AOTA-231222 - Terry O’Reilly, Muriel Anderson, Benjamin Brobst-Renaud’

This Christmas weekend on Out of the Air features hosts of the weekly radio show Under the Influence, Terry O'Reilly discussing his over 30-year career in advertising. Next we have harp guitarist Mira Landerson, whose newest album, Sailing Dreams, was inspired by her sailing adventure. Our spotlight on Balfour University professor Ben Brooks-Orneau's exhibit featuring an exploration of artificial intelligence. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, on Out of the Air today. They're in the know with Larry and Esther, Out of the Air our way. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself, you are, and show the world your heart. Welcome, you're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, WVLP 103.1 FM, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. We're also the partner of New Perspective Photography, right alongside here with Esther Golden of The Nest in Michigan City. Aloha, everyone. We're your hosts for Art on the Air. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art on the Air is heard every Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Art on the Air is also heard on Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP 103.1 FM, streaming live at wvlp.org, and Tuesdays at 4 p.m. on WDSO 88.3 FM. Our spotlight interviews are also heard Wednesdays on Lakeshore Public Media. Information about Art on the Air is available at our website, breck.com slash AOTA. That includes a complete show archive, spotlight interviews, plus our show is available on multiple podcast platforms, including NPR One. Please like us on Facebook, Art on the Air WVLP, for information about upcoming shows and interviews. We'd like to welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight from Valparaiso University, who has an exhibit going on in this area of artificial intelligence, where he's also a professor there. It's Ben Broeps-Renaud, and he's going to tell us a little about the exhibit, but also what he's doing there at Valparaiso University. Ben, welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'd love to. My name is Ben Broeps-Renaud. I teach at Valparaiso University in the arts department, I mean, the arts section of communication and visual arts. And I teach sort of the odds and ends, which I feel really lucky to do. So I teach courses on ideation, media storytelling, printmaking, teaching a course on making comics, and then this spring, a course on art and AI, which has to do with this show. So last year, as in the fall, where there started to be lots of stories about CHAT2BT and Mid-Journey and VAL-E and a lot of these text and image-generating programs, and there was a lot of consternation and uncertainty, I joined a faculty reading group that was dealing with, particularly from the writing side, what does this mean pedagogically? What does this mean for us as teachers? How does this complicate both fears of plagiarism, but also fears of how can we effectively teach the process of writing, the process of learning, if we need to navigate artificial intelligence having a role? And that was a really fruitful discussion, but I felt like I was the only person dealing with the visual end. Everyone else was, because of their backgrounds, focused on more text generation side. I was really curious about how the visual end could manifest, how it could impact arts and other creative approaches, and less in a paranoid or fearful way, but I was really curious about how this can be used as both a tool and potentially a sort of collaborator. I think because I spent so much of my childhood reading science fiction, for me, AI was always just this thing that I just kind of assumed was going to be playing a large role, even before it was legitimately possible. And so for me, I feel like I missed the fear and uncertainty part, not that it's not terrifying in so many ways, but I'm just more curious. And maybe that's also the thing that led me to be an artist, to look at teaching art as well. And again, from the standpoint of a teacher, I've got this beautiful gift of being able to, like, I'm curious about this thing, let's do a class about it, and have that as a jumping off point for my own learning, like an excuse to go. Learn as you go. Absolutely, absolutely. That's what makes this job so exciting. And so that naturally led into proposing a class, and as I was building out assignments, that led into, well, I should be making a show of work, because I knew the bar was looking for something to fill some slots, and I figured if I make a bunch of images over the summer, then that becomes the starting point for a lot of discussions with my colleagues, with people across campus, with folks from the community, and that's what I'm most excited about with AI. I can see how it could become part of my own process in a tangential kind of way, but I was mostly looking at it. What is the discussion with this? How can we do this? And rather than looking at it from the standpoint of let's make some perfect, beautiful images, I kept thinking about this photographer named Lucas Blalock, who has this photography practice that's really interesting, but then he also uses Photoshop in what he describes as a really dumb way. He tries the simplest tools. He tries to make mistakes, and the resulting images are some of the most fascinating things I've seen. So I tried to bring that approach to making these images. I was using a programming name