http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGUE5CuUsaA

" Music, in my experience, while it is also brought forth by human beings, is not just representative of the human being. It is infinity and divinity manifested as perceptive reality expressed as sound and consequently, also happens to be a living entity. In music, all that is manifest and unmanifest, finds expression through sound. Not just what is human and dear to the human being, but what is the essence and dear to all creatures. 

This article is intended for guitar students wishing to sharpen their progress.

The original text is from the newspaper OGLOBO Jan/ 25/1987.

See my translation below.
To my knowledge there are no English translations of this amazing interview which goes on to cover many other facets of Tom Jobim such as his ecological efforts to preserve the natural wonders of Brazil through his foundation.


A textbook chapter on how to think like a genius in the modern world.

It was always my desire to meet with him one day and when my career had progressed enough to warrant  such an honor I was arranged for me to meet him in NY in the 90's . However Tom was taken suddenly to the hospital and passed before we could meet.




ORIGINAL TEXT



- Eu sou um aquariano muito tenaz, o que, segundo os entendidos, não é comum. Por isso, fico no meu piano, que é o mirroir, o mirror, o espelho onde miro meus erros, e tento corrigi-los. No piano está tudo aparente, tudo à sua frente. Daí esta coisa de espelho, que me agrada e, de vez em quando, me faz cara feia.


- Uma corda de violino, quando vibra, dá os sons harmônicos. Mas eu não sou contra as outras correntes, que utilizam intervalos diferentes, não sou contra o dodecafonismo (que considera as 12 notas do piano, as brancas e as pretas, como tendo o mesmo valor). Não quero limitar nada. Porque não posso limitar o canto de um pássaro ou o barulho provocado pela turbina de um avião. Apenas isso foi experimentado - eu também experimentei - como visão de liberdade maior. E não se foi muito longe. E estes caminhos... de repente você cai na pasteurização do som, as máquinas: a afinação fica uma coisa sem pontas, sem arestas, sem o brilho que você tem no vibrar da corda do violino. É claro, o homem aperfeiçoa os métodos. Um DX7 reproduz quase perfeitamente o som de qualquer instrumento. Mas não será jamais o instrumento. Daí que a música que toca no rádio é chata, toca na TV é chata, aqui ou em qualquer parte do mundo: é pasteurizada, repetitiva, sempre igual, sem imaginação. Chata. Home, no Basil, para ser music, a primeira coisa que você tem de fazer é arranjar um contrabandista que lhe traga estes teclados todos. Isto é revolucionário? Não acho. Beethoven ainda é mais revolucionário do que todas estas novidades. Para mim, a música reflete os movimentos da alma: aquele achado feliz, o sair de uma tonalidade e encontrar um caminho novo para chegar a outra... enquanto se raciocina em termos de decibelagem.

- O nosso universo é tonal. Inventar o atonalismo é negar o povo. A própria palavra "atonal" vem de tom. Para fazer atonalismo, você precisa negar a existência do tom o tempo todo. A música, como entendo, é composta dos 35 sons básicos expostos nas teclas do piano: as sete notas bemóis, os sete dobrados sustenidos e os sete dobrados bemóis. O piano é temperado, uma expressão que muita gente usa sem saber o que quer dizer; ou seja, é desafinado cientificamente para conter em 12 teclas, que se repetem nas oitavas, de forma a conter estes sons fundamentais, universais. São os chamados sons harmônicos, a escala harmônica. Se morrermos todos, aqui, neste momento, por causa de um holocausto nuclear, o vento que soprar numa folha vai provocar um som harmônico, um som contido na concepção tonal, que já existia antes do homem e sobreviverá a ele. A escala tonal não é uma arbitrariedade do homem: antes, é a percepção do homem manifestada na capacidade de buscar os sons da natureza.










Translation by Ney Mello 10/29/06- USA


-I am a very tenacious aquarian, which according to the experts is not common. Because of this I stay at my piano. which is the mirroir, the mirror where I gaze at my mistakes, and try to correct them. In the piano everything is in full view in front of you. Hence this mirror thing, which sometimes pleases me and sometimes gives me the thumbs down.

- A violin string, when vibrating, gives out the harmonics. But I am not against the other views that utilize different interval combinations; i am not against 12 tone composition. I dont want to limit anything because I cannot limit the singing of a bird or the noise provoked by an airplane turbine. These are the experiments to date. I have experimented as well as part of a vision of liberty  I set for myself, but we have not gone very far from the source with our experiments to date.

