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MARCY BARUCH - interviewed by Maris The Great

Marcy Baruch's musical style is a beutiful blend of pop that soothes savage beasts such as myself. After seeing her perform twice, I realized what a true threat she is to My Greatness. She will die!

Marcy with Maris the Great

For a mortal, you have a gorgeous voice. What is your vocal background?

Thank you. Like a lot of people who are musically inclined, I've been singing all my life. As a little kid, I would get these solos in the school choruses and musicals. I played Hansel in "Hansel and Gretel" in the 4th grade. I was always picked to be the boy because I was tall, but as a child I was so shy and self-conscious that I blew the moments to shine every time. The teacher would be screaming, "Louder! Louder!" and I would just want to sink into the floor more and more. I was so shy...I never liked people looking at me....Anyway, through grade school and high school, I was really lucky to go to all girls schools and summer camps where the arts were tremendously supported. I was in choruses and musicals every year and some of the self-consciousness began to be replaced by a somewhat more reliable confidence. I really enjoyed being part of a nationally known touring choir in college. I started taking private voice lessons in 8th grade and continued through college, where the focus was largely on classical music--Italian Arias, classes in the diction patterns of several languages, traditional songs from those countries, opera-- I wish I'd appreciated all that knowledge as much as I would now, but I still really soaked up a lot. I was a music major at Wittenberg University and took all of the practical classes--theory, sightsinging, eartraining--and then switched to a religion major when I only had 3 music history classes left to complete the major. However, it wasn't until I moved to Denver and met Mimi Sparks through Swallow Hill that it all really came together. She was a PHENOMENAL teacher. Anybody can talk to you about scales and support and range and get you part of the way there, no matter what the discipline may be. I began working with Mimi, maybe 6 years ago and everything changed. I finally had permission to give validation to the songwriting that felt most authentic to my own path, which was not of a classical nature. With Mimi, there was a moment where my voice became my OWN, where all of a sudden, a world of power just erupted within and I was no longer this passive "girl who has a nice voice," but instead a woman who understands what it is to work very hard to learn the command of my own instrument, which IS the body. Singing well, as any good singer will tell you, is an active thing, like learning to play any other instrument. With a few exceptions, a true singer doesn't just "have a nice voice." A true singer deserves all the respect in the world the way an accomplished pianist or violinist has learned to master his craft. When set up properly, the body just takes over with so much strength and beauty when you learn to get out of the way and let it fly. Working with Mimi was a phenomenal transition. Now, in her wake (she moved to Grand Junction), I work with a number of students privately, helping them access within themselves the very things I learned from her.

It seems that most local female musicians gravitate toward acoustic instrumentation. Do you do so by choice or fear of not being accepted otherwise?

Since my choices in instrumentation started many years ago (piano as a child and acoustic guitar as a teenager), it would follow that what other local female musicians are doing is not relevant since I only recently and happily encountered them. Regarding the question about fear / acceptance due to comparison, well, I think that's a dangerous road to travel, no matter what the arena. Sometimes you can be on it and not even be conscious of it, but I don't think I am in this regard. I guess I'd have to step out of my familiarity zone to know for sure. Maybe I'll take up another instrument and see if any fears pop up. They very well may. Have you read The Seat of the Soul? I think you'd like it. All instruments have their potential for beauty and uniqueness, their quirks and limitations too. Hopefully, given broad and meaningful exposure, different personalities will gravitate toward what feels most authentically compelling. Hopefully, too, if a girl has made a choice to play an instrument, or not to play an instrument for that matter, because that's what girls do, or a boy has chosen the same because that's what boys are supposed to do, there will come a time where he or she can assess what feels authentic in that choice and shed what doesn't and move more in a direction that does. What I know is, an acoustic guitar is just so portable and accessible and natural of a choice for accompanying oneself. A person can't really take her tuba from high school marching band and accompany herself at the Soiled Dove, can she?

If you decided to change your style to Punk, what would you call your band?

Clitorosauras.

One of your first big shows was in a church. As a result, I thought you were a Christian artist. Would it bother you if other people had the same perception of you?

Yes, if people's understanding of that term were of the following nature: By and large, "Christian artists"--at least the ones defined as such by most random cross sections of the US--write songs from a very specific and exclusive perspective. I don't think the majority do God any great service. I think they do God a big disservice. You might as well take a beautiful majestic redwood, chop it down, pick up a piece of twig, burn it and show the ashes to people who have never seen redwoods while extolling its virtues. There are exceptions certainly. I love Michael Been from The Call, Bruce Cohburn and Karen Perris of The Innocence Mission. They would not be considered Christian artists in marketing terms, but they are artists who happen to have found that a meaningful part of their lives overlaps with parts of a religious tradition and experience typically referred to as Christian. I love Peter Himmelman, whose Jewish heritage is important to him and comes out in his music, for the same reasons. More often than not, songwriters within the "Christian artist" parameters tend to write from within one piece of the pie and insist that only that one piece is qualified to shed light about the nature of not only that particular pie, but all pie everywhere, be it apple, pizza, grasshopper or shepherds. The assumptions about God and mankind (not to mention those about womankind) running rampant through much of this particular kind of "Christian music" are repugnant to me, not to mention completely uneducated and disappointingly unimaginative. Having said that, this mystery of the person of Jesus has always held my fascination. In terms of an archetypal story that has resonated through my own life, for worse and for better, it is true that it has and does. However, it is not the only mystery that holds my fascination and please shoot me the day that it is because I will be close to dead anyway. Life is the mystery. Every religious tradition is born out of that mystery and at its best, re-engages us to it in a way that makes life more meaningful. The arts, among other things, speak of the mystery and experience that is life and true art speaks to people of all backgrounds because our humanity, not our ideology, is all we can truly speak honestly about. I love it when people who identify themselves as Christians feel drawn to my songs (It usually means they're recovering from fundamentalism and I support that...). I love it when people of other traditions feel drawn to my songs. There are a million things in any given moment that shed light on the human condition, a million more that shed light on the possibility of perhaps something or things divine being "out there" or "in here" or somewhere or everywhere or who cares where. In the end we're all ridiculously ignorant, even in our knowing and studying, and can only seek to do the best we can and therein lies our hope, or mine at least, for myself. Wow, I don't have to prove a damn thing and can't anyway. Isn't that nice?

I heard your bassist is your boyfriend. Does he treat you like shit and is that why you stay with him?

Yes, but I just use him for his incredible bass lines and graphic design capabilities while dangling the ever-elusive-never-to-be-attained carrot of sex in front of his face, so we both get something out of it. Maris, if you edit my response right here, then YOU'RE GOING TO DIE TOO! Here's the deal: Scott is the dearest man I know. I have always had tremendous respect for the way he carries himself in the world. For a couple of years, we played in the same band together and respected each other and were friends within that musical context. Then we were friends because we were truly friends who also happened to play music in the same band. Down the road, we simply realized how very much we already loved each other. Now, we love each other as partners because we loved each other as friends because we respected each other's work... I don't think it gets much better than this. It's a very through-and-through kind of thing. He is uniquely kind, generous, oozes integrity, and is loaded with his own talents (www.surinebasses.com <http://www.surinebasses.com> ). The scope of this person blows me away daily. I think that because we love and enjoy so many of the same things and have similar expectations and definitions of quality, it is such a natural and energizing pleasure to support the other. I have never felt more in synch and at home with the rightness of anything. The relationship--on all it's levels--is profoundly joyful. The fact that he has impeccable taste and is totally sexy and makes me laugh a hundred times a day doesn't hurt either. What more could a girl want?