called Midjourney, and I don't have time to talk about the whole show, but one of the things that I got really excited about was making landscapes. The Brower has this amazing collection of Junius Sloan landscapes, and so I was using really simple text prompts to make these images that I was really charmed by, that they look pretty good. The colors are great. The forms are lovely. They look like traditional landscapes. Referring to there's things that look a little bit like Grandma Moses, a few that look a little bit like Grant Wood, like Frederick Edwin Church, but they all had these mistakes in them. I kept winding up with sheep with three heads, cows with five legs, and I realized really quickly that this is because, at least right now, the AI program is only—it only has essentially the mathematics, the idea that if you put in idyllic pastoral landscape, it usually includes these things, but it lacks the intuition to know that a sheep doesn't have two butts, and so there were all these mistakes, and I'm assuming that this will get ironed out as the programs get more and more sophisticated, but I was really charmed by these flaws, and I thought that they had all this potential for discussion, and so Jonathan Canning, the curator, and I—I guess he's the director, not the curator—we paired these with landscapes from the Brower collection as a kind of dialogue, which then led to dialogue with the guests. I have a really quick question about that. Yes. So when you're doing the landscape, if this cow or sheep is in the distance, is this flaw, or is it evident on first glance, or is it with deeper scrutiny that you see the— The image looks too normal for it to be noticed right away. Yeah, that's so interesting. We only have a few moments here, so how long is the exhibit up and running, and tell us a little briefly about that in our last 30 seconds. The exhibit should run through the end of the semester, so that's December, and the Brower, barring school holidays, is open from Wednesday through Saturday in the afternoon. And do you have a website? I do not. The Brower does, and there should be information posted there and to their social media as well. We appreciate coming on Art in the Year Spotlight. That's Ben Protorino from Valparaiso University about his AI exhibit running through the end of December. Thank you so much for coming on Art in the Year Spotlight. So interesting. Thank you so much. Art in the Year Spotlight, an exclusive one-hour program on Lakeshore Public Media, is brought to you by Macaulay Real Estate in Valparaiso, Boa Patrician Senior Broker. And as a reminder, if you'd like to have your events on Art in the Year Spotlight or have a longer feature interview, email us at aota.com. That's aota.com. And Art on the Air encourages our loyal listeners to support this station by making a monthly sustaining pledge so we may continue to bring you this great program. This is Whitney Reynolds of The Whitney Reynolds Show, and you are listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM and on WVLP 103.1 FM. We are pleased to welcome Terry O'Reilly to Art on the Air. Terry is the host of Under the Influence. His radio show keynote talks and his books are dedicated to breaking down the art of persuasion by looking back and gazing forward. He is a 30-plus year admin who discusses the bigger issues of marketing and how it affects the public. His completely enjoyable books are like his radio show, One Word Smoothly Takes You to the Next. His books are 2010, The Art of Persuasion, How Marketing Ate Our Culture in 2017, This I Know, Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence, and 2021, My Best Mistakes, Epic Fails and Silver Linings. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Terry. It's very nice to meet you. Well, thank you. It's great to be here. I don't usually like the word fan, but I do listen to your show most of the time if I wake up at 630 on Saturday. When I first hooked into it on the other station here in Chicago, it was like, oh my gosh, this is very unique. It had all these unique production values. So it was very interesting. So I always try to catch that. But if I miss it, then I can also go to your podcast. But welcome to Art on the Air. What our audience wants to know is kind of your origin story. And you spell it out very well on your website. But we'd like you to tell us about that. I would like to say how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us all about Terry O'Reilly. I grew up in a small mining town five hours north of Toronto in northern Ontario. And it's amazing when I think back because my high school in grades 9 to 13 had a television and film course. We had full studios, full equipment. In a small mining town, that is just unheard of. But I was very fortunate. So I got the bug for broadcast in that class. Then I went on to university in Toronto at Ryerson University to study radio and television and film. The funny thing was I had no interest in radio. I only wanted to do television because that's all I knew from my high school years. The first year was radio. Second year was television. Third year was film. And I felt the first year was such a waste of my time, which is so ironic considering where I am today. But I kind of fell in love with radio a little bit in university. Then when I got out of university, it was the 1981 recession. So it was a little tough to find a job. I sent out 60 resumes to advertising agencies around the country because I