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Guitar and Pen
Songwriter and performer Patty Larkin converts a roomful of high schoolers.
By Rob Hochschild
Berklee.edu Editor
August 16, 2002
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Photo by Kim Grant |
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There's a good chance that most of the 150 students who shuffled into the Berklee Performance Center for Patty Larkin's July clinic had never heard of her. The singer, songwriter, and guitarist has legions of admirers and received critical acclaim for her concerts and nine albums, but to many folks, and certainly, the average 17-year-old, she is, in her own words, "under the radar." Nonetheless, high school students from around the world come to Berklee for five weeks every summer to learn what they don't know, so they took their seats eager for knowledge and wondering what they were about to hear.
"Do you know who this person is?" one student seated a few rows from the stage asked another. "No, man. Let's check it out and see what happens."
By the time Larkin left the stage an hour later, those two students—and everyone else in the audience— had learned that she is a supreme musical talent with songs that are both thoughtful and entertaining. What more could any student ask of a performer or a teacher?
But the first thing you notice about Larkin after she steps on stage is the way she plays guitar.
Opening the clinic with her song "Book I'm Not Reading," Larkin strummed her guitar with a ferocity and speed that makes you think of Pete Townshend's acoustic work, and as she mixed in an occasional bent string note amidst the wash of struck chords, a few excited shouts of approval came from the crowd. The song itself is about the timeless pleasure of stories and storytelling, an appropriate opener for a performer who laces her tunes with narrative and occasionally introduces a song with a hilarious tale.
Although Larkin's fretwork on the first tune conjured up thoughts of Woodstock-era heroes like Richie Havens, Larkin says her main influences come from Richard Thompson, Pentangle, and the "English-Celtic-blues thing that happened in the 1970s"; Celtic music in general; and Windham Hill guitarists like the late Michael Hedges. On the next tune, an instrumental called "Banish Misfortune/Open Hand," Larkin showed how she has created a sound of her own that reflects clear connections to the latter group of artists.
The three-song set ended with "Tango," the title track from Larkin's 1991 release, and then Larkin sat on a stool to take questions from students and Assistant Vice President for Special Programs Rob Rose. In response to one question, Larkin talked about the importance of learning who you are as a musician, an issue she battled with when she studied jazz at Berklee in the 1970s.
"Try to think about what your strengths are and how you want to express yourself and your music," Larkin said. "Really capitalize on that, whether you're a singer or a player. I enjoyed the classes but I realized that I wasn't a jazz guitar player. It's just not my thing, so I came back to songwriting."
After leaving Berklee and fronting a rock band for a while, Larkin started to perform acoustically and found that audiences were paying closer attention to the music. She abandoned her Fender Telecaster and built her reputation slowly, paying her dues at first as a Boston street musician and at open mics. In the mid-1980s, Larkin landed a deal with Philo/Rounder records and released three albums before signing with High Street/Windham Hill. Larkin's most recent two albums were put out by Vanguard Records.
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Larkin, who began playing guitar at the age of 11, studied jazz at Berklee in 1974. |
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Photo by Kim Grant |
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Grateful for her connection with all three labels, Larkin says music business professionals have grappled with categorizing her music. She says High Street tried to distinguish her from artists she considered her contemporaries because the label thought it would make her more marketable.
"(High Street) was hugely helpful, but they didn't want me to say I was folk, or even a singer/songwriter," Larkin says. "There was so much fear around trying to get my songs on AAA radio and pop radio that they didn't want me to use those terms. Some people say music business is an oxymoron because it's a whole different ball game. There's music and then there's the music business."
Unbowed by such challenges, Larkin focused on her music and made monumental leaps as a songwriter, guitarist, and all-around performer. Her audience grew as she moved between record companies and she now plays in sold-out concert halls around the country.
One student asked Larkin how she copes during periods when she finds it difficult to get inspired to write songs.
"I start listening to all different kinds of music, anything to get me thinking," Larkin said, adding that some musicians she's been listening to recently include Me'Shell N'degéOcello, Aimee Mann '80, Elliott Smith, and Dr. Dre. "Sometimes I go back and start working on technique and sometimes to get out of working on technique, I'll work on a song. Or I'll give myself a time trial, and write a song in an hour."
Technical aspects of Larkin's guitar playing and gear came up, and she explained her use of open tunings. Larkin played two guitars during the clinic, one in a "C" tuning, and one in what she called a "DAGDAD" tuning, each letter representing the pitches of the six strings.
In a break from the conversation, Larkin played two songs, beginning with "Beg to Differ," a tune that celebrates the freedom to hold an unpopular opinion. Larkin set a dark tone by repeating a haunting five-note bass line while singing the opening lines of each verse. It was one of several times she displayed graceful interplay between guitar and voice, using rhythmic ideas not heard frequently from singer/songwriters.
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Larkin (center) jokes with two students after the clinic. |
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Photo by Kim Grant |
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Associate Professor of Ensemble John Pierce, who moderated a second Q-and-A session, later commented that Larkin's guitar at times sounded like an entire rhythm section, and that he was impressed with her ability to coordinate her voice and guitar in such seemingly complicated ways. He asked how students might develop similar abilities.
"Practicing guitar separate from voice would be helpful," Larkin said. "It's the desire to make that sound. I had this teacher who was an avant-garde guitar player. I told him that I was confused about what style I wanted to play. He said, 'The style you want to play is what comes out when you pick up the guitar and play.' It seems simplistic and nonsensical and yet it is kind of true." Larkin also suggested that singer/guitarists record themselves frequently to truly hear their own sound.
She ended the clinic with two more songs: "Angels Running," a tune that Cher covered and which Larkin called "the closest thing to a hit that I've had" and "Anyway the Main Thing Is," which was used in the movie "Evolution."
Afterward, Larkin stood in front of the stage and spent nearly an hour talking to two dozen students about music, books, and a number of other topics. Larkin asked the teenagers clumped around her as many questions as they asked her. Seven songs, good advice, and a long, laid-back conversation. Not a bad introduction for Patty Larkin's newest fans.
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