Part 1
Name: Elisabeth Klinck
Occupation: Composer
Nationality: Belgian
Current release: Elisabeth Klinck's Picture a Frame is out via Hallow Ground.
If you enjoyed this Elisabeth Klinck interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, and Soundcloud.
When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?
When I'm listening and especially when I’m playing, I love to close my eyes. By shutting down one sense, my other senses become more heightened. I can feel the energy of the room and my surroundings. The music becomes three-dimensional, and I can hear different layers and textures that I didn't notice before. It's like the sound is alive and I can touch it.
Sometimes, when performing, seeing faces in the audience can be very distracting and stressful, especially when I know my friends are there. I start analysing their expressions and it can take me away from the sound.
That doesn't mean I'm not aware of the audience's presence, actually, when I close my eyes, I feel like everyone in the room is entering the same sound world with me. It's like we're all wearing VR glasses and experiencing the music together. It's a special connection that I cherish.
What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?
My father is a violinist and he used to practice violin with me in the baby carrier. I guess this was my very first step.
Later on I wanted to play on his instrument but obviously I couldn’t, I would probably just have draw on to it. So when I was four I got my first tiny violin. The thing I found the most fun back then was actually fishing with my bow. I would loosen up my bow till the hair was coming off and fish into the void. The funny thing is that actually my whole youth the only music I heard at home was my father practising scales. Something he still does everyday.
I think my naivety disappeared when I went to conservatory. There, everything became less fun and hard work. At that point I had to become aware of what I was doing, till then I just played.
I’m grateful for the experience gained from studying, really learning a craft, but in my creative process I mainly focus on getting into that state of wonder and forgetting what I learned, as If I was still fishing.
According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music meant to you at that age and what’s changed since then?
Wow, this question made me go deep down memory lane! Love it!
Between the age of twelve and seventeen I went to a music and sports camp in an old monastery, the camp consisted of music classes and sport activities. This actually is super funny since I’m touring these days with a theatre piece where I’m playing violin while performing gymnastic exercises on a balance beam for an hour.
Anyway, so I went to the violin class where I immediately made two friends, Thomas and Andreas. They both were a bit older and played incredibly. We went to each other's lessons and played chamber music. It was the first time I enjoyed playing together so much. I remember laughing till my belly ached and on top of that my playing improved significantly.
Making friends, laughing and eating, playing games, making music together, it all seamlessly flowed into one another. For me those weeks were magical. Life and music were organically intertwined and not two different worlds, and that was a first for me. So looking back it had a huge impact on me, especially the human connection in collaboration. I want to be able to laugh and talk about anything while recording or working.
This concept of “a camp” is something I still try to apply in my practise wherever I can. Withdrawing myself from daily life and creating a a sort of microcosm based on community and exploration.
Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?
My most important instrument is my violin. My father, also a violinist, has a friend who collects violins. This friend doesn’t play and always asks my father to try out violins he found. This one was in a very bad state and extremely dirty.
Once cleaned up and put in order, my father asked me to play it so he could listen from a distance. He regularly asks my opinion on how the instruments and bows feel, react and sound. At that time I was looking for a new instrument and I remember playing it and being like: Oh yeah, this is the one. I haven't stopped playing her since then.
Recently, during rehearsal, I saw a weird scratch on it. I immediately felt something was wrong and went to the luthier. Inside a violin, under the bridge, there is a little piece of wood which connects the top and back plate, it stays in its place only because of the pressure of both sides. It’s the most sensitive spot and it’s called the soul of the violin.
The luthier immediately saw 2 very big cracks, one around the bass bar and one around the soul. I remember starting to cry like a baby. At that moment I realised that my violin is an extension of my self. It felt like something cut deeply into my flesh.
The week after felt like the floor was taken away from under my feet and I felt extremely vulnerable and lonely. I constantly tried to rationalise it as in “it’s only wood” but it just didn’t work. Luckily, thank god, it could be repaired. She went in for serious surgical procedure and came out as if nothing happened. Of course she has these scars - who doesn’t - but she sounds like before which is the most important.
For me, sound is something very fluid, intimate and delicate and all the experiences in my life shape my perspective on music, not necessarily the tools I use.
What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?
I work very intuitively. I never start working with a concrete concept or idea. I have to feel and sense first and then things can start growing.
A costume designer whom I work with said something that really resonated with me, she said “I can’t make a design for a dress before I felt the materials. I first search for different fabrics, with different textures and prints and then I explore how those materials can form a design.” That’s also more or less how I work. Whenever I’m trying to conceptualise my thoughts I lose interest.
I create practise schedules with different exercises I invent. Could be anything, from super concrete, to total improv. I change the schedule now and then depending on my needs. The exercises mainly revolve around playfulness, deep listening and duration. When I’m getting excited about something during practise, I will record it or write it down. I have shitloads of little books and papers with sketches and thoughts. I recently stopped fooling myself and accepted that I just have a chaotic way of working.
On the other hand I’m quite strict with my timings. I will give every exercise a specific timeframe and if, for example, those 20 minutes are over I move on to the next. This gives me a great feeling of satisfaction, nothing feels worse then telling myself “Elisabeth, you have the whole day to create!” Creating boundaries like timeframes help me to forget about the actual time. When I want to record stuff decently, I go through all those sketches and chose with which I want to continue working.
My approach to practising and to music in general wasn’t always like that, it changed massively after I finished conservatory. Back then, music felt very hard and a lot of work. I always felt like things weren’t good enough or I didn’t work hard enough.There was a constant feeling of guilt.
I don’t regret studying the violin and I had great teachers whom I have a lot to thank for, but the way music is approached in those institutes is really fucked up. They made me feel as if I had to sacrifice my life for playing, while I wanted my life and music woven into each other.
Nowadays music is a part of my life in a much healthier way. There is still a lot of unlearning to do, but all in due time. My motivation is actually quite simple, when I’m not playing, performing or working in any kind of way, I get stuck in my own head. Then all sort of existential questions arise and they are absolutely paralysing.
Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?
I’m definitely not thinking in chords either. I’m mostly searching for a kind of simplicity, the idea that the music was not forced into this world and feels timeless in a sense. Also urgency, that everything in the music has a reason for being there. I’m always looking for texture, contrast and space, I like to connect things that you wouldn’t connect in the first place and see how they interact.
When I listen to my music I’m actually just listening to what is going on in my body and the feeling that comes up. By staying close to my body I try to stay true to myself.
