Collected Strands Interview with Maryanne Moodie
Podcast, Video and Show notes here
Raphael Weinroth-Browne (00:00:00):
But I think it's a really good thing to bring this sort of ensemble into a space where maybe people are not used to hearing fully improvised music and just taking them on a ride and giving them a new experience because then it changes their concept of what music can be, especially in a live setting. What is composition and what is chamber music? Then it just broadens that scope with the imagination can dream of in that sense. So I like that a lot, and I think it's important to do that because then people remind themselves to be engaged because they're part of a unique moment rather than being somewhere because they know what they're going to receive.
Maryanne Moodie (00:01:45):
And during that time, I really found comfort and stillness and flow by picking up the loom.
Leah Roseman (00:01:55):
This is a special episode of my podcast celebrating Volume 1 with my improvising ensemble Collected Strands. The other musicians in the group have all been featured previously on this series, and you'll find the links to those episodes in the show notes with cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne, pianist, James McGowan and drummer Mike Essoudry. I'm also delighted that you'll get to know the inspiring Australian artist educator and author Marianne Moodie, who's woven art graces the cover of this album. You'll find the links to her work in the show notes as well. I'm also releasing the interview with Marianne as a separate stand-alone bonus episode connected to this episode. I feel that all my listeners who love music and creativity will find that Marianne's personal journey and perspectives will resonate strongly with them, and I hope some listeners in the weaving and art world will also be inspired by the musicians.
(00:02:47):
We are including excerpts from the album during this episode, and you'll find all the links to buy and stream this music in the description. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast, and I've also linked the transcript to my website, leahroseman.com. The podcast theme music was commissioned from Composer Nick Kold, and you can use the detailed timestamps to navigate the episode. Before we jump into our conversation, I want to let you know that I have a new way you can support this independent podcast through a beautiful collection of merch with a very cool, unique and expressive design from Artist Steffi Kelly. You'll find that link in the description of the episode. This weekly podcast is in season four, and I send out an email newsletter where you can get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links, including the store for the very cool shirts, mugs and more, and the support link to buy this independent podcaster a coffee.
(00:03:46):
So this was really, for me, it's such a new thing and you've guided me all along the way. I was very ignorant about this whole process and I just thought, you stick a mic, you record some stuff, and you have an album. I didn't know about all these steps, so I've really appreciated all the handholding, all the many steps. So our first tracks were recorded back last July in extreme heat. Do you remember how hot it was in that church?
James McGowan (00:04:17):
It was no air conditioning of course.
Leah Roseman (00:04:20):
I remember, like it's hard to shift and hold your violin sometimes when it's that hot, and of course we couldn't have fans on, but I thought, well, I'm improvising so I don't have to do, I can choose what I play to be comfortable in this heat. So that kind of helped than have to play something set.
James McGowan (00:04:36):
Improvising is so cool. You can respond entirely to the environment. It's not only the heat, which is a big thing, but it's also the audience that you're in and the type of music they want to hear. So the heat is just one contributing factor to being totally engrossed in the moment, and the album can't capture that as much because it's a recording. You don't see the whole context, but I think the music comes across as being complete and integrated in response to the environment that we were in.
Leah Roseman (00:05:13):
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned in response to what the audience wants to hear. A couple of tracks on this album were actually from a live concert that we did last November. That was a different experience for sure,
James McGowan (00:05:25):
It was. I think I listened to this, knowing the context of which tracks come from the recording session and which we're in front of an audience. I think the audience has more vitality, more life to it with the audience. So it really does you pick up on we're engaging with the audience and we can feel the intensity increase and we can feel that coming back from the audience, and I'm hoping that the listener will hear that too. I certainly felt that, and I think you did in the performance with an audience.
Leah Roseman (00:06:00):
Now, I did do a recent podcast episode with you in depth. In fact, all members of the quartet, so I'll point people to those. We didn't really talk about, besides jazz, the different kind of improvisation you've played. I'm curious the type of improvisations that we're doing in different styles. Have you done this sort of thing before?
James McGowan (00:06:21):
I've done more, I would call it classical or non-style specific improvisation my whole life. When I was a teenager, I played a lot of Mozart sonatas, a lot of classical repertoire, and I tried improvising in that style and I got pretty good at it, and I started exploring the romantic styles. Just, I paid my way through university by doing church music, direction, leadership, and I improvised music all the time. And a lot of times I didn't play jazz in those contexts, and sometimes I did and I was very much appreciated. But I love improvising and classical styles, and when I say classical, I mean in the broadest sense that not being jazz specific. So that's something I've always done and I love doing it.
Leah Roseman (00:07:17):
What we'll do is we're going to include a couple of complete tunes. Well, if you want to call them that creations, and then we'll include some clips from different ones just to give people a taste of the whole album. I thought maybe we could have a clip from our very opening tune, which we called Unsettled Night.
