PLAYS THE MUSIC of
So if studying is learning by finding out who you really are, Playing the music Of is looking where you are inside someone else's works and achievements. It sometimes can also be something much more light and simple, close to “Going Back Home”.
Home is where you come back, home can sometime also be where you escaped from Home. The question is of course why? By definition Families can often be the negation of the individual over the perservation of the group. This is where we would like to detach the Blood Family from the elected one, although I tend to see the second as rather an adoption.
By starting this series of “Plays The Music Of”, I wanted to see how I would play the music(s) of my early years (being aware of such a thing as music, I mean), at present. See how much home it has became as well as how free I would be from it all today. As I said before practising is probably about learning how to not think and just skip the journey between and affect and an act. Therefore playing home should be one of the most direct links (?).
Though in this series, I carefully selected non instrumental “homes” (but one... BB King). The Guitar Complex and how you emancipate from litteral influences will probably come later on, but playing through guitar music I wasn't aware of at early age (Lute and Theorb, probably). The elements I went through again here are resumable in few words like Swing, Melodies and Body Placement (or how you lean to music). Maybe all by Chants too.
I have to say to my total surprise when I opened this another Pandora Box, the first thing that jumped on me was how free of speech I had became since. At no moment I came to a crossroad where I would have to choose between stepping in someone else's shoes and my own. Even though it would still be difficult to define what my own is but play it. I didn't see much conflicts doing so (conflict in the urbanistic meaning here, how various movements crosses and interacts).
I have to say to my total surprise when I opened this another Pandora Box, the first thing that jumped on me was how free of speech I had became since. At no moment I came to a crossroad where I would have to choose between stepping in someone else's shoes and my own. Even though it would still be difficult to define what my own is but play it. I didn't see much conflicts doing so (conflict in the urbanistic meaning here, how various movements crosses and interacts).
For very long and until probably very recently, the simple idea to have my own voice was close to a taboo in fact. I played because I really wanted to, but I played for my own self mostly. It reminds me of a Derek Bailey anecdote, there was music in his family, people would semi-professionaly play balls and dances during week ends, and he did too in his early years until came the moment of taking a job and assume his own life.
Which he did and had to, but something happened to him then, he realised how he needed to play, and for himself much more than on a social level. He could stop doing gigs without much loss, but he absolutely couldn't stop to practice for himself. Is music anyway anything else than an intimate and private story? I think so and this is why I wanted to try to Plays The Music Of so many incredible artists I loved, and still do.
Which he did and had to, but something happened to him then, he realised how he needed to play, and for himself much more than on a social level. He could stop doing gigs without much loss, but he absolutely couldn't stop to practice for himself. Is music anyway anything else than an intimate and private story? I think so and this is why I wanted to try to Plays The Music Of so many incredible artists I loved, and still do.
Noël Akchoté. French guitarist, violinist and producer, born December 7, 1968, in Paris, active in various experimental fields between drone, rock, jazz and contemporary classical music. Also music journalist and author as well as founder (together with Quentin Rollet) of the French avantgarde label Rectangle. Currently running the label Noël Akchoté Downloads. He is the brother of electronic musician SebastiAn.
