Strummed Heartstrings
By Amelie Melsness
Popular Music Performance Major Sofia Gomez’s single “Without Me” exemplifies her vulnerability, creative growth and determination, nurtured by her peers at the heart of the USC Thornton’s Popular Music Program.
The inspiration for Sofia Gomez’s (’27) latest song, “Without Me,” was the result of her personal and academic life colliding with tragically serendipitous timing.
“It did come out of a breakup,” Gomez shared. “And that breakup happened to be at the same time that my midterm for my songwriting class was due.”
Deadline swiftly approaching, Gomez found herself in the solitude of her bedroom, sifting through the rubble of what was intact only yesterday.
“I obviously didn’t want to take all these things down. I was like […] “I have this shirt of yours I always wear, and I can’t wear it, it feels weird. The flowers that you gave me for Valentine’s are still on my table.” I was like, “Okay, well, I’m gonna process this.””
Grabbing her guitar, Gomez headed to Ramo Lawn on the grassy mall of USC Thornton’s campus to do just that: process, putting emotion to strings under the blanket of night. Although finishing this song was technically for her midterm, doing so hardly felt like an assignment.
“It flew out of me,” says Gomez.
In a songwriting class designed to lens universal themes from different angles, Gomez’s process stood out to Professor Sean Holt, Vice Dean of the Division of Contemporary Music:
“Sofia, specifically, was very, very open to coming in and really testing the limits of what she was comfortable with,” Holt remembers. “She was a very brave participant in that class, and went out of her way to show up in her vulnerability, in a way that left her with some incredible songs.”
Friend, classmate and colleague Sawyer Rabin (’27) recognized “Without Me” as one of those incredible songs and immediately volunteered himself to produce. They wasted no time in getting to work on fully realizing Gomez’s vision.
Upon moving in, Rabin had converted his dormitory into something more studio than living quarters: his mattress was lifted to stuff guitar cases underneath it, his desk was shoved against the window to make room for speakers sitting atop and a full-size keyboard stretched across the limitations of his collegiate living. Gomez and Rabin perched on his bed to discuss initial ideas and references. They had no choice, really; there was nowhere else to sit.
“There’s infinite amounts of options, especially when you’re looking at a blank project in a recording software,” said Rabin.
They started cutting a path. The duo double tracked acoustic guitars in tandem, recorded a scratch vocal, programmed bass and sequenced drums to give the song a rhythmic backbone, a rough sketch to fill in later.
“It’s part of my process,” Rabin elucidated. “I want to paint my vision so I can describe it accurately to a drummer and a bass player.”
USC Thornton Popular Music Performance majors Sawyer Rabin (’27) and Sofia Gomez (’27) at Handmade Records. (Photo credit: Kaitlin Mendoza)
The pair recorded until the end of the year in Thornton’s newly-renovated recording studios, then pivoted to summer sessions at Handmade Records to record Max Nguyen (’27) on drums against a remote bass track contributed by Bailey Thomas (’27). Coveted for his inventiveness, Nguyen brought a goodie bag of percussion instruments from shakers to tambourines to experiment with. Rabin tweaked the mix as more live instruments were added, integrating some of Nguyen’s exploration that pushed the song further into new sonic territory.
Meticulously recorded lead vocals soon followed.
“We did a lot of takes of this lead because it’s such an emotional song, and you really want to convey it properly,” explained Rabin. “I recorded each section independently so I could process them differently with different effects.”
Collaboration continued to grow between those in Thornton Popular Music Program with the summer days. Their friend Sophia Condon (’27), visiting LA at the time, contributed background vocals. Nolan Heilman (’27) sent pedal steel takes from Pittsburgh. Music Production Major Sage Ella (’27) strengthened the mix with Music Composition Major Victoria Lowe (’27) contributing a string arrangement. Ella and Gomez finally sent it to Grayson Thomas (’26) for a final mix.
Collaboration continued to grow between those in Thornton’s Popular Music Program with the summer days. Their friend Sophia Condon (’27), visiting LA at the time, contributed background vocals. Nolan Heilman (’27) sent pedal steel takes from Pittsburgh. Music Composition Major Victoria Lowe (’27) contributed a string arrangement. Music Production Major Sage Ella (’27) strengthened the mix before it was sent to Grayson Thomas (’26) for a final one.
Half of the production process was remote due to Thornton students being pulled between LA and their hometowns over summer break. Despite the distance, they remained committed to each other and the song, helping shape Gomez’s story with their own unique artistic contributions.
“I talked to Sage about it the other day, and I was like, ‘We kind of killed this, but we also didn’t talk to each other the entire time we were doing it,’” Rabin gushed. “That’s so cool though — we were fully collaborating on this hand-off project, and it was just really awesome.”
Although “Without Me” wouldn’t be possible without the ingenuity and talent of her Thornton peers, Sofia Gomez’s leadership was the nexus that tethered all of the song’s elements and creatives together. It was her clear creative vision: cozy and straight out of her diary, scrapbooked together in crimson hues. It was the first time she’d co-produced her music, brought to life by the dedication of her colleagues who believed in its potential.
