SPALDING: So, you know, you get past that, like, yeah, it's nice to see you, and you get into these moments where it's like, there's no place to go. Well, I was stuck at home with my beloved family, who I love to pieces, obviously, and noticed things that - I hadn't actually been around them for a long period of time, in a very long time. I mean, the intended effect - the invited effect, I should say. 1 is, quote, 'designed for memorizing, then hearing internally, as an aid to self-soothe during an acute moment of stress in the home.'ĬHANG: Can you tell me about that song in particular? Like, how did you go about designing the effect on the listener? They are my words.ĬHANG: For example, like, No. Each of them has a specific, quote, 'intended use and effect' - those are your words - for the listener, right? And what grows out of the lab is so much in response to the way that people in the lab and the guests coming into the lab respond to that question - what do you need a song for?ĬHANG: Well, let's talk about the music specifically - how, like, each of these tracks, you know, they're set up with a particular function. And I think the music that we're intending to make in the lab is, like, scathing through that spectrum, you know? A very suggestive and kind of abstract and poetic in its application - it's very specific. So it's almost like she's using that song as, like, the raw material to change her relationship to this issue. SPALDING: I don't know if it's the function of the song, but she has this song now that she wants to listen to at a certain time every morning. SPALDING: So I wrote her this song she could listen to every morning that was kind of structured as a reminder of what the week was going to be like to just kind of keep her encouraged. SPALDING: Like, my mother, when I asked her what she needed a song for recently, she was like, I need a song to help me keep on schedule. Some are for stress relief or opening the heart others are a little more practical. We build things that we want to be vessels to ferry people from one point to another point, one shore to another shore or even through a vast, you know, uncharted terrain.ĬHANG: The result is an album of sonic concoctions, each with an intended effect on the listener.

SPALDING: We are like shipwrights, you know? We build things. She calls it the 'Songwrights Apothecary Lab.' So she basically created a whole laboratory, a cross-disciplinary group of neuroscientists, psychologists, ethnomusicologists and more. And to answer this seemingly simple question - what do you need a song for? - she needed more than just other musicians. There is one question at the heart of Esperanza Spalding's new album - what do you need a song for?ĮSPERANZA SPALDING: It's such a simple question, and I feel like we have the capacity to answer it (laughter).ĬHANG: Spalding is a Grammy-winning jazz singer and bassist.

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