2. Sarah McLachlanBiography She is an artist with 21 nominations for the Juno Award and awarded eight, won Songwriter of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year, Pop album of the Year, Three Grammy Awards, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and a Lifetime Achievement Award. One would hardly be surprised to hear that she took voice lessons along with studies in guitar and classical piano as a child. She was also listed in her high school yearbook to be “destined to become a famous rock star.” This year alone she has been nominated for Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Pop Album of the Year at the 2011 JUNO Awards. Born on January 28, 1968 and adopted in Nova Scotia. Her first band was The October Game, fronted by her at age seventeen. She was offered her first recording contract before graduating high school. Her first recording was in 1988 and titled, “Touch”. This recording included her first hit “VOX”. With this first recording under her belt she began to tour as an opening act for the Grapes of Wrath. Solace, was her first mainstream breakthrough in 1991. These albums were followed by Fumbling Towards Ecstasy in 1993, Surfacing in 1997, Afterglow in 2003, Wintersong in 2006 and Laws of Illusion in 2010. There was also a live album released in 1999 entitled Mirrorball. This was released during a hiatus in which she stopped touring for six years between 1997 and 2003. She has appeared on Annie Lennox’s album, Songs of Mass Destruction, and on Dave Stewart’s Go Green.
3. Sarah McLachlan She toured almost 2 full years on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Throughout this tour the concert ticket sales numbers grew exponentially. Recently she sold out her concert that took place here locally in Salt Lake City. This has been something she has become all too familiar with. It could be the size of the venue, but I think it is the size of the performer- or at least her following. She recently celebrated her 20 year career with the release of Closer. This, her first anthology of her platinum selling career contains 13 award winning songs that she picked out for the album herself. She also chose two other songs that had previously been recorded or previously released. She is well known for her mezzo-soprano vocal range and her emotional ballads. What you may not know is her main stage guitar is a late seventies Larrivee C-10 with rosewood back and sides, a Florentine cutaway and spruce top and internal microphone. She strings her guitars with vintage bronze Dean Markleys. Recently, She has been using Taylor guitar models and Expression System electronics.
4. Sarah McLachlan Adding to the list of other achievements is the Lilith Fair. In 1996 Paula Cole and Sarah McLachlan toured together due to their frustrations with radio stations and concert promoters decisions not to play certain female performers. The following year she toured with other female performers and titled the tour the Lilith Fair. It has become the most successful all female music festivals in history, launching a number of successful female artists. The Lilith Fair also allowed the artists to perform in front of larger and more diverse crowds than they would have normally been able to. She is also known to be a philanthropist, donating time and money to animal rights, Aids-Benefit, disaster relief and outreach programs that provide music education for inner city children. In 2005 she participated in the Philadelphia installment of the Live 8 concerts to fight poverty in Africa by putting pressure on the world’s richest governments during the G8 summit. McLachlan’s studio and live albums has been certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum by the RIAA. 2 albums, Touch and Solace were gold sellers.. Her 1994 breakthrough, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was a platinum winner 3 times. The follow-up, The Freedom Sessions went Platinum. The almost twenty years she has been with her recording label Arista has provided to be successful due to each one having sold so well. Worldwide her album sales are over 40 million. Five of her albums have seen themselves on the Billboard Top 15.
5. Sarah McLachlanWorks Cited by Wiki Corroborated by other citations. Works Cited “Sarah McLachlan.” En.Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, 17 Feb. 2011. 21 Feb. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_McLachlan. “Sarah McLachlan.” SarahMclachlan.com. SarahMclachlan, 17 Feb. 2011. 21 Feb. 2011. http://www.sarahmclachlan.com/us/content/biography.
6. Sarah McLachlanComposition History I chose Possession and Silence. My reasoning for choosing this performer is based on listening to the course text on chapter nine reminded me of the song Silence. This song in particular is actually by a band called “Delerium” and features Sarah McLachlan as the vocals. She did participate in the writing of the song and is listed as a co-writer. The song Silence has been remixed a number of times by various artists and can be equally if not more so than the original album or radio versions. The original and radio versions have a slower tempo than the remixes and was structured as a pop song. In the late 90’s and Early 2000’s many often mislabeled the song as Silence by Paul Oakenfold. I myself at one point, when I first heard it thought the same. It has been listed numerous times in the top 100 Ibiza Anthems ever. The song features Gregorian Chant and invites comparisons to ambient music. The song Possession was the center of a lawsuit for some time. The lawsuit centered around a self admitted stalker who claimed the lyrics were stolen from letters he had sent to Sarah McLachlan. The stalker was said to have kept journals of the letters he wrote to her covering two years or more. Before coming to trial the stalker committed suicide. Sarah noted later in an interview with Rolling Stone that he wasn’t the only one sending letters of this type and the writing of the song was very therapeutic.
7. Sarah McLachlanWorks Cited by Wiki Corroborated by other citations. Works Cited “Sarah McLachlan.” SarahMclachlan.com. SarahMclachlan, 17 Feb. 2011. 21 Feb. 2011. http://www.sarahmclachlan.com/us/content/biography. “Building a Mystery.” En.Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, 1 Jan. 2011. 21 Feb. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_a_Mystery. “Possession by Sarah McLachlan.” SongFacts.com. SongFacts, no date. 21 Feb. 2011. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5181. “Silence (Song).” En.Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, 20 Jan. 2011. 21 Feb. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence_(song).
