Part 3
From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?
There is absolutely no general rules or recipe for me. Every piece or improvisation will ask for its own technique and method. If you repeat a successful strategy too often, it might become obsolete and boring.
I think for me this is the beauty of the entire world of music, all these different recipes and methods or call it styles (classical contemporary, noise, jazz, funk, afriobeat, musique concrète, hardcore, punk, folk, rock, heavy metal, etc.). They all ask and come with their own laws of how to to achieve the desired result.
The only danger is when innovations become common sense and thus are endangered of becoming diluted, loosing the revolutionary freshness by overuse or the commercialization and sellout by epigones.
Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?
The process is different every time.
If I play saxophone, or in any improvised context, the most important part is the choice of your bandmates and colleagues. With the right combination of minds the music will play by itself, you only need to listen to what happens inside and outside around you.
When composing, it is different. In electronic music I always start around the material, the footage, the samples. With graphic compositions I usually have a very visual or clear structure which I follow. Often when I start I have no idea and when I overcome the pain and fear of this unpleasant feeling, which is often the fear of the empty page, or how to begin, then hopefully something special, unexpected and new will happen. Or not.
Over the years there is of course a lot of routine, methods and techniques I can rely on, also the relationships with groups and collaborators. And it is great to be able to rely on that. But very often it is important to overcome exactly those routines, to open that door into the yet unknown, and for that there is no recipe. It might be different every time. What was right last time might be wrong this time and vice versa.
Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?
I usually mess around with things a lot, objects, found things, put them into a new context, misuse them, and finally when accidents, mistakes and unexpected things happen, this suddenly can be the moment of revelation and out of this I come up with a new idea or approach. That's how many of my installations or the Rotating Surfaces came about.
I also try to read a lot. I like to research on whatever topic, or watch art exhibitions and suddenly ideas come up. Or I use and translate scientific data / graphs into musical parameters. Fooling around, the most stupid thoughts and accidents are very crucial here, to allow them, then very often rewarding things will happen. Things you would never come up with when sticking to a pure rational thought line and mindset.
How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?
Well, reaction patterns within the process of music making or in improvisation are quite similar to certain social factors in life. Like sometimes a group of people comes together, and they don’t click. Nothing happens, the conversations are boring. There is no interaction or big interest. And then suddenly one person is leaving or another one arriving and with only a slightly or completely different constellation and group of people a vivid and exciting exchange unfolds: hours of talking, ideas are floating, deep interaction takes place and friendship can be the result. Or even a love relationship.
With music and musicians it is similar for me, sometimes a constellation of players is meaningless, while another is magic and it becomes musical friendship, or a musical love affair. It is comparable in an abstracted and metaphysical way. I am not talking about the physical bodily act of course.
Another important aspect for me is that music and meeting so many new people from very different countries, cultures and musical backgrounds asks for and allows me to stay openminded and curious. Also improvisation and music making demands of me to keep learning and expanding my knowledge and techniques all the time. To end the process of learning would end in stagnation. Nothing more dangerous than thinking "now I know it all".
I can only quote Roscoe Mitchell here:
“The more I practice, the more I understand how little I know and how much more I need to practice.”
Or with the wise words of Don Cherry: "There are no endings, only beginnings."
I share this approach, and it is my practice that keeps me humble and modest.
It is really exciting to go to a festival and hear new musicians who play completely different and alien music. Then I want to figure out what they are doing and how I could find a way to play music with them. This endless curiosity for new experiences, the traveling and the meeting new musicians and people of many different countries, I think this keeps me young and awake. Recently quite often people who do not know me have estimated my age with 35 and they are totally shocked when I tell them that I am 51! I think it is the music and my approach to it that keeps me young, and the joy and happiness that I can do what I want to do!!
I had really difficult and bitter phases in my life, when I could not yet achieve the sound I was looking for, or when I realized that I had expectations which were not fulfilled, or that many colleagues are not really collegial nor friends. But once I understood all this and freed myself and found happiness in the pure act of creating sound and sharing it with the few people who would understand and appreciate what I was doing, this made me so happy, free and joyful!
Nobody is ever again going to be able to get in-between me and my music!! How beautiful life and creation became once I figured out how to protect this for me absolutely sacred value!
Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
Hmm, sorry, not sure if I would wanna compare that, music is not coffee, but a good coffee could be like good music. I don’t know, makes no sense, right?! …
What I want to say is, for me making coffee or food, or cleaning my house is not profane nor mundane, while making music is special for me, but also not holy in that sense, as it is a daily practice. So it can also have aspects of routine or profanity.
Still it should be a daily practice, or because it is a daily practice it can feel casual. The challenge is when this happens, when music turns profane, casual or mundane, how to keep or make it special again. This can be really tricky and not easy, it can easily happen when you are stuck in your daily practice routine. Then it is time for long notes again, the shiny long notes, and then you need to re-discover the love for music.
For me that has rarely been a problem, but there were difficult phases, when I was stuck technically on the saxophone, or when I was struggling to find my own musical voice, as a composer, improvisor, electronic musician. Once I discovered techniques and tricks to overcome such stagnation moments, it like understanding the key to a door lock and from then on I have not been troubled or haven’t gotten too much into stagnating zones anymore.
Sometimes though I feel that daily live duties take most of my time. Administration, fund raising, producing my ow CDs, distributing and promoting them, booking tours, festivals or musicians, organizing flights, writing funding reports, … Sometimes I feel this is taking way too much time from my creative work - but at the same these activities guarantee my absolute artistic freedom and integrity. So I know why I am doing it, they are far from being profane and are as important as the pure act of music making.
Once it is time for playing or composing, I enjoy and embrace this moment even more. But maybe the wrong question for me, did I answer it?
Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?
Well, I am not sure what you want to tell me, is that a positive or negative sensation? Is it the music or the lyrics which cause that effect for you?
For me, there is music which I simply cannot take, like shitty bubble gum pop music, or German Schlager! On a party I would just want to throw the sound system out of the window, or break the record in pieces, or turn the sound off. As you can’t do that the only solution would be to run away from it. I just cannot take it, for me it is torture and sonic pollution, it will be melting my brain!!
Of course there are many different musics, songs or tracks which can have a very strong and often different emotional impact on me, but this would also differ and depend on my personal mood.
Some of the music of Don Cherry, like Codona 2, Brown Rice or El Corazon, or some African music, will instantly transcend me into another state, … I can always listen to any Don Cherry. Home Boy, Sister Out or any other of his good albums, and depending on my emotional state, the music will amplify this or that state, like make me happy when I am sad, or vice versa and make me sad and nostalgic, because I miss his presence.
Certain African music will usually transform me into a very good mood, on other occasions it will make me feel Wanderlust. When I listen to the last recording of Chet Baker, where he is very frail and where he can hardly play, how he sings, this is so deep, sad, and amazingly honest. It just makes super emotional and vulnerable, in a very good way, …
But in general good music makes me feel a lot of joy, it is usually stimulating and triggers my happiness hormones … I am avoiding music that I hate or that would make me feel like puking, …. Though I have never puked from any music, only from alcohol or food poisoning. Bad music would rather make me angry I guess, that can happen sometimes in concerts, I will not go into this any further, …
But tell me, why does this song make you choke up, I am curious?!
If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?
I have no expectations and wishes. If I did have expectations I would stagnate, and I would loose my openness for surprises, for novelty and freshness, …
I like dedication to the craft, but whatever it sounds like in the end, leave it to the future and especially to the next generations!!