knew I wanted to be an ad writer. And I got back 61 rejection letters, which is one place rejected. Just in case I didn't get the message with the first letter. But I managed to get a job at a small radio station in a tiny town. And I literally, it was the only job I could find writing ads. And it was there that I literally fell in love with radio. I got to make a lot of mistakes. I got to do a lot of interesting things. I really answered to no one. I was the sole coffee chief at this little radio station. So I really had a lot of freedom. From there, I went to a small advertising agency in that area. I worked there for about two years. And then I made my way back to Toronto and got my first job at a big advertising agency as an ad writer. And I spent about 10 years in advertising agency life as a writer and creative director. And then in 1990, I co-founded a radio and television production company called Pirate. So advertising agencies became our clients. So I kind of moved out of the advertising agency world and became a service vendor, so to speak, to advertising agencies where we would do all the sound and music and direct voiceovers for television and radio commercials. And every year, I would put on what I would call a creative radio seminar. So I would rent a theater in downtown Toronto. I would invite 200 young, green ad writers. I would feed them breakfast, feed them lunch, have an open bar at the end of the day. And I would stand on that stage for seven hours and tell them everything I had ever learned about radio. Because I was directing 500 commercials a year for almost 25 years. So I saw so many great solutions, so many great examples of great writing. I saw a lot of dead ends. So I talked about script structure, humor versus drama, word counts, using sound effects, all of that. How to present radio, because it's the toughest medium to present in a boardroom, because you can't just hold it up like you can a print ad or a storyboard for a TV spot. And one day, a friend of mine who used to come out to those seminars said to me, you know, that would make a great radio show. And I said, who would ever air that? And he said, CBC. And I said, the advertising free CBC would air a show on advertising. He said, I think they'd air that one. And we laughed. Then I left that day, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. And a couple of days later, a friend of mine who was also at that lunch said to me, do you want to go pitch that idea to the CBC? Let's just see if they would buy it. So we got a meeting at CBC. We got into the boardroom, and the pitch was really simple. It was just advertising is kind of like architecture. It's everywhere in your life. Most people hate it. They think it's intrusive and annoying and irritating. But in reality, it's a fascinating business because it's the study of human nature. And I said, I am not a journalist or an academic or a pundit. I'm a working ad man in the trenches. So I have access and I have stories. It's so interesting. You know, ads are so pervasive right now that I cease to see them until I do. You know, like there's one that is so compelling that it catches my attention. But it's mostly they're lost in a sea of, you know, advertising. That's what we're lost in now, I think. Exactly right. And CBC took the show, and here we are. That was 19 years ago. Wow. So I would like to take you kind of way back again to childhood. So did you grow up in a family that liked to laugh a lot because you approach everything with such a great sense of humor and humanity? And I was wondering if that was at the kitchen table. You know what? My parents were a great audience. My parents loved to laugh. And my dad is a great TV movie fanatic. So the sound of my dad laughing in the living room, watching a movie, the TV show is one of my great memories. Yeah, my dad had a very astute sense of humor. You know, not like the belly laugh on the floor kind, but he did keep us laughing as well. I really appreciate growing up in a laughing household. Yeah, me too. Well, Terry, you produce this from, and you say this every week, the Tear Stream trailer. Tell us a little bit about that. That's your own, like, recording studio. Is that actually in an Airstream trailer? It is, and I'm sitting in that right now. My wife and I moved out of Toronto, out into the country. We had a beautiful country property, but that meant I would have to drive two hours into Toronto every day for recording, on recording days. So that was a little over five hours of driving a day just to record a half hour radio show. And I did it for probably 10 or 12 years, and it was killing me, because the gridlock in Toronto traffic is unbelievable. It's kind of like L.A. And one day, my wife and I were having breakfast, and we were talking about Airstream trailers. And I'm not a trailer guy, but I love the aesthetic of Airstream trailers, just so great looking. And my wife said to me one day, could you build a recording studio in an Airstream trailer? And I stopped, and I thought, oh, my God, what a great idea that is. So we started our hunt for an Airstream trailer. I wanted a vintage 60s era. It's a 1969 trailer that I'm in right now. And then I started my hunt for someone who knew how to restore a trailer and also knew how to build a recording studio inside one. And I found the perfect guy to do it, and my wife and I hauled the trailer out to him. He was in Nova Scotia, believe it or not. We had never hauled a trailer before in