Composer and pianist Jo Gendle dives deep into the sounds of grief and how it can transform into music, not as a dark experience, but as a means of connection and release. We explore the question of what grief truly sounds like when it weaves its way into our melodies. Through personal reflections and poignant stories, we see how Jo's journey with loss has shaped her music, beginning with the memory of a dear friend, Irene, whose influence led Jo to embrace singing and ultimately confront her own grief. As we talk about the cathartic power of music, Jo shares how her album emerged as a vessel for emotions that words often fail to capture, illustrating the profound relationship between loss and creativity. Join us as we uncover the delicate balance of vulnerability and expression, and discover how grief can resonate in unexpected, beautiful ways through sound.

Support the podcast

Follow on Instagram

Follow on Facebook

Subscribe to the newsletter

Produced by Gareth Davies at The Sound Boutique

Mentioned in this episode:

Need help making your podcast?

The Sound Boutique

In this Sound Session, composer and pianist Joe Gendle explores how loss can move through sound, not as something dark or morbid, but as a force for connection and release. In this Sound Session, we're asking the question, what does grief sound like when it finds its way into music?

Her reflections begin with a friend who changed the way she saw singing and ultimately how she understood grief itself.

I lost a friend about nine years ago and I'd say only in the last 18 months I actually accepted that that had actually happened.

Went through a whole kind of therapeutic process with breath, work and learning that my body was very much holding the score and holding a charge and I didn't know how to get that out. And eventually it came out through music.

And so I always think that there's not many words you can use to explain how you feel, other than sad, upset, depressed, those type of things. It's sort of surface level, it's a lot deeper than that.

So being able to transmute that into the piano and accept that it was there, that's how my album came about.

Her album began as a form of release, a way of letting emotion take shape where words couldn't. But the story behind it started with a friendship.

My friend was called Irene and I used to...used to be my old next door neighbour and we used to go to this acapella choir together and she always used to say, I don't need to be able to sing, just come along and have a laugh.

And so I did and so she got me into like choral singing, which before I would have been like, oh, no, I can't do that, don't audition, it'll be awful. And absolutely loved it.

And so we went to that for quite a few years and then suddenly she just got really ill and passed away really quickly, quite young, and it was just like, what, how, how is this, how has this even happened?

And, you know, at the funeral the choir got together and we did songs for her and she said to me, we sat together once and she said, oh, I want this song played at my funeral. And I was like, don't talk like that.

And then, yeah, we ended up singing this song at a funeral and it was so hard, but it was such a lovely thing to do for her as well. And it was called Crossing the Bar.

That moment, singing for Irene became a turning point. Jo began to see how writing through grief could be very different to writing about it.

I think if you're writing through it, which I have written quite a lot of stuff in the thick of it, I think it's been some of my best work, to be honest, because I've not had too much time to overthink it or construct it. It's just been in the moment. Oh, my God. I feel like this. I'm just going to sit and play this on repeat.

I sort of compare it to, like tarmacing a road.

You're laying out all the gravel and the muck and then you just spend ages smoothing it all out and flattening it in and filling all those cracks until something feels a little bit more. I don't even know the word. Just smoother, lighter. For me, the music becomes sort of repetitive cathartic droning.

And it just sort of goes round and round like a. Like a Ferris wheel. And then till you're ready to get off. And sometimes you can't get off, or sometimes the Ferris wheel just stops.

And this is very much how grief feels to me. It's like you're passing memories, but you can't touch them. And it's the same with music.

You can't get that person back, but you can build this energetic world between you and that person you've lost through these notes on the piano. And it's like playing them a lullaby.

As she played, Jo found that the boundary between memory and sound blurred. Some of the most powerful music appeared unexpectedly in moments of pure emotion.

After I'd had one of these breathwork therapy sessions, released loads of stuff, I'd sort of learned how to really just let my emotions sort of fly out of me and learn to cry, because I completely blocked it for about 10 years. And just this thing came to me about her being in the sea and the water and the tides. And that was one of the first tracks on my album.

So the metaphor of the sea being the tide that comes in, it leaves you alone, it comes back. The sea is irregular, it can be messy. It can also be a place of tranquility and calm.

So this music is all about the tides of emotion and the salty sea. That's your tears, something lapping at your feet, but you can't quite get in it. You can't be fully in it, but you can't be fully out of it.

It's a confusing space to be in. But what surprised me about it, because when I was composing this, I was in such an emotional state.

I was actually pacing the room, tears falling down my face, going. And I was just writing and writing like some mad Shakespearean poet. And I don't really write songs only until this emotional engulf kind of came.

And I was like, right, Yep. And it just came so naturally from my heart space. I was like, right, okay. And I thought, I'm gonna sing this.

And I never sing on tracks, but now I've decided I do because of what I had a breakthrough with. And I was like, yep, I'll just record this in tears.

And, yeah, it was all over the place and needed a good mix and all that kind of stuff, but essentially it was there and it was like a seven part harmony. I was like, yeah, that's it. And I thought, oh, I've never done that.

But there's something inside me that stepped forward and went, this is you expressing your grief in the most powerful and authentic way that you can do yourself. Like, privately, there was nobody in the house. It was just me messing about with mics going, I don't know what I got to do.

But, yeah, I never expected to make a track like that. And then that seeped into other tracks as well. I thought, actually, yeah, I can do this.

And then since written some new stuff and one track's actually called the Beauty of Grief, something else is called, you know, Coming Home.

And it's all been about me processing how I feel about death and accepting that and trying to make it into this nice fluffy space that exists energetically and sort of singing to it.

