Laura Martel, timplist, composer and teacher.
Written by @loretosocorro
In Valsequillo de Gran Canaria is where Laura Martel and Music caress each other. It is where she started between the strings of a timple. Today she has already edited two works and continues to give us her creativity. Laura, how was the jump from playing to composing?
I started during the pandemic break. It was a pending subject with myself. I didn't dare to take the step because I saw enormous talent around me: great composers and great musicians. He gave me that respect.
But one day you dared...
Various circumstances occurred, such as not doing anything, my emotional state, because I had a delicate personal moment, where my grandmother, who was the person I was living with, caught the covid and, well, that was my way of taking refuge and also to vent with everything that was happening, with the timple. This is how those six songs that make up my recording work arose.
And have you continued composing since then?
Right now I'm still working on my ideas. Little things are emerging, I am giving them shape and when I have them I am changing them and, in the end, very little remains of what it was originally on the subject. This is how I create.
In addition to being an artist, you are a teacher...
I am lucky and privileged to dedicate myself to another of the things that I like the most and that is teaching the little ones. I am a primary school teacher. It's super gratifying to transfer my passion for music to them and for them to grow fond of it, both for traditional music, at its roots, and for many other types of music that make up the genre.
Laura sounds very happy when she talks about the schoolchildren and the center where she teaches, which is precisely the school where she studied as a child, the CEIP Elvira Vaquero.
I teach music from first to sixth grade, I work with all the children in the center except infants.
He tells us about a project that has been going on there for about ten years and is called Schoolvision.
The truth is that I am super happy. I have been coordinating Schoolvision for two years, which is a project very similar to the Eurovision program, but for schools throughout Europe. It is something very enriching.
Explain to us what it consists of, Laura.
What is intended is that the children remain immersed in the entire process of recording a song to represent Spain and that they work throughout the development of the making of a video, in addition to participating in the democracy of voting for one country or another, depending on your tastes. Those are the goals.
How do you do it?
I transfer to schoolchildren what the recording process is, arranging a song, setting up a choir. In addition to doing the part of the video clip.
What is the procedure, step by step?
We consult the preferences of the boys and girls regarding the song to use, to represent Spain. It is chosen by vote and then I adapt or fix it and we start rehearsals. There is a colleague who does the choreography and once we have all this assembled, the audio is recorded as in a real studio, it is edited to have a small mix, and then we choose different locations and actions to perform in the video and we record. We upload it to the corresponding blog of the competition, so that all countries can see it and then, in the second week of May, there is a vote and a video conference to see the results.
Vocations may arise there...
Let's see, if the bug bites them and both in the realization, production or anything else that can motivate them.
What effect does it have on girls and boys?
They participate very well, they are seen to be enthusiastic and it gives them the opportunity to get to know another sector, which is not what they usually move in music class. Seeing yourself immersed in that process is something super good at these ages.
What is it like for children to have a teacher who is a "celebrity"?
I carry it normally -Laura laughs and dismisses it naturally- because I am modest and super shy. I don't like to brag and the truth is that they love it every time they see me on TV. For them it is something that fills them with pride, too.
Having references like you, a female timplist and composer, can be a seed for future generations of artists. Perhaps there are already little seeds among the students who want to embrace the timple as soloists.
There are boys and girls who point out ways, when it comes to playing an instrument, but also when it comes to singing, dancing or interpreting something; in everything that has to do with the world of art. There are children with a lot of talent and then, if they are lucky and want to promote that virtue, they can get where they want.
Any age is good to start?
I couldn't answer you for sure. I think the best moment is when the boy or girl is born, it catches their attention. Because, I speak to you in particular about my case: I learned the timple forced. I didn't like it, but at the age of six my uncle told me, “come on with this instrument, it's small”… and I went through fits and starts. Then I had the reference of great timplists, it caught my attention, I liked how they sounded and from then on until today.
