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LAST YEAR, we added an entry to The Worst Horse's Link-o-Pedia, for a Buddhist songwriter and performer listed simply as "Ravenna." That entry said: She lists her influences as Tegan and Sara, Joan Baez, Milarepa, and Sakyong Mipham, among others. Half-acoustic, half-electronic; just right for the wee small hours.
But the 28 year-old Ravenna -- full name, Ravenna Michalsen -- is not the kind of musician for whom the word "influences" can be seen as a polite way of saying "the people who I rip off." Instead, she seems to take the best of those influences -- including an experimental, "let's try it" spirit -- and puts it all not only into her work but into her life. Her new, self-released CD, Dharmasong, reflects that spirit.
She was kind enough to sit down and talk with the Horse about how and why she makes her music, the value of her struggles and successes, and the boundlessness that, ideally, should go hand in hand in hand with the making of Buddhist music.
(You'll find links to Dharmasong tracks below, as well as links to Ravenna's website and MySpace pages so that you can hear her music for yourself.)
TWH: Your new album, Dharmasong, seems to me quite a departure from your first, Bloom. Do you feel it represents an evolution?
RM: Well, Dharmasong is definitely a more mature album than Bloom, which was recorded a bit on a whim, to see if there was interest in the type of music I wanted to do. The songs for Dharmasong were written over a two-year period and I had a much better sense of how to translate what I heard in my head to what would be possible in the recording studio. I also had the privilege of working with Scott Amore, a recording engineer in New Haven, CT, who has just dynamite ears -- he normally does rock n' roll, so this was a bit different for him. But I think the album benefited from his different style.
How long have you been writing/recording/performing?
I've been performing since I was a kid -- on cello. But I only began writing music seriously with Bloom, about three years ago. I had written pieces for cello and songs for my college band, but nothing that I really sweated over until Bloom.
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Bloom, 2006.
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Dharmasong, 2007.
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When did you start incorporating Dharma into your work?
That's a tough question! There are people like me who write about dharmic figures/ideas and then there are people whose very art is Dharmic, because of their mind.
My first song that was overtly dharma-based was in 2004 on retreat -- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche wrote a poem-like song for me to set to music and sing called "Just A Seed Waiting to Grow," and that very much inspired me to start writing my own songs. It hit a point that while the whole indie-rock scene was fun and very attractive, songs from that scene tended to be sooo based on really samsaric things that just got me down. I wanted to write music that would remind me of . . . less heavy things.
What's your Dharma background?
My mom is Buddhist and it was she who got me interested in Buddhism. We did our first weekend retreat together up at Karme Choling when I was 14, but I didn't get really serious about it until I was 18 and did the "Leaving Home and Becoming Homeless" monastic youth dathun up at Gampo Abbey with Pema Chodron. That, again, occurred because of my mom who read about it and encouraged me to go, drove me up there, paid for it, et cetera. Then I was hooked! I went to India my junior year of college on the Antioch College Buddhist Studies program in Bodh Gaya and then returned to India later to study more.
Shambhala has always been my home community, though I have practiced with Zen, Insight, and other Tibetan communities. I split my retreat time between the Shambhala retreat centers (particularly Shambhala Mountain Center -- which I love!) and Tara Mandala, the southern Colorado retreat center founded by the inimitable Tsultrim Allione, who wrote Women of Wisdom.
So: how do people respond to what you're doing?
Another tricky one! I generally don't hear bad reactions -- people I guess have those privately! But Buddhists tend to like the scholarship aspect of the performances (I tell a lot of stories), and non-Buddhists tend to react more to the music. Musical taste is so personal -- some people buy the albums for the content and others for the music.
Let's talk about the composition and recording of Dharmasong. How did you and you and your producers record the songs? All in studio? Using software like ProTools? A mix?
I recorded the songs with both Nick Kranz and Scott Amore, and both use ProTools. For the last song on Dharmasong, "The Departing Aspiration Prayer," Scott recorded it on ProTools, and then somehow moved it to tape and then back to the computer for a warmer, more 70's in-the-room feel (which I love). Some of the songs were done live with the instruments, such as "Marpa" and "The Departing Aspiration Prayer." Those have a warmer/tighter/more present feel to them because of that live aspect. Other songs, such as "Ki Ki So So" and "Om Tare" were recorded layer by layer, and we had to work to get them to sound as "in-the-room," "this is happening in real time" as the others.
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KI KI SO SO
HEAR IT HERE.
Music, lyrics, & performance
by Ravenna Michalsen
Ki Ki So So Ashe Lha Gyal Lo
Tak Seng Kyung Druk Di Yar Kye (repeated)
Gawe Dorje (repeated)
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I ride on your wind (repeated)
Gawe (repeated)
I didn't listen
To what you had to say
I will try. . .
Ki Ki So So Ashe Lha Gyal Lo
Tak Seng Kyung Druk Di Yar Kye (repeated)
Lyrics and track included with permission.
Right-click on "Free MP3!" link to save.
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About "Ki Ki So So": can you provide a translation of the non-English lyrics? (Or are the English lyrics a translation themselves?)
Well, people could no doubt write in with more erudite translations, but the basic one is:
Ki Ki So So: "Yee Haw!" (Basically, a phrase that just generates energy)
Ashe: this is a word Trungpa Rinpoche added to the traditional chant, as far as I can discover
Lha Gyal Lo: "Victory to the gods!"
