Edward Powell - anglická verze rozhovoru | Článek

Edward Powell - anglická verze rozhovoru

Plzeň | 22.03.2008 | redakce

It was a great concert tonight, how long have you been playing together (With Tomáš Reindl)?
Thank you. Tomas and I have played together, on and off, since 2001. We did a lot of concerts around Czech in 2002 with his trio Kumura.

If we have a look at your biography, we can see you went through numerous music styles. Before you start to play Sitar, you had even a rock band. Was your interest for Indian traditional music growing gradually or did your music taste change suddenly?
I experienced quite a sudden life-change when I was 20 years old. I was touring with our top40 rock band in northern Canada when I began experiencing very low energy and very bad facial skin infections. This shocked me to the point of deciding to utterly change my lifestyle in a holistic and healthy direction. I changed my diet extremely in the direction of natural foods, and began to study Eastern philosophy and mysticism. However it was not until 5 years later that I began to study Indian music, since it was then that I made my first journey to India.

What was the main motive for the change?
I needed to find a way to live which was in harmony with nature. Playing loud electric rock music was something leftover from my teenage years and was not fitting with what I was picturing for myself for the rest of my life. I wanted to play music in situations where people woud really listen, and I wanted that the playing situation would affirm a simple, natural, and healthy lifestyle.

You studied Sitar in India, with renowned teachers. I´m not sure if we can imagine it right. Can you tell us something about it? And was it difficult to get accepted as a student, or can anyone just go and ask for teaching sitar?
It is not easy to give a short answer to this question. It was a tremendous journey of personality transformation. It was particularly difficult to 'give up' electric guitar since I had reached a high level with that – and I was suddenly there in Benares like a 'baby' trying to learn one of the world's most difficult instruments... but I struggled through it, also learning to speak Hindi, and after a few years it became a really joy and I knew I had made a good choice.
It is not difficult to get a good teacher in India. There are many great players and most are happy to teach Westerners. The problem however, which is very common, is that you will probably not get enough personal attention and therefore not get the complete and proper training you will need in order to master this music. But if the student is serious enough, even this is possible. The main thing to remember is to find a teacher who is known as a TEACHER, not as a performer. A good teacher is one that already has many very good students – this is how you can tell he/she is a good teacher.

Then you began to perform with Sitar in various countries from all over the world (North America, Europe, India) Did you play Indian traditional music or had you composed your own tunes?
In the very beginning when I started to learn sitar I imagined that I would mix sitar with my own kind of blues/rock, but once I began to seriously learn sitar I was deeply pulled into the tradition and played only pure Indian classical music. So when I began performing it was with the classical music. Of course I also played as a guest in various fusion projects here and there.
Slowly I began to compose my own short compositions in the classical style, and then in an indo/jazz fusion style on our CD Friedsitar 2000. After that I began composing completely my own music (CDs Bluesand 2004 - Spiritdance 2007)– but at this point I was already playing the oud and the fretless guitar very much.

In 1995 you took up an oud, you traveled to Morocco in search of instruments and training.. Was it difficult to find the right person as a teacher?
Yes, but to be honest, at that point I was not completely ready to 'switch' from Indian music to Arabic music. Therefore that journey served more as a sort of introduction to the world of Arab and North African music and culture. In '96 and '97 I was back in India for another 18 months, but since then I have not been back. As you can imagine it is not easy to go very deeply into one culture and then suddenly switch focus to another culture. It took many years before I had 'completed' my study of Indian music and was finally 'ready' to take up the study of another music seriously.

At that time you began to play Turkish traditional music and Arab maqam system. Can you tell us a little bit about this style of music?
These are huge topics and not possible to say much in a short interview. Turkish and Arab musics are based on a modal system called makam/maqam. A makam is sort of a Middle-Eastern equivalent of an Indian Raga. The Turkish and Arab systems of makam/maqam are a bit different, and stylistically the two musics are also different. I began learning the Arabic system, but in fact did not go very deep with that. It was not until I went to Ross Daly's center on Crete that I first began to appreciate the real differences between Turkish and Arabic music – and at that time began to study Turkish makam seriously.
Makam is more difficult than raga in that there is more use on 'fixed-microtones' and complex modulation from one makam to another, whereas in the raga system there are essentially no microtones (outside of the normal bending of notes) and there is no modulation from one raga to another. In Indian music the deeper complexity is found in their system of "Tala" (rhythm).

