About Mahogany
Mahogany is a 17-track concept album I wrote and composed while I was seventeen. This page is a look at how the project came together, what went into making it, and some of the ideas that shaped its world.
A tree grows from the ground up
Mahogany started as a collection of different ideas that I compiled both during and after volleyball. Over time, I began writing those ideas into lyrics, and those lyrics became songs that would eventually form the Mahogany album.
Perhaps the largest part of this project for me was its world-building, and how deeply metaphorical this nature-infested album is. Rather than being literal, I constructed the album around a system of forests, trees, bodies of water, wind, and other natural imagery. These images invite readers and listeners into a world where they can take on meanings beyond their literal representations.
This allowed me to take something very idiosyncratic and personal to me and make it feel more universal. What I see when I think about the wind might not be what someone else sees. A forest, for instance, might mean something completely different to another person than it does to me. That, I believe, is part of what makes metaphor so useful: it allows me to take something specific to my own experience and leave enough room for someone else to find themselves in it.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the themes and concepts behind the project, developing the lyrics, composing the melodies, notating the music, and figuring out how I could turn all of these different ideas from my life into metaphors that could become songs and still exist within the same world. I wanted the songs to feel connected rather than like a collection of unrelated pieces, and I spent a lot of time figuring out how they could ultimately work together as one cohesive project.
Ironically enough, over time I found that I had transformed my experience under white fluorescent sports lighting into something far more natural.
Mahogany was born.
Or, planted.
.
I wrote and composed everything entirely by myself. Despite wanting to, I had never taken a formal music theory class. Most of what I learned came through experimentation and instinct. A lot of the time, the lyrics and melody came to me simultaneously. I would find the words while also instinctively figuring out where the melody should rise, fall, pause, or change.
Notating the songs was a much more painstaking process. I often had to press keys on the piano to find the notes I had already heard in my head, then slowly work out how to put the music onto paper. It was tedious, but it proved very rewarding, especially when I could finally look at an entire song fully notated in front of me.
Finding the connections
The album also isn't meant to be experienced in only one way. There is something different about reading Mahogany than there is about hearing the finished songs.
Reading the lyrics lets you sit with the words, images, repetitions, and connections on their own. Hearing the songs adds the melodies, the movement of the vocals, the phrasing, and everything else that happens musically. Even the instrumental versions offer something different: without the lyrics or vocals, the music can take on a different atmosphere and leave different things for you to notice.
The track order matters, too. I spent a lot of time sequencing the album and thinking about how one song could lead into the next, and how the project could gradually tell a larger story. There are connections throughout Mahogany, some of which may be obvious and others that may only become apparent when you look back at an earlier track after hearing something later in the album.
The more you move through the album, the more those connections may begin to reveal themselves.
Influences
I did, of course, have artists who inspired me along the way.
Lana Del Rey is my first, inspiring the way I think about the craft itself. Since middle school, I have admired the way she can be glamorous while still being unapologetically herself, and how she makes room for both happiness and melancholia in her music. I especially admire how openly she allows herself to express what she is feeling.
Melanie Martinez, particularly through PORTALS, influenced the way I thought about world-building and metaphor. I love how---opposite Del Rey, funnily enough---she rarely says exactly what she means. Instead, she builds elaborate metaphors that can be strange and specific while still connecting to something other people can recognize in themselves. I really admired the creativity and intelligence behind that approach, and it made me think about how I could do something similar with Mahogany while making the world my own.
That's where the idea of a forest began to take shape: a place where being lost could become a metaphor for being lost in the mud of perfectionism.
I also drew inspiration from Billie Eilish, whose atmosphere and writing I have admired since I was first beginning to write songs in middle school.
These artists influenced different parts of how I approached Mahogany, but the album ultimately became its own thing.
Get lost in the forest
There isn't one correct way to experience Mahogany. Enter the forest yourself and see what you discover.
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