Ep36 Conducting & Artistic Fluency - Ruairi Edwards

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Luke 00:00:06  Welcome to another episode of the Improv Pod podcast. My guest today is Rory Edwards. So you were a choirmaster? Choirmaster?

Ruairi 00:00:15  Yeah, that always sounds really grand. I'd say like choral conductor, music director, that sort of thing. I compose music, songwriting less, so it's definitely something I'm interested in.

Luke 00:00:27  Tell us a bit about what kind of choir you conduct and what sort of music you compose.

Ruairi 00:00:33  Yeah, sure. I'm originally a pianist, actually, like you. That's my primary instrument. That was where I cut my teeth to begin with, and then went into conducting and vocal coaching. What I conduct is a bit of everything. I conduct classical choirs, chamber choirs, community choirs, work with projects where it's 800 kids in Symphony Hall, in hospitals, all sorts of different contexts. Really. I enjoy being a jack of all trades musically.

Speaker UU 00:01:07  They are. We are.

Speaker 3 00:01:13  Are they? Are they for.

Speaker UU 00:01:23  Us? We are made for us. We are made up.

Luke 00:01:39  I'm going to play a piece of music and it's completely improvised.

Luke 00:01:44  And I want you to tell me what it makes you think of. So anything that comes to mind, like an idea, a thought, an emotion kind of thing. And try not to analyze it too much.

Ruairi 00:03:13  I thought it was great and I've never done a podcast before, but I was really looking forward to doing it because I also really like sitting at the piano and improvising. But what I'm really enjoy is how, because you're a completely different person with your own inner universe, what comes out of your fingertips in the moment is a totally different expression and way in to how I would do it. I felt really calm listening to that, and I don't know why, because this doesn't necessarily always happen when I listen to music, but I close my eyes for a bit there, and I felt a few different colours going on. To me, it felt like a kind of abstract watercolor. I don't normally speak like this, but I felt oranges and evening colours just sort of melding around a little bit and quite a calm way.

Luke 00:03:59  So oranges?

Ruairi 00:04:00  Yeah, I think like evening sun setting colours and I wonder where it came from in you.

Luke 00:04:06  It's quite hard stuff to talk about a lot of this. You take the analytical part of your brain and get it to analyze stuff that isn't easy to analyze. Like where does the music come from?

Ruairi 00:04:17  It's funny because when you say, what did I think of it? What I think of it is that I really enjoy your piano playing. That comes from a different part of my brain than, or a different part of my sort of whatever embodied nervous system than how did I feel when I was listening to it. What I think about it is I observe you playing the piano, and I can see your sort of harmonic palette, just one version of it right now, and appreciate your way in to improvising. And then how I feel that feels like a different thing. How I feel is I had these colors just wash around in me. I felt quite calm. How are you feeling when you're playing it?

Luke 00:04:53  I think there's actually a lot of space in my thought process.

Luke 00:04:57  I'm thinking, I'm going to try this, then I'm going to try this now. And occasionally there's an image or there's an idea. I guess it's just because what I'm performing. I try and keep my brain fairly clear, because if you're playing a gig, for example, then you start thinking about, oh, that sounds a bit like a tree. And then it's, oh, wait, I was supposed to play this section.

Ruairi 00:05:20  Now, when I first asked you the question, you responded, maybe I'm paraphrasing, but you said something like, I don't really know what I'm doing. Clearly you do. Like you've got a framework which is informed by years of practice and an understanding of the grammar of music. That understanding of the need for melodic continuity, because it's something which feels innately satisfying and whole. Musically there isn't it in you.

Luke 00:05:45  There's a lot of stuff going on. I don't think about it. Yeah. Because if you start thinking about it, it's like thinking about breathing, which is really useful to sometimes think about breathing.

Luke 00:05:54  But if you think about breathing all the time, it's a nightmare.

Ruairi 00:05:57  And you're in one of the choirs that I conduct and you know that we spend the first five, ten minutes focusing on the breath because that's a very supportive thing vocally. And there's a conscious element to that. But it's the same thing, like my intention with that over time. You do that every week repetitively, and that way of breathing becomes something very natural in due course.

Speaker UU 00:06:20  Are there? Are men.

Speaker 3 00:06:40  Up. Man.

Luke 00:07:04  I'd like you to tell me a story of some kind. Yes. And what I do is then I break the story down into sections, and then I improvise a soundtrack to the story.

Ruairi 00:07:13  The story is about me and my experience of becoming a musician, and I've really found my niche and my place in conducting. I love it, I found my particular way of doing it, and my story is how I found that. And the essence of the story is basically about being really rubbish at something. Because when you've never done something before, almost by definition, you're not going to be very good at it when you do it.

