Rewilding with Anni Rossi
On developing skill and intuition when making art plus learning the most important instrument, your body
You’re reading Tinier Desk. This is my home to share art in progress — today, an interview with my creative coach and musical mentor, Anni Rossi. For more posts like this, subscribe so they land in your inbox.
After posting on my neighborhood’s local message board in search of a piano teacher three and a half years ago, I received a single response from a woman whose friend named Anni gave lessons. That’s all she shared, Anni’s first name and email. The message lacked all the context I needed for the recommendation to do its job. But, I had nothing to lose by sending her an email.
She responded within the hour well after the sun had set on a Monday night and I had a full Google-able name: Anni Rossi. The first result was her Wikipedia page.
Anni Rossi is an American singer, songwriter, and producer from Minnesota. She plays an electric viola that was handcrafted from a tree branch by former Swans percussionist Thor Harris. Rossi adopts modern guitar and bass techniques and applies them to this instrument, as well as traditional viola styles.
Between a handful of email exchanges, before I even went to bed that night, I scheduled to visit this perfectly good stranger’s Ridgewood home studio. From what in the rearview now feels like one of the luckiest, gobsmacking, serendipitous moments, I’ve come to know Anni as so much more than any Wikipedia page could possibly capture.
Anni is an artist and a creative coach. She first stepped into her role as an artist by way of violin at the age of three and a half. Her artist toolbox has expanded to hold many instruments and disciplines — piano, voice, viola, bass, viola tuned as bass, film, and painting.
Intertwined with her art-making since the age of seventeen is her role as a teacher. While classically trained, today Anni’s teaching resembles a practice more like coaching. Where a piano teacher might drill scales for an entire hour session, Anni reminds you to breathe, because perhaps the most important instrument you learn as a musician is not the one you're known for holding — piano, guitar, or whatever it may be — it’s your body. Where a choir teacher might have fixated on guiding a class to perfectly replicate the notes on a page, Anni applies rigor to building skills, but only where they give you the tools you need to access creative expression.
On a seasonably warm afternoon in December 2023, I spent time with Anni at Land Majestic, her home studio and arts parlor. I asked about her own teachers, how her art practice has evolved, what it’s like working with adults versus children, how one develops both skill and intuition, and the projects she is currently working on.
Some people aspire to meet their heroes. I’m starting to think it’s more meaningful to find heroes in the people you meet, especially the ones you meet on a neighborhood message board from a stranger. Anni’s a hero of mine and now, you can meet her too.
LEARN MORE
» Anni offers tailored creative coaching programs virtually and in-person if you live in New York.
» Anni is launching a Kickstarter on May 7 to raise funds for a limited edition vinyl pressing of her forthcoming album she recorded with Bobb Bruno of Best Coast. The album will be released on her label Land Majestic in the fall of 2024.
CREDITS
» Photos of Anni and Land Majestic by KTB English.
TRANSCRIPT
KO: Thanks for agreeing to do this.
AR: Yeah, of course. I'm honored that you were curious about me and wanted to know more.
KO: I thought it would be fun in sharing this project for people to know you because I think you've been a huge part of it and a catalyst and the spirit's guide through it. Also musically you have helped me develop my skills. So I thought I would ask you about your coaching and teaching practice primarily, but I am also curious how that plays into your greater art and work. So yeah, that's kind of how I'm thinking about the questions.
AR: Cool.
KO: Any thoughts or questions before we start?
AR: No, I don't think so.
KO: I'm curious to hear about your first music teacher.
AR: Yeah, I hold her very near and dear. Her name is Miss Warnke, Anne Warnke.
I'm actually feeling a little emotional just thinking about her, but I started playing violin when I was three and a half. We moved out to like this really rural area of Minnesota and my mom was just trying to find activities for me and she thought it was more of a general music for toddlers kind of class. We rolled up into this driveway and went into this lady's basement and ended up being like, “I teach private violin lessons.” And we were like, “oh, okay.”
S was amazing. I remember the smell of the hand soap she would wear when she would adjust my violin by my face. I have really fond memories of her and I worked with her for a lot of years until I moved away or until I was in middle school.
KO: And was it all violin that you did with her or did you learn other instruments?
AR: I did violin with her, but then I had a piano teacher named Rhoda, and then I had Miss Baker. I started piano at age six.
KO: And why violin to start?
AR: It just kind of happened. At the time it felt arbitrary, but it just seemed to all magically align and that's what I was supposed to learn. And there wasn't a lot of intention behind it, but it just kind of found me, I guess.
There wasn't a lot of intention behind it, but it just kind of found me, I guess.
KO: On your website, you define what you're doing and what we do together as creative coaching and musical mentorship. Can you tell me more about what that means and how you think of your work one-on-one with people?
AR: It's great to be asked these questions because so much of how I define this work is experiential, working with each person individually. A big part of it has come from my music education background. I've always had this intertwining path of being an artist and a teacher in some capacity since I was 17.
I worked with children teaching more traditional classical skills and then I got into songwriting and working with younger people. Then during the pandemic, I realized I had worked with some adults before and there was this deeper, more aligned use of my kind of interest in working with people and supporting them to find their own expression and giving people some bare minimum tools so that they can start to feel like they have some structure to access their own expression. As I get deeper into this, I work with people who identify as artists and who are trying to work through blocks and stay accountable to maybe more public facing projects. Then I work with people who maybe have some history of being creative at some point or another but life has gotten really busy and they're just trying to make space for themselves.
I think everyone has these creative impulses. There's an umbrella called expressive arts facilitation that I'm in a program for right now that's a form of therapeutic art. I think understanding that through my lifetime, having some very foundational skills, they really don't have to be much at all, and being able to merge that with creative expression has been a very healing, essential part of my life. That's what this practice is about—sharing that with people, supporting people and also learning to stay curious.
Having some very foundational skills, they really don't have to be much at all, and being able to merge that with creative expression has been a very healing, essential part of my life. That's what this practice is about—sharing that with people, supporting people and also learning to stay curious.
I see you, for instance, approach things in a completely different way than I would. Having exposure to other people's minds and how they work and their impulses and instincts, keeps me fresh and on my toes too. It's a very energizing practice.
KO: What's different about working with adults versus kids and what's more similar than maybe people would imagine?
AR: The first thing that comes to mind is in our adult minds and bodies, I feel we've gotten really good at putting up defenses. You know it’s a good thing too, to have defenses to help us navigate the stresses of life and to build connections and relationships sometimes they're necessary. I think there’s more judgment and thinking that gives us less access to the part of our brains that are just ready to be in the doing. There's more intellect and self-judgment that we have to try not to push away but work with and integrate into the process of connecting with ourselves creatively. Whereas with children they have a presence when you put something in front of them. I do see it come out in adults. I love seeing the childlike qualities of this space with adults open up but, kids are just a bit quicker to get to that.
KO: I think something interesting that you do is you also balance developing skill and developing intuition. I feel like there's more of a playbook for how you develop skill as a musician but there's less of a playbook on how you develop intuition. How do you approach helping people develop intuition?
AR: It's such a thoughtful question. I want to take up as little space as I can in helping someone discover intuition and gently nudge them to make contact with that part of themselves. Intuition is there. Once somebody feels like, “oh, I feel a sense of permission in this space to make contact with my instincts,” working from there to create a sense of safety and trust to explore, make mistakes, and take risks. I think that is how — that might be some informal tactics that I've developed as a way to create a sense of safety and trust for people.
People engage with their instincts in a beautiful way all the time, but I think particularly as creatives, there are always ways that we can move more deeply and trust our instincts. So part of that worked for me too, is pushing myself, you know, pushing myself and being aware and intentional about continuing to develop and evolve my instincts too, right? Because as somebody who's helping guide someone or facilitating space for someone, the container can only be as big as I am, right? So I need to kind continue to grow and develop my instincts too in order to facilitate space for that as well.
Because as somebody who's helping guide someone or facilitating space for someone, the container can only be as big as I am, right?
I'm going to think about that question some more because I think more there, but ultimately I think everybody has beautiful, valid instincts. Everybody should feel that sense of freedom and permission.
KO: It's kind of like what you're saying with adults vs. kids, that the biggest difference between adults and children is the defensiveness. So intuition is maybe just removing the defenses so that the thing that's there can come out.
AR: Yeah. It's perfectly understandable, and in some ways it's very helpful in life, to have these defenses or things that help us feel safe and protect us.
KO: Totally.
How has your relationship to your own art practice changed in this mode of teaching?
AR: I became more confident in framing what I do as creative coaching and mentorship really kind of emerged simultaneously when I received a small grant from a residency program at a theater in the East Village to create a scripted one-woman performance that was loosely based in comedy.
And I was very scared. I had never done anything like that before. I had people who were helping me. There's a woman named Jill Pangalo who runs the program and essentially mentored me through it and produced the piece.
She held space for me in a way that was so profound. Experiencing being coached and being held in that way too, and seeing the benefits of it, allows me to then have a framework of how to share that too.
So I might've gotten off topic here, but there was something that really started to click when I was at a place where I was ready to burst out of my comfort zone and take some risks and start being more playful. I was so trained as a classical musician. My whole thing is rewilding my technique to fit with my instincts.
There was something that really started to click when I was at a place where I was ready to burst out of my comfort zone and take some risks and start being more playful. I was so trained as a classical musician. My whole thing is rewilding my technique to fit with my instincts.
I build these instruments because there's such a precise technique on the violin that's been programmed in my mind and body since I was three. So finding new ways to relate to how I express this language and this skill set. I kept putting a wig on and expressing characters and using my voice, my body feels like an instrument. But I still have this sense of technique in this, but I've actually never done this. I've never embodied characters in front of an audience before.
My body feels like an instrument.
I think just seeing all those possibilities and experiencing them personally allowed me to move into coaching with this sense of—let's have fun. Let's find a sense of play and let's lean into that sense of play, even if it's uncomfortable.
KO: It's interesting hearing you say that because I've always known you as someone who, for a better lack of a better expression, breaks the rules of how things work. I'll come to you with a song and then you're like, “Sing it the most ugly way possible.” And I'm like, “I don't want to do that.” But then something emerges that feels good.
And then I think about your electric viola that's made out of a tree. And then you tune it down and play it like a bass. That to me is breaking the rules. Where do you think that instinct comes from? Where does that curiosity come from?
AR: I was kind of getting into in the previous question, I'm very grateful for the deep classical training that is inside my body. It's there and it’s deep. I have a lot of gratitude for it.
But, I think there were ways in which that also represented these restrictions that I felt in life or these ways in which I felt stuck or I wasn't able to embody a sense of freedom epecially younger in life.
I've had that streak since I can remember. This like, “well, let's challenge this” or “let's do this a different way,” but not in a way that's antagonistic or to be contrarian. It's almost like there's a healing sense of freedom and, I don't know, there’s a feeling I can reimagine something in a new way that challenges the function and the way it's supposed to be used that fits more, aligns more with my voice or my body or my senses. It just feels really good.
KO: Something else you've started doing is bringing students together in community like with the Twist Cone nights where you push us to play creative games and to remix something in the playful, multi-flavor spirt of a twist ice cream cone. And then also these monthly meetings. What's been a meaningful music community in your own life?
AR: The first thing that comes to mind is the Bushwick Book Club, which is led by Susan Hwang, who was at one of the Twist Cone nights. And she's amazing in her ability to organize these unique and warm opportunities each month. We're not invited every month, but there's a core group of people and new people will come in. The author is present sometimes and we'll read the book and then we'll create a new piece based on that book. It's very similar to the twist cone spirit of showing up and sharing something that's new that you've never shared, that's perhaps uncomfortable or still unknown or developing. I just feel so invigorated by that and I feel so much more connected.
I've been a part of other music communities. They serve their purpose too but they were more rooted in this idea of the music industry kind of being part of a capitalist system. You're on tour all the time and you're playing in these venues and that's how you make your living. Those communities were really beautiful. I built really amazing relationships with people I would tour with and it was almost like a family more than a community.
For me and the way that I work, it didn't feel very sustainable.
KO: Can you tell me more about how it felt like a family versus a community?
AR: You're just in a van. You probably smell at one point or another. You're eating every meal together and you're in close quarters.
My friends who work in film say this too. You just have this kind of family vibe that forms for the term of the project ad then all of a sudden, it dissolves because you go home and you go back to your regular life.
I think there's an undeniable connection, you have so much exposure to these people for a very extended period of time that you really get to know them and love them and sometimes it's hard or messy or whatever. But you're just here together. You're in it.
KO: I know we haven't talked a lot about like your music past, but it's fun reading your Wikipedia page. That's pretty wild. But like you've done a lot of really impressive stuff. I'm curious, how does this moment in your music career feel?
AR: I feel a sense of optimism that I've never really felt. I use the word sustainability a lot because I'm a person who needs to feel very grounded. I think I need to feel in balance and have a sense of equilibrium in my life to actually thrive.
You know we hit the jackpot with this apartment where I can have this studio. It’s an affordable, rent-stabilized apartment in New York City. To have this room that we are in right now designated for the work I do with others and my own work has opened up developing in a whole new way. I am continuing to have breakthroughs that feel sustainable and feel manageable.
There may be times when I choose to be more public-facing. I think there’s benefits to being a little more quiet and grounded in everyday life. I've also gotten into painting. At the moment I’ve been given this launching point to basically explore anything I want. Like, I started experimenting with filmmaking and merging that with this musical foundation.
I hesitate to even use the word career because sometimes thinking of myself in this profession as an artist changes the work. When I start to think, “Am I making work that's intended for a marketplace?” it changes. Sometimes I'm sensitive that opening myself up to the marketplace with those things can feel too vulnerable. It's not all black and white. I think there are some projects I'm doing that will feel very good to share with a potential audience who will exchange money for what I'm doing but that's not my ultimate goal.
KO: I’ve heard you call this studio Land Majestic and I noticed you also have a song called Land Majestic. You can tell me how that song came to be and then why you chose to name your studio Land Majestic too?
AR: When I was living out in California, I went to um art school out there for a while, somebody was getting rid of these old vintage Life encyclopedias about different landforms and nature. I was always really drawn to them. They had these poetic headings. I would look through the books and pick out words, kind of like a tool I share with my clients too. You can draw from other sources and then interpret that and put it onto a new canvas. I've always been really drawn to nature and water and air and rocks. I love rocks.
You can draw from other sources and then interpret that and put it onto a new canvas.
I think this was from like a geological encyclopedia and there's a heading called “Land Majestic” and then from that I just felt this metaphor. For me now the the meaning land majestic just means there's an endless horizon of of opportunity and abundance with our creativity and being able to look out and see horizontally for as far as the eye can see. Bringing that to the space in this tiny little room, that's not so tiny, in New York it's actually probably a mid-size room.
KO: What are your hopes for 2024?
AR: I've been working on a recording project down in Austin. I think it's an album, but there's a lot of material that I've been working through with my friend and producer, Craig Ross. It’s felt like a really sustainable way to work. I'm excited about the idea that that might be finished and I can start thinking about putting that out.
I also have an album that I finished in 2017 and I'm trying to figure out if I can press it on vinyl. There's a part of me that wants to release it in the world in some physical form. I would really like to prioritize that. I just put it off for so long.
UPDATE: Anni is launching a Kickstarter on May 7 to raise funds for a limited edition vinyl pressing of her forthcoming album she recorded with Bobb Bruno of Best Coast. The album will be released on her label Land Majestic in the fall of 2024.
And continuing to my journey with filmmaking. I also have a very close collaborator, S. Tricker. We have a couple of short films that we're finishing post-production on. Screening those and having the experience of sharing that and learning from that and making more film projects. That will be fun.
And more wigs. I love a wig. Wig moments.
I hope that things will continue to kind of grow steadily here with people like you and my clients and my work and have it all feel so holistic like it all works together. It’s all so symbiotic. I'm just grateful that that feels like it’s got some rev in the engine. Whatever pace it needs to keep moving at, I just hope it does.
UPDATE: They are growing and if you are inspired by Anni’s work as a coach, you should consider booking time with her.
KO: So this is the mini rapid-fire question section. I encourage you to answer in a few words, not too many words.
What song of yours is a good way for people to get to know you?
AR: Crazy Girl.
KO: How would you describe Land Majestic, your studio, in three words?
AR: Home. Color. Play.
KO: How does it feel to have a Wikipedia page?
AR: Uncomfortable.
KO: What's a book that's inspired your creative process?
AR: I would say the vintage Life encyclopedias.
KO: What tools like cards dice or anything else do you recommend people keep around to spark creativity?
AR: The Deck of Character by my friend Hannah Narowski. Love dice. Oblique Strategies is a card deck that's written by Brian Eno that I like. It's not for every moment that you need inspiration but for some it can help you dial in.
KO: What does music mean to you in a few words?
AR: Healing. Grandma, my grandma's a church organist. And, freedom.
KO: Where can people keep up with your work?
AR: I guess Instagram. I am really bad at actually keeping people updated but, yeah Instagram is a good place. I do put new music on Spotify.
KO: Or knock on your door in Ridgewood.
AR: I was gonna say come to Ridgewood. Come here! Hang out with me!
Thanks for reading! One more time, you can learn more about Anni Rossi.
» Anni offers tailored creative coaching programs virtually and in-person if you live in New York.
» Anni is launching a Kickstarter on May 7 to raise funds for a limited edition vinyl pressing of her forthcoming album she recorded with Bobb Bruno of Best Coast. The album will be released on her label Land Majestic in the fall of 2024.
» All things Anni on her website and Instagram.
“Some people aspire to meet their heroes. I’m starting to think it’s more meaningful to find heroes in the people you meet, especially the ones you meet on a neighborhood message board from a stranger.” Love this!
Thank you for sharing this interview! As a self-taught musician, I love reading about how intuition and instincts plays into the creative act. For me, it's a lot of intuition, sometimes too much, as I can feel a bit lost if I'm pushed out of my comfort zone! I've been learning piano lately, and it's pushed me to get a bit more technical and skills based in my practice. A blend of both is really a magical place to be.