I believe that if we force the child to do something that he does not want, what we are getting is the opposite effect.
At what point did you start to like playing the timple?
Well, I don't know if they are coincidences of life, but I got a teacher who was a timple player and I don't know if it was because she was a woman who played the timple, that I felt identified. She taught me that the timple is not only for accompanying, but that it can also be the protagonist in certain songs and that was what this thing woke me up to.
Women are occupying more places but still not many are seen as artists who shine on this instrument...
I think that music and things, in general, do not understand genres, it depends on the person. If the person does it, has the ability or develops that skill or talent whether it is a man or a woman, he will get ahead. From the world of timple too, it's not a matter of gender, but of opportunities.
Laura, when you compose and when you interpret, you can see that the emotion you put into it is transmitted to those who listen to you...
What I try to reflect is what is born or flows to me. Each person drinks from many musical sources and mine mixes with what I am and that's what comes out.
Apart from timple, what do you listen to?
I listen to everything. I learned a lesson: when I was younger, I used to say I like this, this and this. Once my mother went to a Mercedes Sosa concert and she invited me. At that moment I didn't want to go and as time went by I listened to her music more and then I began to think that I would never say "no" to a concert again, or not to listen to something because I consider that I can do everything. to enrich. There is always something that can call me the attentionn, something that I will be able to transfer to my music.
Although, it is true that I am more drawn to Latin and South American music, but I can tell you that I usually listen to everything because, even in what I don't like, I find something that can enrich me.
At the moment Laura and her wealth as a person and as a soloist-composer has walked the canary timple through the landscapes of Galicia, Santander, Poland, Agadir in Morocco, Senegal. How has our instrument been received in those places?
It usually attracts attention. It's exciting and even more so when they see that the timple performs in different musical styles and that it can both play music with roots from the Canary Islands and merge with one of those places.
Is there something that cannot be played with the timple?
No. It is an instrument that, thanks to teachers like Jose Antonio Ramos, Benito Cabrera, Domingo Rodríguez "El Colorao", who have already paved the way, the timple can be taken wherever we want, respecting the particularity and being aware of the register of the instrument, but that has no limits.
Is there still someone who confuses it with the ukulele?
Unfortunately if. I can understand that in another place, outside the islands, they don't know if it's a small guitar, a ukulele... because after all it's not theirs, with which they live within their identity, but here, that shocks me . We are doing something wrong and I say it, also, for the part that I have as a teacher. We have to do a great job to preserve what is ours, because if the boys and girls do not love, they know and defend what is ours...
In Canarian schools there are specific programs, right?
Yes, the teaching network of the timple schools, although it depends on the center. If the center does not have the possibility or resources to take it in its entirety, then it does not take it. Little by little associations are emerging and the Folklore Federation is doing an enormous job rescuing folklore, doing courses, so that we can all participate. Also the Instituto Canario de las Tradiciones, but from the educational community I do miss giving it its proper place, not only to the timple, but to what the Canarian customs and traditions are, which is what gives us our identity.
What are your future projects, Laura?
Right now I'm immersed in making some videos with singers from here, with songs that I want to do.
At the beginning of the year it was “Plan de vida”, with Andrea Rodríguez, who is from La Palma and the song was by a singer-songwriter that I really like. We covered Kari García and, now, for these days there is a little surprise, for the day of the Canary Islands: I have had the voice of Beatriz Pérez, the singer and vocalist of "Ultima Llave".
Laura, a tireless worker, music lover and woman who puts her heart into everything she does, confesses that she is very excited about some musical projects.
I am working on little things that I have in my head, trying to make them show results, working and surrounded by good people from whom I learn every day and to whom I owe a lot of what my training is today.
Drop by drop, like the waters of this tide that is salt from the Atlantic, is how we savor the music that Laura Martel gives us when she composes and when she performs, to fill our souls with that emotion with which she plays the timple. We look forward to hearing more and more of your sonic gifts soon.