our life. And at one point, we had to get it on a ferry, so that was challenging. But he built a beautiful, it's a beautiful space to work in, and it's ideal. It's got three forms of heating, air conditioning, soundproof. It's beautiful. Wow. So this is kind of like the family business, too. You have, I think your wife is involved in kind of management, and also you have other people that are involved with producing under the influence. It is a family business. It's the Apostrophe Podcast Company. So my wife and two of our three daughters are the partners in the company. And you know how everybody has a superpower? And our collective superpowers really complemented each other, where what I'm really bad at, my wife is really good at, and so on, and my daughters are brilliant. And we just love working together. So the family business has got a great partnership there. We just love it. We love it. Now, you have other podcasts as part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. That is correct. We have a number of them. One of them is called We Regret to Inform You, the rejection podcast, where we talk about famous people. You know, when you look at a famous person, you think, wow, they're so talented. It all came together quickly, and now they're rich and famous. But their stories are interesting, because so many of them face debilitating career rejections, one after another, sometimes for decades. And we kind of analyze what they went through and how they overcame all those objections. And then that show really stops the moment they become famous, which is interesting. Yeah, I want to say, thankfully, art is subjective as well as ads, because I love this story where one company you work for did not like what you presented, and then you presented to another one, and it was embraced and just, you know, skyrocketed. So it ties back to those stories of rejection, but persevering. And the ad industry, by the way, is built on rejection. I mean, you present ads every single day, and most of your ads, probably 7 out of 10 of your ideas get shot down on a daily basis in an advertising agency, either by the creative director or by the client. So it's built on rejection. So you have to develop a really thick skin and be able to go back to the drawing board time after time. I really love in My Best Mistakes, the Scotty Bowman story. It actually had me weeping. It was, I don't know why, but it's just the way you write, it's just so emotional. That was a great story. And he was kind enough to just get on the phone with me and take me right through that story. He was a lovely guy. Wow. Yeah, well, it comes through in your story. It's very beautiful. Terry, I'd be interested in your take on the TV series Mad Men, how that really, again, that was set in New York. But what do you think about that? Was that a pretty accurate reflection of that in the 60s, or is that, you know, obviously it's television drama, but what's your take on it? I love that show. I loved it not just because the writing and the characters were so great, but it really wasn't an accurate depiction of the advertising industry. Now, it was era-specific, as you say. So, you know, the amount of drinking, et cetera, may take place still. But the storyboards, you know, the storyboards are very accurate, I imagine. Well, I loved it because it was accurate. You know, Matthew Weiner must have had somebody on his staff that had spent time in an ad agency. Unlike every other depiction of advertising I see in movies and TV, which is so unreal, starting with Bewitched and onward, you know, it's always so, it's a layman's take on the business rather than an insider's take, but he did it right. Would you ever think about doing something, taking under the influence as a television thing? I mean, obviously your studio there probably is not TV, of course, in this day and age, you can use Zoom, and that's good enough sometimes for TV. But you have a personality that would work, I think, in that medium. You ever think about that? You know, we have been approached over the years a couple of times by production companies thinking about it, but nothing's ever really, you know, gelled as far as that goes. But I would be open to it. I mean, the funny thing is that so much of what I talk about on the show is visual. So when I'm doing television commercials, I have to narrate them so people at home can hear them, or if I'm talking about print ads or billboards or whatever it is, I mean, it literally 80% of the show is visual, and I'm doing it on radio or podcast. So take us through the process of putting together an episode. You have to kind of concept how you and your family team work together, so production meeting and everything. So take us through the process of, hey, this is where we're going to start, and take us through until you actually record it. Coming up with ideas for the show is the easiest part because the advertising industry is so active around the world. There's always great stories, so that's easy. Research is the toughest part of our show. So I will, for example, settle on an episode theme. I'll do some initial research to put together a research assignment document. I'll send it to one of our four researchers. I'll give them two weeks to chase very specific stories. So I'll say, here's the 10 stories I want you to chase. They'll send me back probably about 100 pages of research. I'll have done almost the equivalent on my end. So it'll take me two or three days to go