The Seed Award is a targeted package of support, including coaching sessions and a small bursary to enable artists to research and develop a particular project or take the next step in their creative journey.

In this Q&A, we speak to Seed Award 2025 winner Lisa Meech, a composer, sound-designer, violinist and facilitator based in Glasgow. She enjoys making work which blends field recording, electronically produced textures and live instruments/vocals.

ⓒ Alistar Fleming

How would you describe your creative process?

I think my creative process is to bring lots of different parts of my musical and general interests together. I often find that ideas come to me when I am teaching, commuting, or generally existing outside of music. These ideas tend to exist as voice notes or random notes until I can sit down and have time with them.

Then I think making a musical product is a process of slowly editing and trying to have the confidence to give space to ideas that I am not sure about. I try to write in a way that prioritises texture and the shape/structure or movement of a song rather than get stuck in technicalities and individual notes.

When I get creatively stuck I always find myself listening to music I love to find inspiration or asking for a second pair of ears from friends and other musicians.

What’s a piece of advice you’ve received that’s stuck with you?

When teaching music I received a piece of advice which was to value the process over the product. This hasn’t only been useful for teaching but also for making. It takes the pressure off and helps me create in a relaxed atmosphere, but also helps me create better music.

I think focusing on the process allows me to experiment with new ideas, and to be influenced by ideas that come to me outside of standard musical spaces like rehearsals and studios. These ideas can be sounds I’ve heard outside, or a conversation I’ve had where I want to reflect the mood in music.

I think this helps me create music that feels personal and reflective of the time and place I am writing from (both physically and mentally). I also think it’s made me open to a process of editing music over long periods of time, where I can delete or remake things multiple times with the feeling that a song can move and develop with my current musical interests.

What directions or experiments are you excited to explore next?

I am hoping to explore moving my music to a live setting next. I learnt music in live and acoustic spaces but have found that I like to write music using produced sounds and DAWs. However, when I share my music I’d like this to be done in collaboration with other band members and in a live setting.

So now I am focusing on how to share produced and sound-designed textures whilst keeping the excitement and vulnerability you can get from live and improvised performances.