James McGowan (00:07:34):
Well, first of all, I love how we were able to create this mood and sustain it, and it grows and it morphs, and we were able to sustain the mood too, and I thought we did a great job in that. When we do improvisation, with collective improvisation is always, I think one of the hardest things to do is to start, who starts, and then we often just sit there for several seconds looking at each other, who's going to start? And this piece, I started something and then I developed something and I didn't know who was going to pick up on it, but as soon as you and Raph start playing, it's like, oh, I know where this is going. And then you don't really know exactly where it's going, but you have a sense of collectively where we're going to go. And I thought this was a really captivating opener for the album, and I think this is, you're saying us working together. I think you do a fantastic job on this track with your engagement with Raph, especially Mike does some wonderful rhythmic things in the background. We are playing off each other by do the interaction you had with Raph on this one.
Leah Roseman (00:08:47):
Thank you. A short excerpt from Unsettled Night.(music)
(00:08:50):
This is great. We got all of us together the same moment. So I'm so excited for this album release. James had spoken very specifically to quite a few of the tracks we're going to be sharing. We're going to be sharing some clips and a couple of complete tracks, but I thought it'd be nice if you guys want to just reflect on the process, the kind of music we're playing, your experience with it. So Mike, you use some kind of different extended techniques sometimes when you're playing with us.
Mike Essoudry (00:10:43):
The bow, I use a bass bow. It's a bass bow. It's great because it's certainly visually as a drummer, what's the drummer doing with a bow? What's he doing? And also when you bow, it's for cymbals and when you bow the cymbal, you get a pitch that you have no idea what it's going to be. I think a lot of times when we used it in this setting, it worked out. The pitch that I got, it's like, oh, that worked out. Sometimes I get a really low pitch underneath everything that's happening. It's like, oh wow, that recontextualizes everything that's happening above. So that's always a really cool thing. And sometimes it just gets right in there with what you guys are playing on the cello and violin. It's really neat. It gets right in that space. It's like, oh, and then also that sort of recontextualizes sound as well. Oh, is that the violin or is that the violin? So it's kind of interesting that way. It's an interesting thing to use.
James McGowan (00:11:53):
I think it added a lot. I really liked that part of it when you use that for the timbre, but the randomization of the pitch is also cool because then we can explore the sounds and it can actually guide us in a different direction and it becomes very interactive.
Mike Essoudry (00:12:11):
Yeah, it's a neat sound for sure.
Leah Roseman (00:12:14):
And it's fun for me playing a primarily melodic instrument that some of our tracks get very percussive, so I'm doing a lot of hitting with my bow and different kinds of effects. Chaotic Kittens, it's quite a short track. Maybe we can include the whole thing. It's very percussive. It has this chromatic sensibility and high energy. It's a nice contrast to some of the more thought, well meditative tracks we have, I'd say.
James McGowan (00:12:42):
Well, we explored lots of different things. And what I love about this track that we did is that is intentionally, we're throwing away tonality, we're throwing away any sense of logic, and yet there's a really fascinating sense of coherence in the chaotic nature of what we did. And we all picked up on the energy, we want to go high, we want to be intensified. And I don't think we took it too seriously, but it holds together musically. And so I think us naming it afterwards, it's Chaotic Kittens. It's a silly name, but it captures the light-hearted nature of that type of energy. And I have to say one more thing about this piece. Mike's big dramatic percussive hit near the end. It's like I literally jumped after he played that, and I think you hear my hands fall down the piano as a result of me falling down from that jump. But that was a lot of fun to do that piece.
Leah Roseman (00:13:50):
And I think our recording engineer, Dean Watson, named it Chaotic Kittens when he heard it,
James McGowan (00:13:56):
I think so, Dean and I, and all of us contributed some interesting themes to these pieces.
Leah Roseman (00:14:03):
It's my favorite title that we came up with. This is a short excerpt of Chaotic Kittens.(music)
James McGowan (00:15:10):
Yeah. Mike, I've got a question for you. The whole idea of playing a groove based pattern that you would expect typically on drums, you do that obviously at times when we're going in that direction, but often you're playing very, of course rhythmically, but not necessarily as a time-based thing, more of a textual and timbral type of approach. I wondering if you could speak to that and how it interacts with the ensemble.