Now I would like to mention your hobby(?) of building your own, unique music instruments. What is your the most precious one? Did anyone guide you or help you with it?
Obviously my most advanced and valuable building creation is my Ragmakamtar, which comes from the words rag(a), makam, (gui)tar. This is a blending of an Indian sarod, a Turkish ud, and an acoustic guitar. I designed and built it myself in Istanbul with the help of Faruk Turunz.

Are you currently working on any?
I have recently been asked by a well known Siberian musician to build for him something similar to the ragmakamtar, but this will be a blending of a sitar, a mandola, and a guitar.

Your last album is called Spiritdance. Can you tell us something about it? Do you compose the music you play or are the tunes all traditional?
Essentially all the music on this CD is of my own composing. On this CD I tried to give a taste of many styles and many sounds. There is a similarity between this "Spiritdance" and the previous CD "Bluesand" in that I recorded in many countries using mobile recording equipment. I visited various musicians of exceptional talent and recorded them. Furthermore I used as many instruments from my collection as possible, and tried to show a wide variety of sound and mood.
At the moment my musical approach is very different as I am now in a period of focusing more on greater depth in fewer styles and instruments. My next CD "Ragmakam" will be out in the Autumn of 2008.

What are your future plans related to music?
I am now focusing primarily on becoming as good a ragmakamtar player as possible – this involves learning as much as possible about ragas and makams. I have studied North Indian ragas and Turkish makams... so in the long term I also want to learn more about South Indian ragas and Arab makams.
I am refining and developing myself as a solo concert artist. I also hope to have more opportunities to perform and record with my group, but this generally tends to require more funding and sponsorship.

You live in the Czech Republic nowadays, do you like it here?
Yes, I do like Czech very much. Unfortunately the Western materialist/capitalist culture is growing stronger and stronger here as it is everywhere in the world, and the natural environment and traditional cultures are disappearing fast.

You have spent a lot of time in India, Morocco, Turkey.. Have you come across any problem related to cultural differences?
Cultural differences I experience don't seem to come because of having been exposed to different cultures around the world, or perhaps they do (?). People everywhere are being conditioned by mass media and are thereby under the influence of the great corporate powers. Humanity is being trained to be good consumers – to buy lots of things – and not ask uncomfortable questions about the value and meaning of our wasteful materialistic lifestyles. We are being taught not to care about the welfare of our natural environment or the animal kingdom, or even the suffering millions of our own race. These are the cultural differences I encounter every time I meet another brainwashed person – I also experience this when I look into the mirror...

Do you always try to accept all of the cultural habits of a particular country? Do you also try to learn the national language for example? How is your Czech going BTW ? :o)
I don't consider myself a great traveler in this regard since my main concern has always been with learning the music. However I used to be much more interested in learning languages. For example, on my 4 month trip to Morocco I spent more time studying Arabic and French than music. I began to see that I am not a cultural 'superman' and that it is better to decide what my priorities are and focus on what is most important.
My Czech unfortunately is not very good considering how long I have been in this country. There are several reasons for this and one of them is that Czechs speak very good English and seem happy to do it. Also, linguistically, Europe can be a very frustrating place since you only need to travel a few hundred kilometers in any direction and you find yourself in a totally different linguistic region. So I consciously or unconsciously made the decision to sacrifice linguistics in favour of musical development.

Thank you very much for the intervew

Komentáře(3)

KNSEwdWeTpgUt (28.5.2011 v 14:33)

At last, smoenoe comes up with the "right" answer!

puCvywmPODZWVIsnmZ (29.5.2011 v 14:20)

5NCEuN iiagtyikdzvf

sylKuGWOr (31.5.2011 v 09:36)

qP0tpB ioijesmwiuco

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