Not everyone begins a singing career after the age of 50. For Lorraine Nygaard, it was never even on her list of things to do, though she has been singing her whole life.
“It was an innate part of me as a little girl. I was always singing little jingles, making up commercials. Like while brushing my teeth, I’d make up a song about why we use this particular toothpaste. I loved singing, but I didn’t know that it was my calling,” says Lorraine. “In Grade 9, I said to my home economics teacher, ‘What should I do with my life?’ She said that I was a very good seamstress and that I should become a fashion designer. I said ‘Okay, that’s what I’ll do.’”
Lorraine went on to study fashion design and then travelled to Tokyo, thinking she was going to start a fashion design career. Within a month of landing in Japan, however, she met and fell head over heels in love with the man who would become her husband, and eventually her ex-husband.
After getting married, Lorraine put aside her own dreams and aspirations to support her husband’s desire to open a café in Tokyo, where they lived for 13 years.
“I kind of let myself be put into this box, and that’s fine, we were very successful, we had beautiful children and the café went very well,” says Lorraine.
While in Japan, Lorraine still found ways to incorporate singing into her life. For example, she would sing to her kids when they were on her bike – a kid on the front and a kid on the back. Or when she wanted them to do something and they were resisting, she would sing it – in a way that they knew she meant business – which they thought was funny.
“I never stopped singing,” says Lorraine. “I did sing for a couple of people’s weddings in Japan, and when we went to karaoke, all of my ex-husband’s friends would be impressed with my singing.”
In 2008, Lorraine’s family had been living back on Vancouver Island, where she grew up, but after 24 years of marriage – the last four of which were very challenging – the marriage dissolved.
“I lived unloved for a long time, and I was really kind of in a bad way, overweight and sad,” she says. “I remember going to church and trusting in what’s going to happen next. I said, ‘Give me inspiration God, what am I supposed to be doing, what’s ahead in the journey?’”
With a stack of self-help and forgiveness books, Lorraine experienced exponential personal growth.
“Within a couple of years, I was 100% the person that I had been when I was married,” she says. At the time, Lorraine was running a B&B and a guest had recommended the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
“As I read it, I thought I was going to be re-finding my fashion design, because the book is kind of ‘find whatever your creative juices are.’ By the second chapter I knew, ‘oh, it’s my singing, it’s my voice that brings me joy. Okay, cool.’ I wasn’t raised to know that singing could be a career, or you could actually pursue it. I didn’t believe that my voice was outstanding… I just loved it.”
“The book encourages you to chip away at those things that bring you joy, those things that you recognize are your calling, not to become famous or to make a fortune, but just to pursue that which is obviously a bubbling, innate thing,” Lorraine continues.
That “chipping away” led 47-year-old Lorraine to enroll at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. “My hands were just shaking when I first called the Conservatory and said, ‘Can old ladies take lessons?’”
While still attending the Conservatory, Lorraine took the next step. She went to a local club in Victoria called Hermann’s Jazz Club to perform at the Thursday jam night. “Oh my God, it was so daunting,” she says. “I think I recognized pretty quickly that I didn’t really understand how it worked. In jazz, where you sing – one person gets a solo, then another person gets a solo, and then you have to figure out when to come back in – it was tricky.”
But the jam appearance went well, and Lorraine continued to pursue a couple of summer “combo camp” workshops through the Conservatory, where you learn how to play with other musicians.
“I had no idea, the quality of people I was working with,” says Lorraine. “Don Thompson, kind of a godfather in the Canadian jazz scene, was my combo leader. I was the singer in my combo and, on the last day, we performed in front of everybody at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall. I got to just belt out songs with this incredible accompaniment, and everybody’s reaction was ‘Whoa!’”
“Musicians like Neil Swainson, Gord Clements and Misha Piatigorsky, who were also leaders at the camp, and huge names in the industry, were at the pub later and were saying to me, ‘That was great, you should be doing work.’ All those little notes from people were like, ‘Okay, neat, I didn’t know that.’ It was just encouraging,” says Lorraine.
When Lorraine first started getting up on the stage, she was hyper-focused on how she looked and on how the audience would like a particular note. Then one day before she went up on stage at Hermann’s a co-musician told her: “Stop, you don’t have to be anybody, you don’t have to be anything special, you don’t have to perform, just think of the words and deliver the message.”
“I got up on stage that night and that’s what I did,” says Lorraine. “I just focused on the message and delivered in a way as if I was speaking to people, then the coolest things were coming out of my body. There were high notes that I didn’t even know I had, or enunciations, or a little riff. I didn’t even know it was happening.”
