Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Loreena McKennitt: "I'm less spiritual than I look"

Canada was born, but all it evokes the essence of Ireland and Scotland, the land of their ancestors. With 14 million albums sold, Loreena McKennitt, Celtic music muse, it keeps on hand a marvelous simplicity of spirit, almost as much as his voice and his talent for composing and playing any instrument.

It has long traveled to soak up other cultures and their music (Venice, Hungary, Ukraine, the Middle East and Spain). Now it's time to go home. In that spirit has nacidoThe Wind That Shakes the Barley (The Wind That Rocks the barley), a return to his musical roots in retrieving Irish and Scottish classics, lesser-known traditional songs and two instrumentals.

Why this return to its roots? This album has been inspired by many people that follow me for a long time and asked me to return to basics, and I always have wondered how I would be returning to my roots. In the past two years, family circumstances have kept me close to my house and I thought it was time to do so.

How was the experience? It was very good, very positive. Also recording. Had played here before in 1988, and was very familiar with the acoustics. It is very pleasant to see the light, because it has large windows, wood also sounds great, but it was a mixture of things: the size of the temple, which is neither too large nor too small, it was very good for this class music.

Is this trip to his roots has also been a personal journey? Somehow, it made me relive and reflect on that moment in my life when Celtic music came into my life. Even though my ancestors are Irish and Scottish, there was little musical tradition in my family. I first heard Celtic music for twenty years and immediately captivated me and made me meet my origins.

Did you feel that this music was part of you? Totally, it was as a primary reaction, as an instinct. The first time I heard Celtic music I felt I was part of me How does it feel to remember a time when the market was going to Toronto to play his harp? It's a big part of my life. In 1985 I made my first recording with the money my parents had saved to study veterinary medicine.

30 recorded cassette, gave fifteen and I thought, what now? I thought that once the musicians would play the harp in the markets. So Friday night got my harp in a tiny Honda Civic, and drove 120 miles to Toronto. I could not afford a hotel, so I slept on the couch in a friend's house. And I got up at 6 am on Saturday and went to the market to pick the best place, but knew that the best customers would not arrive until 9 between 7 and 9 one used to be interested in my music.

So I sat down, played the harp and singing in intervals of fifteen minutes, chatting with people and sold the tapes. So I took enough money to make a second recording in 1987. I started doing more serious performances in libraries and pubs, and so can record my third album in 1989. In 1991 I signed with Warner Music.

Why captive Celtic music? I do not know, is like trying to explain God. Many times you explain the how of things but not why. Is now investigating how the brain responds to different types of music. I would love to participate in this research, which in Montreal there are many, I would work on different machines, to see how it stimulates different parts of the brain.

Are drawing a map of the brain, according to the stimuli that cause different melodies. It is shown that there is a physiological reaction to each type of music. I have recently seen a very interesting documentary about how music is used in the war, with soldiers in Iraq, which put heavy metal to stimulate aggressiveness.

Even in traditional music, when mixed Scotland bagpipes and drums, this mix is very powerful, also used in wars. The spectrum is very wide, even within the same gender, Celtic music. Friday got my harp in the car and went to Toronto, had no money for the hotel His music conveys a very spiritual state Do you consider yourself a spiritual person? I'm less spiritual than it sounds, I think that religions are an invention of man's institutional response to their spiritual needs.

Religions are very universal, and its principles are actually quite similar: a message of love and do unto others what you would not want done to yourself. But religions are institutions created by mortals, as political parties, and this is what they can do that religions become a problem and create ambition.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but its origins probably as good but as we have added the hand of man has deteriorated. The word spirituality is a very poor word to express so many fields. Maybe in other languages have a richer vocabulary, as in a region of northern Canada there are 25 ways to call different types of snow.

