Ron Smail: Forty Years of Harmony

For over four decades, Ron Smail has shaped choral sound in Canada through hundreds of arrangements and compositions. In this personal reflection, he traces the roots of his musical voice – from family car trips to transformative artistic influences – and the joy that continues to guide his work today.

RON SMAIL (IN HIS OWN WORDS):

For forty years, I have been creating pieces for choir. Some were compositions and over 400 were arrangements. The following is a way of explaining how I came to do this.

Harmony I

I come from a musical family. All four of us sang and would sing together on long car trips.  My brother Bob inherited a unique talent from my father, in that both of them can harmonize with each other and to the melody. (To this day, I have no idea how they do that) So, on car trips to the Okanagan, or down to the Oregon coast, we would be singing in 3 part harmony.  Mom and me on the melody and Bob and Dad creating arrangement on the fly. We were an harmonious family.

Harmony II

My parents had paid for piano lessons from age 7, and in my grade 11 year, Dad took me to meet Bob Doyle. (Every Saturday morning from Richmond to North Vancouver) A pianist of renown. At the time of my lessons, he was playing at Isy’s Supper Club in the house band.  His teaching method and my way of learning meshed together like a F1 gearbox. I learned as much as I could in the two years studying with Bob, and to this day, his name pops into my head whenever I use a certain chord or develop an ending, or create a piano part. Nearly all of my harmonic language traces back to those piano lessons.

Harmony III

Around 1977, I was visiting friends who were house sitting for Miles and Corlyn Ramsay, and they played me an LP (from their excellent collection) that changed everything. A Capella II by The Singers Unlimited. I was completely blown away to another world by the sound and harmonies of the arrangements. I began to figure out how to do that and I knew of a choir that could help facilitate that experiment. The UBC chamber Singers conducted by Cortland Hultberg. They were a 12 voice choir of excellent sight readers, and Cortland and I had struck up a friendly relationship during a year of singing in his choir. I would bring him pieces that he would play thru’ on his office piano and make suggestions. Nothing specific. He would pause, point to a spot on the score and look at me and say, “needs something here”. I ended up writing a lot of my most harmonically and rhythmically adventurous arrangements for choirs led by Cort.  (UBC Chamber Singers and Phoenix)

Harmony IV

In 1986, I was invited by Patrick Wedd to move to Montreal, to sing in The Tudor Singers for what I refer to as my 6 year paid vacation. Getting paid to sing for those years and having a wonderful time doing it didn’t seem like work. I also had the very good fortune to meet a most impressive and lovely woman who became my wife. Marla introduced me to the late Stan Rogers, who was one of Canada’s premier contemporary folksong writer. This started me on a path to arrange folk songs, not something I had ever previously considered. This compelled me to come up with a whole new harmonic language. Discovering Wade Hemsworth followed.  In a blinding snowstorm I made my way to the Double Hook bookstore in Montreal to purchase Wade’s book of the fifteen songs he had written, and I was lucky enough to chat with him as he autographed it. I arranged the Log Driver’s Waltz from that book not ever having heard it before. Much to my astonishment, it seemed like everyone else had heard of the song due to the NFB animated film.  

So, for forty years, my goal was to arrange pieces that would create joy for the singers and listeners alike.  On occasion, I sometimes nailed it.