Natti Vogel is an artist who can transform you. He knows the secrets of music because his soul has been coalesced with the soul of instruments. Violin was taught at 3 years and piano self taught at 10. A musical prodigy, you ask? Not merely so. He is a musical prodigy with messages to bruit. What kinds of messages, you wonder, you mean lyrics? Lyrics don’t constitute Natti’s music; chords have a voice and the melodies communicate the intense passions and thoughts which exist inside of him and manifest into another world – the world in which we are listening.
Natti, a sophomore at Eugene Lang College in New York City, has invented a way to channel transcendental messages of love, fear, beauty, emotion, politics, and hope through the piano. He owes much of his musical inspiration from residing in Marlton, once a hotel now a college dormitory, during his freshman year of college. Marlton, located on 5 West 8th Street near Washington Square Park, was home to several new artists during its years as a hotel. Artists included Beat writer Jack Kerouac, jazz musician Carmen McRae, vocalist Miriam Mekeba among others, and now vocalist and pianist Natti Vogel. Marlton has always been a haven for a developing artist as well as meeting other artists, “I’ve met some of the most interesting people at Marlton who have impacted my music” he says.
Natti creates the best melodies while ambulating in the city, “inspiration comes from everywhere,” he goes. In fact, most of his songs develop as melodies, “melodies come first sometimes, then the lyrics unfold from there” he says, “music is more important than lyrics” Indeed, each melody on the piano has a profundity of sound – a voice, which is complemented by Natti’s own voice as well as the violin. Every tune transmits a different message, a different endorphin. “Every song is a little world,” he says, “if a melody sounds similar to a prior song, I throw it out.”
Upon arriving to Greenwich Village from Cambridge, MA in Summer of 2005, Natti composed the song Hedon’s Playground which reflects the debauchery and hedonistic lifestyle common in New York City’s social scene. Smells like teen spirit with melodies.
Me: What goes on in your mind while you’re singing?
Natti: I’m not really thinking, [but I am] conscious of the lyrics.
Me: Do you ever change the lyrics?
Natti: You can’t sing the same song twice. Each time you sing it, it has a different taste, like wine. [The lyrics] are layered over experience. Things change naturally through time.
Natti’s music envelops the emotional consciousness of not just himself, but the consciousness he sees reflected through other people. In New York City where the pressure to look thin is especially pervasive, Natti thought it necessary to compose a goofy and cute song encouraging girls to eat. “Let’s get some food,” the lyrics go, “it’s good for you.”
Natti’s classical music influence is attributed to his avid listening of Mozart and Beethoven, amongst other classical musicians, every night before going to sleep. This musically manifests into a contemporary version of classical music. Some songs are a combination of major and minor keys creating more complexity of meaning, emotion, and time. Timelessness is one Natti’s goals, “no definite beginning or end” he goes. Time is definitely difficult to measure in Natti’s songs, many of which do not have a definite beginning and end unpredictably. Natti has developed the tricks to manipulate time in music. While listening to in Love but Lust, though the notes revert to the tonic note, they are disguised in way that is deceiving to the ear, thus the ear waits to hear the note swing back to the tonic note only to have anticipate it through the dancing chords. In Akimbo, an intense piece on the desperation for beauty to escape a state of “pettiness and distrust,” the notes plead on as in prayer, while the ending is unpredictable and finalized by a powerful note. And in Reading Backwards, the notes transmit disturbing images which incessantly flow with no escape.
Me: Do you ever decide how long you want a piece to be?
Natti: Time is intuitive, don’t force it; give it structure but flexibility.
Me: Are you conscious of what’s around you while playing?
Natti: I feel like I’m floating, forgetting where I am while staying conscious of the people who surround me, and wanting the other person to play to.
Contemporary musical influences include Radiohead, Dresden Dolls, Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, The Velvet Underground, Nirvana, The Beatles, Bjork, and The Pixies. And the most striking influence of all: “how other people talk,” he says.
Politics is another influence in Natti’s music, “musicians should be like commentators,” he says. Politics and music are the two most important disciplines which intersect in Natti’s world, “they are my life,” he says, “but politics sometimes get in the way of music and you need to stick your head out the window.” The deception by the media with its infotainment revolution has urged Natti not to own a television and, instead, read the newspaper. “I don’t own a television, guess how I make own decision” he sings.
Music which expresses words through the keys of the piano without the need for lyrics, makes it especially difficult to categorize his music into a genre. Simply too complex to be reduced into a genre, Natti’s music is an alternative to listening to genre. You are instead listening to the possibilities in which chords can create a different world, allowing you to transcend in imagination – like a drug.