through, you know, 150 or 200 pages of research. I'll try and I'll figure out the show in my head. I'll start writing the show, which takes me about two days. Then I try to comb the knots out of that script on the next morning. Then I'll record it that afternoon. Then I'll send my recording to my sound engineer, and we'll have a chat about how I hear the show, and he'll, you know, we'll just talk about it. Because our show, as you said earlier, Larry, is very, I wanted it to be sonically great, not just content great. So we have lots of sound effects and lots of music and clips of commercials, and I'll bring in actors to do funny little bits for me. So Jeff, our chief sound engineer, will put the show together. He'll send it back to me. I'll listen to it. I'll make some notes. We'll tweak it a bit, and then it'll be ready. So it takes about six days every week to put together that 27-minute show. And how many shows do you do a year? I'm a January to June show on CBC. So that means I do 26 shows. And then in the summer, we'll do repeats from past seasons. So I'm kind of on the air probably 10 months a year. And then in our podcasting world, we're constantly putting out shows and old content and bonus episodes where our podcasts go on 12 months a year. That keeps you pretty busy then, so. It is, I call it joyful stress. Are your daughters the researchers? No, they're not. One of my daughter's hosts, we regret to inform you. My other daughter is a director, so she directs that show. And then they do all the social media. And we have other shows on our podcast network as well. But yeah, I love doing the show. As I said, I'm starting my 19th season, but it is a beast. It's all continuing. Yeah. I guess we can empathize. We do shows all year round. We do usually two interviews for every show, plus a spotlight interview. So yeah, I understand. And of course, the only team we have is us. And I do all the production and editing. So it's like, yeah, I understand. This is my retirement gig. Anyway, something you said brought up. I worked in theater for many years and about rejection. And I always tell actors that they go to about 30 auditions for every job they get. I mean, a working actor. I said, but the one audition you might go to sometimes a few years. You remember that person auditioned for blah, blah, blah. They called them back. So there's sometimes that. Does that appear in the ad industry a lot of times? The idea that was sort of for something else or a similar product. They say, you know, I like that. But maybe we can use that for whatever. Oh, for sure. You should never throw away a good idea just because a client didn't like it in that moment in time. Also, you know, as a director of commercials, I'd be sitting in studios with actors. And there's a lot of downtime between takes where, you know, the clients may be chatting about a script thing. And you're sitting there chatting with the actors waiting for the script change. And, you know, I would listen to funny little things actors would say. Or they do funny little voices. Or, you know, they would in the course of just chit-chatting. And I'd always make a mental note of it. And, you know, I would hear somebody do, for example, they could maybe do, maybe they whistle really funny. You know, I'll just make a mental note of it. And then I would hire them to do that maybe two years down the road. You know, so it was always a matter of making mental notes of what's good and what's great. And not even in a formal audition. So Terry is the next book in the works? It is. The topic I'm chasing in this book I'm writing currently is people who go against the grain. In other words, people who don't take the path well-traveled. That they decide to, you know, go in through the back door on an issue or a problem or a career where everybody's telling them they're crazy and insane. And that decision actually was the best decision that ever happened to them. Yeah, wonderful. Any other podcast ideas coming up that you would be involved with? Or is this just all consuming? Well, this under the influence is all consuming. We have a number of other shows on our network, as I was mentioning, that are done by outside folks that we put on our platform that we market. So the podcast network is a busy company, too, because we have about five or six podcasts. And we do, as I said, all the marketing and all the promotion. And we have meetings with our sales teams every week. And so it's a busy company. You know, with the quality of the show under the influence, I'm surprised that other people like PRI or something like that hasn't picked it up to distribute it more in the United States. And, you know, it's lonesome here in the Chicago public radio station, but I'm surprised more stations haven't picked up. Is there a way that might reach out and do that? You know what? I've often thought that, too, because so much of what I talk about is Madison Avenue. The content is so U.S.