Name: Vahid Qaderi
Nationality: Iranian  
Occupation: Composer, msician, sound designer, visual artist

If you enjoyed this interview with Vahid Qaderi and would like to find out more about his music, visit him on Instagram, 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?

I started experimenting with electronic music around 15 years ago when I was 19 years old. Influenced by my older brother, who was more active in the field of pop music.

Back then, I didn’t have access to many alternative references and I was not following a specific genre. Sometimes I was using the music that I was exposed to by chance, mostly pop and hip-hop, as a reference. Of course, listening to music and enjoying it led me to create and produce music.

After I found out about music software and realized the possibilities for producing and making different sounds, I became more passionate towards this profession.

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?

When I listen to music, my ability and power of imagination increases. And I feel that my thoughts are getting deeper.

Sometimes, when I listen carefully to music or sounds around me, and focus on them, it's like entering a trance and experiencing a trip or transition. During this journey I get information and experiences that may be vague in terms of content and remembering them. But I believe that this received information forms a large part of the contents of my creative process.

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 always welcome seeing and experiencing new things, especially in art and music. And I try to reflect them in my work. This caused me to always be in  a state of learning and updating. Of course this affects my interests and challenges.

On the other hand, constantly listening to music and being exposed to art and its process has caused changes and growth in me.

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.

As we grow and experience life, we are shaping and creating a character whose characteristics are dependent on the information and experiences we have gathered. We continue building and shaping this character by our choices and decisions. In my opinion, this character is very influential in choosing music or art that attracts us.

The art and music that I encounter is of this nature for me. The art that attracts me is the one that I find closer to the character I have or like to have.
I feel that there are parts of my thoughts that are more transcendental, closer to fantasy and magic. Accordingly, art and music also have more transcendental and magical aspects for me.

This makes me more connected to and interested in art and music.

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

Helping myself to understand things in another way, and finding and conveying meaning in an abstract form, as I feel, it is not possible through words.

Also, trying to make something the way I imagined it. Hoping that one day this information and its products will lead to changes and good effects.

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”?

Although I see most of my approach moving towards the future, I don't think its rapid and drastic change will always be pleasant. Perhaps by moving slowly and with more precision and analysis in a topic, it will be more mature and hence cause higher quality productions.

On the other hand, excessive effort and pressure to maintain and insanely promote a tradition, slows down the movement towards innovation and limits the field of creativity.

Tradition should become a bridge to go to new worlds until the trace of that tradition become a part of the new culture which is going to become a tradition in turn.

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 tool that I use the most to create and produce music is Ableton Live and a set of modular synths and digital effects, as well as using recorded sounds. I think this software tool is perfect for arranging and making music.

Modular synths and effects provide the possibility of creating sounds with more chaos and efficiency, while created sounds have a more lively and organic feeling.

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

It really depends on when I go to sleep. If I get to bed early enough to wake up in the morning I will have cup of tea and breakfast and start my day.

Since I am studying MA Interface Culture and working as a freelance media artist at the moment, if I don’t have to join a class or there are no projects to take care of, I will stay home and work on my personal music or other projects or collaborative ones in the field of media and visual arts, that I usually do with my wife, Razieh Kooshki, who is also a media and visual artist.

It’s very common for us to lose time when we are working and forget about eating or socialising at the right times. But walking is our passion and we dedicate some times to walking and socialising if we have time.

It’s quite common for me to work during the night instead of the day. There's silence in the night and less distraction. It brings a whole new experience of creating.

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

I spend most of my free time making music. Sometimes, within a period of one or two weeks, I make a collection of different incomplete tracks that may be very similar.  Since these sounds were made in a short period of time and under specific personal conditions, they have many similarities in structure and sounds. I usually save these collections as long term projects.

After a while, I return to one or more of these incomplete projects and try to complete them and create a more solid structure. I don't follow any special method for making each track. Usually it can start in any way, it can start with searching and listening, and what happens in the process of its formation has a great impact on the result.

