Artist Spotlight – Marilyn McNeal On Allowing Your Art To Be Your Guide

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In 2017, Bay Area composer Marilyn McNeal started the Chantmagick project as a way to help herself and others heal during these divisive times. Initially a collection of videos with things of nature and her original music as the soundtrack, it has since morphed and branched out into several other projects including her 2018 album A Dance For Trees. She just released a new album called Couch Potatoes Rise, which is a collection of 11 songs she has written over the past 20 years. Her commitment to her art, her willingness to allow it to lead her, and her overall unique expression is admirable and inspiring.

With that said, The Crafty Musician Blog is very proud to feature Marilyn McNeal in this month’s edition of Artist Spotlight…

First of all, please describe your art to us…

I describe my music as The Carter Family (simple, raw and immediate) meets Kate Bush (dreamy, emotional, primitive). My style is a hybrid of indie folk and American roots music with some keyboards and drums thrown in.

I was just looking through my journal and I found a long list of words that I’d written down to remind myself of what I love and what to stay focused on. Some of the words are . . . Homemade instruments, rural folk singing, hand clapping, foot tapping, body rhythms / hambone, beatboxing, chanting, spoons, bones, whistling, flute, uke, banjo, field hollers, work songs, hymns, spirituals.

These are things that I’ve seen, heard, or felt that excite me on a primal level, make the hair on the back of my neck stand up! When I read over these words, I see a scene of people working and playing music together, very much connected to each other and the place they are in. There is only one moment, the present moment. This sense of deep connection to time, place, people, to immediacy, simplicity, and rawness is really important to me and is something I’ve woven into the sonic and visual aesthetic of everything I make.

The Carter Family Meets Kate Bush…that peaks my interest right there. Tell us a little bit about your process…

I am self taught on acoustic guitar and tune the guitar to what sounds good to me. Then play brief repetitive phrases that I sing over. I’ve tried traditional Western songwriting and find that it doesn’t cover the in-between tones, feelings and thoughts I want to express! I don’t have any solid guitar technique so I rely on custom string tunings and very primitive clusters of sound to express song ideas. I often play my own instruments that I make out of cardboard boxes, wire, sticks, and tin cans.

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I’ve always been fascinated by homemade instruments and think it’s great that that’s such an important part of your art. Another big aspect of your art seems to be dance. Can you tell us more about that?

I combine my music with dance in homemade videos shot outdoors in the fields, parks and forests of Northern California. My dance is rooted in African and Native American ceremonial movement and is also influenced by capoeira, which I studied for four years, and the contact improv and ecstatic dance I’ve seen around the California Bay Area for years.

Very cool! How long would you say you’ve been an artist?

I’ve been able to dedicate about 35 hours/week to artmaking for the past 9 years.

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When did you start the Chantmagick project and what inspired it? 

I was pretty fried from the contentious 2016 election and wanted to tap into positive images and sounds that would help me relax and be creative. After a weekend at a local hot springs, I decided to create music from vocal chanting and add a slideshow of nature photos to accompany the music.

So I dug in. Typically, I would start by creating an atmospheric layer of sound in my recording software and then chanting over this layer multiple times in order to create lush vocal harmony. I used free photographs and videos from online media libraries to create supporting videos for the music.

As the project developed, I abandoned the free stock photos and videos I’d found online and moved into shooting my own video of hiking spots in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live. In March of 2017, I started a lo-fi indie folk music project called Chantmagick.  When I started the project, my goal was to bring together my weekly hikes in the Bay Area, my optimism about the power of human connection, and my love of American roots music.

In the Fall of 2017, I decided to switch it up and started adding lyrics to my songs. I love Modest Mouse, Pinback, Yo La Tengo, Elliot Smith, Cat Power, José Gonzalez, Tommy Guerrero, and all of those indie alt-folk folks. I got tired of chanting and wanted to bring in guitar and the complexities of melding melody to lyrics.

About the same time, I moved from behind the camera to in front of it. I wanted to shake off some of the rigidity that happens when I sit in front of a computer for a long time. I love free form movement and enjoyed shaking off bullshit and frustrations out in the woods. Dancing in parks, on trails, alongside roads, and in alleys was always a deep reset for me. It’s a way of experiencing my unique reality while also disappearing into the larger and more important natural world around me. I’ve since created about 100 music videos based on original music I recorded and footage of me getting loose in the woods. 

