Making music a marathon rather than a sprint

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This article was published 19/10/2023 (1020 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Larysa Musick has taken the stage countless times, armed with the verses she’s written and rehearsed.

The Winnipeg poetry-slam artist will do the same Friday night at the Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club, except she’ll have songs from her debut EP to perform rather than poems to recite, and she’ll have a band to back her up instead of being alone to earn the audience’s kudos or criticism.

“It’s a little nerve-racking but it’s also exciting.” says Musick, who released the six-song Tomorrow Is Bound to Come on streaming services Oct. 13.

“The stakes are the same, because people are still watching you, but the difference in poetry slam is you’re scored from zero to 10 on your poetry. I’ve received five out of 10 on stage; I’ve received 10 out of 10.

“What it really taught me, scores aside: you need to be proud of the work you made and you need to know why you made it and then you can get through the muddy water of what people think.”

Musick, 29, is giving her fledgling music career her full attention after dabbling in dance and the visual arts, but her poetic sensibility and her observations of the world remain vivid in her music.

Tomorrow Is Bound to Come emerged from long walks near her parents’ home in Headingley during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Walking around the block helped many people fight cabin fever caused by pandemic-related shutdowns, but for Musick, her strolls in Headingley’s prairie reserves led to melodies, as well as the theme for the title track, which focuses on the environment.

“What would be the Earth be saying to us in response to the state that were in right now, where we’re in a climate emergency?” she says. “It’s almost like the Earth is hitting reset.”

The catchy tune No Fix No Fuss is inspired by bestselling authors Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, who have become known as the Minimalists from the title of their 2021 Netflix documentary.

“Love people and use things, because the other way around doesn’t work,” Musick says, referring to the Minimalists’ 2021 book.

“No Fix No Fuss was a response to how much importance we put into material things and how that can get in the way of our relationships,” Musick says. “Of course we need material things to survive. We need clothing on our back and we need a home but there’s a fine line between having everything you need and having more than you need.”

Musick graduated from Red River College’s creative communications program in 2018 and she set a challenging artistic goal rather than resting on her laurels.

“All this time I’ve wanted to do the singer-songwriter thing, but I never allowed myself to try it,” she says. “When I graduated college, I made a pact with myself: I’m going to write 100 songs and in five years I will know if I’m prepared to do this.”

Musick also used the pandemic downtime to focus on her guitar playing and the finger-picking skills she shows off on the EP owe thanks to bingeing on James Taylor’s music.

“I practised James Taylor’s Fire and Rain in four-hour intervals every night for about two weeks,” she says. “I realized that I have the discipline and the passion to pursue this as a marathon rather than a sprint.”

She reached out to local performers Sierra Noble and Madeleine Roger to produce the record and leaned on their experience, both in the studio and as songwriters. Musick knew she had a lot to learn.

“It was a mentorship for me and it was also unlearning this thing I have where I put people on pedestals,” she says. “I definitely put them on a pedestal at first — ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve done so much. I’m this puny little fish.’

“When they accepted me as a friend and as a peer it made me feel so welcomed into the community.”

Musick believes music audiences are less critical than slam crowds, perhaps because they’re dancing to the tunes and enjoying a drink, instead of checking their scoresheets.

That doesn’t mean she’s taking Friday’s show and future gigs more casually than her slam performances, which led her to become Winnipeg Poetry Slam’s artistic director.

She would rehearse her poems over and over before slam competitions and she’s using rehearsals with her band to make sure Friday’s show earns the crowd’s approval.

“Here I am with a drummer and a bass player and backup vocalists and a different environment for sure,” Musick says. “How do I stay engaged with the people onstage and make sure we’re in flow together? So it’s completely different.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall