It’s a Monday morning in my office and I’m pouring over birth charts and Tarot cards. My sun is in Capricorn and my moon is in Leo, I think. The High Priestess is upright and The Fool is inverted, I think. Moments ago I was undergoing my first Reiki session; in an hour I’ll find myself saying “I know this isn’t therapy, but…” and spilling my guts.
I’m joined by the woman responsible for of all of this, Alicia Rytlewski. Alicia is a Milwaukee musician, pianist, composer, and teacher. In 2025 she released a wonderful contemporary-classical album called When We Were Bears. In 2026 she unveiled Soul Song, a service where she creates personalized piano pieces for friends and strangers alike. She dials up your birth chart, performs a Tarot reading, and places her hands on your shoulders (that’s the Reiki part). She asks you what you hope to get out of the session and what you hope to get out of your Soul Song. She then takes that information and transforms it into music. In the end she delivers “your portrait in music,” a piano piece that “captures your essence.” It’s not therapy, but…
It’s a few weeks later and I’m at home doing the dishes. I’m exhausted. My phone dings. It’s a text from Alicia: “I meant to send this before I got this far, but it’s also not completely finished. Any and all feedback is welcome!” There’s an attached audio file, “MattFinished.m4a.” I press play.
It’s a few minutes later and I’m speechless. I’m sitting on the floor listening to Alicia’s song. (Her song? My song? I’m not quite sure.) It’s unreal: soaring and majestic one minute, dramatic and elusive the next. It’s beautiful. It sounds like a personal soundtrack I never knew I had. It sounds like the person I am and the person I want to be. My tears come easy.
My feedback? “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” I text back. “THANK YOU.” I press play again.
Have you ever had a song written about you? I have, oddly enough. Well, sort of.
Back in 2019, an absurdly prolific musician named Matt Farley released a 90-second banger called “‘Milwaukee’ Matt Wild Best Song.” Maybe you’ve heard of Farley—he’s the guy who has made a career out of flooding Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming services with more than 26,000 ridiculous novelty songs. Songs about cities. Songs about poop and pee. Songs about celebrities. And songs about just about anyone with even a hint of a social media presence. My Farley song belongs to that latter category.
Alicia’s Soul Song is vastly different, of course. Her process is key: “We go over your goals and intentions. Are you hoping to better connect with your life path or higher consciousness? Maybe it’s as simple as wanting a music theme that sounds like you,” she writes on her website. “In addition to composing the piece, I go through the steps of recording, mixing and mastering the music so that it sounds as good as possible.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about process lately. Earlier this fall I spoke on a panel dedicated to human creativity in the age of AI. I talked about how I love the process of creativity, about how I love crafting and molding and shaping a piece of writing. I talked about the joy of discovering what something is about while I’m writing it. I talked about how the creative process can be brutally hard at times, but that finding your way through it is the best part of the job. Journey before destination, as they say.
Listening to my Soul Song again, what strikes me most is the process by which it was created. The process of me opening myself up (“I know this isn’t therapy, but…”) and the process of Alicia transforming that openness—and the birth charts, and the Tarot, and the Reiki—into music. The latter is a complete mystery to me. I’ve thought about asking Alicia how she does it, but no. That’s for her.
The song, meanwhile, is for me. And about me. And maybe just me? I’m in the process of figuring that out.
Contact Alicia Rytlewski at [email protected] for your own Soul Song. Pricing is donation-based, starting at $200.
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