This article first appeared in New Age Voice in June, 1999
Laurel
MacDonald
singing at the
creed of sound
Interview by Carol Wright
Laurel
MacDonald
singing at the
creed of sound
Interview by Carol Wright
Although Laurel MacDonald's Chroma (Wicklow Records) arrived without cover or liner notes, I was immediately captivated by it. MacDonald's startling vocal technique and focused control astounded me. This woman could sound like Laurie Anderson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, a woman's Balkan chorus, Joni Mitchell, Lisa Gerrard, and Steve Reich's "Eighteen Musicians" - all on the same album.
Chroma's arranger, Philip Strong, seemed to tip his hat to folk,
medieval, avant garde, and techo, too. The album featured unique custom
instruments and supreme levels of digital wizardry. Above all, the pure
sound vibrations were compelling. Chroma had enough strong material
to warrant a remix album, Wingspan, also on Wicklow.
MacDonald, who grew up in Halifax, now makes her home in Toronto
where her performances with Vacuvox (a vocal and multi-instrumental ensemble)
and 3 Our Tour, have drawn critical acclaim. Tracks from her 1994 debut
album, Kiss Closed My Eyes (available only in Canada), have been
choreographed for performances by Ballet British Columbia, the Bill T.
Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and the Les Grandes Ballets Canadiens,
and the Opera Nationale de Paris.
When I talked to Laurel, she was in Toronto completing details of
1999's U.S. summer tour. I wanted to know where she trained to develop
her incredible vocal technique.
Carol: How
did you get interested in singing?
Laurel:
Interested
in singing?
Carol: Where
did you train?
Laurel:
I
don't have formal training.
Carol: Impossible.
I can hear all the ways you control your voice, how you shape it. All the
musical traditions you draw on. Where'd you learn that?
Laurel:
I
guess I come from… I really don't have formal musical training. Oh, I guess
I'm a natural singer, probably. For some reason, it comes easily to me.
I don't find singing difficult.
Carol: Well,
back to the first question then. How did you get interested in music? You
acknowledge your parents' creativity in your liner notes.
Laurel:
My
parents are visual artists, but music was very important to them. I took
classical guitar, and we often attended symphony performances in Halifax.
And we always played music-primarily classical music-all the time we were
growing up. They had quite a record collection: traditional spirituals,
Mahalia Jackson, pop singers from the forties and fifties. Cab Calloway
was my mom's favorite, and I'm still trying to get her to pry loose of
that LP. I was exposed to a real mix of music. And I always imitated everyone's
singing…even Cab Calloway.
Carol: High-dee-high-dee-ho!
That's where the technique came from. Sing-a-longs with Cab!
Laurel:
When
I got older, I imitated Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music, Buffy
Ste. Marie, and other folk singers from my parents' generation. When I
got more actively involved in music after college…
Carol: Did
you major in music?
Laurel:
No,
I majored in theatre and costume design. But I hung out with musicians,
both classical and new music. I came to music more seriously, after college,
and then approached it from an almost scholarly angle, with a high interest
in world music.
I
grew up with some exposure to the Celtic music of Nova Scotia. And there
were snippets of other tantalizing things in my parents' record collection:
choral ensembles from the Balkans and Central Asia, The Red Army Chorus,
and other recordings of world vocal traditions. I took a few workshops
in-and then performed-the Balkan singing of Macedonia and Bulgaria. I also
took some evening composition workshops. One teacher in particular was
an open thinker, and he reintroduced me to some of the music I had forgotten,
such as Steve Reich's
Music
for 18 Musicians, and contemporary vocalists like Bobby
McFerrin.
Carol: Your
music is so rich, it sounds like it should be performance art. You have
a degree in theatre-are your live performances anything like Laurie
Anderson's?
Laurel:
I
have a lot of affinity for what Laurie Anderson does. I've seen her live
and on documentaries. I'd say I am closer to her style than to straight
concert performances.
We had seven people in Vacuvox, and it's difficult
and expensive to tour a large group like that. For the Chroma tour
this summer, I'm using a trio of myself, Philip Strong (my partner, musician,
and producer), and Kevin Gould, who will be on backup vocals, keyboards,
accordion, and percussion. We're trying our best to cover the songs with
just the three of us. What I don't have is the dense vocal textures I could
get with Vacuvox. We're working on how to get the layered sounds and are
entertaining a number of ways to do this.
Carol: From
the liner notes, I can tell that Philip is really into sound production,
both with the creation of new instruments and the digital processing.
Laurel: This is a creative partnership. I do the writing
and much of the arranging, while the overall sonic territory is almost
entirely Phil's creation. He's a sound designer with a background in film,
so he brings a lot of technical knowledge to our projects. He can take
existing acoustic sound sources -- foley,
instrumental, or vocal -- and by working and layering, slicing and dicing,
he assembles these layers into an incredible soundscape. I've learned a
lot about sound and technology from being around him.