Mike Essoudry (00:15:44):
It's very interesting improvising because for me, and maybe it's just the way I approached the instrument or what, and what it generally does as a supportive thing, in a weird way, I almost never improvise in a way because whatever music I'm in, it always tells me what to do. So when there's strong time or when there's something that really refers to something that has very, very strong time, I'm somewhat compelled to play that strong time. So sometimes when we're playing as, okay, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to play time because it's very clear that there's time happening, but I'm going to try and do it in some other way that is not very obvious. So I want to play time, but I want to play it in a timbral way where I'm adding to the timbre if there's time already happening, I don't know if I need, do we need more obvious time.When things start happening and there's an expectation, like say there's a chord change that's happening, if there's one four and one five that is happening, it says, okay, well that's very clear that that is going to happen in some of our improvisations says, okay, well, I'm going to make it. Is it going to happen? Maybe it isn't going to happen. The drummer's not saying that that is going to happen. So I said, okay, maybe I can delay that expectation or foggy that expectation a little bit so that everything that is not super predictable in a way. So it's like, oh, okay, well what's the drummer doing? There's something that there's some salt in the wheel there. I don't know.
(00:17:43):
That's some of the way I approach stuff as well. And the main thing is when I'm improvising, for sure, certainly rhythmically and timborally, the music will always tell me what to do. So if I'm playing straight ahead jazz and stuff and I'm improvising away, it's like, okay, well, I'm listening. Okay, well, this player is playing with more space and stuff like that. I'm going to jump either I'm going to do one of two things, I'm going to go with that, or I'm going to fill those spaces sometimes. Or I'll definitely ask the person who I'm playing with, do you like more drums or less drums? Because you can be very sparse or very active. So sometimes you'll ask those questions. .
James McGowan (00:19:01):
So Mike, you mentioned a really interesting thing that when you say that you're not really improvising, and to me that's a really interesting perspective because all we're doing when we're improvising is drawing upon what we already know and responding to the context that we find ourselves in. So that's the perspective I've got.
Leah Roseman (00:19:25):
I have seen other improvisation groups and they'll just literally say, Improv 1, Improv 2. So I'm glad we took the time to find some titles and you really took it upon yourself to be the primary person to create the set list and the flow of the album. I really thank you for all the time you put into that. What kind of creative flow does that create for you, that kind of work?
James McGowan (00:19:52):
So to me, the true joy is in creating the music, but then we have these recordings, and it's like with these recordings, we can do so much with them, we can share them. But I think curating what we've done is one of the most important things we can do to share the breadth that we do and the depth that we do. So curating it, sure, it takes some time to pick pieces, sort them out. And in some cases, some of them were longer, but there was a little gap in there. So we maybe trim off some of it to find what seems to me like a really coherent statement, a coherent piece of music that holds together. So I really love that process, and it was a lot to work with. I improvised myself on my own, and yet collaborating with great musicians who bring whole new ideas to the table is a real thrill for me.
(00:20:59):
And every improv group that I play with, regardless of style, brings a whole different energy and a bunch of creative ideas. So this group is kind of unique in how we blend the genres and the instrumentation itself is unique. So I really found this to be a lovely challenge to come up with some programs and some set lists, and then the flow of how the pieces connect. And we all worked on the titles, but coming up with titles that capture the main sense of what we're doing musically, even if it's not exactly, it's just a metaphorical representation of the sound. But yeah, I think we all contributed to creating something, but it was just a joy for me to contribute some more in putting that together with everyone's input.
Leah Roseman (00:21:48):
Well, speaking of contrasting styles, I think I'll play a clip from Baroquinerie is what we ended up calling it. And often, I'm not thinking words when we're doing this kind of work, but I remember just thinking maybe something baroque and I just started playing and that it kind of came out that way.
James McGowan (00:22:08):
Yeah, I'm so glad you did that start, because it just started us on a wonderful different trajectory.
Leah Roseman (00:22:14):
Yeah, you're about to hear a short excerpt from Baroquinerie.(music)
(00:23:52):
You do a lot of improvisation in different styles, but with Collected Strands, it is different, right?
Raphael Weinroth-Browne (00:23:57):
Yeah, I think with every group of musicians it's different. It's easy to say that on paper a group of musicians should play well together in an improvised context, but I don't think that's necessarily true. But I think that when we play together, there's very little expectation going into any piece, and I think that's part of what makes it good. I think that there's not too much communicated. Sometimes there's a directive, but in general, we follow where the music takes us, and I think inevitably that's what happens. But I would say in terms of how I contribute as an individual, I think I'm always prone to switching roles as a cellist. I kind of don't really see myself as a musician that occupies one role in an ensemble, if that's on a recording or live. I'm just thinking more about the overall piece and where there's space and what could potentially be cool in a certain part of any composition.
