Part 1

Name: Ignaz Schick
Nationality: German
Occupation: Sound artist, composer, concept & visual artist, instrumentalist
Current release: Ignaz Schick's most recent releases include Hawking Extended with Ernst Bier and Gunnar Geisse; Now Is Forever with Douglas R. Ewart; and ILOG3, a new part of his collaborational series with Oliver Steidle.

If you enjoyed this Ignaz Schick interview and would like to stay up to date with his work and projects, visit him on the homepage of Zangimusic. He is also on bandcamp.



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?

Hhm, interesting. I use shapes, objects, lines, colors in my graphic scores, but it is the other way round: I look for graphic forms that trigger certain actions or reactions in the music. I look for a translation from shape to sound, you do a translation from music to shape.

When I am listening, it is difficult to say what happens. It really depends on the music and the artists. If they are people I know well, whom I have met or seen live, I usually see that person in front of my inner eye. This is especially strong when I listen to the music of Don Cherry. We were good friends and he was my “Ustad“, he changed my whole life around, so I really see him and his colleagues like Colin Walcott, Nana Vasconcelos, Jim Pepper, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Carlos Ward. If I'd not met them, I'd not see them.

Also I have to say, there are different types of listening, like professional work type of listening, when I have to listen to recordings of myself, or my colleagues, or for sampling, … I don’t really close my eyes then, but if I listen for enjoyment and pleasure, and if the music really takes me, I will close my eyes. When I improvise on saxophone, I usually close my eyes, on turntables and electronics sadly this is not always possible. I think it is becoming a deeper form of listening when I am able to close my eyes, the focus is then on the inner ear.

And then of course, there is the full listening experience with the body, this is when something makes me dance. For me it is mostly with African music, Funk or other Black Music which gets me trancing, and then it is with every cell of the body, every muscle which absorbs the music, the rhythm, the swing, and transforms it into vibration and movement …

This happens automatically, no thinking involved, another form of deep listening and transformation of the inner ear into a physical ear, the body becoming the ear ...

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?

First steps were trying to master the saxophone. I was very young and eager, and after meeting Don, I really worked hard as I wanted to play with those guys.

Early steps were a big band, then music school ensembles, and the duo with a guitar player who was a classmate. And very important, the first tape collage pieces in a studio of an artist and family friend. Plus the writing and performance of my first compositions. All this happened in my teenage days. Plus meeting Marc Boukouya, a French trombone player who was ten years my senior, quite experienced and a generous man who was not embarrassed playing and improvising with me - he was really patient and supportive to me.

There were hardly any gains in a musical sense at this time. When I now listen back to old cassettes from that time with me playing saxophone, I can feel and hear the will but there was still a huge lack of technique and formal mind. For the tape collages it is different, there are some amazing pieces from that time. I used samples and field recordings, and there was no lack of technique (like on saxophone) blocking the flow of my imagination and ideas. I am still proud of those pieces, and I think in all my naiveness I took risks that I would definitely not take later on or today.

With the saxophone, I had to really work hard, practice my ass of for many hours a day, work on things over and over, again and again, …

It is funny, I always hated listening to my teenage recordings. I was never satisfied, and I cannot tell when exactly this changed. But I remember one day in Munich at the place of my then girl friend I randomly listened to the recording of a trio I had  made something like 6 or 8 months earlier. And there was this revelation that for the first time I liked what I heard. It was an unlabeled cassette and in the very first moment when I listened to the music my reaction was “wow, who and what is this interesting band, who is this nice saxophone player“ before I realized it was myself.

That was a quite nice moment. I had found my sound, my language, and I started to relax about my playing, mostly cause I realized that I could rely on my tone and sound, and then from this moment technique just became a vehicle that is there to help expressing yourself, …

Of course I kept working hard, but  from that day I started to really enjoy playing the instrument, and to listen to my sound. I think before that instance, I did not understand that I needed to enjoy and love every note that comes out of my horn. If you don’t do that, if you don't aim for that, there is no fucking way!!

For me at the end of the day music is an act of love making. It is like in a relationship, if you do not appreciate your partner, if you are not ready to give and forgive, if you are not ready to give unconditionally everything, it’s never gonna work out!

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?

Well, I started getting obsessed with Avantgarde Music and Free Jazz when I was 11, almost 12 years old. So I just dived into it 100%.

But I think for me the most amazing thing was, and sometimes still is, this moment when you find something exceptional you have never heard of before and it excites you and changes your mindset and way of thinking! Of course those findings and revelations were very frequent at that particular age compared to when you grow older.

All this thanks to the same family friend who introduced me constantly to the right records and the right time, and thanks to Saalfelden Jazz Festival which presented just the most amazing and cutting edge music in those formative years, from 1984-1988 or 1989. I went there every year, they gave me a backstage pass and I could listen to the soundcheck rehearsals, talk to the musicians, this was gold!!

And then of course thanks to the endless generosity, great wisdom and childish curiosity of Don Cherry, his encouragement and support to dig deeper and deeper, his sheer endless collaborative discography which I studied, his no-boundary mindset, and positive spirit for music and humanity, his humbleness. All this had a huge impact on me and never went away from me, …

But also the way I grew up at my parents’ bio-organic farm, how we lived from our land in a modest and non-capitalist way. My upbringing with the utopian idea of self-sustainability at our farm was actually very similar to Don Cherry’s approach to music and life. My father was an utopian and visionary, with his way of life he taught me the skillset to enjoy and live freedom. He taught me that freedom can be achieved by modesty, humbleness and honesty. And not by greed! This is very close to what the likes of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry were practicing in their music and they way they shared this belief amongst each other and with their audience.

Today I see so many young musicians who are pretty much in it for a countable result. They want recognition, success, attention, money, tours, fame, festivals, career, they wanna become professors and so on. Everything they do in music, they do it for a reason or for profit … Coming out of the school of my father, and of Don Cherry I’m only in it for the music itself! I don’t care about money, fame, recognition or any other measurable result. The only thing I am looking for is the music.

When I hear it, the sound I am looking for, then I am content. There is no bigger reward than sharing this with my colleagues. Once I heard it, I don’t care what the promoter, the audience or so-called critics will say. Once I manage to translate the sound from my very inner ear, once I can transform it into the air, into the room, that is all I want, it is the biggest reward I can get.

This type of mindset was formed in those years at the farm, and in those early studying years with Don and his peers. And this approach has not really changed, only that my musical tools and craft have developed to a point that it is easier for me now to express myself than in those early formative years.