Lorraine finds that her age and years of experience have helped her with her singing. “I have all these kinds of experiences and stuff that come into how I deliver a song now. I can dig into those life lessons and joys, and I can deliver in a way that is maybe different than someone who is 17 and goes to jazz school and they want to bebop because it’s really cool,” she says.
After the summer combo camps with the Conservatory, Lorraine knew if she wanted to get more gigs, she’d need a demo CD to send to potential venues. “Within a few weeks, I was up-island in a recording studio with incredible musicians, and we did my first CD, First Off the Floor, in one day,” says Lorraine.
Also at that time, in 2011, to make money to stay in the business, you had to get your music on iTunes, and to be on iTunes you had to have a CD with cover art. “The demo took things to the next level,” says Lorraine.
All this forward movement with her singing career took a lot of effort, however, and by 2015 Lorraine started feeling burnt out. She yearned for more focus on her singing. She was also running a B&B and teaching fitness to make ends meet. After a particularly difficult summer, Lorraine decided to close the B&B she had been running for 18 years, and by the next summer, she had written 10 original songs – songs that had been percolating over the years. With another set of musicians and one 10-hour-day of recording, it was done. “The future has fallen into place because of that decision,” says Lorraine.
An interesting part of Lorraine’s learning curve has been the business aspects of the industry. Pre-COVID proceeds from the door were generally split between the musicians, but in post-pandemic times finances have been leaner. It’s also a very different era than previously where you could sell CDs for income.
“So, how do you make it work?” asks Lorraine. “Do you make it work with hits on your videos? I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out as I go.”
Recently, Lorraine’s been taking a film-making course to try to strengthen her online presence through the world of YouTube and Vimeo.
The last couple of years have been busy with other things in her life, including a lumpectomy, falling in love again with an old classmate, a couple of kids getting married and some grandchildren.
“So, I haven’t really been able to sink my teeth into what comes next, but the timing is interesting,” says Lorraine. Her daughter recently suggested that Lorraine was most passionate when she was doing The Artist’s Way, so she’s working through that again to remove any blocks to her musical process.
What possibilities are yet to come for Lorraine?
“I’m really looking forward to evolving now as a songwriter to deliver stuff that isn’t quite so simplistic,” she says. “Now when I’m riding my bike, or things that I feel about social justice or in church – there’s so much that inspires me in this world – how to deliver an image of that without saying directly, ‘we need to stop the pipeline now’ or whatever it is. I’m looking forward to digging in and doing that.”
Lorraine performed at the 2023 Victoria Jazz Fest, and she’s also planning a Burt Bacharach tribute at Hermann’s, that she’s been wanting to do for years.
“Like my father-in-law who copied the calligraphy of the masters, I think sometimes it’s important to dig into what the masters have done,” she says. “The lyrics of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, they’re so great, and it’s going to be different because it won’t be big band stuff (Bacharach had huge orchestrations behind his songs), but those lyrics make the songs.”
Lorraine has also set up a studio at her house, in what was originally a two-and-a-half bay garage.
“Because I’m a singer coming into it later in life – and this is cool with jazz – you can kind of pick and choose musicians and everybody mixes up who they’re using on a certain gig. However, I’d love to collaborate with musicians that would be on board to work regularly as a band: creating new music, recording, gigging and, for the first time, touring. The groundwork can happen in my studio space,” says Lorraine.
No doubt, whatever direction Lorraine chooses, the journey will be a musical one.
Snapshot
If you were to meet your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give her?
“My 20-year-old self was very determined in her goals, so I doubt she’d have listened. However, I’d tell her to slow down and evaluate her heart’s desires.”
Who or what has most influenced you and why?
“I bow to many phenomenal musical mentors along the way; their teachings have inspired my work. Thank you all. YogaFit teacher training has lightened the journey with the ongoing mantra: ‘Letting go of expectations of ourselves and others. Letting go of judgment of ourselves and others.’ It allows me to accept what is and keep going.”
What keeps you grounded?
“If there’s little time, I will stop, close my eyes and notice my breath. Exhale: Let go of that which does not serve me. Inhale: Welcome the positive. A few breaths will do it. If there’s a lot going on in my heart and head, then I’ll go cycling for a couple of hours, as close to nature as possible. Being deeply aware of my own breath and heartbeat while other senses are ignited is enthralling. Life’s issues soon sort themselves, and it doesn’t take long before I’m singing while pedalling.”
What are you most grateful for?
“With gratitude as an underlying current, optimism prevails. Luckily, I learned at a young age to count my blessings. My children are stunning human beings, and it’s a joy to witness their journey. Good health helps my own journey, which has been an amazing ride.”
For more info and a list of venues where you can find Lorraine, visit www.lorrainenygaard.com
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