Ruairi 00:07:40  And that was very true for me with conducting. I remember the first time that I stood in front of a group of people and tried to conduct them, and I was absolutely rubbish, and yet I knew it was something I really wanted to do. I became a bit obsessed with why I didn't do it well. I started out life as a pianist and I was playing for choirs, and then I got to know some really wonderful conductors who then also acted as mentors for me in due course. So when I expressed an interest in conducting, they would give me the chance to take the warm up of a rehearsal, for example. And I began to find my feet in terms of what it was to conduct what that whole thing is. Because if you look at conducting from the outside, it's quite a weird thing, is waving your arms around in the air. That's essentially what it looks like. And of course, within that, there's a technology. And it really works for very specific reasons. But it has to be underpinned by a lot of experience, musical understanding, but also then experience of just being stood in front of people and waving your arms and making that something that actually works.

Ruairi 00:08:49  The process for me was trying it not being very good, learning specific things around how to do it. Gaining the experience by copying lots of other people who were good. And then eventually, which is the phase I think I'm now in, is finding your own unique expression again. It's just what we've been talking about with the improvisation. Actually, I had to internalize a lot of technique first, but then eventually it becomes finding your own way of delivering it, and that's what people really respond to. One of my amazing conductor mentor of mine, an incredible conductor called David Lawrence, spent some time with him in my early days of learning how to do this, and there was this one afternoon where he was just talking about how to conduct. And and he said to me, it's amazing praise. And there's actually only one way to conduct. And I was like, wow, that's a bit strange in my head. And then he said, it's your way. But it's taken me 12 plus years to get to that point where I've really internalized that message.

Ruairi 00:09:47  The beginning of the story is all of that feeling, quite opaque and unclear, and yet still having a thread there. I knew that I really wanted to do it. The end part of the story is finding a shape and finding something that really feels aligned with how you take yourself to be and where you feel effective and giving expression to something.

Luke 00:10:12  Do you remember a turning point in terms of your conducting?

Ruairi 00:10:15  I remember the first time I actually conducted an oratorio as well with an orchestra. I conducted Mozart's Requiem, which is like quite an epic piece of music. I had a big choir in front of me. Big orchestra. Very wonderful experience, but it was a threshold for me for sure, because it was like a big force to be responsible for. I did my due diligence in terms of the preparation for that. I stayed with the orchestral score for weeks, if not months. I wanted to know the score back to front. I wanted to know what every instrument in the orchestra was doing. Same with the choir.

Ruairi 00:10:52  It was like, I want the timpani in the orchestra to know that at bar 64 of that third movement or whatever it was, I was looking at him and I knew he was coming in because timpani like coming not very often compared to the violinist or whatever, but I wanted that guy to know. I know when you're coming in and you know that. I know that, and I've got you. He felt empowered because it went from being an automatic thing to something he was really engaged in because he knew I was with him. I was really the best version of myself as a conductor in that, because I'd earned my right to stand in front of everybody then because it was like, I'm not just pretending here, like, I really know what's going on. The self-confidence that comes from something like that, I can do this, and I've proven that to myself.

Luke 00:11:35  I could go for this idea of dysfunction. And then as you keep working it, you gain a shape and you develop something that isn't just any choir, it's your thing.

Ruairi 00:11:48  That was exactly the story I was hoping to impart to you, that you would then improvise on the piano. So I'm looking forward to me.

Luke 00:13:59  So what did you think of that?

Ruairi 00:14:00  I thought that was magnificent, because it had to be your version of what you'd heard about my artistic process. And that was the challenge that I wanted to set up for you. And at the beginning of that improvisation, I could see you and feeling you interrupting yourself because you had to try and put yourself in that place of not having a type of artistic fluency, which is what I was talking about in my story. And of course, you do have an artistic fluency. I saw you and heard you feel your way and try to find that space of not having it. and interrupting it. The progression you did was amazing because it didn't just happen in one go like the motifs came, but then they were still interrupted and then they developed a fluency and they found a shape.

Luke 00:14:43  Definitely channeling the kind of learning process rather than performing process.

Luke 00:14:49  Normally when a improvising is a performance in itself. You have this idea of continuity. If I play something that doesn't quite work, then I can get out of it and have this sort of flow that happens. But with that, I sort of abandoned it and went into learning mode in order to illustrate what you were talking about.

Speaker UU 00:15:07  It was a silly little one, I. crazy about? You're silly. Every once in a while. Oh.

Luke 00:15:34  So, do you have another story you could tell?

Ruairi 00:15:37  It was about five, six years ago, and I went over to upstate New York and spent a week with one of the all time vocal legends in the world, Bobby McFerrin. And he really popularized this thing called circle singing. And I spent a week just in this circle with 150 other music professionals just doing improvised singing for like, literally seven days in a row. And it was a total life changing experience. But the story I want to say is about Bobby McFerrin himself. He got very famous for one particular song, Don't Worry, Be Happy.

Ruairi 00:16:14  That was the one. Everyone knows it. But his musical output, it's vast and he's a deeply spiritual man as well. He's takes music very seriously and he's very reverent towards it, but he's just a very kind man as well. We were having dinner and Bobby just happened to come and sit on the same table as me. What I didn't say to anyone that whole week was that I was actually going through a real rough patch inside at the time. I was not in a good place. He came on to the table and was like, hi, I'm Bobby. And I was like, I know. He just proceeded to talk to me like he really cared about me that whole time. It was only like a 15 minute chat or whatever, but it really affected me. It was like, God, here's someone who's the center of attention for hundreds of people, and he's just sat here with me, but he's making me feel valued and seen, and he doesn't know what's going on inside of me internally.