-centric. The problem I've heard in feedback is because we're a half-hour show, there's not a lot of other half-hour shows to pair us with in a typical hour of broadcast time. I don't know if that's the truth, but that's what I hear back. Yeah, that's kind of true. In public broadcasting and things like that, they tend to like an hour-long or actually 58-30 pairing. Personally, I guess one marketing idea you could do is pair your show with one of the Encore shows, and then you have an hour. You know what? That is a good idea, because a lot of shows that we've done – I mean, we have a huge archive now. We have almost 20 years of archives over almost 400 episodes there that you probably could pair them up in interesting ways. Yeah, I know often you refer to previous shows that are a similar topic to when you're doing that. So any new topics that you can share with us that are on the horizon, because you're coming up with January. That's when you're going to start new production. I rarely do this, but we did a live podcast recording at a podcast festival recently, so that's going to be one of our shows. We rarely do it. We did a big production where I had all the team up on the stage. We had a live band to play our theme song, so that was a lot of fun. So that will be one of the first shows when we're back in January. I'm working on a show about cannabis marketing right now, because that's a brand new industry that's spending a lot of money. I either do shows on things I know a lot about, or I do shows on things I know very little about, so I can learn about it, cannabis being one of those things. So I've wanted to explore that. I'm doing a two-parter on demonstration commercials. So if you think back to all the great demonstration commercials you've seen in your life, like the crazy guy who puts the one drop of glue on his helmet and then suspends himself. Remember that classic? I canvassed a dozen of the top creative directors in the business and asked them, what are the best demonstration commercials you've ever seen? And I took that list and built a two-parter show out of it. Oh, how exciting. I don't think Vegematic would be part of that, though. Well, you know what's funny? I didn't do any of those kind of infomercial spots, although you could. They are the best demonstrations of all time, when you think about it. Popiel, yep. Popiel, yeah, they were really out there. The master of the infomercial. So Terry, your upcoming season, tell us a little bit about anything else you have on the horizon in our last minute left, and how people can find you online, both S' and your own podcast, Under the Influence. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram, or X, I guess, and Instagram. My handle is Terry O'Influence, at Terry O'Influence. Our apostrophe podcast company, you can just search that on Google. That's easy to find, apostrophe podcast. And you can see what we're up to, what we're doing. We have lots of interesting little tidbits on our website about our shows. And if you're interested in the show itself, you can dive into our archives on any podcast platform. There will be, as I said, almost 400 episodes there that are pretty evergreen. Yeah, they are. Well, you know, Terry, we really appreciate, and I know I especially do, because I try to listen on Saturday mornings. I mean, right along with Scott Simon there on NPR. Terry O'Reilly from Under the Influence. You can find him at TerryOReilly.ca. Thank you so much for coming on Art of the Year and sharing your life experience. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much. Art of the Year listeners, do you have a suggestion for a possible guest on our show, whether it's an artist, musician, author, gallery, theater, concert, or some other artistic endeavor that you are aware of, or a topic of interest to our listeners? Email us at aotaatbrek.com. That's aotaatbrek, B-R-E-C-H, dot com. And Art on the Air encourages our loyal listeners to support this station by making a monthly sustaining pledge so we may continue to bring you this great program. Hi, this is singer-songwriter Kenny White, and you are listening to Art on the Air with Lakeshore Public Radio, 89.1 FM, and on WVLP, 103.1 FM. We are pleased to welcome Muriel Anderson to Art on the Air. Muriel is a guitarist, harp guitarist, and composer who embraces music from all over the world. You will find yourself smiling and singing along when you hear the joy of her music throughout the array of styles. Her CD, Nightlight, Daylight, was one of the top 10 CDs of the decade by Guitar Player Magazine. Her Acoustic Chef CD of music around the world includes a cookbook of recipes and stories to go along with each tune. Her Heart Strings recording accompanied the Astronauts on the Space Shuttle. Her newly released CD is Sailing Dreams, and it also has a board game to go along with it. Muriel is also the first woman to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. We have been listening to Sailing Dreams 3. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Muriel. It's really wonderful to meet you. Oh, thank you. Nice to meet you, too. Well, Muriel, how we like to start off our interview is kind of like explore your background, your bio. I always like to say your origin story, how you got from where you were to where you're now. So tell us all about Muriel. Well, it seems like music was something that I thought was always in the air. We always had it in the family. Everyone would sing folk songs in the car, and I would listen to the music that the birds made outside and try to imitate that. When a friend of the family was throwing away a guitar, I picked it up and picked the trash out of the sound hole and tightened the remaining strings and started figuring out melodies. And the lady that was Adele Knight, I remember, she said, oh, you can have that guitar. I was just throwing that away. And so my parents realized when I was in the backseat of the car and still figuring out melodies and that they were going to have a hard