Her recordings were imperfect, and that imperfection, she realized, was the whole point.

I personally connect more with imperfection than perfection. And I think honesty resonates a lot longer than something that's so polished.

You might not be the best technical, classically trained, whatever, but I think when somebody really shares a vulnerability with you in performance, then I'm just blown away. And I'll be like, yeah, I need to go and see them perform, because there's magic in that. It's not a.

You know, you watch these programs with these mega pianists and you're like, okay, it's very formulaic, but I want to see someone who's been through an experience and feel that in the keys. And personally, that's the music I like to listen to, that's got a story with it.

That same openness shapes her work for film and documentary, composing for other people's stories of loss and resilience.

I did this scene with this woman talking about this painting. She talks about her husband died of cancer suddenly. Then she got breast cancer.

And then she chopped the garden into bits and just climbed into a bush and wanted to die. And this was all in four minutes, this story.

And I had to make a piece that fit exactly the pace and the arc of what she was sort of saying and all the pauses she was doing and the tears she had. And I watched this scene so many times. I just got inside her head and just felt every breath, every little face twitch, eye movement.

We had the film premiere of it, and she. I met this woman. She came up to me afterwards and she said, I know I don't know you, but you've seen me and heard me like nobody ever has in my life.

And I was like, oh, that's really nice. And then she burst into tears, and I burst into tears. I was like, that has to be. Not that I was looking for compliments.

It was just so, oh, I'm so glad that I've got you. And it feels like you and I've not done an awful job and you've been, oh, that's awful. So I love doing that. Someone gives you a film clip, right?

Make me some music for this and tell this person's story. And you've got to get to the root of it and feel somebody's soul and make that into music. That's just like my dream job doing that.

Through her own grief and others, Jo's learned that empathy is both a musical and human act, a way of holding space. But she's also aware that some parts of that space need to remain private.

Grief can be a very private thing to most people. And I think half the time someone else, you know, they know you've had a loss and they'll go, are you okay?

And it's a bit of a. I don't know, a brick wall. Answers, are you okay? And they want you to say yes or no. But if you ask somebody, how are you feeling?

That opens the door to a much deeper conversation. So I never ask people, are you okay? Because you're putting those words in somebody's mouth.

It's like if you want to make something for someone to listen to, you almost don't want it to be too crazy. You don't want to be like, Rage against the Machine or something like that. And you're like, this is awful.

You might be feeling angry, and it doesn't make for pretty listening.

And at the same time, maybe people don't want to hear me squealing into a microphone in, you know, some sort of state of despair, because that would be awful. So there is a boundary to be had about, I think, what you mentioned before, how much vulnerability do put into your work.

And I'd say I probably put 90% in because I don't think you should 100% put your entire soul into something because that would leave you very open to everything.

And that's just for me, you know, that's the 30 tracks that you have in Logic that you never fully finish for whatever reason, because you go, nah, not sharing that because it's too deep or what even is that so, yeah, those are the ones you hang on to. So that's like 10% you don't share.

Sometimes the act of writing is enough. The music doesn't have to be released. It just needs to exist.

It's self soothing. And I think as musicians, that's what we do. We write, we journal, we express it musically.

Where some people might see healing as baking a cake, putting those ingredients together and then just seeing what happens. And it's the same with us. It's like put a few chords together, put some words, let's just sing it, hum it.

And you know, humming is such a great thing for the body. It's your own frequency, but amplified, and that's vibrating through your organs.

And if that's all that's vibrating for your organs, they don't have to work as hard because they're just singing to one frequency. Rather than I'm stressed, I'm anxious or whatever, I'm firing all these neurons off.

But you know, like having a cat sit on you and purr, which is my favorite signature sound, which is a cat purring, it just brings such presence, as does playing one chord on a piano or a guitar or whatever your instrument is, or singing with your voice. Just that one tone cuts out all this noise and it just makes you feel harmonious. Well, it does to me anyway.

That harmony, she says, can even be found in silence.

I think silence, some people find it so uncomfortable, they've got to have the TV on or the radio on in the background because they can't deal with their own inner thoughts and things.

And I feel with grief, whenever I've got space and silence, everything just comes back to the surface and you're thinking about that person and there's. There's an emptiness that comes with that. You miss them and the space just feels so big because they're not in it.

And yeah, I think that's why silence can be hard. But also you need to acknowledge it as well in order to heal yourself too. So silence is very powerful tool. And I think grief.

I feel I am such a better listener because of the grief process. I listen to my music more differently. I add a lot more space to it. I don't rush things. I think most people aren't looking to be fixed.

They just sort of. They want to be witnessed. So you can cry by yourself, right? And that's just, you know, might be what you do.

But if you cry with somebody else or have somebody else, like a really good friend just in that room and you can talk and be witnessed, that is so healing. So people have done it for me and I'll do it for them because I know how important being witnessed and listened to is.

And just giving that space and finding yourself a brilliant space holder is so essential with grief. And just somebody listening to you and you go, oh, it's lighter when you voice it. You keep it to yourself. You'll just carry it forever.

At the end of our conversation, I asked Jo the same question again. What does grief sound like when it finds its way into music?

It feels like silence, it feels like vulnerability. It's resonant. The sustain pedal does not get unpressed. Everything lasts longer than it should do.

It's blurry, it's powerful and it's delicate. Always delicate.

You've been listening to the Sound Session. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this or send in your favourite sound, visit thesoundsession.uk

I'm Gareth. See you next time, Soundmaker.

They're rushing.

And flowing out.