Lynn Patrick Interview - The Final on Vinyl Podcast

Lynn and I talked about her recent acoustic guitar release Water Stones.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:14

Hello everyone, this is eith MuzikMan Hannaleck with the Final on Vinyl Podcast ,

Speaker 1 0:18

and today we are with Lynn Patrick, who just released Waterstones uh last October twenty-fifth, uh not too long ago, and uh had the chance to hear her music and review it and enjoy it tremendously. She's a great guitar player. And we're gonna talk about that album and her career. Welcome aboard, Lynn.

Speaker 0:38

Hi, Keith, it's good to be here.

Speaker 1 0:41

Thanks for coming. So there's a lot of questions that always come up for me when I talk to people. Uh no problem filling the time, that's for sure. Um your guitar your guitar playing um is fantastic, and um I'm just wondering right off the top of my head, my first thought was uh you you touched upon different uh genres in your album. And you offer twelve tracks and you cover quite a range, I thought, and for me it was including temporary instrumental is the umbrella under New Age jazz country, those are some of the things you had on I could hear. Um I'm just wondering what some of your influences were uh you know, prior to recording your first album up to this point. And the other question would be is it a conscious thing when you're influenced by other artists, or is that just something that happens by listening over the years and it becomes part of who you are and you're you're playing and the way you present your music?

Speaker 1:59

Um well my early influences were um actually with I always loved open tunings right away. I learned how to play Jenny Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi, like the first year that I learned how to play the guitar when I was 16. And I was also listening to Crossy Stills, Nash and Young, I really like Steven Stills and David Crosby, and even some of Dan Fogelberg, what he was doing with guitar. And I playing those songs and some of the Woodstock songs, they just got into my hands, and I just started um learning different patterns of guitar picking, finger picking, and different open tunings, mostly Open D was the the main one people were using at the time. And I just started playing around with those right away, and those chords, sort of I think of it as like a language, is that I just learned how to use the tunings and different chords to come up with my own songs. And um it's a feel more than it really was about any particular kind of technique. I just um the thing I love about open tunings is it's kind of a right brain experience where I just um kind of start exploring, moving my fingers around and trying out new things. I've made up a lot of different open tunings now and my own chords. So those earlier experiences really help with just learning the chord progressions until I started making up my own.

Speaker 1 3:38

Interesting. So what's the main difference between tuning your guitar and having open tuning? Can you elaborate on that?

Speaker 3:46

Well, standard tuning is very specific notes, like um this little low sixth string is an E, it goes E A D G B and E. With an open, like open D tuning, it's tuned to the chord D. So all of those strings, there's three D's, there's a I think an F sharp and a um an A. And so then I also do some tunings in C, and then I'll go off on different I'll take those tunings and then change those strings around and move the chords around and make up different things. I like a lot of times I'll play a song and work with a bass line first, kind of create a groove. So, but anyway, the difference is just all the strings are just compl or tuned completely different.

Speaker 1 4:37

Just so the audience knows, this is all acoustic guitar and wondering what guitars that you all presently that you like to use, what are some of your favorites?

Speaker 4:47

Um I love I have two Taylor guitars, but it's an old Alvarez talkamiti that I actually tend tend to write most of my songs on. It's kind of a beat-up old fist 40 40-year-old guitar. And it's just something about when I I remember the day I bought that guitar, I put my my hands on the neck and I just could just feel this energy in the guitar neck. I was actually shopping for Martin, but it was this particular tacamini that just kinda inspired me, and I've written so many songs on that guitar. So that's your go-to to do your initial writing and yes, and and my Taylor guitar, uh I have two Taylor guitars, and one of them I recorded. I've recorded all you supposedly tailored, so I just think they have better tone than that Takamini. The Takamini was actually a great performing guitar because they have this old pickup on on them that has this nice rich sound. But the actual guitar itself does not record that great. But I just like the neck and the kind of the chemistry of the guitar.

Speaker 1 5:58

So you said you picked up the guitar when you when you were 16. Prior to that, what were you listening to for music? I mean, do you have a vinyl collection that you you started long ago and you you go to that and that's how that developed?