Tak Send Khung Druk: "Tiger, lion, garuda, dragon" -- the four dignities of Tibet, each representing a different quality worth cultivating
Di Yar Kye: "gather together!"
It is a chant that is meant to raise windhorse, or lungta -- non-aggressive confidence. So the refrain, "I ride on your wind" really refers to a student riding on the lungta or wind of blessings of their teacher.
"Ki Ki So So" is particularly beautiful, and employs a loop that ebbs and flows into -- and out of -- the song. How was the song constructed?
Um, it was tricky! I laid the first "ki ki so so" chant straight for 7-plus minutes, which was really hard to do! Then I laid other voices with it. Next was the round voice that comes in half-way through the chant saying the same thing, but to add some complexity. Then the calling of the teacher's name -- Gawe Dorje in this case. We (Nick Kranz and I) looked around for some good thunder and found that clip, which is beautiful.
Then, I laid a take of "I ride on your wind" done in the same time signature of "ki ki so so" so that there wouldn't be any rhythmic discrepancy to the ear, then another "I ride on your wind" syncopated to the first. The layering of the Gawe's was just by feel, as were the main lyrics: "I didn't listen to what you had to say . . . I will try." The last section of just "ki ki"s was supposed to have this garage band drums and bass and just NOISE and we recorded some, but Scott heard it and nixed it right away! (So did Nick -- but I was stubborn)
Now let's talk about the fifth Dharmasong track, "Om Tare." What's the meaning of the mantra here? Can you explain what moved you to put it into song?
I honestly don't know the translation for Tara's mantra! Maybe one of your readers does!
I feel a real connection to Green Tara and wanted to write another song about her. Last year I performed at something called TibetFest in Connecticut and one of the Tibetan performers said that while I had a pretty voice I really should concentrate on setting mantras to music. So I thought about that -- about the possible exoticization that sung mantras seems to propagate -- and decided I should own my connection with Tara and go for it.
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OM TARE
HEAR IT HERE.
Music & performance
by Ravenna Michalsen
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Om Tare Tu Tare Ture Svaha
Track included with permission.
Right-click on "Free MP3!" link to save.
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How was "Om Tare" made?
This song was written in the studio -- once the windchimes were laid down, I started writing the main part, and each week came back with another harmony so that the four voices really sound choral. My partner played me a piece by Gesualdo (16th and 17th century) for five voices and I loved it -- that was the main inspiration for the vocal parts.
Dharmasong seems to have one foot planted in playful experimentation, and another in tradition. Would you say that's accurate?
I would say it is! Folks who know me know that I am really playful (sometimes to a fault) and yet I can be also surprisingly traditional. I think both of those sides come out in my music. I don't have a particular fear of being experimental -- "Marpa" is a good example of that, combining voice, snare, and electric guitar. And yet people seem to love it. So that was a gamble that worked out!
You recently told me that your music is your livelihood. What's the challenge there, and how do you suppose it's different for a Dharma-musician, as opposed to a "non"-Dharma musician?
It is a challenge with a capital C. There's no getting around that! I never thought -- and this is my own prejudice -- that after six years at Yale and being 28 years old, I would be making under $15,000 a year. Making a living as a dharma musician is really about mind -- HOPE AND FEAR! Ten people come to a gig and I am sad; 50 people come and I am happy -- but that is all just . . . well, to be trite: illusion! You can't base your worth or confidence on others' approbation, but only on the teachings.
It is up to me to make good, genuine music and give good concerts -- it is up to others to be generous, or at least fair, in helping me to do that. I still feel a little stung when people come to a concert and give nothing -- it is as if they regard music as not really being a skill or a living, but "just entertainment." You wouldn't see your doctor for an hour and not pay, so why do the same to me? But again, that is me struggling with whether I can make enough to live -- to buy groceries, pay the heating and get holiday gifts -- doing what I love and really want to be doing. Being able to afford going on retreat is, at this point, out of the question, which is a touch ironic! But centers can be very helpful with work exchange, et cetera.
This is a question I think a lot about, so thanks for asking it! In essence, the musician part ISN'T different, the difference is in how you view success, money, failure, et cetera, and that is mind.
Do you consider yourself part of some sort of Buddhist musical tradition?
Well, yes. There's a long tradition, a long lineage of people who have written dharma-inspired music. This tradition dates right back to the time of the Buddha, with evidence being the Theri and Theragatha text which occurs in the Pali Canon. This is a collection of songs or poems (no one is really sure which they are) by very early female and male monastics. There are many examples of dharma musicians in the Tibetan tradition, the most famous being Jetsun Milarepa and Machig Labdron, but they are hardly anomalies!
That being said, do you feel that you have a particular "mission" with your music?
Yes: to help jumpstart an American Buddhist music movement. It troubles me that most people associate "spiritual" or "meditative" music with stuff that is highly soporific!
Somewhere along the way people began to have this stereotype of Buddhist music ONLY being gongs and mantras and wind and sound effects. So, I guess that part of my performance mission is really to expand and break that notion.
There is nothing in Buddhism to suggest that the music written about it or inspired by it has to be quiet or repetitive or really anything. Buddhist-inspired music can sound like anything! And so this is what my music, which is Buddhist-inspired, sounds like.
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DHARMA-BURGER ARCHIVE 
