Death inspired music success

MARTIN DE RUYTER/Nelson Mail

MAKING MUSIC: Nelson College for Girls students Elly Holland, Emma Knott and Sarah Tunstall have won prizes in a national song writing competition.

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Nelson student Sarah Tunstall admits her previous forays into song writing were all "pretty average".

But her latest is among the top five best songs in the country.

Hear You Again was judged by the Play it Strange Trust to be the fifth best song written by a secondary school student in New Zealand.

Sarah and Emma Knott, both 17, wrote the song as a way to cope with the death of a close friend earlier this year.

"You get everything out there. It's kind of like a diary and it's a way to accept it," Sarah said.

Sarah said she had written songs before which had taken a long time to get down but this most recent one "flashed by".

"It was really weird, I don't even remember writing it."

The pair worked on it when they could during school but never expected it to do so well.

"How far it has gone is amazing so there is a positive aspect to it all," Emma said.

The other positives are $750 worth of music vouchers which Sarah has spent on a new guitar. Their song will feature on a compilation CD of the top songs written by secondary school students.

Joining Sarah and Emma will be fellow Nelson College for Girls student Elly Holland and her song Fate and Lies and Love.

Elly, who plans to go to jazz school in Wellington next year, said the song sounded like it was about being in love with someone.

But it was actually about meeting someone you quite liked only to find out they were not the person you thought they were.

The Play It Strange Trust was established in 2003 to encourage young New Zealanders to write and express themselves in songwriting and music.

- © Fairfax NZ News