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I love how your work is constantly evolving and that you seem very open to shifting directions as needed. Do you produce any kind of income from your art at this point?

I consider myself a full-time artist, but I do not derive my income from my art. I’ve made no discernable income from cd sales, downloads, and merch. I spent most of 2018 learning how to market myself as a musician and artist on YouTube and Facebook. It was, and still is, a valuable education. I made a promise to myself that I would disengage from it when it no longer felt relevant and that’s exactly what happened about 6 months ago. I felt ground down by thinking about marketing funnels and warm audiences and so I pivoted back to spending all of my energy making new work. In this respect, I am unusual among indies. I’m not necessarily trying to “make it” in the traditional sense of album sales, ticket sales, etc. I’m an independent creative who makes work and shares it. 

Yeah, that is definitely a different approach, but I definitely respect that. With that said, where do you derive your income from?

I teach digital media production part time at a university and community center, and have a handful of private clients whom I help with their online businesses. That being said, I spend on average 5 hours a day creating new work whether it’s music, videos, or short narratives and poetry.

That’s great that you’re still able to put so much time into your art while having other jobs as well. Do you do any kind of live shows?

I do not perform live at this point, though I did for a period of about 5 years from 2007 to 2011. Now, everything I produce ends up in digital format and is shared through my YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram channels. It took me a long time to get on social media, but now that I’m there, I understand it better as distribution platforms with major reach. I use the spaces solely to share my work, though it has been nice to find old friends on Facebook, a utility I see as a modern day interactive phonebook.

Do you see yourself making money from your art at some point?

I would like to derive an income from my creativity but see that coming from being hired to produce a podcast, write screenplays, create videos, and license music rather than selling products directly to fans. I have one cd for sale and am open to offering downloads and some fun things like zines and coloring books, but I don’t want to put a ton of energy into selling from my website. I think it dilutes energy from making, which is what I’m supposed to be doing right now. I’m even reluctant to do a Patreon as I don’t want to feel beholden to anyone to create anything. I make what comes through me and then share it. I really want to keep moving forward in this way and see what opportunities rise up to support my work.

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Can you tell us about some of the projects you’re working on now?

At the beginning of 2019, I decided to do my own version of Alice in Wonderland. I sing, read and dance the text to original music I record. So far, I have completed 11 episodes. More recently I’ve begun to shoot in a documentary style – asking one question to friends and people I meet on the street and then editing this to footage I take while using my music as a soundtrack. It’s been fun to open up and explore new ways of making and incorporating music. My interest in visual storytelling and video has increased significantly over time. 

Now I make a new vertical video each day and post two versions: one with my own music for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and one to TikTok using the popular hip hop and rock music they provided users. It’s been a trip combining my narration, text, and footage with someone else’s music. I never would have thought that I would do this a year ago but the experience has been excellent so far. It’s like I’ve ripped off fetters concerning what I can and can’t make off from my feet.

With all the recording and editing that you do, you must have quite a bit of equipment. Out of everything you use, what’s your favorite products that you’d recommend? 

What a great question! I’ve recently switched to making short (under 20 seconds) vertical videos and uploading them to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. So I shoot on my iPhone 7 using the native video app and then edit the video in Adobe Premiere Rush. If I add narration, I use MicSwap, a studio and microphone modeler app from Future Moments. I also use Future Moment’s VideoMaster app for audio mastering once the video is complete.

When I record in my home studio, I record into Ableton Live using an AKG C214 condenser mic that runs into my Audient ID14 audio interface. Both the mic and interface have brought my production game up and are in the under $500 price range which is usually where I purchase. Probably the most useful unusual item I have is a pair of audio video crossbars (think clothing racks) that I set up around my laptop and hang heavy blankets from. This is what I use to kill room reflection when recording. I have made a bunch of “kits’ that cover the gear I use at https://kit.co/Chantmagick.

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I understand you currently have a PR person helping you. What has that been like and how has that helped you?

Yes! I hired a PR Person to help get more eyes and ears on my work because I believe I am offering something worthwhile that people might enjoy. Hiring a PR person was an experiment that panned out in very unexpected ways. I asked her to put my work in front of a wide range of music industry players with an emphasis on getting coverage in blogs, online magazines, and podcasts. On the one hand, the campaign was not a huge success – we achieved very limited results during the two month trial period we established.