8. Sarah McLachlanListening Guide “Silence” ft. Sarah McLachlan Writers: Bill Leeb, Rhys Fulber, Sarah McLachlan Produced: Delerium 00:00 Intro Song opens with a small choir of men appearing to sing in a conjunct manner with an imitative counterpoint to the music. Also appears to be strophic in manner and with tenor voices. Although it appears to have multiple voices, it may be just one voice that could be reverberated to create dissonance. It also has a homophonic texture with mild rhythmic variation in the singer’s parts. The chant they are singing is “Gloria in ExcelsisDeo.” It is 4/4 time, quadruple simple meter and 96 beats per minute. 00:27 Enters full course synthesized guitar. Tempo picks up here as does the tone. Singular voice sings in tenor again with limited imitative counterpoint to the music in monophony mode. 00:42 Remaining Tenor voices in chant appear again singing chorus to chant, with the music following again as an imitative counterpoint. 00:46 The synthesized beat changes and begins to sound like flutes with the melody quickly sounding electronic. Female Choir members begin to join in. Soprano, Alto and Bass sing in harmony while Tenor is in counterpoint to the chorus but more imitative to the music.
9. Sarah McLachlan 01:04 Synthesized percussion instruments begin beat. Singular tenor voice sings again with limited imitative counterpoint with the music. 01:25Verse 1 The featured vocalist enters with mezzo-soprano tone. An ascending contour can be heard in each line of this first verse. It is clear that this is a rhythmical composition based on this verse alone. The song appears to be 96 bpm and in 4/4 measure. 02:06Chorus Here, the chorus “Heaven holds a sense of wonder…” can be heard. The Chorus appears to be a different meter than the rest of the song and a quadruple simple meter. 02:24Verse2 The lyrics “Passion chokes the Flower ‘til she cries no more,” appears to attempt to create the darkest part of the song in this verse. The leads vocals are reverberated and then being joined by another vocalist in harmony appearing to be homophonic together. 02:59Chorus The chorus is repeated here with add-on. It is this chorus that the widest range w/Add-on of the song appears as does the vocals of the main artist. Typically mezzo-soprano, here she meets soprano notes with gusto and the end of the add-on when singing “I believe.”
10. Sarah McLachlan 03:44Bridge Here in the bridge the singular tenor from 01:04 repeats with the tenor fading out until the end of the bridge. 04:22Verse3 Synthesized percussion instruments open up verse 3. 05:01Chorus Here the chorus w/ add-on are repeated with and additional line, and then modified.. The song then repeats the chorus add-on and additional line. The chorus add-on of “in this white wave; I am sinking; in this silence; I believe” is followed by “I have seen you.” The add-on to the chorus is then modified “in this white wave; I have seen you; you are silent; you are breathing; in this white wave; I am free.” This last chorus is definitely major mode, has a wide range, and appears to be heterophony even though it is a single keyboard. 06:01Fadeout The fadeout begins with an acoustic guitar and transitions to a piano that finishes in an arch contour as a recapitulation of the theme. 06:37End Form Introduction | Verse 1 | Chorus | Verse 2 | Chorus w/add-on| Bridge| Verse 3| Chorus| Fadeout
11. Sarah McLachlan “Possession” Writer: Sarah McLachlan Performed by: Sarah McLachlan 00:00 Intro A electronic keyboard opens up the first 16 seconds of the song in major key, 4/4 time. The song starts with a 6 measure melodic intro that resolves when the singer begins to sing at the seventh measure. The song is quadruple/simple meter and 96 beats per minute. 00:16 Verse1 Vocalist sings with just a synthesizer playing the background music until approx 00:45 where the guitar enters near the end of the verse. Until this time the song is in polyphony mode. From this point it becomes heterophony for the remainder of the verse. 0:54 Chorus The chorus’s are the most wide ranging parts of the song. There is a clear syncopation that occurs during each of the chorus’s. There is an ascending contour to the chorus, especially showing itself in the last two lines of the chorus. There is another vocalist that enters on the chorus’s and sings in harmony with the lead.
12. Sarah McLachlan 01:25 Verse2 The same flow is found is verse 1 as repeated here with different lyrics. The exception is that the guitar is a stronger part of this verse than the synthesizer was on verse 1. 02:05 Chorus The chorus repeats here same as before. 02:28 Bridge The bridge is typical in that the first three phases are the same with the fourth being in contrast and ending with a dominant chord. 02:56 Verse3 The drums take a more resolved role in verse 3. The drums seem to be the backdrop to the vocals with the other instruments 03:36Chorus The chorus here is the same as the previous 2. The difference here the W/ Add-on elimination of the first line and changing the second to” I’ll hold you down.” 04:26 Fadeout 04:36 End Form Introduction | Verse 1 | Chorus | Verse 2 | Chorus| Bridge| Verse 3| Chorus w/add-on| Fadeout
13. Sarah McLachlan Works Cited Ferrin, Craig E. “Listen to the Music.” Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. 2009. 21 Feb. 2011. http://webcom3.grtxle.com/musicapprec/index.cfm.
