Folk Music’S Singer- Songwriter Tradition, the Work Tells the Story of Clare O’Connor, a Young Leftist Activist, Writer and Musician
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Ordinary Catastrophes by Corbin Murdoch B.E.S., York University, 2007 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts in the School of Contemporary Arts Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology © Corbin Murdoch 2014 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Summer 2014 Approval Name: Corbin Murdoch Degree: Master of Fine Arts (Interdisciplinary Studies) Title: Ordinary Catastrophes Examining Committee: Chair: Allyson Clay Professor David MacIntyre Senior Supervisor Professor Rob Kitsos Supervisor Associate Professor Peter Hannan External Examiner Instructor Vancouver Community College Date Defended: July 2, 2014 ii Partial Copyright Licence iii Abstract Ordinary Catastrophes is a concert experience enlivened by the superimposition of several conventions of contemporary theatre practice. Employing folk music’s singer- songwriter tradition, the work tells the story of Clare O’Connor, a young leftist activist, writer and musician. After a period of grief and disillusionment she attempts to rebuild her relationships with her younger sisters and rediscover a sense of broader political opportunity by writing a memoir in song. The songs, lyrics and script were developed in collaboration with O’Connor, who is also the principal performer in the show. The culminating interdisciplinary performance is an attempt to enrich and extend my songwriting practice and to investigate the question of consequence in both artistic and activist pursuits. Ordinary Catastrophes features live music, sung and spoken text, narrative, character, movement, staging and lighting design. Keywords: Songwriting; folk music; politics, memoir, theatre; performance iv Dedication Dedicated to the memory of David Noble v Acknowledgements Special thanks to David MacIntyre, Rob Kitsos, Ker Wells, Ben Rogalsky, Stefan Smulovitz, Arne Eigenfeldt, Shelia Pineau, Chelsea Hunter, Mary Ann O’Connor, Stuart Meiklejohn, Helen O’Connor, Linda and Bill Murdoch, Chandra Murdoch, Michael Sider, Keith Murray, Doug Noble, and The Buzzcocks. vi Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Partial Copyright Licence .................................................................................................. iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. vii Preface ............................................................................................................................ viii Defence Statement .......................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Folk Music ......................................................................................................................... 2 Performance ..................................................................................................................... 4 Narrative ........................................................................................................................... 7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 9 Project Documentation ................................................................................................. 11 References .................................................................................................................. 27 Appendix A. Folk Music as Politics: Alan Lomax, The Alamanac Singers and the Folk Festival Experience ........................................................................... 28 Appendix B. Video files .................................................................................................. 41 vii Preface The author of this Project would like to reassure the reader that the Project Statement is substantially shorter in length than the accompanying appendix. The Master of Fine Arts degree undertaken at the School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University, emphasizes artistic creation, which the Statement serves to describe, and the accompanying materials document. The appendix, undertaken as academic research during the tenure of this degree, serves to present the critical thought undergone prior to, and during, the creation of the artwork. viii Defence Statement Introduction My Masters research, and the resulting performance Ordinary Catastrophes, was an opportunity for me to introduce complexity into my folk music practice, which is traditionally thought of as an uncomplicated form. I am a singer-songwriter in the North American folk music tradition. For the last decade my art and research have been primarily focused how that tradition treats and considers the politics of social change. During the research, writing and production of two original full-length recordings, Wartime Lovesong (2009)1 and Ode to Joy (2013)2, I have developed a songwriting practice that attempts to articulate complex political ideas while preserving the emotional resonance of the folk song. In my work, the politics I am interested in are the progressive Left’s struggles for equality. While these movements are often composed of several smaller networks and thus difficult to define, they share commonalities. They are most often grassroots, anti- capitalist and concerned with social and environmental justice. For the past year I worked in collaboration with activist, writer, and musician Clare O’Connor to create a memoir of the last decade of her life using the media of song. Ordinary Catastrophes tells the story of Clare’s disillusionment with the Left following the collapse of several cherished political projects and the death of her father— himself a lauded Leftist intellectual. The resulting upheaval sees her moving from her 1 Wartime Lovesong, 2009. Written by Corbin Murdoch and The Nautical Miles. Published by Jericho Beach Music. http://corbinmurdoch.bandcamp.com/album/wartime-lovesong 2 Ode to Joy, 2014. Written and performed by The Nautical Miles. Self Published. http://corbinmurdoch.bandcamp.com/album/ode-to-joy 1 native Toronto to Los Angeles, where she is pursuing her musical ambitions and beginning to reshape her relationships with her two younger sisters. The songs that were written to tell this story have been realized for the stage, pushing the boundaries of my practice by superimposing theatrical conventions overtop of a traditional concert performance. The concert experience has been suffused with narrative, character, spoken text, movement, conceptual staging and lighting design. The show features a four-piece band, three principal vocalists, three actors, as well as a lighting and projection design. It was this interdisciplinary impulse that drove me to pursue my graduate studies. This research has been an attempt to enrich and enliven my practice by integrating theatre-making convention. It has revealed new opportunities and challenged me to reconcile the form and the content of the show. This process required a clear articulation of the work’s central themes in a manner that my previous work has not. As Ordinary Catastrophes came together, the primary theme that emerged was the question of whether we can measure the consequence of our political and artistic engagement. Folk Music For me, the emotional resonance of folk music lies in the fact that though the stories in the songs are most often told from a first person perspective, the subjective truth implied by the singer’s confessional voice can also be understood as revealing universal truths. Folk historian Samuel Forcucci’s eight generalizations about folk music begin with the assertion that it “represents the musical expressions of the common people” 3. This definition and the fact that folk music has been traditionally understood as a “popular music with antique roots and anonymous composers”4 means it is an art form which attempts to include and speak for both the artist and their audience. In this way, folk songs in the singer-songwriter tradition can be understood, through metonymy, as the archive of our culture’s collective hopes, fears, experiences, and ambitions. 3 Forcucci, S. L. (1984). A folk song history of America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 4 Cohen, Ronald D. Folk Music: The Basics. (2006) Routledge: New York and London. 2 I am also drawn to folk music aesthetically. North American folk music, "distinguishable by a special sound, a kind of 'simple' noise"5, is first and foremost a vocal tradition. Folk songs were shared through oral traditions, and are therefore highly singable6. Strong melodies, the deliberate use of repetition and rhyme, and simple structures that are easy to memorize, all remnants of folk music’s oral tradition, remain hallmarks of great pop music today. For the very same reasons that I am drawn to the form (the implicitly relatable nature of the music and that fact that folk songs are easy to learn, remember, and repeat),