This interconnected web of undergraduate collaboration that makes projects like “Without Me” possible is woven within the ethos of Thornton’s Popular Music Program. Although a major part of the curriculum is learning the technical skills needed to execute ideas with ingenuity, one of its core principles is establishing a network between who will be students’ colleagues post-graduation. This is part of a broader contemporary mission, Holt says, to set up students for professional success while still in school.
“Collaboration is key,” affirms Holt. “I don’t believe that we are doing our students a service if they haven’t learned how to effectively collaborate and build networks inside of their programs.”
A key example is the Music Production program, Holt outlines. It was founded on the idea that students would work with songwriting majors from day one to form the framework of a production company.
“So it’s not uncommon for a number of our students to create works for classes, specifically a class like Songwriting 3, and then work with our producers and our performers to work on that music and then some of that catalogue ends up being some of their first releases out in the marketplace.”
Sofia Gomez – 159 Days (Official Music Video)
Now that “Without Me” was ready to enter the marketplace Holt described, Gomez used soul-bearing branding to connect new listeners, like posting screen recordings of a voice memo with the caption: “holding back tears bc this is what I wrote after we broke up.” She finds it difficult to be repetitively revealing on social media, posting varying content at least twice daily to see what sticks. However, Sofia Gomez also considers it to be a necessary process one warms up to to grow one’s following and pull her audience into the new music she’s releasing.
“I think part of being a songwriter, and an artist especially, is to wear your heart on your sleeve. If not, how are people going to connect to you? What makes artists so powerful is that they’re able to tell the stories that people don’t really want to talk about, and it’s why people relate and listen to music. It’s definitely hard to be posting and promoting, but it’s what makes it real.”
She has valuable social media marketing experience to back that perspective up. Her freshman year single “159 Days” amounted to over one million plays across streaming platforms after going viral on TikTok and Instagram in 2023, using emotionally vulnerable language similar to her “Without Me” videos.
It’s a laborious feat to self-promote on top of making music, performing gigs and being a full-time student, but Gomez isn’t alone in shaping her public image; the USC Thornton Music Industry Program excels at cultivating future business professionals to help amplify the artistry of acts like Sofia Gomez. Student Stella Badrutt-Baer (‘28) helped manage her online image, while Cora Reardon (MS, ‘31) took over fundamental tasks like video editing during the release rollout.
Gomez is grateful to head her marketing as a Music Industry minor, adapting her processes to serve the current short-form content zeitgeist.
“I always want to be involved in my process. Especially when it’s my image, and especially because I also have such a big vision for my art, I want to be in control of how it’s shown to people.”
Gomez is especially excited to connect “Without Me” to audiences, more so than any other single she’s ever released, and not only because it’s the most technically polished. While her past songs are largely from other perspectives or distant high school dilemmas that captured formative experiences and creative stages, “Without Me” is a direct, visceral extension of her current self.
“The song means so much to me because it’s so personal, and it’s straight out of my life. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been.”
The time to share it finally came, a long road from working out the chords on Ramo Lawn.
The “Without Me” release show on the evening of October 23rd was BYOB, or “Bring Your Own Blanket,” for a spot on a front lawn a few blocks from campus. Upon a 7:30 entry time, soft chatter and serene acoustic tracks floated over card games into the cool Thursday night air. By 8:10, Gomez, Badrutt-Baer and other Thornton friends were still untangling string lights to be hung.
The porch waited patiently. The glow of indoor house lamps illuminated a circle of instruments, stands and mics as an amp sat inconspicuously on a porch swing. Performers would soon make the front ledge home, loafers and ballet flats dangling over a bed of white roses.
After Anna Harrell and Ryann Barnes’ moving sets, Gomez’s “Without Me” played from the speakers. The guitar ballad imbued imagery of loss lingering, those small, yet significant items that flashed moments before her eyes. What made the production so heartbreaking was the incorporation of carefree joy: summertime birds chirping, Gomez’s laughter and the distant sounds of her family’s conversation, all recorded herself during a spell at her childhood home in Miami. It naturalized a pristine instrumental to paint a picture of not just loss, but of the joy that was lost as she “[woke] up in a cold sweat,” why she “wanted to fight for [them] just a bit more.”
The song’s path—and everything that had charted it—came together in that very moment: Gomez’s breakup, Professor Holt’s guidance, Rabin and Gomez’s shared love of Lizzy McAlpine, her longstanding creative relationships with many more Thornton peers, the marketing knowledge she’d developed between “159 Days” and her minor, her ex’s shirt she’d picked up in a moment of vulnerability, the immeasurable hours she spent bettering her craft through writing solo, learning six songs a week in pop performance, co-writing with other songwriters and producing in sessions to prepare to release not only “Without Me,” but her first album the song’s a part of in the spring.
A low-hanging lime tree bore its fruit over the patchwork of blankets, framing listeners from above, swaying with them to a live rendition. Gomez’s smile colored her voice with warmth as her fingers softly strummed her guitar. Performing was as natural to her as her own heartbeat.
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Featured photo credit: Asher Hansow & Emily Mae
Spotlight written by Amelie Melsness (’27), USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism student on assignment for USC Thornton Office of Communications.