Carol: Is
there something about sound itself-about the pure vibrations-that attracts
you? The sound seems to reach out from the album
Laurel:
I'm
very interested in how sound vibrations work and the way layered voices
create sonic textures. It's something you experience live when you hear
a choir, and it certainly can translate to the recording medium. A sonic
texture occurs when a group of voices sing at the same time, whether in
unison or in harmony. The harmonic relationships create all sorts of incredible
effects: You can actually hear the type of vibrations called "beating,"
where different frequencies vibrate powerfully in a pulse.
Carol: Beating?
Laurel:
Every
musical note consists of a fundamental pitch plus a series of higher-pitched
overtone frequencies. This group of overtones, also called the harmonic
series, are a set of frequencies that have a precise mathematical relationship
to the fundamental pitch. This ringing of different but similar
frequencies makes the air vibrate with the pulsing sound of beating.
Beating occurs when two notes very close in frequency
and their respective overtones sound simultaneously. This creates a chaotic
conflict between opposing frequencies as their unequal wavelengths crash,
rather like what happens with the optical illusion when two sheer fabrics
create a moiré pattern. I guess beating could be considered a visual
moiré. John
Schaefer describes this phenomenon very aptly in his book New Sounds;
this book opened up a whole new world of music to me. It was his insight,
more than any other single influence, that brought me to my own music.
Carol: So
back to singing…
Laurel:
Combining
different vocal parts can really make the air buzz. If you've ever worked
live with other singers, you can control the beating of the air and the
vibrations in the room. It's kind of neat! It's harder for me to create
those fine microtonal variations by myself, because I have to record by
myself, track over track. It's possible, however, and creating those subtle
variations are very exciting. I'd certainly love to write for a live choir
some day.
Carol: I
suppose many musicians use drones instruments to get this buzz.
Laurel:
I
don't use a lot of drones, though it's the backbone of some Celtic music.
I used some in my first album, Kiss Closed My Eyes, but I've not
used them much lately because they are a bit too, well, too easy. With
a bass drone, it's very easy to create a grounded-sounding music, so I've
been trying other things to challenge myself as a composer to create more
harmonic movement in my work.
Carol: Why
go for the remix of Chroma's "A Wing and a Prayer" on Wingspan?
Laurel:
Wingspan
is a project of Ian Menzies in AR in Wicklow. He was interested in the
whole remix concept and drew the artists together.
Carol: How
does the remix process work?
Laurel:
I
was not directly involved with the musicians creating the remixing. The
remixers generally
have carte blanche to do what they want; that's part of the remix thing-they
get carte blanche. Phil and I put together the raw tracks they requested.
We gave Bill
Laswell every track of "A Wing and a Prayer" -- all 32 of them. By
comparison, Transglobalunderground asked for only the lead and backup vocals.
Interestingly enough, John Oswald of "plunderphonics" fame came over to
listen to the entire Chroma album; he made careful notes and then
ordered specific tracks from every song on the album. That's one of the
reasons his piece is distinct from the others.
Carol: What
did you hope to express with Chroma?
Laurel:
The
Big Question. It's expressing a lot of human things, the ongoing relationship
of the self with the universe. It may at times seem dark, but I think of
it as mostly light. There is tender sadness -- but not anger, nor anxiety
-- and lots of delight in the wonders of human existence.
Carol: Why
called "chroma"?
Laurel:
It's
called "chroma" because it's a visual thing, but also a musical thing,
the chromatic scale, elements of tone and timbre. Sonically and visually
-- it's celebration of pure enjoyment of both.
Carol: How
did you write the pieces? They are all very intriguing. "Seek Ye the Lambs,"
the song about the shipwreck, is an incredible concept.
Laurel:
The
pieces select me, I don't have much choice. The pieces are almost all original
with the exception of "Lament of the Birds." When I write, I search so
hard that the pieces seem to find me. I'm not a prolific writer. I don't
write twenty then narrow it down to ten.
Carol: Two
of your albums have the financial support of the arts councils in Canada
and Ontario.
Laurel:
Canada
and Ontario are wonderful about supporting all the arts. There are even
programs to support those projects that might have a chance at financial
success.
Carol: What's
next?
Laurel:
While
we're waiting for confirmation of our summer tour details, I'm recharging
my batteries, spending some time listening to as much different music as
interests me. Sometimes, I go back to old records, then I'll search out
new pieces. Some favorites right now include John
Tavener, the acclaimed British composer, and Arvo
Pärt. I LOVE Arvo Pärt. I also stumbled on a CD the other
day by Polish film composer Zbigniew
Preisner, a choral work entitled Requiem for My Friend. I am
enjoying it very much.
Find
out more about Laurel
MacDonald by visiting her website
LAUREL
MacDONALD Discography