Name: Pulsar Trio
Members: Matyas Wolter (sitar), Beate Wein (piano), Aaron Christ (drums)
Interviewee: Matyas Wolter
Nationality: German
Current release: Pulsar Trio's We Smell in Stereo is out via Musszo.
Recommendations: Kendrick Lamar's to pimp a butterfly album; Anthology of American Folk Music (edited by Harry Smith)

If you enjoyed this interview with Matyas Wolter of Pulsar Trio, visit the group's official website for more information. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

Around 1992, when I was 14, I befriended twin-brothers from Western Germany who just moved to our hood and joined our school in rural Brandenburg. They brought guitars and music. They started a group of scouts which me, my brother and some friends joined. It was in this band that I started playing guitar and was fascinated by what spell some of the more advanced players could cast with music.

When I heard Nirvanas “Smells like teen spirit” for the first time in our annual school discotheque I was hit by a rocket and went mad about music. Later I listened a lot to punk rock and became interested in jazz, experimental music, improvisation, field recordings, pre WW II shellac recordings of early blues, folk and jazz masters etc.

During the mid-nineties I was lucky to get a music room in an abandoned old bunker (made for the GDR elite in case of serious American nuclear attacks) where a couple of local punk & hardcore bands were rehearsing. Besides recording those bands occasionally, I could experiment myself with lots of different styles there.

On guitar I got obsessed with John Fahey and his world of music. In that way I slowly developed a knack for modal music which developed into a very, very serious obsession for north Indian raga music.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

There are so many different types of listening alone that it is hard to say really.

Basically for me listening is a pleasure of the senses like eating, drinking, kissing etc. It can go very deep and connects the listener to a beautiful world based on infinity and fantasy.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

My first fascination for music was for the possibilities of self-expression it offered. Later, after discovering raga music and classical Indian forms of music, the focus became impersonal music and its infinite possibilities of creating beauty and thereby soothing heart and soul.

The biggest obstacle was certainly to find my way within a very different and ancient musical culture (Indian raga music) and learning to understand its vastly different value system.

Another major challenge was to learn how to learn & practice the sitar in a meaningful and efficient way.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

I am obsessed with what I do: playing sitar and exploring this infinite field of music that is raga music. 90% of my creative and my listening time is spent with raga music.

Being creative with Pulsar Trio means finding ways of joining worlds that are not always easy to join - without doing too much harm to any of them. It is always a huge delight if we feel it worked out.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

I would call it “The long way to simplicity”. All great music and art that has touched me has always had that kind of simplicity to it.

It is difficult to get your hands on it, as it is not simply “simple”. Much more of an earned simplicity after learning and imbibing and then letting go and forgetting a world of aesthetic rules.  

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Big question! Speaking from my angle as a sitar player I do operate in a very traditional format. But I do not perceive this particular format as “stiff” tradition.

Real raga music has always been ancient, timeless and current at the same time and being taught in a certain tradition gives you the opportunity to increase your vocabulary and enrich your limited self by musical realisations of generations of musicians before you.

In that sense I see “tradition” as a stepping stone into the future.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

The sitar of course!
> Don´t play for your own pleasure.
> Stop noodling.
> Find a good teacher.
> Be an empty page while learning.
> Realize the craft and what it takes to master it.
> Listen, listen, listen.
> Compartmentalize your practice.
> Be aware of your shortcomings.
> Become your own final teacher.
> Forget everything.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

Wake up at 7:30.

30 min physical exercises. Coffee & water. Sitar practice till noon. Breakfast. Some work on the computer. Teach sitar students online. More Sitar practice or working on some instruments in my workshop. Cooking & Dinner. More sitar practice. Watch a movie / listen to music with my partner or more sitar practice.

Sleep.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

The title track of Pulsar Trio's album We smell in Stereo started from a simple right-hand exercise I had made in order to incorporate very fast 5-beat patterns into my classical repertoire.

During a rehearsal I played that and asked Aaron on drums to join in. Then Beate harmonized that peculiar rhythmic figure on piano which now started to sound nice but still lacked a melodic heart.

I had a strong desire to keep this piece strictly in the 5-beat cycle and started composing the mid-part melody around a formula used in an ancient Indian form of vocal music (dhrupad) that adheres to a five or ten beat cycle (sooltal) and has several tiny melodic chapters creating a mood of its own. In the studio all minor adjustments were made and everything fell into place nicely.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

As my daily bread is the practice of classical sitar music it is by nature a very solitary thing for the most part. But as I experience music and its practice as something very much alive – almost like a living entity - it is in fact quite the opposite.

Practicing this music is always a bidirectional process: you enter music and music enters you and – on a good day - it feels like conversing with best friends. As a raga musician you are – in a way - composer, arranger, conductor and interpret all in one person - an aspect that has always been a great fascination for me.

Working with the Pulsar Trio is a very different thing as we have to find ways to make sense as a trio. Here it is sometimes more important to let go of own ideas and preferences and embrace different ideas to make it a wholesome blend of three characters. 

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

For me music has always been the best way to escape a mundane and harsh reality and realize beauty in life and make it meaningful. Without it I surely would be lost.

In that way I strongly believe that music can make me a better person and contribute to a better world.  

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Same answer as above.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

Scientific research of music can help to optimize certain technical aspects of music making and allow you to explore areas of the craft that would be out of reach without it.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. 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?

Not sure about coffee, but cooking is definitely close to my idea of musical joy. Finding the right ingredients and their best proportions and blending them at the right time to a soothing and wholesome meal is certainly not too far from cooking up a piece of music.

In music I don't like to express anything particular apart from the beauty of music itself.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

By connecting the listener / player with a world based on infinity and fantasy - something most anybody longs for.