My new album About Engine which I’m planning to release soon, is the result of some of these projects that I started when I was living in North Iran and  which I continued working on when I moved to Linz, Austria. The similarity and differences of these two areas and my experiences through this change had a great impact on this album.

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?

I enjoy listening to music together and hearing and exchanging opinions with others about that music. Sometimes it provides the ground for the emergence of new ideas that others and their presence played a role in its emergence.

On the other hand, in solitude, I pay more attention to music and my imagination becomes more active. Also, I can study the structure of that music much better when I’m alone.

Regarding the creation of music, both modes are attractive to me.  Collaboration in the sense that different ideas from different characters are mixed together and create a new piece of art, is very interesting. And the fact that I played a role in creating a joint work is very inspiring . It can also brings new ideas.

Also, making music alone, allows me to bring the result closer to my personal ideas and characteristic and have more control over the final output.

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

Certainly, the surrounding world and the happenings of the society around us are very influential in creating our personal situation and conditions. And of course it’s affecting our productions.

Music and art, due to their constant dependence on culture, have had a great impact on the development and formation of culture and attitudes of a society's members. In my opinion, art can be seen as a process of growth. Its aim is to transfer awareness and create an environment for peace and tranquility, both individually and socially. Even when it appears completely abstract. In another form, it can be a manifestation of the society of its time.

For example, the protests that started a few months ago in Iran against oppression and for litigation that led to the formation of the revolutionary movement of women, life, and freedom had a visible impact on me and other Iranian artists and our products, as well as our perspective on art and its role in society. And some of these works had a positive effect in advancing this movement.

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?

As I said, music helps me think more easily and deeply. And it provides me with a basis for analyzing issues and addressing my thoughts. Therefore, while listening to music, I have had the experience of being able to gain a better understanding of the issues that have been occupying my mind.

On the other hand, this part of music is also interesting for me, as it provides the ground for imagination and new questions and the realization of new situations and concerns.

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

In my opinion, these two fields have always been affected or influenced each other, because they are both main parts of the society of their time. For example, science has played a big role in the growth and expansion of music, especially electronic music. From sound recording to the production of acoustic, analog and digital instruments.

In general, art has always been a platform for imagination and thinking about the future and has played an effective role in the advancement of science and the formation of the future society.

In many cases, art has been able to actually predict the future.

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?

Their similarity is in trying to produce a satisfying result. But the result of a good coffee is often the same and the differences from one good coffee to another is less than the result of good music compared to another good music. (considering that I’m not a coffee person). A good music or performance may be created in completely different moods and emotional states, and be completely different in terms of taste and impact.

And as I mentioned, art and music have the sense of metaphysical meaning for me. In fact, they are the factors that provide the possibility of connecting to the world of illusion and imagination.

Therefore, the transmission and reception of the message in this platform does not have a fixed form and provides an unlimited field for thinking and understanding of that message. Sometimes I make music that does not carry a clear message, and at other times it inspires me, as its creator, and conveys a new message to me.

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?

This topic is very interesting to me because the ear enables us to have the most input and way of communicating through meaning and analysis of meaning, which is the way of conversation and speech.

Pure music and even the harmony that exists in words and languages and different dialects are fundamentally different from the meaning we have in speech and words. However, when we hear music and meaningless sounds, we again have the feeling that we are receiving information and we have a different reaction and feeling towards them. In such a way that we receive something in the form of meaningless sounds and use it to create meaning in our thoughts and as a guiding factor for our thoughts and react to it. It seems that these sounds do contain meanings.

Another interesting topic is that different harmonies and rhythms create different sensory and mental conditions, which sometimes differ in different people. Although I don't have much information in this field, I think these fundamental reactions to music are quite related to our brain function toward those frequencies that it receives. The way our brain receives and analyzes frequencies along with the stored information, leads to our current reactions to sound or music.