time getting it out of my hands. And so they signed me up for folk guitar lessons at the Jones School of Folk Music. And I was eight years old at the time. Wow. And so it just kind of came naturally. I just had fun with it. So it's just what I did for fun. I guess it's still what I do for fun. So did the school support your playing within that system? Or was that specifically, you know, an after school? It was an after school thing. There wasn't guitar classes in the school. I did join the school jazz band. And so having played folk music and bluegrass, you know, up until then, you know, all of a sudden there were all these strange and unusual chords. And so I tried to figure out how the guitar worked. And so I kind of figured out music theory on my own in a different way. I ended up publishing a book called Chord Constellations, and later one called All Chords and All Positions. By the way, I figured out the system. And so it seems like everything has kind of fallen into place in strange and miraculous ways. And that includes this new CD and board game, like you said, that is attached to it. The board game is the more important part, of course. I think it's equal. Yeah, and this is a new thing. I never thought I would be sailing. And my boyfriend is an avid sailor, and there we went. And just before leaving from Long Island up to the coast of Maine, I had this dream, and in the dream was a song. And I could remember every part of the song, the melody, the lyrics, the harmony, two guitars, the bass and drums. And the singer sounded kind of like Suzy Boggess. And what you just heard was exactly what I heard in the dream. I recreated it. And I was so excited when Suzy said that she would sing it for us. That's so beautiful. And that's the way I figured, okay, I think this trip is going to result in an album. That's what kept it all. When was that first? When did you first start composing? Around what age? I composed, let's see. Since kindergarten. I still remember the first song I wrote. I wrote it on the piano. I didn't have a guitar yet. It was called Ding Dong. And I found the melody notes of the doorbell. And I would do it for you, but it was slightly embarrassing. I think it would be charming. But really, I've just walked into this. So I started off with the most embarrassing thing that I could do. It went like this. I found that the notes of the doorbell made this chord on the piano. And so I wrote lyrics to it. It goes, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. That's how the doorbell rings. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. That's how the doorbell rings, rings, rings, rings. That's how the doorbell rings. Oh, that's very sweet. Oh, my gosh. So wonderful. Thank you. I think it's so important for everybody to learn these beginnings of inspiration. And they can start very young. I know my daughter wrote her first little book at four years old. She's still writing. So Muriel, you play a unique instrument called the harp guitar. I mean, you also play standard guitars. But tell us a little bit about how that's different. Unfortunately, our audience can't see it. They will if they go to your website and everything like that. But tell us a little bit about how you got the harp guitar, how you got into that. Well, it's like most things. I was hearing some music, some music that I wanted to write and arrange. And I wanted something like that note that wasn't on my guitar. I wanted these extra low ringing notes. And I'd seen a picture of a harp guitar. And I thought, that's the instrument that could do the sound that I'm looking for. And so in addition to the part that's like a regular guitar, it also has sub bass strings that go down the scale. And I tune this one lower than any man has gone before. Sometimes I bring it down an extra note or so for the lowest. And after I was playing that for a while, I got together with John Doan. A lot of us who play this instrument get together once a year at a gathering. We call it the harp guitar gathering. And John Doan also had super troubles on his harp guitar. So the next time I had the opportunity to have one of these instruments built for me, I asked for it with a super treble. So you can do a melody like a... Or you could do it here. Gives you a whole other range with the sub bass and the super trebles. So gorgeous. So with composing, and I'm sure it works both ways, but maybe it's just one way with you. Does it start in your head as you're taking a walk? Or does it start when you're holding your instrument? You know, the songs write themselves in all different ways. And sometimes they just come as a gift, like this song did. Even when I was in my dream, I thought to myself, oh, this is a gift, the song that was given to me. But it was only the second time in my life that when I woke up, I could remember it so precisely. I could remember so much of it. Usually it's the first thing that disappears when you wake up. Yeah, that's true. That's why you should write something down right away. Well, one of the songs from your new CD, Sailing Dreams, is called Captain Noah. And we want to listen to that, but there's also a story that goes with that. So tell us about that. When, after the Sailing Dreams came to me, I thought, okay, as I'm sailing along, I've got to capture some of our beautiful experiences and some of our adventures. And there was one time we were looking for a little place out of the oncoming storm. So there was a place in between islands, and