Ruairi 00:17:05  And yet there he is, doing something and giving me his human self in a way which has really helped me. And then about three days later, I was just walking across the field in this place where we were. I just happened to walk past him and he's had to meet hundreds of people here. I'm just one random person and just stopped in the field and he said, You're Rory from Birmingham. And he still remembered that after three days and after having spoken to hundreds of people and after having held space for hundreds of people, and I can't tell you the impact that had on me. He didn't have to know all the details of my life or what I was going through or anything like that, but that act of just stopping and seeing someone, like really seeing them and just taking them in. He did that for me and that has stayed with me, and that's always been something I've wanted to try and do to whatever extent I can as well.

Luke 00:17:57  Noticed you're quite good at that, especially in the choir, is remembering people's names and who they are.

Luke 00:18:04  Even if you know a little bit about them, you can engage with people who you've just met and you can remember like 50 names instantly, which is quite unusual.

Ruairi 00:18:14  I want each person in that room to feel like I see them. Like that is a thing that I want to be able to do too. It just felt so important for me.

Luke 00:18:22  To help them feel like they're part of something, right?

Ruairi 00:18:25  Yeah, and they're seen in their values.

Luke 00:18:27  This is a story about this conversation with Bobby. What do you remember you talked about?

Ruairi 00:18:34  I have no idea. But one of my favorite quotes is the Maya Angelou one. It's something like people may not remember what you say. People may not even remember what you do, but people will always remember how you make them feel. And that is that story with Bobby in a nutshell. He made me feel important in a time where inside of me, I was not in a good place, and and he made me feel valued. And I owe him a lot for that.

Luke 00:19:03  Do you remember what the place was like?

Ruairi 00:19:05  It was in Rhinebeck, which was really beautiful. Just countryside, green forests, fields. It was scorching hot as well. It was August in upstate New York, which is like 30 plus degrees every day. American summer camp type vibe that you see on the film.

Luke 00:19:23  So you sit down at this table, you're not in this good place. And then he sits down and through the course of the conversation, he starts to make you feel valued. And that's it, really. We'll try.

Ruairi 00:19:34  That. And remembering my name three days later. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good luck with that.

Luke 00:21:58  What did you think of that?

Ruairi 00:21:59  I thought that was beautiful. You really took in what I was saying in the story as well. At the beginning of that, there was dissonance, and I think that was reflecting the internal state that I was in when I went to New York and when I was there. And then what moved in was like this warmth in the sounds that you were playing.

Ruairi 00:22:16  That was exactly what the essence of that story was.

Luke 00:22:19  I was thinking about some of that melodic stuff was playing as in the story, you were becoming more valued, thinking about it in a way that if Bobby McFerrin was singing it, how would he sing it? But obviously doing this on the fly, I came with this kind of jumping vocal. He goes, he's really it's a big range.

Ruairi 00:22:39  His range is it's extraordinary.

Luke 00:22:41  And the kind of percussive use of his mouth as well.

Ruairi 00:22:43  I love that you were putting a piece of actual Bobby McFerrin into.

Luke 00:22:46  Yeah, it's not a piece of his. No, no, I.

Ruairi 00:22:48  Mean, like a piece of him. Like a chunk. Oh, yes.

Luke 00:22:50  He. Yeah.

Ruairi 00:22:50  Nature and musical way. Yeah. I didn't realize that was what that was. But now reflecting on it and hearing what you've played. Yeah.

Luke 00:22:58  I do. If you listen to the podcast Song Exploder, Song Exploder.

Ruairi 00:23:01  No.

Luke 00:23:02  Breaks down the processes behind songs and what happened in order to make these songs.

Luke 00:23:09  And there's a great one by Bobby McFerrin daughter, and she's talking about bringing him in for into the song and their collaboration.

Ruairi 00:23:17  Oh, I definitely check that out.

Speaker 3 00:23:20  Woo! Woo woo! Woo!

Luke 00:23:38  So what did you get out of this podcast?

Ruairi 00:23:42  I enjoyed having the space to talk about some processes and parts of my life that are really important for me. I really enjoyed the slightly meta level musical experience that I've had, which you then had to translate into a musical delivery, and I really appreciate how you listened to what I was talking about, because that was well reflected in what you were playing. Yeah, I've got some lovely ideas for piano playing myself now as well. It's always nice to listen to somebody else. You've got your whole own palette in musical world, so I really enjoyed hearing you do it.

Luke 00:24:16  Thanks very much for being on the podcast and been very insightful.

Ruairi 00:24:20  Thank you for having me.

Luke 00:24:21  Join us next week for another episode of Impro Pod. Thanks for listening. The Improv Pod.

Speaker 4 00:24:28  Podcast.

Luke 00:24:28  Is.

Speaker 4 00:24:28  Slowly.

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