(00:25:03):
So I tend to sort of jump around because I think that there's a really nice, there's a nice space for the natural melodic register of the cello. That always sounds good here. But I also like being really textural or being really rhythmic and feeling like there's a lot of room for that. And because also we're swapping sometimes in terms of the type of material that we're playing, it creates a lot of opportunities to try different things and to not always use the same tools in every piece, but maybe to make the instrument, have the instrument play a different character every time that we create something from scratch. So I think it's a very different context for me than any other group that I've played in as an improviser. But honestly, I think I've had some of my most enjoyable moments playing in this group because I feel like there's so little pressure to sound a certain way or to create a certain result, and that's very freeing, actually.
Leah Roseman (00:26:20):
So Raph, do you have any questions for any of us?
Raphael Weinroth-Browne (00:26:26):
Yeah, well, I guess for everyone really, do you feel that as a group, that we enter a kind of flow in some of the pieces that we've played, or have there been moments where a bit tricky to navigate and you're unsure of whether the music itself was good, and how often does the experience that one feels while playing actually align with how it sounds? When you listen back? Sometimes I feel like the experiences are different. The way you feel about the music in the moment is different sometimes from how it actually is. So I'd be curious to hear everyone's thoughts on that.
Leah Roseman (00:27:13):
For me, there's select moments where I'm just really doubting my contribution and that I get in my own head a little bit. Usually those are pretty transitory. And when I listen back, of course, it's never as bad as you think. In general, that's the case with these things. But for me, I'm able to get into a great flow with you guys, and it's really, yeah, it's the joy.
James McGowan (00:27:39):
Yeah, Raph, also, those are great points. When I listen back, it's a different experience than when I'm playing it because where I'm physically located and what I actually hear is different from what the mics are picking up. One of the most important things for me being in the zone, I guess you could say, and where in the sense that I can be fully responsive and contributory with the music that's being created, is being able to hear everything accurately. And some of our sessions, I might not hear you, Raph, a little bit enough, so I mean, I hear you have to play, but when we're all playing full on, maybe I don't hear you exactly and precisely the ways as I want. So hearing back is going to be different than when I created it. And same with Mike too, in a different part of our conversation, you mentioned that sometimes you play more texturally and timbrally and less with a groove.
(00:28:39):
And when you're playing with the grooves, it seems pretty clear, but when you're playing textually and timbrally, is he playing? And then I have to concentrate even more deeply is he's doing that thing and so it leads me to do another thing. So there's a lot of thinking in the moment of what the ensemble is creating and my contribution to it, and Leah points out, there's some self-doubt that takes place too, but in the end, we're all have to be a hundred percent in the moment to achieved the unique direction of that particular piece and that particular moment. And then listening back, it's like, oh, yeah, and sometimes it really works, and sometimes it's like, okay, oh, there was an opportunity there we didn't take up. But for the most part, it's I'm really happy with this group creates.
Mike Essoudry (00:29:30):
I'm creating in the moment. It's great. It's always great. And then being really committed to that and defying expectations, I guess. Like, oh, everybody, even listeners will expect something, expect this is going to come next, this is going to come next. And they'll know it somehow. So it's always good to sort of, ah, no, we're not going to go there. No, let's not go there. Let's not go there. Let's go there, let's, let's go there. Let's go there and just have it be wide. And sometimes to your point, James is being able to hear everybody. There's a large disparity in volume in terms of our instruments, acoustically. So if I start hitting a groove too hard, then I'm lost all of you that I don't hear any of you.
(00:30:22):
So sometimes that's a lot of times why I never hit hard, hard, hard, hard time. And then the other thing too is if I have to hit it, if I'm playing time, I want to play it strongly. I want to commit to it, right? Commit to a sound. But if I can't do that, so it's like, okay, I'm going to do something else. You know what I mean? I don't want to lose you guys. I don't want to. I'm sure you can follow me, but I don't want to, okay, I'm playing the drums, but now I can see you guys waving your arms, but I'm not hearing anything coming from you guys because I'm too loud. So anyway, that's another thing that I always do is I'm always trying to play to a volume that I can still hear you guys. That's all another balance thing. So as quiet as you guys are playing, might be playing, I'm going to try and go there. I'll try. And so that I can still hear you guys. That's just my natural reaction is matching volume. That's a natural,
Raphael Weinroth-Browne (00:31:29):
That's an interesting point about the groove actually, because I feel that if we get too strongly into a groove or become too overtly rhythmic, what can happen is that it's difficult to hear when the music is going somewhere else or it's also difficult to transition out of it. And so there's always this state of being ready for anything. It could go in any direction. And so it requires the sensitivity of always being on your toes knowing that we might be in a certain rhythm or ostinato, some kind of flow that's happening, but then it could easily change at any moment. And so that it means playing too hard, sometimes you can actually overcommit also, which is an interesting thing with I think this type of configuration. But I also like the fact that I don't feel the need to lock in every note in the pocket in a certain way.