it was kind of foggy. We anchored there. And then when the fog lifted, we noticed that there was a schooner, a beautiful big schooner, anchored near us. And we took out the telescope and looked there. It said the Stephen Tabor, 1871, down there. Oh, it looked like something out of a movie. So I said to Brian, Brian, let's pretend that we're pirates and go over and take over the ship. And so he said, okay. And we took our little patched up dinghy, and I put my guitar on my back as a weapon. And we rowed over there. And I yelled out, who's your captain? We're taking over the ship. To our surprise, this man came over to the side and said, I'm Captain Noah, and I need a day off. So come on board. And so we climbed up the rigging. And I saw there were these big kegs. And I was kind of thinking, well, is there rum in those kegs by chance? And he said, oh, no, it's just water. But I took my guitar out. And to my surprise, he took out his guitar and his harmonica. He was a blues player. And we played until the sun came up. It was there. Sun went down. Another gift. So I thought, well, I've got to write a blues tune then for this album. And so I had the beginning of the tune. And I went to my friend Phil Keggy. And I said, I want to turn this into something more bluesy. And so he came up with a great bridge and a wonderful part. Then as I was listening to it, I started thinking about what happened, the story. And it just sort of came out as lyrics. And I went to another friend, Mark Kibble, the great lead singer of Take Six. And I said, can you just kind of channel a pirate as you're singing this? And he did just a marvelous job of the lead. And I'm singing harmony. That sounds great. Well, let's take a listen to it. This is Captain Noah from Sailing Dreams with Muriel Anderson. And those big kegs have your one little jigger of room. Hey, Captain, Captain Noah, let me come aboard your ship all the time. We were minding our sails all day, crewed down an anchor windin'. And when that ball rolls away, there's a schooner of 1871. Hatch up that dinghy, grab them oars, feed me aboard that ship. We're comin' aboard now, just us two. Looks like we're gonna have a little more crew. Knife in my teeth and guitar on my back. Climb the rig just like that. Hey, Captain, Captain Noah, we're taking over your ship. Give it up now. It's been 150 some years she's been sailing these seas. Captain Gill, Captain Sharp at the wheel. Now I'm asking you, please. Hey, Captain, Captain Noah, you can take a day off your shift. Let's get on down on this wind chamber. A yard vessel with bats on the hull. About split on this old schooner. Ooh, she'll be takin' this along. Hey, Captain, Captain Noah, let us come aboard your ship. Take the crew to hoist that gas wheel. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, 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mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm Let me be, far away where troubles never find, me I was always shy, never took the chance, but in my dreams I, was failing Never thought I'd try, something so unusual, like running, away with you Oh, sailing free, far away where troubles never find, me Isn't it a fact, just when you think you got it all under your hat, life takes one last turn, and love is on the way Never on the sea, winds will change whene'er they please, that's something I have learned While sailing, sailing, I'm sailing, sailing, I'm sailing, far away where troubles never find, me I'm sailing, I'm sailing, I'm sailing, I'm sailing, away We'd like to thank our guests this week on Art on the Air, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. Art on the Air is heard Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at LakeshorePublicMedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Art on the Air is also heard Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP, 103.1 FM, streaming live at WVLP.org. Our spotlight interviews are heard every Wednesday on Lakeshore Public Media, thanks to Tom Maloney, vice president of radio operation for Lakeshore Public Media, and Greg Kovach, WVLP's station manager. Our theme music is by Billy Foster, with a vocal by Renee Foster. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. We'd like to thank our current underwriters for Lakeshore Public Media, Macaulay Real Estate and Valparaiso, Olga Patrician, senior broker, and for WVLP, Walt Rettinger of Paragon Investments. So we may continue to bring you Art on the Air. We rely on you, our listeners and underwriters, for ongoing financial support. If you're looking to support Art on the Air, we have information on our website at breck.com slash aota, where you can find out how to become a supporter or underwriter of our program in whatever amount you are able. And like I say every week, don't give till it hurts. Give till it feels good. You'll feel so good about supporting Art on the Air. If you're interested in being a guest or send us information about your arts, arts-related event or exhibit, please email us at aota at breck dot com. That's aota at breck, B-R-E-C-H dot com, or contact us through our Facebook page. Your hosts were Larry Breckner and Esther Golden, and we invite you back next week for another episode of Art on the Air. Aloha, everyone. Have a splendid week. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, Art on the Air today. They're in the know with Larry and Esther, Art on the Air our way. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart.