Between intuition, memory, and interpretation
With “Heart Strings,” Soleil transforms an experience of loss and personal reclamation into an R&B/Soul piece shaped by blues, jazz, and funk. The song explores the intimacy of a relationship coming to an end, while also tracing the process of reclaiming what was left unresolved.
In this conversation with R+, Soleil talks about the relationship between emotion and vocal performance, the role of intuition in her musical decisions, and what it means to return today to a song written from an earlier version of herself.
R+: “Heart Strings” was born from a very specific emotional experience, but it ultimately became a song with a very defined sonic identity. What did you find in that bluesy, soulful feel that allowed you to express emotions that might not have worked in the same way through another musical language?
Soleil: The bluesy, soulful feel is very authentic to me. I come from being a live performer and working musician, I’ve been in the entertainment circuit for years. Singing in this way is how I sing live, so carrying the emotion through this stylistic delivery feels most natural for me. There is space in this kind of music that allows for elongating words and phrases when I feel it, speaking instead of singing, playing with melody – and that is what I do live.
R+: The song moves from frustration and the conversations that keep playing in your head toward a sense of personal reclamation. How did you work with your voice to make that emotional shift felt through the performance, rather than only through the lyrics?
Soleil: I understand how lyrics and melody relate, and how vocal and emotional delivery contribute to the feeling and understanding of a song – when to pull back, when to sing louder, when to talk sing a bit, when to have some more raw emotion and less polished vocals to emulate a feeling, etc. I come from classical training and know how to read music and dynamic instruction in a piece, so I think this lives subconsciously in my head.
R+: You’ve said that a Soleil song needs to make people feel something, while also pointing to elements such as a strong bass line, jazz influences, synchronicities, and lyrics with attitude. How do you decide when the music is truly supporting an emotion and when it might be competing with it?
Soleil: It’s really just a feeling and a knowing for me after listening through the song many times…I trust my intuition on this, I know when it “feels right” and I just go with it.
R+: “Heart Strings” has a sensual, warm, and immersive atmosphere, even as the story describes a relationship coming to an end. How did you use the sound and your performance to preserve that emotional intimacy while telling the story of letting go?
Soleil: I feel the contrast helps make Heart Strings feel intimate. I love a good juxtaposition! There are many emotions, both good and sad, described throughout the song that is about both connection and loss, and I wanted the music to represent that.
R+: When you return today to sing a song that began taking shape several years ago, what happens emotionally when you perform words that belonged to an earlier version of Soleil? Do you feel that you now sing them from a place of memory, distance, or a new understanding?
Soleil: I think it depends on the song – there are some songs I’ve written that I don’t love to sing anymore because I was such a different version of myself that it no longer feels aligned to sing those words. For a song like Heart Strings though, I sing from a place of memory and new understanding. I also sing from a place of pride because it is finally out in the world after holding on to it privately for so long.
R+: A song can begin as a personal story and eventually become part of someone else’s story. What do you hope “Heart Strings” might awaken in someone discovering it from Mexico or Latin America?
Soleil: I think that is the beauty of music and art in general, it makes you feel something, and you never know who it will resonate with or how it will connect to someone in any place in the world. I don’t think geography has much to do with connecting to music at all.
I love listening to music from other countries where I don’t understand the languages, because I understand the song as a feeling and a vibe rather than the meaning behind it, and I think that is beautiful. It also inspires me to learn more about the meaning of the song, musical history and soundscape of wherever the artist is from, so it becomes a full educational experience.
“Heart Strings” ultimately becomes more than the record of a relationship coming to an end. In Soleil’s voice, the song also holds the distance between the person who wrote those words and the person who can now return to them from another place — with memory, understanding, and pride. Perhaps that is one of the most compelling ideas running through this conversation: an experience can begin as something entirely personal and, once released into the world, stop belonging only to the person who created it. For Soleil, that transformation does not necessarily depend on language or geography; a song only needs to transmit an emotion for someone, somewhere else, to recognize something of themselves within it.
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