Canadian Musician November / December 2019 | Page 39

LUTHER MALLORY
During performance, if you do lose focus
and make an error, “Get some body energy
going when your brain kicks in. It’s going to
happen – thinking feels like control. Your brain
goes, ‘I’ll handle this.’ And you’re like, ‘Maybe
the body should handle it’. The moment lives
in the body, so if you engage the body vigor-
ously… and get yourself breathing again, that
supercharges the body, which has a chance of
taking over the mind.”
Mallory says that with meditation, “We
train our minds to focus on what we want.”
That aids in managing doubt and fear prompt-
ed by whatever’s aggravating you. “Meditation
is practice in singular focus, in a deliberate
way, on what we want instead of letting our
mind take us where it wants.”
The more you practice managing risk, the
more taking risks will become natural.
That’s iskwē’s perspective on her upcom-
ing tour in support of her latest collection, acākosīk. A 2018 nominee
for the JUNO Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year and a
reputably fearless performer, the Hamilton, ON-based artist is known
for constantly upping her game with each successive record and
tour. These new dates will feature dancers, elaborate costumes, visual
projections, and soundscapes underpinned by her four-piece band.
“I guess it’s [ambitious], but it doesn’t feel as though we’re start-
ing from scratch,” iskwē says of the undertaking. “I continue to add
more layers to [previous shows], so I don’t necessarily hold that same
stress about it.”
But iskwē has always pushed the envelope live, and embraced
risk as a means to improve. She started out as a dancer, studying bal-
let and tap from age five. Although she sang in choirs, learned music
from her grandmother, and taught herself to sing by mimicking art-
ists like Whitney Houston and En Vogue, she didn’t consider making
music her focus until much later.
When Canadian Idol came to her hometown of Winnipeg,
she decided to audition and prepared by taking voice lessons and
performing live. When it came to the TV round of auditions: “I got
nervous and on a really high note I just cracked my voice… I walked
out… because I knew it wasn’t there yet,” she says candidly, but left
with a firm desire to make music her life.
Since, iskwē has constantly tried new things. They didn’t always
ISKWĒ
work, she says, “but I never regretted trying something new publicly
because I’ll never get better if I play it safe. If you’re not taking risks,
you’re not pushing yourself. If we just remain comfortable, how do
we improve?”
In terms of practice and rehearsal, she adds: “Practicing, for me,
tends to be a lot of thought. How do I think this will go? What goes
here and there? It’s less about running songs over and over vocally.”
Her focus is on finding new techniques to strengthen her voice.
“Strengthening that muscle, that tool, gives me the opportunity to
try new things with songs in rehearsals.”
In practice, she stresses breath control and coping with the
physical demands of performance. “When I’m preparing for tours, I
get on the treadmill and get my heart rate super high. Then I try to
sing. It’s about being under duress and what I can do in that state,”
she shares.
That includes “sectional” practice and rehearsal – with the band,
with the dancers separately, and full-on pre-production with the
choreographer, dancers, band, and crew, making adjustments based
on timing and live arrangements and preparing for the nuances of
the show.
The idea behind the tour is having audiences “come in as in-
dividuals” but “walk out as a community,” which becomes the goal
of practice and rehearsal for everyone involved in the show. “That
camaraderie is what encourages the audience to participate and let
go,” says iskwē.
“Practice is what you do to prepare for rehearsal. That’s probably
the simplest way I can phrase it,” says keyboardist Rob Cooper, who
has performed in countless live scenarios over time, including with
Classic Albums Live. Cooper is also the Director of the Cosmo School
of Music in Richmond Hill, ON.
“Rehearsal is when everybody brings their practice together;
things we can’t do alone that involve communication, synchroniza-
tion, and give-and-take. By and large we’re collaborative beings and
tend to express ourselves collectively, so the things we do individual-
ly ensure that, when we get together, we can focus on those collec-
tive skills. Rehearsal is practice in a collective.”
Individually, he continues: “Some people see practice as a
necessary evil; you know, ‘I’ve got to do half an hour of this before I
get to anything else because my teacher told me to.’ That’s missing
the point completely. Practice is about getting from ‘close enough’
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