Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Film & Music

FAn artistic interpretation of Spearin's work Image: Natascha Malta

The artist himself Image: Lisa Milosavljevic

We've all heard the phrase 'music is everywhere.' It could be the whistling of the subway as it dashes down the tracks, or the pitter-patter of students' footsteps as they run from class to class. At the Harbourfront Centre's 2010 "View Points" forum series on Jan 28, Toronto musician Charles Spearin shows us that there truly is music everywhere, even in places you wouldn't expect - like everyday speech.

The Happiness Project is the newest release from Spearin, a multi-instrumentalist best known for his work in pivotal Canadian bands Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think. The album is based on interviews Spearin conducted with his neighbours, talking about happiness. Using these voice samples, he found the natural cadences of the voice in each person and turned them into music.

I have to admit, I was a little amused by the idea, and wasn't quite sure how it would work out in practise, but Spearin slowly took us through his creative process, first by playing a recording of 'Mrs Morris,' then getting one of his musicians to play over it with her tenor sax. My first thought was 'Is that all it is? Just him mimicking voices with instruments?' But I was sorely mistaken.

The next piece began with a beautiful musical interlude with a violin playing the theme. As his daughter's voice rang through the speakers, the audience could finally see how it was all pieced together. Using a theme from the vocal recordings, he weaves it into a full musical piece, composing layers upon layers to create a listenable composition. Amazing how all of this came from just the human voice.

One may assume that this is a simple process, but Spearin wanted to keep the integrity of the project by not altering any of the voice samples. Thus, he had to find the natural key that people speak with and place it into some sort of meter- no easy task!

As Spearin explained, his idea for the project originated from going on tour with Broken Social Scene. When touring in countries where he couldn't understand the language, he noticed the beautiful melodies of the speech instead of its literal meaning, and wanted to capture this in music. He saw that the melodies of voice create meaning, and that just talking to one another was like singing a little duet. As he humorously announced, "I'm thinking of starting a whole new genre of music... talk rock!"

Although originally Spearin just captured each melody note by note with his guitar, through exploration and musical bravery the pieces became more cohesive. As the album advances, one can hear the progression of his actual experimentation as each piece becomes more and more complex.

It was interesting to see each piece come alive in front of the audience as he added layers to the pieces, looping riffs and integrating unique sounds right on stage. It brought you step by step through his ideas as he drew attention to the musicality of speech, allowing us to hear its natural melodies.

The "View Points" presentation brought you even further into Spearin's world, as he shared his creative process through a combination of interviews and performances. The Harbourfront Centre has many more lectures and workshops like this. They're usually free and totally worth the travel time.

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