Andrew Cohen interviews David Fiuczynski (part 1)

[Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so David could you could you tell me a little about your background how you how you started playing and a little bit about your early musical history well briefly I I started on piano when I was seven or so and I hated it did you come from a musical family um a very encouraging family when I was 13 actually my mother said look you know I I think it's important that you should play an instrument so I made a deal I'll pick the instrument and I'll pick the teacher I was very fortunate to have a guy in my class who said oh there's a problem with your guitar my brother is a guitar player and then we went over to his place and he fixed what the the problem was and he started playing some bbop lines and I was hooked I mean hooked and the lessons I had so inspiring I would leave every lesson with just my head was filled with music it was really really wonderful the guitar players I really admired were uh mland scoffield uh Van Halen some of the uh the free the free players like uh James blood Almer sunny shck sunny sherck was there a particular point in your own development where you felt that the instrument was really becoming a part of you ver is something that you wanted to master that you somehow had gotten inside it um my teacher in Germany noted that um I really wouldn't do the homework but I would do things my way which was which was encouraging for him and then I would say in the mid 20s um after giving up uh um trying to play like certain people um my playing opened up cuz I was kind of blocking things I would think well I need to alternate pick this part or I need to phrase it this way and I should just listen to my body and listen to my heart and figure out well what would I do and then things really jumped off that's when you more became your own man yeah I really started to sound like myself [Music] w [Music] I'm really trying to work on uh my own compositional voice I feel like I have my own voice on the instrument but I I enjoy making the band my instrument so I would like uh I would I'm I'm trying to delve into a deeper original compositional voice well your compositions definitely sound original especially the way you're putting music together I mean you're there's a conglomeration of so many styles that you're putting together in like one piece in a way that's quite extraordinary it forces The Listener to really sit up St to pay attention the the thing I'm not trying to do is hey look at me um I can do this and then I can do this and then I can do a backflip and then I can you know that's not what I'm interested in what I'm interested in is I'm interested in colliding these Styles right and seeing what happens and it's often the not only two two Styles in one section collided against uh uh another but then going into a different part and having the the energy change so to a certain and if there's a house Grove here and a hip-hop Grove here I'm not really interested in playing hip-hop or house music but I do like the this the contrast exactly and the idea is hopefully down the line I can replace that rhythm with my own Rhythm that harmony with my own Harmony that bbop phrasing that Indian trying to use Indian inflection and some of these melodies for example example with my own inflections root tested unconquered ain't never been bested schools in to get your pen and get your pad get truth just you know to make them mad just hopping just in a new form nonstop and just like a sewer storm on top and yet we're still not peing crowds of rapture when I'm speaking an unconquered an unvarnished FK an untarnished an unvarnished song but of a new age product exper yet have another multidimensional experience Miss but so what who else has got to be the last the industry has got to live to recreate the past white man white [Music] that it's all inside your head but never mind you have not it's all inside your mind from W before your time it's on inside your head but never mind you have done it's all inside your mind for you