reflections from your living room
wednesday morning. christina is sleeping in but i woke up with the sound of prairie wind dancing around this house, shaking the treetops, waving the gold grasses of last year. we're in Onanole on the southern edge of Riding Mountain Park. our lovely hostess – which we kept up long past her bedtime last night, chatting – has gone to work, and left us to rest and relax in her home: porridge on the stove, note on the counter.
last night's concert in this living room was the 8th of 12 house concerts, over the span of 2 weeks, that christina and i are doing as part of the home routes circuit. there's a familiarity and a rhythm that develops in performing in the same sort of venue each night. arrival and introductions to our host, a tour of the house – here's the concert space, here's a bed for the night, sitting with the family over a meal, the first knock at the door, greetings and redistribution of chairs. there is something more intimate about singing and playing just a few feet away from the audience, without a microphone to hide behind, without a stage to peer down from or a green room to hide in before the show begins. the power of the show doesn't come as a shock to the system - a grand entrance or a burst of sound from pounding speakers. all of the familiar tools that separate performer from audience are gone, dissolved. and maybe it's even a little unclear just who is entertaining who.
just as you watch us perform, see the tapping of our feet or notice us work around breath and voice, we see you too. there's no need for pretense. we're on the same boat, floating through the evening, holding tight over rocky seas and drifting along with the gentle currents. at first, it might be disconcerting: where can i look? should i hide my reaction? am i allowed to cough, smile, clap? but there is always someone in the audience, on the living room floor, that is willing to engage in our dialogue (our performance) and once that person pipes up everyone else relaxes. oh! it's like having a conversation... with musical interludes and stories, and sometimes even with debates.
by the time we take an intermission, fill up on water, coffee and wine, everyone knows what a house concert is all about: enjoy the music and partake in good company. and when we all settle down to the second half of the concert, the conversation spills over into the presentation of the music. our songs become the conversations themselves. we all all together part of the musical discourse.
absolutely, a concert in your neighbour's living room demands a little more from you as an audience member. just as we, the performers can't hide – you, the audience become our co-conspirators in the evening. but in turn, you get far more that just a concert.
so it's true, there is a familiarity that develops from performing in the same sort of venue each night. but i have been amazed each and every evening we've entered someone else's home and started on the performance, just how very different each night is.
first, a kudos and a hurrah! to all our hosts. there is something to be said for the sort of person willing to open their home up to music, to move around all the furniture, and let two slightly road weary strangers into your home for the night. not to mention to call up all your friends, neighbours and co-workers and invite them out on a week-day, no less. maybe i'm a little biased, but it seems to me that all our hosts share some things in common: a sense of adventure, a willingness to welcome in the unexpected, a certain joy in entertaining, and definitely a love of music, art and culture. each of our host families have been totally unique, there's no typical kind of host, but they've been some of the most interesting families i've met lately. in many ways, in these early days of Home Routes, i'm convinced our hosts are forging new ground in their respective communities, opening doors and igniting possibilities, perhaps even leading the way for a subtle, creative, down-home revolution.
as the last performers of this year's series, we have the advantage of coming to our hosts at the end of their hosting experience. several of our hosts have been so inspired by the idea of bringing live music to their living room that they have already planned to host other concerts: their friends' band, their own performances too. many of the audiences have told us how much the enjoyed the diversity of the programming. the Home Routes series brought six different performers to each community host, and each performance was completely different in the style of music.
for the most part, the performers were a new discovery to both the hosts and the audiences, and that's one part of this series i've found incredibly powerful, transformative even. one of the hardest things for a musician to do is to get your attention. there's so much music out there, so much that is selected for us by someone else, that most of us don't really bother to search out new performers and new music. we rely on the radio, tv, 
satellite, or perhaps on friends to introduce us to new music. the beauty of house concerts is that the audience has already decided they will try out something new that evening, so they come prepared to listen to someone new, to indulge in a little bit of music they may not have sought out on their own. more times than not, they've discovered that they've really enjoyed the evening and the music and the performers. so this isn't just about the selfish musings of an artist like me, hoping to make new fans where ever i go - - this is bigger than just that. these house concerts are growing a new kind of audience. an audience that is willing to step into a living room, foreign or familiar, and open their minds and ears to something they haven't heard before. with most all our music being pre-selected for us, here's a chance for all of us to make up our own minds about what we enjoy listening to. taking in a series like this, over the course of a winter, is like taking in a weekend music festival, sampling a whole variety of music and making our own conclusions about what we absolutely loved, what utterly surprised us, what we didn't know we'd really appreciate. moreover, the fact that these concerts take place in people's homes means that they are open to so many more people, not just a bar-going crowd. our youngest audience member was 3 months old, and our oldest – well, i didn't ask – but the sky's the limit.