Speaker 6:15

Yeah, um my first vinyl records, they were I think I had like Johnny Mitchell's blue album, um, James Taylor. Um even before that I actually went from just actually I think the first m music I ever really listened to is like Jimi Hendrix. It was like m like rock and roll, and then it kind of went in the seventies it went and I went really went into all of the different beautiful acoustic type sounds. I just love the sound of acoustic guitar. So, um yeah.

Speaker 1 6:56

So what about today? What what what have you heard today that that sounds good to you as far as players that are similar to you?

Speaker 7:06

Gosh, today? I haven't really listened to any music today. I I live in the mountains, I live in this house. Um something just happened with the phone. Are you still there?

Speaker 1 7:21

Yeah. I am.

Speaker 7:25

Oh, so um I didn't listen I haven't listened to any music today. Sometimes I I like to just um kind of be quiet. I listened to a lot of music in the car though. I haven't been in the car yet today.

Speaker 1 7:42

So how'd you come up with the title and what was your inspiration?

Speaker 7:47

Water stones, um I came up with that because in the last four years have been just really hard years. They're not so much right now, but um a coup three f very close friends died and I actually ended up going through stage three cancer. Oh wow and then um it was after the pandemic. It's just one year after the next was just so so hard. It didn't really have time to do the grieving that you would naturally do if somebody dies like once every two or three years. It was like every six months. And so I and then the election, the election was just really scary. And I think a lot of friends were just not sure what to think or what to do, and I decided to write an album instead of getting getting into the the mindset of all the fear. And I was also in a healing process already. So Water Stones is it's just I wanted to create a space or like a sanctuary where it just felt really good to be there. And every day for about a year it took a year to write those songs and record them. Usually in the past I've w written the songs and then recorded them all later. But this one was like a process, it all kind of happened at the same time.

Speaker 1 9:09

Everything's a process, that's for sure, huh?

Speaker 9:12

Yeah. It is.

Speaker 1 9:15

So you have um just thinking about how the guitar works, you know, sometimes a string will break. Do you ever get like right to the end of recording a song and it's like so perfect and a string breaks on you? That happens.

Speaker 9:28

Yes, that ha that that has happened in many other sounds sub-record at home. And I live up on this hill, and sometimes the a snow like in the middle middle of the winter, snowplow can go by or or or a jet or something. I don't I like recording in my living room, which is upstairs and overlooks this little valley. I don't really like studios that are dark and and with all the soundproof foam and everything, just because it feels inspiring to record it with beauty. So I've been exposed to many different sounds and I just have to stop and just you can punch in. Like if it's if a string breaks, you just set up the recording in a way you just punch in just over that one little spot and just kind of keep going.

Speaker 1 10:20

Right, I was gonna say that. I know there's a way to pull out sounds with all the software that's available. But you use Pro Tools or something like that?

Speaker 10:28

I use Logic.

Speaker 1 10:30

Logic.

Speaker 10:31

I really like the Logic um editing. It's just just a lot of really intricate ways to add it.

Speaker 1 10:40

So so once you complete the album, send it off for mastering and then get your publicity program rolling. Is that how you do it? Or is there a different process for you?

Speaker 10:52

No, it's it's the same. Um mastering is the very last step. I Michael Romanovsky, I think that's how you say his last name, he he mastered it. And then once I got the masters and all of the artwork finished, I did um the album cover with a friend, the graphic designer Monica Edgar. And once we got the artwork and the masters, they sent it into the the manufacturer just makers, and then they printed it.

Speaker 1 11:22

I see. So what are your plans going forward with the music? Are you gonna go out and and play out?

Speaker 11:28

And you know I'm not really performing that much. I do still perform. I just do a couple of concerts a year. I used to play like full time. I was constantly performing, and I um just have just gotten to a certain point where I just like to do it occasionally, which is really special. And so I will be doing something this year. I'm not quite clear sure the exact date at this time, but I'll definitely be doing that and getting all the musicians who recorded with me to play along with on the in the performance.

