The Voice of the Moon: Mark Drusco, (for the American Public)

AN INTERVIEW TO MARK DRUSCO (The Voice of the Moon)

A.M. Mark Drusco: musician or composer?

A musician is basically a performer who often performs someone else’s works. A composer is a creative author. So I’m a composer.

A.M. What’s your artist background?

I’m entirely a self-taught person. However, apart from the other arts, talking about self-taught person in music it’s a misleading word, because even now, in common opinion, music needs masters and pupils. It’s pretty absurd, it’s like saying that Picasso would have needed a master to become Picasso. No, I breathe music like Van Gogh breathes colours

A.M. How did the “Supernal Armony” project come up?

In 2011, when I was planning “Supernal Armony” - Over-sensible Harmony - I left behind all about contemporary music because the stabilised and levelled off harmony of pop music ,with its repetitive and tired sonorities, and the impersonal, misleading and electronic technicisms of cultured or avant-garde music weren't possible anymore.  So “Supernal Armony” was the project aimed to instil new impulse, new vibrations and new contents in the XXI century music for the XXI century human being. To be more exact, a project for a new man on a new Earth. “Supernal Armony” is harmony into the Unknown, that forwards itself to a spiritual territory,  whose sonorities   transcendent it, yet investigate and recall that. It’s not by chance that my first CD is called “The Memory of the Unknown”. If my music can express much and reach the magic centre of “Primordiality”, thus the man of this time will find the way to rethink and re-join the " Being", the one that provides us a shelter: the Earth. Only music can do that. 

A.M. In which musical context can we put it?

“Supernal Armony” is a new deal so it’s a forerunner.

A.M. What’s the source of your inspiration?

When an artist takes up the extreme challenge to create something new, as a matter of course he’s alone in “the Solitude of the Vastness”, and he can only draw inspiration from the energy of the Unknown that surrounds him. That energy is for me the source of every creative impulse. My tribute to the Unknown is also my reason of artist.

A.M. What do you mean by over-sensible harmony?

It’s an harmonic balance over the boundary, that is the Unknown. It’s a balance which is the narration of inner adventures and the sharing with the energy of the Primordiality. My music investigates the Unknown but looks for the Primordiality. If I could ever achieve my aim, thus my harmony would be “primordial”, that is “timeless and still in the heart of the time”. Free from all ties but bound to the energy of the Eternity.

A.M. According to what criteria do you compose your tracks?

My music has got a vertical structure, on the contrary pop music or experimental music are horizontal. Verticality and Horizontality are antithetical. The first one creates vertical harmonies, where every note of an instrument is vertically bound to that of other. Therefore, two instruments don’t accompany on each other, but they proceed bound to the general harmony. They face each other, they follow each other, they alternate each other, they split each other and then find each other, but always in the same harmonic context. The vertical music structure creates investigations, vibrations, dialogues and narration similar to the words in literature. By contrast, the horizontal

music structure – that of pop music, indeed – creates melodies, apart from the intervals of solo instruments, and more often than not instruments work as accompanists of the main one: the human voice. The limit of pop music is just the voice, that is opposite instruments without any truly harmonic bound, but voice rises in order to tell a human story, that has nothing to do with instruments. You may say well to turn to the medieval vocal polyphony, if you would like to raise voice like harmonic principle.

     

A.M. What are the instruments used and the sonorities of your tracks?

The ancient instruments such as the harpsichord, the theorbo, the viol. And then the strings: the violin, the viola, the cello and the double bass. In my music the harpsichord describes the details of an adventure into the Unknown, while the cello and the double bass, like inner voice, tell the emotions of that adventure. The harpsichord along with the cello – the perfect union – proceed vertically supporting each other, reflecting each other, looking for each other, separating each other and finding each other just like a love game. That’s why love and music are comparable. They’re much the same in affections too. The shiver provided by an harmony is very close to the pleasure taken by two lovers.

A.M. What’s the message sent by the notes of your music?

It’s an adventure tale of the soul. Something boundless and yet long-lasting. Something like the conscious abandon along with a path not yet walked. I compose music for humans who are fond of the Beauty of this Earth and appreciate its aim: “love is the abandon of an aware smile which examines the Beauty unconditionally”. I compose music for free men, for dreamers who know that dreaming isn’t anything like the projection of a more authentic and incommensurable reality of each firm and yet uncertain form of existence.

 

A.M. Could you define the originality of your research in the contemporary music field?

I breathe music, it’s quite natural to find harmonies like breathing. However, if you carry out research, music contrasts with you its own endless energy of synthesis. And if you walk the path of the synthesis, I mean the way of the universal harmony, at all costs you can’t agree anymore with the concept of originality, that is of stylistic research end on itself. And then I’m so ancient that I seem new, and I’m so new that I seem ancient. Perhaps, that’s my originality.

 

A.M. What’s the difference between composition and improvisation?

None, if we talk about creation of music. Improvisation is always the beginning of every “inspiration”. Sometimes you make a mess with notes and you end to reach the sublime, though. 

A.M. What’s the relationship between music and poetry?

Music and poetry share the abandon. Without any total abandon you can’t love and create.

A.M. Is there a meeting point between “Supernal Armony” and the record market?

“Supernal Armony” is a music and publishing collection by Rupe Mutevole Edizioni. It’s an innovative project, you may say, as each CD will contain music and short literary works, these ones in booklet format. Num. 1, “The Memory of the Unknown” is already available and has got 10 tracks of mine - however, we wish we could insert music made up by other contemporary composers as soon as we can, with whom I share the music path of Supernal Armony – and

the first part of “The Way of the Unknown”, by Haria, an extraordinary writer and shaman.

The CD can be purchased at: http://www.reteimprese.it/pro_A40124B185890