Feature Friday: Rachel Beausoleil

Can you give us some insight into your songwriting process?

Songs often come to me in dreams.  I have a couple of writing pads (one for lyrics, and one of manuscript paper), a tuning fork and a flashlight next to my bed, and I write musical sketches under the covers. And I carry this kit with me wherever I go, in case a random musical thought flashes in my brain. I also have a sound recorder to capture random musical ideas when I can’t stop to write them out. I’ve been known to stop the car on the side of the road to “catch” a song…

Your unique music journey is a combination of both music performance and music studies, can you tell us a bit about the challenges you’ve encountered and the success story behind it.

A lot of people have said that at university music departments there are people who make music, and people who study it. And many people who go into fields such as musicology or theory do stop performing, even if they grew up playing an instrument. And some never did… But some of us feel that the two go hand in hand. 

I completed a Master’s of Music and a PhD in Cultural Studies, and I swear it has made me a better musician, as well as a better human. With my focus on ethnomusicology, my research involved gaining insight from working musicians in Canada and in Brazil. It gave me an appreciation of different ways of thinking about music, about its purpose, and about its various forms. As a result, my musical approach, as a listener, practitioner, and creator, is worldly and open. 

The challenges have been many. I did the PhD while my two kids were still young. It was hard, but I’m glad I did it. Writing that dissertation helped me learn to write through blockages, to get the first draft out, and perfect it later. The good stuff comes out in the revisions. That applies to writing music as well. It’s a lesson I need to learn over and over again!

Releasing your long awaited  album ‘Sol da Capital’ which carries messages of hope and tackles complex themes must be really a proud moment for you, tell us a bit  about that journey.

I love collaborating with others. When someone else is involved, I feel more compelled to get it done… This album is the result of collaborative writing with Brazilian guitarist-composer Evandro Gracelli. Most of the songs on Sol da Capital were written when he was living in Canada from 2009 to 2011. After we met at a concert of his, we started getting together every Wednesday morning to work on new music.

Some of our songs were the result of him asking me to apply lyrics to his music, and some were him applying music to my lyrics. And still others came together in a step-by-step process, where I would come up with a hook and maybe some words. I told Evandro that I often get stuck with part of a song, and I don’t know how to finish it. Then he said something that changed my life. He said: “That’s how it starts!” So we would get together and jam on those musical segments. We would collectively add ideas to the song until it is a complete piece. We continued to write together long-distance after he went back to Brazil. It just took a bit more persistence to get it done. Through a combination of travel and technology, we have maintained a connection and a productive working relationship.

I recorded an album of Brazilian songs, Brazz, in 2020, and Evandro played on half the tunes. It was a test to see if I could do a decent recording with him at a distance. And it worked, in part thanks to the expertise of Normand Glaude on the tech side! So I decided it was time to put our own compositions together in an album. The Ontario Arts Council offered me a grant to help with some of the costs, and we got it done! I must admit that putting my own work out there, as opposed to cover songs, is both terrifying and amazing. I’m very grateful that I have such a great team to work with.

Do you have any favourite lyrics from your songs? Can you explain the story behind them?

This is like asking me which one of my babies is my favourite… However, I think my best lyric is Daughter of Angels. The theme came to me in a dream, and the main riff came while I was doing dishes at my mom’s house. It’s a narrative in the third person that describes the positive impact that a woman brings to a relationship, and makes the world better by turning bad into good, one moment at a time.