Speaker 1 12:06

So is this in addition to a a day job that you hold down as well, or is this your main source of of income?

Speaker 12:14

This is my main source of income. Um I I have other sources besides, but I I'm kind of semi-retired, fortunately, because now I have s all my time to spend on music. Oh no. So I have already started writing some new songs for the next album. And during this time I I like spending time with nature or probably go on a I love kayaking. In the summer I'll probably go on some kind of kayaking trip. So it's uh those types of things give me inspiration. And uh they you know the more the different things that I do kind of definitely inspire these songs.

Speaker 1 12:58

So where are you located?

Speaker 13:01

I'm I am west of Boulder on Sugarloaf Mountain. It's beautiful here. Like I'm looking out the window, it's a small valley, and then I can see the summit of Sugarloaf, and it's just kind of a lot of open space. It's really beautiful. It's been a lot of wildlife that goes through here, sometimes hundreds of elk. It's it's extraordinary at times.

Speaker 1 13:26

Oh wow. Quite beautiful. You get videos of that when that happens?

Speaker 13:31

I do. I usually post them on Facebook.

Speaker 1 13:34

Oh, that's good.

Speaker 13:35

Yeah. This one day they just just a couple of hundred of them came through and it had been freezing cold for a couple of weeks, and then the sun came out that day, and all these elk just came up and they were lying around in the sun, kind of right out my living room window, hundreds of them. It was really beautiful.

Speaker 1 13:59

So is that something that you integrate if you're selling CDs? You usually have a booklet that goes along with that. Do you include pictures of nature in your booklet along with this, you know, the uh the credits and so forth, or do you do a different thing?

Speaker 14:14

The only picture I have of nature is actually I went to on a horseback riding adventure in Iceland back in July, and there's a photograph that someone took with me lying in the grass with six horses. Like we would ride about six hours a day, and then um I guess sometimes I get this little recording. Did you hear that? Are you still there?

Speaker 1 14:37

I'm still there.

unknown 14:38

Yeah.

Speaker 14:38

Okay. So we would ride, and then at the end of the day, at the end of the trip, after like ten days, we were out in this um field with all these horses, and uh sat down next to one that started sleeping, and I just kind of lied down. Five other horses came around and they were lying down too. It was really special, very magical experience. But on my other these days I don't have like the six-page book booklets that I used to do because people don't really buy as many CDs. It's mostly streaming. And so I just keep it kind of just like a four-panel um insert inside of the CD. It has stories like what how and why I wrote certain songs and the credits mostly in and and then that photograph and a couple of other photographs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:37

So you're when you're already recording new songs for the next album. Do you think that uh the pace of that will be different this time? You'd be able to get it done sooner, maybe um mid next year or the end of this year? When would you anticipate having that?

Speaker 15:55

You know, I've I've I've written a couple songs since this the last song I wrote was in August, and that day my mother died. It was the last song I had I needed to record, and that's when she died, it actually really inspired the second guitar part. It's the title track, What Waterstones. But then I've just because of her dying and trying and finishing this album, I have been taking a break and I wrote a couple of songs. We had a big power outage a couple of weeks ago the wind was even up to like a hundred miles an hour. So the um electricity was out, and I just started writing these songs. But I don't I never I never have like a very clear time that something has to be done. These songs just they just come when there's an inspiration. I don't because I'm my own record label and I publish them and do everything, so I just I just do them as they come and when there's an inspiration. So I never feel I never I try not to create deadlines because then it feels like pressure. So I feel yeah, just let it happen as well.

Speaker 1 17:09

I get it. Yeah.

Speaker 17:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1 17:13

Okay. Well, it's been great talking to you about your album and and your your ongoing work and it sounds like you've overcome a lot of adversity and pain over time and use the music for healing and and pass that on to your listeners.

Speaker 17:28

Yeah, thanks. That was that's what I'm up to. It was so nice to talk to you.

Speaker 1 17:34

You too. I hope we can work together in the future. Take care.

Speaker 17:38

Okay, you too, thank you.