CONTRIBUTED GRAPHIC Elijah Thiessen, a 2021 Marshalltown High School graduate, is releasing his first original song, “Piano Studio Girl,” on music streaming platforms everywhere today.

When Elijah Thiessen was a student at Marshalltown High School, he realized his passion for music and decided it was something he’d like to do professionally one day, recording cover songs — and even one written by one of his friends — inside of a home studio.

As his brother attended UNI and worked toward a classical voice degree, Thiessen knew he wanted to pursue a similar path (but not the exact same one, he clarified), and before his senior year of high school, he connected with an instructor named Jason A. Smith, who convinced him to take piano lessons in addition to the jazz vocal lessons he was originally seeking.

“He convinced me to take piano lessons because he just said ‘You know, there’s a lot of good singers out there. Even if you were an amazing singer, there’s gonna be some six-year-old on ‘American Idol’ who’s gonna show you up.’ If all your eggs are in that basket, then what do you have to bring to the table? If you become a really great musician as well, then you’ll just be an important person to any project,” Thiessen said. “Even if you’re not the best singer, then you have other skills to bring.”

Thiessen, who graduated from MHS in 2021 and also won the state’s “Poetry Out Loud” contest that year, had played the saxophone since fifth grade, but working with Smith helped him come to appreciate his true love of jazz. The teacher then made the student aware of a place called the School for Music Vocations at Southwestern Community College in Creston, and Thiessen described it as “kind of underground.”

“The stuff that Jason was saying about it seemed kind of hard to believe, because he was making some pretty big claims like, in terms of the faculty, what they were like and the kinds of things they’d teach you,” Thiessen said. “I just thought ‘There’s no way there’d be a quality music program to the extensive quality that he’s describing in nowhere, Iowa, in some community college.’ But, you know, you learn something new every day.”

Once he enrolled, Thiessen immersed himself in a holistic curriculum that didn’t focus on one specific aspect of music or performance, and from there, he said, he had the opportunity to “make his own adventure.” While he was at SWCC, he joined a jazz vocal group called “First Take,” and now that he’s wrapped up there and preparing to head off to the University of North Texas this fall, he’s a more well-rounded musician, playing sax, piano, clarinet, electric bass and the drums.

He parlayed his newly acquired skills — and friends he’s made over the last few years — to record his first original song, “Piano Studio Girl.” The track, which is available on all major music streaming platforms today, kicks off with a propulsive, thumping bass line complemented by (you guessed it) piano and horns that evoke the funky jazz rock of Stevie Wonder and classic bands like Earth, Wind and Fire and Chicago.

Thiessen joked that unlike some of his friends, who write more downbeat, folk-inspired singer-songwriter fare, he wanted to create something that would actually be fun to listen to and make people feel good. He credits his colleague Ethan Dix, who has actually played live with him at Tannin, for encouraging him to embrace the mindset of saying yes and trying things until one gets better at them.

Dix, a prolific songwriter in his own right, got Thiessen to take a stab at coming up with one of his own compositions, and “Piano Studio Girl” is the ultimate result.

“I wrote this song in an airport. I was just kind of singing a little bass line in my head,” Thiessen said. “It was all in an airport. I was not at any of the instruments, but since I had started playing the bass, I was thinking of a cool bass line I could write for myself. All of the elements of the song were kind of bouncing around in my brain. I couldn’t write any of it down because I was waiting for a plane… But I recorded a bunch of voice memos of it.”

The song was recorded at SWCC in Creston, and Thiessen plays bass, auxiliary percussion and saxophone in addition to singing the lead vocal. Several of his friends are featured on other instruments. He doesn’t have a stage name yet, so anyone hoping to hear the song can simply type his name into Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon or whichever other service they prefer and listen to “Piano Studio Girl,” which was recognized with a DownBeat Magazine Student Music Award for Outstanding Engineered Studio Recording.

Going forward, Thiessen will pursue a Jazz Studies degree at North Texas and continue to play live as often as he can, singing, performing on the saxophone and — perhaps — releasing more of his own work out into the world.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.