My name is Lisa Canny.
I'm from Hollymount, in County Mayo,
in the west coast of Ireland.
I am the youngest of three.
I am a musician, songwriter and composer
and my main instruments are harp and banjo.
My first exposure to music was definitely
from my family of a very large family.
I have 65 first cousins,
20 odd auntie's and uncles
and basically everybody in the family
is somewhat musical.
Family events since I was born
have always ended up in a sing-song.
I went on to do a degree
in Irish music and dance
at the University of Limerick
again very grateful for what that gave me
and continue to give me
that confidence,
in following my dream.
When I was 19 I went on tour
in the States and that was the beginning
really of my professional career
in music. I do a lot of things.
I obviously my main thing is,
is my own project my own solo project
which I write and arrange
and record and gig all the time for,
but three days a week
then I also lecture in music
in college inLondon called ICMP
so some days I could have my teacher hat on
or my lecturer hat on
and the next day I'm in a studio
writing songs and maybe at the weekend
I'm gigging with various bands
that I play with,
so really there's no average day.
I've very little time
to kind of chill out
and that's probably self-inflicted
as well, as I said, I choose to work
when I have time off
I think every creator person does
because it's all on you,
it's all on you.
You can only be as good
as you let yourself be, you know.
I've always been interested in hip-hop
and R&B but never felt
like I was entitled to play
that type of music because I wasn't from the areas
that it was, you know, born in.
Coming from the West of Ireland,
I was a "tradi" and that was kind of where I belong
and so it took me a while to kind of go, hang on!
I can try this out too
and the harp doesn't
have to just be Irish music
and it can, you know,
it's got the same capabilities
as a piano so why not treat it like that?
So I started experimenting with that
and then I suppose that kind of filtered
into my performance a little bit
and my vocal style and my playing.
It was getting a little bit more contemporary
and I caught the attention of a man
called Miles Copeland at a gig
we did with these productions.
The show I was with was called Celtic Crossroads,
and afterwards a man approached me
and said can I talk to you?
I think you should be a solo artist.
I think you should forget this band
and come and I'm going to help
you and we're going to do this together.
Not really knowing who he was,
I was kind of nodding along
going okay, sure,
and he goes I'm going to bring you to my castle
France. I was going okay, sure,
but turns out he was Miles Copeland
who managed the police
and Sting and had CIA records
and he was a godfather in
the industry and he flew me to France
a few months later to his castle,
he wasn't joking and it was part of ASCAPS;
annual songwriters retreat.
So it is a week-long retreat
and they bring in 18 select people
from around the world
to bring them together to write songs
and hit songs in this,
literally a castle
and I had no idea
what I was getting myself in for
obviously but when I arrived there
I was kind of like, so naive
with my harp, my banjo
and I remember thinking
because I started recognizing who these people were,
you know and still not having written a song,
in my life realized that it was the Kaiser Chiefs
and the Plain White T's
and Mike Posner
and some of the biggest producers
in the world and the biggest songwriters
in the world, you know,
and I was quietly going around,
being introduced to every one of them
and thinking I still don't belong here
like this is not, I'm not of the same caliber
I've never even written a song.
These are absolute legends in in this craft.
What I really tried to do is separate my practice
from my actual doing
so I will somedays
sit myself down with a task of writing
a song and I would call that practice
and I will apply all the things
that I've learned that makes a good song
and try out techniques that I've heard of
or listen to a song on the radio
and go, oh that's kind of clever
what they've done there, you know
and then go home and try that
and I kind of see that as like a practice thing.
Now if I get a great song
out of it great, but if I don't
who cares, that's just a little muscle memory
that I can put to the side again.
You have to get your technique right
from the get-go
so that you can do
what you should be able to do
and what you hear what you
want to be able to do,
you can do it.
So growing up I think the technique
is the most important thing
and then you add your style.
Once you get to that point
What I've kind of done in the last few
years now is I've started introducing
things like loop pedals
and that has really now become
a focal part of what I do
and since moving to London
a lot of people say oh you're the harpist
that loops or the hip hop harpist,
you know, this is coming from
from using these this technology
and the harp is absolutely made
for that kind of thing, you know.
A lot of people still think
of the harp as something
that plays long, broken chords
and does really beautiful things
and of course it's exceptional at that
and it does that very well
but the harp has so much rhythm in it
as well and so much percussive capabilities in it,
just even with the soundboard
itself or with like, you know,
muting the strings
and using that as as something
rhythmic you can build amazing tracks
just with a loop pedal,
just with your foot
and a little pedal added
and just build and build
and build so my style has evolved
I suppose the whole thing is the same
with every creative person
is you bring in something else
and you work at that
until you've mastered that
and then when you've done that
you go what's next?
And you bring in something else,
so I don't really know what's going to be next
for me yet but that's where I'm at right now.
If I was on a desert island
and was only allowed bring
two or three things,
what would they be?
I'm ashamed to say this
but it would have to be my phone
only because I never get off it.
I'm always on it.
Yeah I think my phone
would be number one.
That's terrible,
that's above my harp
but it's just because you can do
so much on it now, you know,
I write, record, I've got my little GarageBand App,
I write tracks on that, you know,
I'd be completely lost without my phone.
That's terrible.
My second thing
would be my harp
but that's not going to be easy
on a desert island is it?
Maybe a mini harp,
maybe a little harp.
I think if I had those two things
I'd be happy enough.
It's taken me a while to find my sound
because it's a process
and even when I started out on
this solo thing, people said it'll take time,
it'll take time. Give it time
and I was very impatient.
I was like no I know what I want to do
and I know what it is
and I didn't, I didn't,
I totally didn't
and I went down the wrong lanes
for many years
and I think every artist
needs to go through that.
There's no shortcut,
there's no shortcut,
you actually need to try all that
as much as you need to go
through all the terrible lyrics
you need to get them out of your system
before you can write something good
and it's the same with any craft
you kind of just
need to go through the process,
there's no shortcut.
It's all about building
through that process
but I think what I've realized now
is that that's part of it
and that where I am now
is where,
it isn't where I'm going to be in four years
and that's okay
and I think that's important to realize
because a lot of artists are worried
about releasing something out to the
to the general public
because it's not where they want to be
but I think you need to just learn to let go
and when you're happy with something
to a certain extent
just go okay let's just put it out there
I can always release and record
something again next year
and show the process.
My sound now where it's at
and where I think I'm happy with it
is again that kind of foundation
of where I came from.
It's the same as you tell a writer,
write what you know,
you know, write what you know,
write what comes from the heart.
It's that idea that I am so confident
with my foundation in
in traditional Irish music
and what I know of that tradition
and what I understand of it.
My level of understanding of that,
that I need to use that
as my foundation
and then put all
the other bits on top of it
and so that's now what my sound is.
You can hear it's very influenced
by traditional Irish music
but also by all the other influences
and I'm happy enough with that.
I think I've come to terms with the
fact that that's where I'm strongest
and that I just need to kind of move
everything around on top of that
to make it work.
So now having come to that realization
and now also I'm not afraid
to use Irish traditional elements
in my in my pop songs.
I'm conscious when I have people
come to record me that they
are also passionate about their craft
so somebody who really, really nerds out
on how to get something sounding good
that's good to me, I like them.
We're going to be fine,
you know and I am particular about my harp sound.
I want it to sound as natural as possible.
If I could give a tip to myself starting
all over again?
Three things: don't stress about it
don't stress about it,
which is very connected to number two,
which is enjoy the journey.
The truth of the matter
is the only person that can stop you is you.
The only person that can actually
stop you from doing it is you
and the only person that can actually make it happen
for yourself is you too,
so just keep doing it.