-We have to beware or we suddenly fall into the pasteurization of sound through the machines : Intonation and tuning become something without edges, without tips, without the shine that you have in the vibration of a violin string. Man of course tries to perfect the methods. A DX7 reproduces almost perfectly de sound of any instrument. But it will never be the instrument. Therefore the music that you hear a lot on the radio on TV or the radio becomes boring. It becomes pasteurized. repetitive, always the same , without imagination.

-Today in Brazil,in order to be a musician, The first thing you have to do is find a smuggler to bring you all these keyboards. Is this revolutionary? I dont think so. Beethoven is still more revolutionary than all these novelty gadgets.

-To me music reflects the movements of the soul: That fortunate find, upon leaving a tonality and finding a new path to arrive at the other..while we reason in terms of decibels.

- Our universe is tonal. To invent atonality is to negate the people. The term "atonal" itself comes from tonal. In order to do atonalism you have to negate the existence of tonality constantly. Music as I understand it is composed of the 35 basic sounds represented in the keys of the piano: The seven flats, the seven double sharps, the seven double sharps.

-The piano is tempered, an expression many people use without knowing what it means; in other words, it is scientifically out of tune in order to contain in 12 keys that repeat themselves at the octaves, these fundamental universal sounds. These are the so called harmonic sounds, the harmonic scale.

-If we all die here right now, due to a nuclear holocaust, the wind that will blow on a leaf will cause a harmonic sound. A sound contained in the concept of tonality, which existed before man and which will survive him. The tonal scale is not and arbitrary man made construct: It is rather man's perception manifested in his capacity to seek the sounds of nature.

-Copyright: Ney Mello 2009-

This article is under copyright protection . This article or any part of it's contents cannot be reproduced without written permission from the author.

The development of guitar playing technique is mental.

I have observed this in 99% of students at all ages, and also in myself early on even made worse by the fact that  I am a natural player. Being a natural is a head-start...a very big one. Yet if music compels one to play  as a master musician...Then plateaus will ensue sooner or later for the natural...

He / she then has to become conscious  which is a step above the animal instinct of the natural state of being. I mean in technical terms of physical music translation.

In that situation one has to become fully human and forget about purely animalistic  procedures to perform. Animal automatism is no longer sufficient as the skills are not or no longer instinctive.

Yet most beginners and many players still act in the animal mode: They do not THINK and they do not ANALYZE anything they do physically.  All they have is the impulse do just move the hands and arms in the way they currently can, which is completely unrelated to playing guitar.

There has to be a revolution  of approach from animal consciousness to ZEN or meditational HUMAN consciousness.

Only by detaching oneself from the animalistic mindset of non-thought can one begin to SEE what is so clear and distinct and obvious to the great players of the instrument. The great players always keep redeveloping their techniques.  That is the gift of acting as a human being instead of an animal when approaching the instrument,

I often was  forced to give up my stubborn animality  in the course of learning to play. I was extremely frustrated until I finally gave up the identification with animal urges for instant gratification, and immediate fun for free , for nothing. I had to learn to not expect to be able to naturally do everything  I desired on the instrument.

Once contemplation of the motions and feel of playing became my method , it became possible to learn in 15 minutes what took 5 years of daily labor. This is the result of acting like a human being instead of an animal.

That animal has no recourse. It does what it does perfectly, but cannot branch out into learning to play guitar for example. The human being can learn anything with limitless potential , but that happens only if he acts according to his human nature instead of his animal instinct nature, since a human being has BOTH types of consciousness.

Of course the animal side of a human being is necessary or it would not exist!. For guitar it is a matter of using the right nature for the "job": The conscious mental analytic observative nature.

When making music other sides of man appear. To be mired in analysis is not to be an artist! Yet for pure technical growth analysis and conscious mind is necessary.

Now......Life and music are not simplistic and therefore I have learned revolutionary insights from animal motion and have applied to my body such revelations. Yet that type of insight has to come from a human being acting humanly instead of animalistically.

In the last 20 thousand years or so when one sees the term "human" being used one has to realize that such a term is really describing a person acting for the most part in his animal nature, with very little humanity being experienced.

The state of being of the Gods of mythology and their skills and powers are actually those of a  fully conscious human being acting as such.

Hence the term "guitar God" describing one who has had to use his fully human capabilities of conscious thought, and analysis, to break throught his natural animal skill limitations and expand his abilities beyond the level of a more statistically typical  human being who lives life  mostly in animalistic mode.

-Copyright: Ney Mello 2009-

This article is under copyright protection . This article or any part of it's contents cannot be reproduced without written permission from the author.