(00:32:36):
In other groups that I've played in before, it becomes super obvious that maybe my playing is too free actually, and that it doesn't land in the groove in the way that would best suit the music during a solo, let's say an improvised passage. But here, I think it benefits the music actually when all of us are more free because it gives it more uniqueness and it creates more freedom for everybody when each person does that, actually, I think. So that's a really nice thing. And so in that sense, there's fewer, well, there's no wrong answers, but it makes every gesture more meaningful in a way, I think. Right?
Leah Roseman (00:33:21):
No, I was just thinking it is the first time the four of us have actually sat down and talked about what we do.
James McGowan (00:33:30):
I think the music speaks louder than words though. I think we were all thinking about these things and we're communicating with sharing these ideas through music. And so I think that's fundamentally where we've been going. And the idea of time, I want to pick up on your thoughts here. When I play classical music, like something show or something, there's going to be this natural ebb and flow of accelerating decelerating, but the tempo remains more or less the same, but the music dictates it to have some breathing room. And so if we were to record with this group, I would never want to use a click, a metronome in our ears because it would defeat the whole purpose of having that freedom as we're discussing. But you can have good sense of time and be ahead or behind of the beat, because we're always doing this listening, and I call this empathetic listening because we're always responding to what each of us are presenting, if not what there is intended, but what we're receiving. And I think that flexibility to adapt and go with that is one of the great things of having four musicians where we each trust each other and have respect for each other's musical statements and ideas
Leah Roseman (00:34:51):
In terms of branding and how you have to use tags nowadays to attract people to your music. And I was actually comparing different similar albums and the tags they're using, because I thought also, we have quite a broad range of styles on this album. People use the word chamber jazz, it can mean a lot of different things. What we're doing is certainly not jazz in any traditional sense. We're not playing over chord changes, but for a lot of listeners, that might be one of the closer genres they're used to associating it with.
James McGowan (00:35:26):
I think it's a real shame that people think that improvisation, oh, jazzwe , sure, jazz thrives with improv, but improvisation is as know who studied music was the cornerstone of how baroque music worked, and composers and performers, the divisions between those labels were blurred until the 19th century. And then only in the recent years, several last several decades, are we starting to challenge that. So there's a sense that if we tag our music as being jazz, we miss out on the traditions that we're drawing upon. So I think you came up Leah with the idea of calling it chamber, improvised chamber music.
(00:36:22):
Yeah, improvised chamber music. And I think that's great because chamber music doesn't have to be classical, and this isn't fully classical, but certainly embraces those many of those traditions. But it is chamber music, and it is one thing that's for sure. This is not orchestral and it's not solo. It's chamber music. And so that's a hundred percent, and it's improvised. So that's a proper name, and I'm glad it came up with that because I was thinking it should be called improvised classical music because it's not. It's improvised classical slash Middle Eastern slash touches on jazz slash slash folk. And yeah, it becomes weedly to hear that many titles, chamber music captures it all,
Leah Roseman (00:37:04):
And a couple of our pieces like chaotic kittens that are more atonal people in the past would've used the term, and now I would just call that contemporary art music. There's all these blurs,
James McGowan (00:37:20):
Sometimes drawing upon a different mode adds some different color changes. So the mixolydian mode where we flat the seven scale degree of a major scale, and then we all sort of play with that for a while. Another piece where we looked at was, I think it was called Summer's Eve, that we came up in, that we create this almost like a tango feel, and that evolved through the rhythmic interplay that we are creating. And it just ended up being this, it was a really fun rhythmic, and so there's these different ways of creating these environments.
Leah Roseman (00:38:00):
You're about to hear a short excerpt from Summer's Eve.(music)
(00:38:03):
Now you're going to hear my interview with the artist Marianne Moodie, who's weaving is featured on the cover of this album, you'll find the links to Marianne's art ,workshops and books in the description of this podcast. And this interview is also featured as a stand-alone bonus connected to this main episode. I do feel that all my listeners who love music and creativity will find that Marianne's personal journey and perspectives will resonate strongly with them. After this interview, there's lots more with the musicians and the album. So Marianne, it's so nice to meet you.
Maryanne Moodie (00:40:04):
Thank you, Leah. It's lovely to meet you too.
Leah Roseman (00:40:07):
This is very unusual for this podcast to have somebody on the podcast who's not primarily a musician, but thank you for contributing to our album in this important way, and hopefully our next album as well with our name Collected Strands.
Maryanne Moodie (00:40:23):
I actually do feel like my loom is a little bit like a harp, so there is a connection.
Leah Roseman (00:40:32):
I think there's a lot of connections, actually, and so many creative people I speak with. I think there's just so many commonalities. But let's talk about your work and how people can get in touch with you, and you do so much really for community of weavers, new weavers, and experienced weavers all over.
