Name: Samuel Blaser
Nationality: Swiss
Occupation: Trombone player, composer, producer
Current release: Samuel Blaser's Routes is out via enya yellowbird. Stream the album here.
Recommendation: Lyrische Suite, Alban Berg (I would say the 3rd movement is a real work of art); Wols (German painter who lived in Paris).

If you enjoyed this Samuel Blaser interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



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?

I started playing music at the age of seven. I always wanted to play the trombone but I was only able to get my first list lesson at age nine. I was attracted to the shininess of the trombone the slide getting longer and shorter. It’s a very visual instrument and I guess I was impressed by the sound. According to the family, I was already wanting to play the trombone at two.

The first music I ever listened to was what my parents used to to put on at home. That was a mix of Swiss folk music on my father’s side and my mother would listen to Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte and some Italian pop 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?

I have a very different approach when I listen to music. I don't see shapes, objects or colours, but I actually see scores because I have the disease of having a perfect pitch. So whenever I hear music, I see notes, I hear pitches.

I don't listen to music in a vertical way rather in in a horizontal horizontal way. That's probably comes from playing a melodic instrument. Music can often give me goosebumps though!

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

I am a very curious person, I love challenges and discovering new things. I'm in constant search of new material to feed my brain.

Over the years I created many projects around a theme. In that sense, it helps me to discover new subjects I wasn't familiar with.

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 don’t really like to speak about myself, especially about my identity but I'm a very sensitive person and I can be shy and reserved in certain situations.

I really love life and I love laughing. When I get up in the morning, this is probably the very first thing I'm doing: laughing. It’s really important for me to keep smiling and I think that aspect of who I am can show up my music.

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

Humor, seriousness and precision.

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”?

I'm very interested in both as a matter of fact. Perhaps the combination of the two will bring something new? I love mixing tradition with the new.

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 trombone and the most promising strategy for working with the trombone is to practice the trombone regularly. Otherwise, your wife and the audience will hear that you don’t!

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

I have a family so I wake up in the morning, I take care of my kids, I make breakfast and then I bring them to school and daycare. Then I come back home, do a bit of administration and play a bit of trombone, compose if I need to, and make a few phone calls, pick up the kids, play with them, I love cooking. That's basically my day.

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

Let’s talk about ROUTES. It was just released on May 12th. And this album took us three good years to produce because we decided to record the entire album online. That means that you have to create a demo that you send to musicians and then you collect recordings and you adjust everything.

The process was laborious and I would say that it was the most complicated album I've ever produced.

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?

Actually I like to listen to music by myself. I have a nice studio here in Switzerland, where I have my LP collection. It’s also a moment when I can be meditative.

Same thing for creativity. I have to be by myself in a environment that I'm confident with. So my studio.

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

To me, music acts like glue in society. It brings people together and rarely divides a community.

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?

I listen to music constantly. It constantly reminds me of special moments in life.

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

To me music is very instinctive. I don't think that science is very much the same in that sense. I don’t see any connection personally.

Perhaps it depends on how you define science.

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?

I think music is very similar to any other kind of arts. So if you speak about coffee - and I love coffee, I'm a coffee freak in fact - making a great espresso is as hard as making a great piece of music except that the espresso will take you less than a minute to make. A great piece of music could take a year to write.

So it's just a different pace but the result for me is very similar. It brings happiness.

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 is able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

I never really thought about that question. I think it is enough for me to enjoy these vibrations and to know how to modulate them.