Self-proclaimed “musical soul mates” junior Christie Macdonald and senior Andrew Russell met just two years ago, and yet they awed the entire school with their cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” at Mass on September 1.
Macdonald started playing guitar when she was eight years old. She fractured her leg before summer began and her parents bought her a guitar to keep her occupied. Macdonald played her guitar “all the time” that summer and has rarely put it down since.
Russell started playing the clarinet when he was nine because he “thought it would be cool to play an instrument.”
Now, Macdonald plays the guitar, bass, mandolin and “pretty much any other type of modern string instrument.” Russell plays the bassoon, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, horn, mellophone, and xylophone. However, he focuses mostly on the harmonica, ukulele, and piano, and is currently learning to play bass.
“Between the two of us we play, like, every instrument,” Russell said.
Russell and Macdonald are occasionally accompanied by senior percussionist Patrick St. Clair, though he only joins the group when needed.
“He is our only percussionist,” Russell said. St. Clair is “already planning on going to college and going onto a career with [music].” Some possibilities include teaching music or starting his own band “like the Jonas Brothers.” For now, the band is only consistently made up of Russell and Macdonald.
The duo is currently working on creating a YouTube channel for their covers and original songs. They are also looking to perform outside of school because they’ve only performed at JC events and at friends’ parties so far.
Russell estimates that the pair performs covers about 50 percent of the time with the other 50 percent dedicated to their own compositions.
According to Russell, he and Macdonald work as a team in the composition process. “What usually happens is one of us will write a chord progression or melody and show it to each other and say, ‘Oh, you know, this would be good with that’ and ‘Maybe add something here,’” Russell said. “But in general, she does more chords and I do a lot of lyrics.”
“We have a good list of [serious songs], but we started out writing joke songs,” Macdonald said. “Sometimes we write joke songs about people we don’t like, or just catchy songs that are offensive for the sake of being offensive.”
“Anyway, we’ve been getting more serious lately,” Macdonald said. “I write music because it’s pretty much second nature to me because I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. Most of my childhood was listening to music, playing and writing it.”
In addition to a YouTube channel, the duo plans on making a CD, and they hope to make one for Christmas that would include both classic carols and their own compositions.
Macdonald and Russell are also using YouTube to make a video for the Bushman World Ukulele Video Contest. The contest begins in November and runs through December. Winners will be posted online and prizes will be awarded on Monday January 15, 2011, according to BushmanMusic.com.
Russell doubts that the contest would bring him and Macdonald much publicity, saying they are only entering the contest for the competition and the prize of 1,000 dollars of credit in a Bushman Music Works account. However, the Bushman website boasts that all competitors should expect to get recognition whether they want it or not.
The publicity would help Russell and Macdonald to continue their music careers after high school. However, if pursuing a career in music doesn’t work out, Russell plans to study communications, political science, or linguistics, and Macdonald thinks she would want to study either history or political science.
As for now, though, Russell said the two are just having fun playing “music for the sake of music.”
Mollyann Pais can be reached for comment at [email protected].