Maryanne Moodie (00:40:50):
Thank you. I feel like community is the center of my practice. I am often alone in my studio when I'm weaving either listening to music or podcasts or just learning my thoughts. And that connection to other weavers, other artists, other humans presently as well as those in the past is so important to my practice and to making me feel like I'm in the right spot.
Leah Roseman (00:41:27):
So you have two books?
Maryanne Moodie (00:41:29):
Yes. I was a teacher for 10 years before I started weaving, and so that part of my identity is still really strong. And so it was an organic pathway that I started. Once I started weaving that I wanted to share that knowledge and that feeling of being centered and having a creative outlet with other people who were looking for that, but didn't quite have the railings in place to help them. So I really wanted to give people that first gentle guidance into having an artistic outlet. And so I wrote my first book, and that was a huge success. And so the publishers came back and asked me to write a second one, and the second one was really building on the first one and more for Pure Weavers, whereas the first one was just having an artistic life, having a sustainable, artistic, creative life.
Leah Roseman (00:42:37):
So were you teaching school?
Maryanne Moodie (00:42:40):
Yeah, I was teaching primary school or elementary school, and I spent a lot of my time teaching in the art room, and I always had a creative outlook, I guess, with my life. But then I found that when I was teaching, I was allowing other people to experience that joy and I wasn't allowing myself. And so once I was pregnant, I found I had more time on my hands to be able to nurture my own in an artistic child.
Leah Roseman (00:43:19):
And I'm a parent as well. My kids are grown, but I have thought over the years, if you model, especially as a woman, I think if you model having your own passions that you're interested in, that's a good thing for them to see so that they're not necessarily always the focus of your life.
Maryanne Moodie (00:43:35):
Oh, absolutely. I think very early on, I had a therapist who gave me the keys to life, which was, you are not just a mother. You are not just a mother of a child who is neurodiverse. You are also an artist, a dancer, a daughter, a sister, a friend. You contain multitudes. And that just allowed me to take the pressure off parenting and to really just be fully myself. And that I think I agree with you because it's important for my kids to see that, that I'm not just the person who's at home waiting and being at their beck and call. I guess that I also have my own important life.
Leah Roseman (00:44:24):
How did you get into weaving specifically?
Maryanne Moodie (00:44:29):
I used to sell vintage clothes when I was little. I grew up the youngest of six kids, and we were really poor. You can imagine rich in love and friendship, but pouring money. And we would go to the charity shops, the op shops they call them here in Australia, and we would just find treasures in there. And they were all links to the past. They were all stories, other people's stories that had, if you found the good stuff, then it would've had many lives before it came to you, and it would have more lives as you finished with it and passed it on to the next person, whether that was clothing, books, toys, costumes, fabrics, home furnishings. And so I got really good at finding and nurturing these beautiful stories and these objects and these fabrics and clothes. And I created a side business while I was teaching, which was selling or rehoming a lot of these precious objects.
(00:45:36):
And one of the things that I loved about it was this link to the past. And so as I was moving through looking for my own artistic outlet, beyond that, I found I was drawn to the loom because it had all of those stories. It had other weaver's hands. I was able to use yarns and fibers that other people had created with love, and they had put their own stories into it, and I was able to create something and then pass it on to the next person. So I felt like there was still an organic link between what I had been doing and what I found at the Loom. I had maternity leave. In Australia, we are very, very privileged and fortunate to have paid leave by the government, and you can take it at half pay, so you can have longer time, less money.
(00:46:37):
And during that time, I really found comfort and stillness and flow by picking up the loom when I wasn't with my baby. And by sharing that online with other people, I found that I was able to make connections, which is my favorite part with other people. While I was at home alone with my baby, I was still able to reach out. So then it just moved on from there, from having that connection and then teaching other people how to do it. And then selling my artworks, writing the books. I've got some online classes and I do workshops as well.
Leah Roseman (00:47:23):
So when you use recycled yarn, you're literally taking sweaters apart or is that how you started with that?
Maryanne Moodie (00:47:29):
Yeah, I did. So you can either reclaim wool and natural fibers, which is, it's a whole process in itself, which I love. It creates a stillness in my life. But then also creating fibers from, I had my Nanas when she passed away, I was given some of her beautiful clothes, and she had these silk blouses, and I had them sort of tucked away in my closet, and I hadn't worn them, and I really felt a bit guilty, and I was thinking maybe I could get them tailored, and they weren't really my style. And so I created using the silk shirts, I created long ribbons, long silk ribbons, and I use those to weave an artwork that now sits pride of place in my home by the door. And I get to think about her, hi, nana, every time I pass the piece rather than just in the drawer. And I did the same thing with my maternity jeans. I created a denim artwork that hangs in my boys' room. So it's sort of finding memory and meaning in things that otherwise might end up in landfill or lost, and really harnessing that into art.