But it is true that music can enhance the spiritual feeling in us. Scientists are able to explain how music can act on different parts of the brain, but not why. Only God could suggest. You who are so open to other cultures, how does it feel to conflicts such as Palestine or Tibet? First I think many of these conflicts have an economic and political backdrop and the mixture of two things is the culture, the desire of determination that goes beyond what you eat, what you saw.

If you take these things and you mix in a world like today's highly technological provoke extreme differences. Now the poor have televisions where they see how rich people live. The world is very complex and we are ready to embrace that complexity. Journalists YOU PLAY an important role in this, you are soldiers of information and you have to make the world see what is happening.

Everything we know this world is coming down and I fear that nothing can replace what we lose. But I will not lose hope. But it is a very important time of challenges. Would you have liked to be born in another time? Not necessarily everything I've experienced has been extraordinary. It is very easy to say that other times were better, but in fact it was very hard.

For me the world is very fast and is overwhelmed. I enjoy at times and smaller, more intimate circumstances. I live on a farm but I have to travel 20 miles to go to my office, I enjoy traveling and meeting people but I love being in my garden. What does the farm? I have rented the land to farmers and see the animals, I come from a farming family.

But what I love is being in the garden, which is not spectacular, I like watching plants grow. Vegetables grown there. The garden is that it represents, have your hands on the ground and then eat the tomato you've grown is a very special connection. Looking at the past is a desire to escape reality? Not at all.

All who do not seek in history have some sort of amnesia. To understand what happens to us in the contemporary world we need to know where we came from. Especially for making decisions both local and national level is necessary to know the origins. In your case, what should the search for traditional music? In my case the investigation of traditional music in the background has been in this new album is not so much.

Actually know very little about the music played for a thousand years, because there is no documentation that I researched, rather than in music, culture and Celtic history, and that led me to the music I make. Has shown on many occasions his interest in Spain, what are your ties with our country? Yes, I love Spain, I can never get the time you would like.

He made several trips here, is so rich culturally ... I like the passion people have here, I connect a lot with Spanish, I think people are very intelligent and committed to some aspects that Canadians, in my opinion, are not. In addition, Celtic music of Asturias and Galicia has inspired me a lot, especially on the album The Mask and Mirror, with the song Santiago.

Can you repeat another concert like the one given in the palace of Charles V at the Alhambra? I'm afraid that was a unique experience and I do not think that can be repeated, was there as a tourist more in 1982, impressed me so much ... I never thought I could get to perform there, this action is a dream come true.

Has anyone ever fallen in love with you through your music? I do not know! People think they know you but in reality the music is a small part of who you are. It is easy to project that kind of thing famous people but it is not real. But we are all people. If music is a small part of you, what about the rest? My family, my garden, I am also very involved in copyright issues in water security in the property laws, and I have of my own company and a shelter.

What do you think the current music, listening? Not much. I feel that the music industry has ignored a large portion of the public. Internet has offset the drop, because it allows musicians to hear otherwise never be known. Labels are great empires and what sets the trend are the financial benefits, results.

Opt for products which are very predictable. In the U.S., CD stores, where they existed, earning more commissions include a disk on top of one's sales by sales of that album. The cost of a disk not much lower than what is dedicated to the promotion. In the U.S. if you get your song into certain stations have a guaranteed sale for the entire country.

So the record companies get to pay thousands of dollars for the stations include their artists. Public has been abused and he has suddenly found a technology that lets you listen to free music, so the record industry has collapsed. His new album, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, was recorded in a very special place: the Sharon Temple, a unique building built by a Quaker about 1820, north of Toronto (Canada).

Square and built entirely of wood (imitating the Temple of Solomon), offers a warm sound, ideal for Celtic music. Loreena was born in a rural area of Canada in 1957, within a family of Scottish and Irish descent. In music began in 1985 with the album Elemental, who paid out of pocket. To be second job, his career skyrocketed.

He currently lives on a farm, grow their own vegetables and delivered to various functions while preparing his new tour.

No comments:

Post a Comment