Cassandra Voices

Tag: Shakalak

  • Musician of the Month: Johnny Jude

    When I was ten years old a blind man by the name of Mr. John Mitchell taught me how to play the piano accordion. I learned how to read and write music over the next two years and I could play a good selection of waltz’s and  marches. The Centenary March, The Boston Burglar, You and I are a few I can remember. It’s a tricky instrument to play, with the bass keys on the left the piano keyboard on the right and the pulling and pushing it in and out. You feel a bit like Silas Marner at his loom when everything is trundling along together. With each new tune you learn you go through the process of feeling that this is impossible; this is barely possible; this is okay; I can do this without thinking about it.

    I find the process of committing something to muscle memory fascinating. It was around this time my mother, who is an excellent singer, decided she would learn to play guitar to accompany herself. She bought a wine sunburst acoustic guitar and attended a weekly class, keeping a folder of songs with chords written in over the lyrics and diagrams of the chord fingerings.

    I can still remember the first time I took it out of it’s case and began to learn these shapes from the diagrams, G… C, that was all that was needed for the first line of the first song in the folder – My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. When I sang that first line and changed the chord under the melody something switched on inside me that has never switched off ever since. My mind was blown. I could feel the vibrations of the chords and it felt like every cell in my body was resolving as the chords changed supporting the melody. From that moment on the accordion gathered dust and what could only be described as an obsession with the guitar began.

    All I wanted was more chords and more songs to play. Every day I would play through the folder of songs until my fingers were raw and I would have to wait in frustration until the following day to play more. My mother became disheartened with her progress when she could hear me flying through the chord changes and she was still struggling. The simple fact was I was practicing fifty times as much as she was. There’s no big mystery or gift involved in learning to play an instrument, it’s just a matter of whether you are obsessed with it or not.

    I’m not as obsessed with huge amounts of practice anymore. I just target specific pieces  that I am working on or gigging at the time and rehearse those for a couple of hours. I find that it’s just as important to prepare mentally for a show or recording as it is to physically prepare. I had to develop relaxation techniques and routines to calm my body and mind before and during performances. When I say develop I mean tailor my own personal program, the actual techniques themselves have all been around for centuries. I use a combination of yoga postures to ground my body and connect with my breathing coupled with the practice of positive visualization.

    There are so many things that can go wrong that could spoil a gig or a recording, if you start worrying about them you will drive yourself crazy. So stick to the positive outcomes only. Of course it pays to have all your equipment in good order and your chops down.

    I am currently the guitarist in the Dublin based band Shakalak. In this outfit I get to play fun electric guitar lines over a fusion of electro-poetry. It’s a very creative group and our songwriting process is organic and spontaneous. At our rehearsals we allocate time for creation, sometimes nothing of interest will arise and other times we write an absolute hit, start to finish in twenty minutes.

    All of us in the band have our own solo projects and we tip away at these concurrently. I am almost finished writing my second solo album and I am working on the pre-production of these songs at the moment. I am not trying to consciously target any specific genre with these new songs.

    Are they cool? I don’t really know what “cool” is anymore. There are so many different types of cool now it’s a mine field.  I am just following my gut instinct and playing what I want to hear at the moment. Hopefully they will resonate with some people and I will step on a cool bomb every so often.  I am really enjoying playing and singing these new tracks so that makes me happy. I went through a fallow period a few years ago and it feels wonderful to be back in love with writing songs. It’s easy to lose your confidence and mojo for writing. I have psyched myself out of the game a few times at this stage. You just have to keep showing up at the office and something will eventually happen. These are the glory days.

    My first solo album released 12-02-2020: https://johnnyjude.bandcamp.com/album/vitamins-wine

     

  • Musician of the Month: Cara Coyle

    The music I am performing at the moment mostly came from three different sets of songs that I began writing in 2018. The first batch I wrote when I was living in a small cabin my dad built near my family home in Donegal.

    At the time, I felt the songs come to me and I just wrote them down. I never experienced songwriting like that before. I did write in my early twenties, but It felt different with these songs.