Leah Roseman (00:48:52):
So your pieces that I've seen, I really like the incorporation of the natural world and also the pieces you do, which are all one tone, all neutral or all black. Very cool. Because you use such texture, more 3D,
Maryanne Moodie (00:49:07):
Right? Yeah. I've been weaving now for almost 12 years. So my first boy is 12 this year. And over those 12 years, I've had a lot of time to explore different pathways and have different seasons in my own life that called for different expressions. And so I'll often sit, I do have commissions, and when I have a commission, then I will work with that person, that client to bring their vision to life and their story, because we're working together to create something that's going to hopefully be a family heirloom live on their walls for a long time. So I want them to really feel connected to those pieces. But when I'm working on pieces for myself, I try to make sure that there is, the only intention is to listen to myself and to explore with my hands different fibers, try to do the opposite to what I normally do, or do some sketches and try to pull out motifs from the sketches that I see.
(00:50:18):
And so I feel really privileged that now I have a bank of different styles that I can refer to, and I know that they represent different parts of my life. And for me, the magic is in the actual creating of the item and the creating of the art in the moment. And so once I've created it, it's almost, it's left me, and that art can be moved on to somebody else's story and somebody else's interpretation. And so something that for me meant showed how I was feeling during the lockdowns, during Covid in Melbourne. For somebody else, it can represent a real freedom and an openness and a softness. And I love that with art that when I put my intention into it, my viewer might have a totally different story at the other end. That's magic.
Leah Roseman (00:51:16):
It is, yeah. One of the singers I interviewed, I can't remember which one it was, I don't want to say the wrong person. And I remember her saying that if she tells what a lyrics are about before she sings the song, then people don't get to have their own interpretation. So sometimes it's better for them to wait and hear what her intention was, and it doesn't really matter if they had took something different from it.
Maryanne Moodie (00:51:42):
Yeah. I wonder, are you the kind of person who likes to read when you go to an art gallery, do you read now? Do you read that before or after you really take time to look at the piece?
Leah Roseman (00:51:57):
Kind of depends. I like to have context, but I mean, it would maybe look at it first and then read and then go back and look a little bit.
Maryanne Moodie (00:52:08):
I feel like that's the right thing to do, especially listening to this singer's idea. But I more often than not, I will go and read the little card first and then go and look at the piece and try to see what the artist has done. But I like that idea of having your own feelings first before I always feel like they're so learned and they're so professional. If they've got their work up in the art gallery, they would know, wouldn't they?
Leah Roseman (00:52:41):
Well, through the internet, have you met fiber artists in different disciplines and been inspired by stuff they do that's very different than yours? Maybe different techniques or,
Maryanne Moodie (00:52:50):
Yeah, absolutely. I think the internet has always been, I know it can always be everywhere, can have its darkness. But I do feel like the fiber community and the craft community and even a lot of art networks can have a real positivity and support to them. I very rarely find any negative comments or people trying to create unnecessary drama. And there is a lot of support, often women supporting women and sharing our resources. And with a discipline like weaving, there is a lot of skills in there, and there isn't a lot of gatekeeping in our craft in modern weaving. There's sort of that idea of a women's circle and sharing your skills to be passed along that we don't really own any of this. We are very lucky and privileged to be able to hold it and work with it and even make a living from it before we pass it along to the next person. I do find that I try to constantly unfollow people. I'll follow them for a short time and then unfollow. I have some core people who are actually my friends in real life that I've met, but I find that if I follow too many fiber artists, then my work can be, it can sort of tilt into being inspired by other people's work. And so I try to make sure that I'm constantly taking a break from looking at other people's work to make sure that I'm really listening to myself and telling my own story.
Leah Roseman (00:54:39):
That's interesting. Well, it was just such a pleasure to meet you, and this is going to be so cool to edit this into the special podcast episode, celebrating collected strands. And of course, the links to everything Marianne Moody Weaving will be in the description of this episode.
Maryanne Moodie (00:54:56):
Thank you so much, Leah. I've loved getting to know you, and this opportunity is really exciting bringing both of our disciplines together.
Leah Roseman (00:55:05):
Thanks.
Maryanne Moodie (00:55:06):
Thanks, Leah.
Leah Roseman (00:55:08):
Hi. Just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. I wanted to let you know that I have a new way you can support independent podcast through a beautiful collection of merch with a very cool, unique and expressive design from artists Steffi Kelly. You'll find that link in the description of the episode. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leah roseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peaks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. You'll find that link in the show notes along with the merch store. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now, back to the episode.
