Interview with Andrea Massaria (May 2021) on #neuguitars #blog
Hi Andrea, tell us a little about your latest project “New Needs Need New Techniques”, let’s start with the title, what are the “Needs” and the “Techniques” you refer to?
The record is inspired by three very significant and important painters for me such as Pollock, Rauschenberg and Rothko. I took the gestures and the deepest intention of each of them and I brought them to music according to my sensitivity. Pollock’s broad, quick, instinctive gesture. His is also the phrase that gives the title to the cd, new needs need new techniques and that’s exactly what I implement in this work, new guitar and musical techniques that make me go beyond my usual patterns. About Rauschenberg I took immediacy of the work and its non-replicability in addition to the use of “poor” and commonly used materials that he applied to his canvases, materials that I also use in the tracks dedicated to his work, a radio, a fan , various and improbable objects taken from everyday life. Finally, Rothko’s great depth and complexity of his painting, apparently simple, one or at most two colors per painting but which, when viewed closely, begin to vibrate and change in a thousand shades just as if an orchestra revealed little by little all its sonic richness. The tracks called PO correspond to the Pollock’s works, the Ra to the Rauschenberg’s and the ROs to the Rothko’s. As for the title … what are the Needs … rejection of what is obvious and established in advance, continuous search for new hypotheses, new solutions, evade definitions and never lose the ability to be surprised … and the Techniques …. an approach to a total conception of the guitar, the instrument used in its entirety including the fascinating use of the pedals just as if they were themselves an instrument, not forgetting any of the immense sound possibilities and tones that the instrument and the effects can give us …
Why have you waited so long to release a solo record? Solo records are usually an obligatory step for free music, as a normal creative situation, you have arrived there after a long journey with many collaborations …
I think that playing with other musicians is above all a way of shedding light inside myself and defending one’s “identity” against forces that would tend to erase it. If we manage to remain faithful to ourselves even in adverse conditions then our “identity” will emerge from this test clearer and stronger. But for this to happen it is necessary to have courage and conviction and, above all, the certainty of having an “identity”. Carving alone, intended as a confrontation with oneself, is an opportunity to give birth or to confirm (in my case) this awareness and this certainty. Therefore, if music moves from a need to confirm our identity also thanks to others, then this “identity” must be formed first in the comparison with others and then in the comparison with oneself.
At this point I need to ask you what is the meaning of improvisation in your musical research? Can we go back to talk about improvisation in a repertoire as codified as the classical one or do we have to go out and turn to other repertoires, jazz, contemporary, etc? I ask you because you also have classical guitar studies behind you too...
Currently improvised music is evident in at least one of the great artistic (musical) currents in which an improviser can place himself, one is that of traditional jazz, which goes from mainstream to bebop to hard bop and so on, another one is the free, also detached from the movement of the Sixties but which develops it, and the third is the one followed by many improvisers who come from different schools, like me, like many European improvisers, but also like those belonging for example to the Chicago school. In this last current we speak of instantaneous, creative improvisation, substantially disconnected from the other two, from the mainstream and the free thought. This path, in my opinion, is trying today to combine the creative force and the charge of freedom of improvisers who come from the most diverse backgrounds and experiences, not only from historical jazz, but also from classical music, from rock, pop, folk, visual arts, electronics, dance, painting. Let’s say that it’s trying to clear the word “improvisation” from the word “jazz” … Improvising does not only mean working on chord schemes, as were the historical ones of jazz, but rather it’s something much, much broader. And this is a compelling thing. After all, when a genre is codified, the code sanctions the end of all creativity, because to stay within the “genre” you have to submit to rules and give up your freedom, which is the prerequisite for creativity. This third way to improvisation mixes the expressive modalities and keeps the concept of improvisation fluid, trying not to codify it, and with this not to impose any “scheme” on those who improvise, be it musicians, videomakers, painters and so on. I am sure it’s a winning “way”, to follow until the end, any kind of creative and stimulating collaboration is welcome.
What is the role of error in your musical vision?
The concept of error in my musical vision has never found a place. The imprecision, the stranger and the elsewhere are instead essential concepts for me for a sincere improvisation. Being inaccurate allows you to escape definition and there is a well-defined poetics of imprecision (I am thinking of the basic concept of Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi) where imprecision is not considered an error but a rejection of conventional good taste or stereotyped idea … the elsewhere and the stranger as the introduction of an unexpected element in the improvisational flow that shuffles the cards and puts the music in the condition to move and escape from what is … the error only exists in the mind of those who think it …
What is the role of error in your musical vision?
The concept of error has never found a place in my musical vision. The imprecision, the stranger and the elsewhere are instead essential concepts for me for a sincere improvisation. Being inaccurate allows you to escape definition and there is a well-defined poetics of imprecision (I am thinking of the basic concept of Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi) where imprecision is not considered an error but a rejection of conventional good taste or stereotyped ideas … the elsewhere and the stranger as the introduction of an unexpected element in the improvisational flow that shuffles the cards and puts the music in the condition to move and escape from what is … the error only exists in the mind of those who think it …
Look, … we both had Covid, how do you feel “after”? What has changed for you? What do you think is the function of a moment of crisis like this?
Many leave by ambulance alone and never come back, and go away alone, without the affection of their loved ones. It also happened to me to go away in an ambulance alone, due to covid, without knowing if I was back again. I was lucky enough to return home after four days of solitary confinement in a hospital room, with the door closed that only opened when the doctors came to do the tests and the health workers came to clean the room. That’s it. Isolation has pushed me to rethink many aspects of private and working life, my perception of the world, of affections, of people, of values, of priorities, of friendships after this experience has changed a lot. Now that I am cured, I practice this ritual every day which I think doesn’t need too many explanations … In Tibet there is a habit of overturning the cup of tea before going to sleep. It’s a gesture that symbolizes the end of the day and the end of one’s life. In the morning the first thought is I am alive, I can see, listen to, experience, then the cup is straightened, my new life begins now and I am ready to receive …
Last question .. a few years ago I read a nice book by Bill Milkowski called “Rockers, Jazzbos and Visionaries”. Carlos Santana at one point said that: “Some people have talent, some people have vision. And vision is more important then talent, obviously.” … after all these years spent playing, always looking for new boundaries and expanding the previous ones … what is your vision now?
Search for the unknown starting from known facts, to bring a pure and inspiring message to the listener based on my personal “truth” and human and musical experience, believe it … to make art in an original way it’s not necessary to know things nobody knows, it’s more necessary to believe in things that few believe in …
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