Name: Jakob Heinemann
Nationality: American
Occupation: Bassist, composer, improviser, sound artist
Current release: Jakob Heinemann's band leader debut, Opacity, is out December 10th 2023 via Kashe Editions.
Recommendations: Annette Peacock - An Acrobat’s Heart; Cid Corman - Livingdying

If you enjoyed this Jakob Heinemann interview and would like to keep up to date with his music, visit his official homepage.



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?

I definitely think the physiological / somatic element of sound is often overlooked when we listen to music, the sound waves do actually resonate our body and so as listeners we embody the music we hear.

It’s something that can impact me in many ways depending on what I’m listening to - sometimes it’s more emotional, but sometimes it’s literal physical sensations, like feeling the sensation of sound itself.

I like to write stuff down while I listen to music so I usually have my eyes open.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to listening to and creating music?

I agree, I love how music can transport you to different places. That’s definitely a big one for me.

I also am drawn to the intellectual aspect of music, how you can look at it from a critical or analytical point of view in addition to the emotional aspect.

And so many other things! It’s not only a way for me to express my own thoughts and feelings but also my environment, community, culture, really everything.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience?

I guess my formal training started off on piano when I was a kid. But before that I was definitely always hearing music that my parents would play or on the radio.

All early experiences are formative - in a way they inform everything I do.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Well, I feel like that was the first time where I really began to form my identity as a person around being a musician. I began playing in a lot of different bands during those years, and started to constantly listen and discover new kinds of music.

Those two things have pretty much remained constant over the years - I guess the main difference now is just the centrality of composition to my artistic practice.

How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument, tools or equipment?

I really feel like being a bass player is completely fundamental to everything I do as a musician, even when I’m making music that has nothing to do with the instrument.

At this point, I’ve been playing the bass for more than 15 years, and hopefully I’ve developed my own way of playing the instrument and sonic approach during that time.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I really find most of my inspiration just from studying, reading, and talking about music, honestly.

A teacher of mine once told me that we all have periods of input, and periods of output, and I’ve found that to be really true, at least with my creative practice. I definitely love many other forms of art, and in particular the sculpture of Richard Serra and paintings of Rothko had a big impact on this most recent project, Opacity.

On a deeper level, all the things you’ve mentioned affect our emotional and physiological state all of the time, so they have to be in there somewhere.

Are you acting out parts of your personality in your music which you couldn’t or wouldn’t in your daily life? If so, which are these? What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

I would probably almost say the opposite, that playing music is really a continuation of my personality. That drives a large part of my approach to the double bass.

More generally, I would say my key ideas sort of change based on the project. With Opacity, I was really just trying to create something both interesting and beautiful.

With other projects, they may exist within a more detailed conceptual framework.

If music is a language, what can we communicate with it? How do you deal with misunderstandings?

I think that’s one of the most interesting aspects of music, that it can communicate so much, but is also abstract, and so misunderstandings, hopefully, lead to dialogue more so than disagreement.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness and how do you still draw surprises from tools, approaches and musical forms you may be very familiar with?

I really like to introduce new things alongside the familiar things. So maybe I’m working with a new harmonic structure, but utilizing musicians who I trust and know really well, or am working with some new sounds but on an instrument I’ve played for years.

A lot of times, I like to write music that can be played in a new way with each performance, so it feels simultaneously familiar and unknown.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you’ve had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

Natural soundscapes hold a super important place in pretty much all my music. Several compositions of mine work with transcribed field recordings, and many others are based around natural sound in one way or another.

I think these sounds are musical in that they are beautiful, and contain a world of timbre, phrasing, harmony, melody and everything else we associate with music.

There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in algorithms, and data. But already at the time of Plato, arithmetic, geometry, and music were considered closely connected. How do you see that connection yourself? What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

Anthony Braxton said in an interview that math and music were really two sides of the same coin. And of course Western harmony just comes from dividing a string into different proportions.

So I think the connection is there, but it’s up to the artist to decide what bearing that might have on their music.

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?

I think we absolutely can! On the most basic level, listening to one another is vital, and I believe music can help with that in spades. I also believe our background and heritage deeply influences the music we make and creates a powerful tool to share that with other people.

There’s so many other lessons I have learned personally as well, from how to express myself creatively, to becoming comfortable with taking risks, to learning how to be organized and manage my time well.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

We are always surrounded by sound, because at the very least our bodies are always making sound in some capacity.

To me, the question is whether or not we choose to listen.

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?

I think it’s at least a little different! I mean with music, you’re dealing with hundreds of years of history and knowledge that may inform what you create.

And then there’s the social element. All music is social or involves collaboration, even if that comes only at the final stage in the creative process, when you share your work with the listener.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

It’s tough to say! Most of all I would just like to keep being surprised and inspired by what I hear.