Movement Through Music: Sophomore Makena Pruitt has developed her music and songwriting by inspiration from those around her

Sophomore Makena Pruitt has been surrounded and influenced by music her whole life. From her parents being in a band together called Bionic — allowing her to be raised by two very musically inclined people — to her mom singing her to bed every night as a kid, Pruitt found her own passion for music through songwriting and began writing songs in fifth grade.

In third grade, her dad gave her a guitar for her eighth birthday and after letting it sit in the corner collecting dust, Pruitt decided to learn a few chords and some of her favorite songs on the guitar. She then used those chords to write her own music and has been creating since.

“The first song [I wrote,] I recorded on Voice Memos and it was about my crush,” Pruitt said. “It was honestly really bad and really funny so that’s why I’ve kept it, but I was just writing about me dreaming about my crush.”

Since writing about her childhood crushes, Pruitt has released 25 songs — some about processing her feelings towards old friends, or people that inspire her — onto Spotify. She has also written a song attributed to her best friend, sophomore Natalie Jones, whom she met in a seventh-grade art class at Indian Hills Middle School.

Pruitt wrote, “Everything and Nothing” about her and Jone’s friendship, emphasizing her gratitude for it in the song. She wrote about the fear of getting close to someone and thinking they won’t want to have that same friendship with you. But after moving past that fear in the beginning, Pruitt and Jones have been best friends since and have even helped each other grow through music.

“She told me to go listen to [the song] she released, and said ‘I wrote it about you,’” Natalie said. “So I listened to it and I was crying because it was just really sweet.”

While Pruitt’s music taste of rap and hip hop differ from the types of songs she writes — sad, and slow songs — she gets her inspiration from her feelings and her best friend. And according to Pruitt, a lot of her songs are thanks to her.

“I introduced guitar to [Natalie] and she honestly has gotten better than me at it,” Pruitt said. “She’s very musically talented and sometimes she will play something and I’m like ‘Okay play that again, we are turning it into a song.’”

While she does not want to pursue music professionally in the future and have to worry about writing songs for others to make a living, it makes her so happy to be able to sit down and write a song or play the guitar, without thinking she is expected to write more music.

“We have always expressed with our kids that art is a wonderful way to express yourself and to get your feelings out,” Pruitt’s mom Brandy Pool said. “And as long as you are happy doing it and you love doing it, go for it.”