Collaborating as a duo with Burnstick

Built on emotion-stirring storytelling and unmistakable vocal harmonies accompanied by a century-old instrument, Burnstick, a JUNO nominated husband and wife Folk duo, are intent on creating affecting music that inspires listeners to feel. The Manitoba-based duo features Nadia and Jason Burnstick, esteemed independent artists who united over a decade ago to create deeply moving, cinematic Folk music using their trademark vocal pairing, and Jason’s mastery of the lap slide Weissenborn guitar. The pair released their JUNO-nominated debut album, Kîyânaw, in 2019, from which their song, “Some Kind of Hell” took home the Canadian Folk Music Award for Single of the Year, while also receiving nominations from the Western Canadian Music Awards, and Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards in 2020 and 2021.

Nadia and Jason shared the process behind their song Closer. Download the lyrics to follow along.

We talked about:

• Chad Shank’s video about songwriting from a title
• Having the courage to excise an entire section of your song
• Employing a call and response structure in your melodies
• Having strong prosody in your song
• Collaborating with different strengths – groove, lyric, melodies
• Is rhyming a word with the same word a rhyme?
• Finding the right key signature for a song (even if it’s B-major) and so it works with both singers