    Since then, another batch of songs came to me in 2020 just after Covid hit. I realised that each set of songs felt that they had their own colours. The early batch felt black with bits of white. So I refer to them as the black and white songs. The songs that arrived in May of 2020 are mostly orange and my most recent songs have mostly been pink. I’ve got lots of pink songs.

    Sharing Music

    I never meant to share my music with others in the way that I am now. I was quite wary of doing so for a long time. If I shared them it was just for the fun of playing and experimenting with friends.

    There are two acts that currently inspire me to write and perform my music to others – Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Shakalak.

    At the moment I feel particularly moved by live music and feel very lucky that my favourite acts are Irish. When I go and see Rónán or Shakalak perform I want to go straight home afterwards and make something new to share. They make me feel like strengthening my inner voice and using it more.

    Their example shows how transformative live music can be and each time I’ve heard them perform I feel that I have learnt something new about myself or about the world we’re in. They remind me that music can bring us closer together. That we are all going through similar things in different ways, and we can relate to each other through our art. They continuously inspire me to bring what I have inside of me out into the world.

    Returning to Dublin

    When I came to Dublin in 2018 – having spent two years in Donegal – I began playing my music at open mic nights in the city. This helped me to integrate back into city life. I didn’t realise it would take a while for Dublin to feel like a home again.

    Playing in venues helped me connect with others and so began the feeling of community. One of the most valuable rewards of playing music has been witnessing the community that comes with it and watching that community grow. I have got to meet so many beautiful people and feel genuinely supported and encouraged by them.

    During Covid – whenever it was possible to do so – I began to play my orange tunes with a talented and intuitive drummer, Jason McNamara. Last year I was granted an Agility Award and with it I wrote more pink tunes.

    It was strange for me to sit down and say “ok, I need to write some songs” because prior to this the songs came about very naturally. It worked out though, and I’m currently enjoying hearing these songs grow legs and arms and gain a life of their own on the stage.

    Self-Expression

    Rather than pursuing music as a career, I have always just been interested in music as a way to express myself. It’s an art form for me. I feel I get to see myself grow through making art in ways that I might not find the space for in day-to-day life.

    Performing live is what I enjoy most. I did a small bit of work in theatre in the past and loved that a play would be this live, living and breathing thing for a little while.

    It existed just for the people who showed up to see it and then it would be gone. I often feel that my music was written as if it were made for the theatre stage.

    For years I have played music on the street for fun, and for experience. There, I learned how to project my voice; perform with confidence; receive a compliment; to be rejected; experiment with other artists; and connect with all kinds of people. A lot of my own music would have debuted on the streets of Dublin.

    Image: Daniele Idini

    On the Liffey

    Once Covid ended I started to make changes that meant I was playing my music to others quite frequently. In 2022 I was offered a beautiful gig that runs in the summer called ‘Music under the bridges’ by a company called City Kayaking.

    The gig usually starts under Capel Street Bridge where a group of people on kayaks gather to listen to a musician sitting on a little dingy under the bridge. The setting is just beautiful and different every time. Nature dictates the stage. Sometimes bringing sunlight that hits off the water and projects on to the arches. Sometimes you might catch a seal listening in. It’s magic no matter what the weather is like.

    The very kind and lovely thing about this company is that they hire artists to play their original music, which meant that I was suddenly playing my music to an audience on a weekly basis.

    From playing on the Liffey, things seemed to progress like a rolling stone. Next, I found myself playing at mini festivals and events in the city and beyond.

    I started to meet more artists and felt inspired to continue to create and find more ways to spend my time playing music in my days.

    At the beginning of this year I was introduced to the opportunity of playing music in nursing homes which I still do now on a regular basis. I was delighted to stumble into this area. It’s really grounding and the exchange with the people there can be very rewarding.

    At the moment I am considering some projects for 2024. I have a little studio in the city centre that I work away in. I haven’t recorded a lot of music yet since I’ve been more interested in performing live, but It seems it might be a next step for me.

    There’s talk of collaborating with an artist to make a music video for my song ‘Paper Thin Woman’ which would be magic! I’m starting to play with a wonderful bass player now as well as Jason on drums. This is new and exciting territory for me. I look forward to the adventure ahead!

    Follow Cara Coyle on Instagram.