Kalamazoo Lively Arts
Prairie Ronde Artist Residency: Megan Diana
Clip: Season 8 | 6m 18sVideo has Closed Captions
Megan Diana is working with a new genre of music, Dream Country Disco.
Megan Diana is working with a new genre of music, Dream Country Disco. Vintage keyboards, delay pedals, throwback drum-grooves, and French horn provide her unique sounds.
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Kalamazoo Lively Arts is a local public television program presented by WGVU
Kalamazoo Lively Arts
Prairie Ronde Artist Residency: Megan Diana
Clip: Season 8 | 6m 18sVideo has Closed Captions
Megan Diana is working with a new genre of music, Dream Country Disco. Vintage keyboards, delay pedals, throwback drum-grooves, and French horn provide her unique sounds.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(upbeat music) - I'm Megan Diana, I'm a current Prairie Ronde resident artist.
(upbeat music) So I have done a few of these before, and I have a few pieces that I've already, you know, I'm coming here with, but I have a couple songs where I'm like, oh, I just need to put some french horn on these songs.
You know, that's gonna kind of, that's easing me into this other space of, okay, the big scary idea of there's nothing started on a song, what's gonna come?
I've had a couple residencies where, you know, the express goal was to like, I wanna go to your beautiful spot in Michigan, or I was in Italy or Arizona, all these different places.
And I wanna learn about that environment, and I want to see who I am there, and I wanna see what I feel like or see what I feel I, you know, and try and put those, that information into a song.
So I don't, I don't know what I'm gonna write about, but I'm due diligence of this week of just walking around and reading and listening and seeing things that I like and respond to.
And in May is when I'll start to dig in and start to write some songs about Vicksburg and the mill.
(dramatic music) For me, it's very invigorating, and I want to learn.
I wanna learn what is life like in a town I don't usually live in that's very different from Portland.
I actually, I was an army brat.
So I think it makes a lot of sense when you think about it 'cause I did move around a lot as a kid, and being in new places even for, you know, a week or a weekend or there's also something different about the pace of being in a new place for five weeks, and I kind of have this home, and I have to settle in and really kind of for a moment feel what it's like to live here and try and soak up, you know, what the flavor is here.
Or you know, what's the pace?
What do people like and I wanna learn.
I wanna meet them.
My eternal journey through songwriting has always been like, what am, is discovering more with every song who I am, which is a very multilayered person as every human is, but especially as a woman in this world, as an artist who's been independent and solo in many parts of her life for a long time.
What does that mean?
I'm just always unpacking the layers as they also, you know, over time just, they keep building through, you know, the living life.
The longer I go on.
You also start to think about how can I tell more of the story of what my music sounds like visually?
What do I look like on stage?
What are my visuals and how do I make every part of telling the story, of my sound and my songs artful?
You know, this is the part of the evolution of the longer I have been a songwriter, I feel like after a solid decade of truly writing my songs, arranging them, all that stuff and evolving as a person who has learned how to, you know, really be in a recording studio and get what I want out of it.
I feel like I finally am hitting my stride on what my sound is and what, again, all those other elements that I was talking about.
Like, you learn, oh, what does Megan Diana really sound like if she's not in the choir or she's not singing with this jazz group, and she's not doing that other gig where you're supposed to kind of sound like somebody else.
You know, my music is where I'm discovering myself and my voice literally, figuratively all the time.
♪ And now I'm writing a song ♪ (upbeat music) I feel like the arts are like the heartbeat of a community because, again, yes, it does bring everybody together, but it makes them feel things.
It can be kind of like, sometimes it's weird.
I think anything that takes you out of your everyday little routine of I'm going to work, I'm doing my, doing the things that just, you know, I'm on the program.
I think the arts make us stop and take a moment to appreciate beauty, to connect with somebody else, to make us think for a second about something in their life.
It just, it makes them be human.
We came here last night and there was a music show, and I could see that the musician on stage was just kind of blown away with how many people came to support her.
And I love watching an audience witness something.
As a performer too, when I see people look at each other, you know, the performer, the musician is saying something about like, oh, this is a love song, or this is a song about a breakup, or this is a song about being a bad mother.
You know, when she said that, like the three ladies next to me were like, yeah, that's.
You know, like when I see people's reacting and connecting with somebody making art in front of them, it's like this reflection back for people that don't know how to get up on stage and sing a song about a tough part of their life.
It makes everybody feel more seen to know that everybody else is going through tough times and good times and makes people feel alive.
That's why.
(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.
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Now PlayingPrairie Ronde Artist Residency: Megan Diana
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Clip: S8 | 6m 18s | Megan Diana is working with a new genre of music, Dream Country Disco. (6m 18s)
Prairie Ronde Artist Residency
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Kalamazoo Lively Arts is a local public television program presented by WGVU