, I don’t have to do as much mental writing, but I do get all of my best ideas when I’m driving when there’s nary an instrument in sight. I’ve always been a night owl and can usually be found playing and writing music until the wee small hours of the morning.
Share a musical adventure from this summer with us.
This actually happened in the early fall, but I had a really great opportunity to perform solo fiddle and vocal on Phillip Rhodes’ “Concerto for Bluegrass Band and Orchestra” with the Blue Ridge Orchestra. The concerto is a fantastic piece written for bluegrass band and full symphony orchestra that mixes traditional bluegrass tunes with themes from Beethoven and a little bit of everything else in between! I’ve played violin concertos with orchestras before, but never imagined that I would have the opportunity to play fiddle in that setting. The piece was played as the finale of a concert programmed around remembering, rebuilding and reimagining after hurricane Helene. The entire experience was really special and I feel really fortunate that I was able to have that opportunity.
