Indigo Girls Share Advice and the Stage with Berklee Singer-Songwriters After a master songwriting class with the Grammy-winning folk duo, students joined the band to perform its signature hit, Closer to Fine, in front of a sold-out crowd.By
Nick Balkin
October 20, 2021
Left to right: Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls; Berklee students Cammi McDermott, Leana Nykole, and Oscar Hall; Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls; and Janie Barnett, Berklee associate professor of voice
Image by Mike Spencer
It's not every songwriting class that offers students the chance to workshop an original tune with a Grammy-winning folk duo, leading to an invitation to join the act on stage to sing its definitive hit in front of an adoring, sold-out crowd. But that's what happened when Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls were on campus for a recent master class.
Y'all have a high standard here...everyone's so good, said Ray, to cheers and laughs from the audience, after music therapy major Oscar Hall, one of three students selected to take part in the workshop, performed an aching ballad titled If It All Meant Nothing. Hall followed Cammi McDermott, a double major in songwriting and music therapy, who played the Julian Baker-inspired Bad Habit, praised by Saliers as a beautiful journey of a song. Leana Nykole, a professional music major, rounded out the workshop with a soulful original, Van Gogh, earning props from Saliers for her knockout voice.
Record it a million different ways, let it resonate, and see which way resonates with you.
-Amy Ray, Indigo Girls
Throughout the 90-minute master class, held at the Red Room at Cafe 939, Saliers and Ray provided the students with a range of constructive feedback, from the importance of space (Saliers: It makes a song feel less long if you give it a breath so the listener has a moment to think about what you just said. ) to the value of experimenting with song structures and arrangements (Ray: Record it a million different ways, let it resonate, and see which way resonates with you. ). The Indigo Girls also treated the crowd to a couple of their own songs, performing Muster, a commentary on American gun culture, and Look Long, the title track of their latest full-length.
Leana Nykole (right) and Cammi McDermott sing Closer to Fine with the Indigo Girls.
Image courtesy of the Indigo Girls
After the master class, Saliers and Ray invited the three students to join them the following night on stage to perform Closer to Fine, the Indigo Girls' signature song, at the finale of their concert at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, Massachusetts. Hall wasn't available to attend, but McDermott and Nykole were quick to accept the offer.
The experience was unreal, and so incredible, said Nykole. I think what made it so great is the fact that after a year of being shut down from live music and concerts, I am finally able to perform again.
Though Closer to Fine was released in 1989, years before McDermott and Nykole were born, both students grew up listening to the Indigo Girls-a testament to the band's cross-generational appeal.
I dont think my music would exist or be quite the same without them, both in regards to style, as well as in being able to write songs about openly being an LGBTQ+ human being, said McDermott. To actually go on stage and sing one of my favorite songs with them was such a privilege.
Student Oscar Hall plays If It All Meant Nothing at Cafe 939.
Image by Mike Spencer
In addition to the workshop, the master class included an interview and Q&A session moderated by Janie Barnett, an associate professor in the Voice Department. Here's an edited version of the conversation:
How do you find your authentic voice as a singer, writer, and performer? Saliers: I don't even know if I've found mine yet, to be honest with you. Early on I was a massive Joni Mitchell fan. I wanted to write like her, I got her songbook, and I learned all of her songs by heart. She was the pinnacle of songwriting for me at that time, and it was almost debilitating because I knew that I would never be that. But after a while, especially in my later years, I started to realize that each songwriter is different-and we saw that today, with three equally great songs each completely different from the other-and I started to realize and value the validity of my own voice, even if I couldn't write like Joni Mitchell. But that took a long time [because] I also wanted to write like Earth, Wind & Fire and like Stevie Wonder and that was impossible for me. So I think that what I was trying to stop doing was completely emulating a style, and I just kept fumbling through my own style. But I really feel like I'm coming into my own voice at this part of my life [and] I'm a better songwriter now than I was all that time ago. I also think that...your attitude, your perspective on things can shift...and it's OK to have a voice at this one point in your life and to have it shift to something else in another part of your life. But...the most important thing is to try not to copy or write like someone else-that freed me on my journey to finding my voice.
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Ray: A voice teacher told me a long time ago that you should sing like you talk. That's your personality [and] when someone hears your voice it should not be a surprise to them . There are some people and you look at them and they're little and this voice comes out of them and it's huge. And there are great singers with very affect-oriented voices, like Joe Cocker, but you can hear the meat of their own personality in that voice. That really helped me because I
