What influences and inspirations resonate in my music?
Musicians, composers, but also writers, essayists, philosophers... and artists.
Music listening
I listened to these musics a lot, first of all because they make me feel good. They have influenced me through the feelings they inspire, and some, through their style and construction, have also influenced my own creations. I quote here the musicians I have been listening to and listening to again for years because I often come back to them.
The order of the list does not indicate any particular preferences, as it depends on the state of mind at the time.
|
Jazz: |
Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbeke, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, Martial Solal, Michel Portal, ... |
| Contemporary music |
Arvo Part, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Rolph Julius, Luc Ferrari, François Bayle, Bernard Parmegiani, ... |
| Classical: | Igor Stravinsky, Jean Sébastien Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ... |
| Tradition: | Scandinavian traditional music, and of course my own recordings of African music from 1971, which I listen to again with great emotion. |
Musical experiences
Other musicians are very important to me: avant-gardes, creators of experimental music, inventors of sounds, inventors of listening experiences who have opened my ears and mind, but whom I actually listen less often: "we never swim in the same river" (Heraclitus).
Iannis Xenakis, Karl Heinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Jean-Claude Risset, La Monte Young, Harry Partch, Pierre Henry, Alvin Lucier, les structures sonores Lasry-Bachet, Luigi Russolo, etc.,
(long list, always open)
Readings: artistic, scientific and philosophical thinking
Art and music, through artworks, places and moments of sensitivity to works and sharing of vibrations, transmit emotions, feelings linked to physical perception, that of the living, of human society, of oneself, and invite interaction.
This can be seen from different angles of vision about spirit, culture and action. For example, according to the techno-scientific angle, the psychological angle, the social or the spiritual angle, etc. These various points of view lead to different ways of seeing and analysing, often dissonant, even contradictory, although well-founded and legitimate. They therefore deserve to be considered with their variety because simplifying according to an arbitrary or unique thought would be sterilizing for understanding and creativity. For my personal pathway my reflection is nourished by a small number of rather dense works by interdisciplinary thinkers adopting approaches that respect the complexity of things:
Edgar Morin: The Method (La Nature de la Nature, la Vie de la Vie, la Connaissance de la Connaissance, les Idées, l'Humanité de l'Humanité), De l'Esthétique.
Antonio Damasio: The Strange Order of Things
Gerald M. Edelman: Biology of Consciousness
Boris Cyrulnik: The Wounded Souls
Henri Atlan: The Crystal and the Smoke
Ilya Prigogine: The End of Certainties
Abraham Moles: The Sciences of the Innacurate
Herbert A. Simon: The Sciences of the Artificial
Jean-Pierre Changeux: Du vrai, du beau, du bien
More specifically on music, I also learned through essays written by musicians sharing their thoughts and experiences:
Murray Schafer: The Soundscape
Jean-Yves Bosseur: Music and visual arts
Pierre Schaeffer: Treaty of musical objects
Alain Savouret: Introduction to a music theory of the audible
Michel Chion: The Sound
Cooperation: the artists with whom I work
Working regularly with other artists, my approach to seeing and hearing has been influenced by them. On this site an article is dedicated to my work with sculptors, painters, photographers, plastic artists: Joining music and visual art: feedback from experience.