(00:56:02):
I just thought it might be interesting to close this out to reflect a little bit on the audience. So most of these tracks were recorded in a very hot, empty church last summer, and then some of them were part of a live concert, and we've played a few live concerts. And the feeling, well, having talked to audience members afterwards, people are surprised by how excited they were not knowing what to expect at every moment that that experience. So I'm hoping this does translate in the recording we made. Certainly, I've listened to these tracks many times now and it's surprising to me how fresh they are every time for me. Do you guys want to reflect on the audience and maybe the kind of listeners that might be surprised by this music? I
Raphael Weinroth-Browne (00:56:39):
Think every audience is different, and I think the audience informs the performance as much as our mood on that day or the conditions, the venue. I know I think sometimes some of our shows that James has spoken to that actually that the audience is part of the show, and I really believe that to be true. But I think it's a really good thing to bring this sort of ensemble into a space where maybe people are not used to hearing fully improvised music and just taking them on a ride and giving them a new experience because then it changes their concept of what music can be, especially in a live setting. What is composition and what is chamber music? Then it just broadens that scope with the imagination can dream of in that sense. So I like that a lot, and I think it's important to do that because then people remind themselves to be engaged because they're part of a unique moment rather than being somewhere because they know what they're going to receive, and there's almost like a social aspect to going to a concert because, oh, they're playing this composer or their music and that it's part of the cultural zeitgeist or whatever, and that you should be there instead.
(00:58:03):
It's like you don't know what you're going to get every time, and you're part of that, and it forces you to be present because you don't get to relive that experience part of it. And so I think that's great. And personally, it relieves a lot of pressure also to not feel the need to recreate a past performance or experience. Sometimes I still feel that in a way it's like, oh yeah, we hit a good show the other day. Oh, I would like this show to be equally good, if not better. But ultimately you have to let that go, I think. And I think that when we recorded our show last November, I guess it was, I think it added an extra energy to the pieces, and I really like what we came up with on the show, at least as much I think as what we did when it was just us in the church alone. So I think it plays a big role. The audiences maybe musician too.
Mike Essoudry (00:59:07):
There's no espresso machines growling in the background either. It's good
Raphael Weinroth-Browne (00:59:12):
True that.
James McGowan (00:59:15):
Yeah. I'll also say that the audience that comes, it makes a big leap of faith to come to a concert based on improvisation because they don't know what to expect. And as far as you could tell, every member of the audiences that we've had have gone with us for the ride. So I think that speaks to what we're able to create, but with our successful creation of where it can go, but also to the audience, what Raph is referring to, that they are stretching their minds going in with little expectation. We're not going to Beethoven show. We're not going to a tribute to John Coltrane show. We're going to something that we don't know what will happen. So there is a lot to be said for an audience who will do that, but when they make that commitment and they get that new experience, then now they have a whole new perspective of what music can be. And I think that's a collaborative, building. We're creating community of trust and of deep listening and of this sense of freedom, of creation. And I think we're all contributing to a nice sense of community here.
James McGowan (01:00:36):
So some of the music that we wrote captures different modes and different style expressions. So one of the pieces that we had was I started thinking, well, let's just create not in a major minor key. And yet the music is very approachable that most of the music, well, all the music that we play is compelling in some form, but we try to make sure that it's accessible to a general listener. We often have this concept of the melody being presented and sometimes these harmonic progressions that might even be understood and heard before. Sometimes drawing upon a different mode adds some different color changes. So the mixolydian mode where we flat the seven scale degree of a major scale, and then we all sort of play with that for a while. Another piece where we looked at was, I think it was called Summer's Eve, that we came up in, that we create this almost like a tango feel, and that evolved through the rhythmic interplay that we are creating.
(01:01:46):
And it just ended up being this boom. It was a really fun rhythmic. And so there's these different ways of creating these environments. A Simple Magic and The Long journey Home are the two tracks that we have that are from the live album with the audience. So The Long Journey Home is the one where we have this journey from textural, rhythmic, finding some harmony, building the energy and the ending together. It just seemed like a natural evolution of a journey. And then A Simple Magic is really that it was a simple chord progression. Everyone allowed you and Raph being allowed to have that space, to have your melody soar. And I think we came together with a beautiful, a gentle kiss at the end of the album by choosing this piece to end all the tracks.
Leah Roseman (01:02:44):
Well, thanks so much for this today, James. It was really fun.
James McGowan (01:02:48):
Well, yeah, thank you so much as well, because it was a lot of fun to work on us together. Raph has, brings so much, Mike brings so much, and just collectively, we find this sound and I think that sound is what we want to share because many people who are interested to explore the improvised music traditions.(music)
Leah Roseman (01:07:38):
Beautiful. Well, thanks guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support the series, that would be wonderful. You'll find that link in the show notes along with the merch store. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Have a wonderful week.