On the other hand, preparing to work with, my PR Rep, meant inviting outsiders in to look over my work and judge if it was compatible with their publication and audience. This in itself was an enormous step for me in multiple ways. For starters, part of me still clings to the fantasy of being discovered so paying someone to promote my work always seemed like it would dash those hopes in some kind of weird way. Second, I am able to be productive and am willing to experiment with new styles and tools precisely because I don’t think about who is watching and who is listening! Everything comes from an immediate feeling I’m having. The last thing I want to do is bring you into my studio and ask you if you like what you’re hearing!

So hiring a PR person meant pushing past that resistance and looking more objectively at my work. I gambled that my work was ready for a more professional and agenda-driven gaze. I thought that what I was offering was unique enough to be picked up by publications. 

The conclusion I came to after two months of limited results was that my unique offer to the public – being present while dancing unpredictably to my own music – is valuable to me and to many people who enjoy my work, but as it stands now, it’s not enough to interest culture and trend merchants. I’m not selling anything and that is fatal if you want to “make it.” I don’t say this with bitterness, rather with surprise that I overlooked this aspect of being a commercially successful musician. 

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The win has been the act of doing an inventory of the work I’ve shared across social channels along with creating a timeline of major developments over the past three years. This has helped me get an overview of where I’ve been and how my project has evolved. It has allowed me to look at all the pieces of my project from an outsider’s point of view and helped me understand why indie music outlets might pass on featuring my work.

While I want to stay true to the impulses and curiosities that make me want to write a song and create a video, the experience of organizing my work for the external gaze has helped me look at it objectively as a body of work. The documentaries I’ve started to make have shifted away from my work being solely about my personal experience and towards including what others think and feel. I’ve moved out of my shell a lot and am excited for what is coming out of me! I think in a year from now, I’ll be better prepared for courting the external gaze on a wholesale level.

What are some accomplishments you’ve had in your career as an artist that you’re most proud of?

The biggest accomplishment has been my ability to make new work every week and now every day. I like the make and learn, publish, smile, repeat model.

I’m really starting to dig into @AdobeVideo Adobe Rush. It’s helping me keep my TikTok workflow all on my phone. pic.twitter.com/ZgZFORT13p

— Chantmagick (@chantmagick) February 27, 2020

What are some obstacles you’ve had to overcome on your journey as an artist?

I think I’ve been my own biggest obstacle! I like to play and record quickly, almost in a blur. An idea comes to me and I try to capture it in the first take, first shot. I value intimacy and raw immediacy and I think this comes through. But so does the weakness in my production quality. I need to slow down and spend more time getting the guitar parts to be more solid and the mixes to be less muddy and out of whack.

I learn by doing so I literally just throw myself at something and repeat and repeat and repeat. This is awesome and has led to an incredible amount of work in a short period of time. Now, I can spot issues and errors earlier in the process and want to cultivate the patience to re-record or remix and really nail things down. That’s my goal for this year.

What advice would you give artists looking to pursue music full-time?

I would say make sure your pursuit is full of time, including time away from music making and marketing!

Creating, recording, producing and marketing music involves so many skill sets that must be learned, developed, re-learned, modified. In my experience, the progress involved in this kind of purposeful evolution requires breathing space! Space where the artist isn’t single mindedly pursuing their goal but learning how to take a pause, learning what self care looks like, learning how to consistently engage in self care, making commitments to family, friends, community development, and career development. All of these things require time and space that makes you a better person and a better artist. 

I think great music is the by-product of an on-going great journey which, to me, looks like a flexible, spacious, playful, experimental exploration of feelings and experience. Trying to force this onto a calendar with benchmarks and outcomes just doesn’t make sense. Creativity is not a relentless straight line from point A to point B. The creative journey is a lot messier than that and our willingness to engage with the mess is what makes great work, not one’s work ethic, timeline, schedule or deadline.

That makes sense. Where are all the places our readers can find you online?

The best way into my work is through my website https://chantmagick.com. I have embedded YouTube videos of my Earth:Connect and Notes To Self documentary music series, my Alice in Wonderland web series  and my podcast, music licensing and Bandcamp info. My TikTok channel is https://www.tiktok.com/@chantmagick. There are some simple sign up boxes for folks who want to stay in the loop with what I’m doing. I send out an email once a month, occasionally twice/month and tell the backstory around how and why things got made.

Well thank you Marilyn so much for your time and for sharing your story with us. It was truly inspiring and we wish you the best…

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