Ariel Bart: Transcript
Podcast, Video, and Show notes
Ariel Bart:
I think he has an interesting character. In one hand, he's from the old generations, experienced the world in such a different way. So the way he thinks about music, he really cares about the tradition and that we know the history and we respect the history. And on the other hand, he works for so many years with young musicians, so he is really open-minded and know that the world is changing. So he's always on the spectrum somewhere. And that's super interesting.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman. This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians worldwide with in-depth conversations and great music that reveal the depth and breadth to a life in music. This week's episode is with the wonderful harmonica player and composer Ariel Bart. I first started listening to her music with her debut album In Between, in which she presents a unique approach to the harmonica, and all her albums feature her original music, which is inspired by the European jazz tradition and the Middle Eastern world. Ariel began playing the chromatic harmonica at the age of seven, and since then it's been her primary instrument. We're including music from several of her albums. In this episode, you'll hear about some of her inspiring mentors and collaborators and her positive experience at the New School at University for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, including working with Reggie Workman, Shai Maestro, and Jane Ira Bloom. We also talked about the music business and her delight in using storytelling and film with their music. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast platforms. And I've also linked the transcript to my website, leahroseman.com. Besides being the host, I take care of all the many jobs of research, production and publicity for this podcast. And I really do need the help of my listeners to keep this project going. Please consider buying me a coffee through my support page, which is linked to PayPal. Finally, before we dive into the episode, did you know that this podcast is in season four and that I send out a weekly email newsletter where you can get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests and be inspired by highlights from the archive? Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links now to Ariel Bart.
Hi Ariel. Thanks so much for joining me here today.
Ariel Bart:
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Leah Roseman:
I'm such a big fan of your albums. They're some of the albums I've listened to the most that I've bought on Bandcamp, just as a composer and a player. Just incredibly beautiful.
Ariel Bart:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
So it's a great honor to have you here today. A lot of people won't be familiar even with the chromatic harmonica necessarily, and it's interesting to me that it's been your main instrument since the age of seven.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, yeah. It's always been my primary instrument. Yeah, actually, it's kind of like a family story basically. We used to listen with my mom. We used to listen to a lot of music with the harmonica, Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Beatles mainly the tonic harmonicas, the blues harps. But Stevie Wonder was the main chromatic harmonica that I discovered. And my older sister, she really fell in love with the instrument and it was her dream to learn how to play the chromatic harmonica. So she found an orchestra, a youth orchestra, really, really nearby my house back then. It was founded by an Holocaust survivor who brought the harmonica from Germany and founded an orchestra here. So I basically followed her without thinking too much like a younger sister. And we started with playing some classical music and some arrangements for folk Israeli music. It was a big orchestra, like 30 harmonica players. So it's quite big. And only after that I started learning with private teachers and discovered really the instrument to the core. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Okay. That's really fascinating. Is that orchestra still around?
Ariel Bart:
Actually, yeah. I think it's getting smaller and smaller over the years budget. Yeah, but it's still happening, which is great. Nobody plays the harmonica.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, you should visit them and inspire them.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, you're right.
Leah Roseman:
Does your older sister still play?
Ariel Bart:
No, she's not playing anymore. I mean, just as a hobby. Yeah. But she played until a later age until she was 18 or something. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And your melodic writing is so beautiful. I'm curious, when did you start composing?
Ariel Bart:
It's a good question. I think the beginning for me, it was when I was 18, I started, I was studying in a program in Israel. It's basically a four year program with the New School university in New York. So you do two years in Israel and then two years at the New School. So a lot of the people who I studied with, they were already composing and producing music. And I mean, the quality in Israel is really good from a really young age. And I came from a different place, so I was like, I didn't really get the process yet. So basically the first song I composed, it was an assignment for something. I really struggled. I remember this. I didn't know how to approach to approach it at all, but I remember the first time the band played my song at the school, it was the best feeling ever. I remember the exact moment. And ever since I'm playing with it, I guess,
Leah Roseman:
Do you play some piano, especially for composition?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, I compose everything on the piano. I barely use the harmonica for compositions. Everything is on the piano. And I have a rule the things that I cannot play on on the piano, and it's not my primary instrument. So the things that I cannot play on the piano, I don't write them on the paper. So I have two choices is to find another solution for a melody for the harmony, write something else, or to really practice until I can play it on the instrument. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Interesting. Yeah, I was curious about your program in the New School and some of your mentors, but before we get into that, I do like to include music early in an episode, so people who've never heard your music will be able to hear that.
This is In Between from a live session and it's the title track to Ariel's album In Between. Please check the links in the show notes for all the music featured in this episode. (music)
I have interviewed one other harmonica player for the series. Have you heard of Brendan Power? He's a harmonica builder. He builds custom harmonica. He's based in England, originally from New Zealand.
Ariel Bart:
I think I know the name.
Leah Roseman:
So that was a very interesting discussion and completely different background where he discovered the harmonica, I think at age 19 or 20. And then it completely changed the direction of his life. And he's all about creating new harmonicas, basically and custom harmonicas. But I'm curious about the chromatic harmonica just as a music nerd. So most people just buy the one and see because it has all the notes, or do you have many different harps? How does that work?
Ariel Bart:
So basically the harmonica I'm using, I have hundreds harmonicas, but they're all the same, exactly the same model, same. Everything is the same. The chromatic harmonica is basically, it's like the piano in a way I can show you maybe. So the instrument is in C, so all the white keys, and then if you press the bottom, then it's like everything goes half step above like the black keys. So basically with the chromatic harmonica, you don't really need to change a key. You do everything by yourself. Specifically in my instrument, I have four octaves. Most of the chromatic harmonica players, they use three octaves. I have one that's lower. So it's a pretty wide range. But the reason why I have so many instruments is basically that it goes out of shape really quickly. My way of playing is quite aggressive, so am just destroying the instrument often, I mean, compared to other instruments, it's a cheap instrument, so sometimes it's not worth fixing anything. You just buy a new one. So it really depends.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But you do bend notes when you play.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, and this is why my instrument's getting out of tune constantly.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So how is it you're doing that physically?
Ariel Bart:
Oh, it's a good question. It's basically lips. Muscles, the pressure you put and release. I am not using my thumb or anything else, only my lips. And by blending the note, you just put more pressure and release it more pressure and release it. And then you can control the waves of the tuning.
Leah Roseman:
And you do use some vibrato. Is that coming from your diaphragm, your lungs, your muscles down there?
Ariel Bart:
No, same. My lips, other players, they use other body parts. Me, I'm using only the lips. Some people for vibrato, they're using the hands, I dunno, the cheeks, the everything, the tongue. For me, it's like everything. I'm using these muscles for vibrato, for blending everything. Okay.
Leah Roseman:
Is that the way you were taught?
Ariel Bart:
I'll tell you what, because it's not like an instrument with a lot of repertoire, a lot of history, a lot of players. There isn't a real method, and the technique of the instrument is not really developed in books. So you learn the basics from teachers, but then eventually I think each player develop his own technique. From my perspective, this is the way it works. Even my sister and we studied with the same teachers, she plays in a really different technique. So yeah. That's very interesting. It's interesting. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
I was wondering, Ariel, would you be willing to play a little bit and then if you don't like it, we won't include it just to have
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Do you want me to play anything specific?
Leah Roseman:
I love all your compositions, really.
Ariel Bart:
Okay. I'll go with, I don't know, we'll see. Let's see how it goes. Maybe I'll take a step back so you'll see the instrument, because I'll hold it quite low.(music)
Leah Roseman:
That was really beautiful.
Ariel Bart:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
So if I didn't recognize, is that one of your
Ariel Bart:
It was no, nothing. I mean, not a specific composition, just nothing
Leah Roseman:
Improvisation.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Thank you for that. I was wondering, Ariel, about your improvisation, because you're an incredible improviser and I was curious if you had listened to different styles of improvisation growing up.
Ariel Bart:
Growing up? I don't think so. I used to listen to a lot of jazz music, but I didn't really put, I think an extra attention to the improvisation came only later in my life. But yeah, I think till this day I'm using two different styles of improvisation. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
You mentioned the New School, and I was curious to even look at that program and see what it was about. It was quite interesting, the whole idea of teachers as mentors and some of the people you worked with, a lot of pianists. You also worked with Jane Ira Bloom, the saxophonist and composer?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, amazing. One of the best. Really? Yeah, she is so special. She's very, it's hard even to explain the attitude of this woman. I studied with her some private lessons, but also I was in her ballad ensemble, and she's very precise with what she wants from us in terms of how do we think about melody, how do we sing the melody in our head? We needed to know the lyrics of everything. So yeah, she's really going into the core of the melody. And then until you know the melody in your heart, then you can start talking about improvisation and explore some stuff. But if you don't know the melody, you basically, you don't know the song, so don't try to play other things on it because you disrespect the melody. That's the idea.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So in that ballad class, was it mostly singers and horn players, or were there also pianists,
Ariel Bart:
Also pianist, also a drummer. In order to play the melodies on his drums, he needed to sing the lyrics. So yeah, it was like a full band.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, very interesting. And I noticed there were world music ensembles at the New School. Were you involved with any of those?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, I took an Indian music class. Indian ensemble, I think R&B ensemble.
Leah Roseman:
And did you get playing opportunities in New York as a student there?
Ariel Bart:
Yes. Not that much. I have to admit. I was there only for two years until Covid hit, and I was super busy with school. Also, the transition, just moving to New York, it's a big slap in your face, so it takes time to understand how to, I dunno, how to be yourself in the city. So I played a little bit, mostly in an interesting way. It just happened mostly in the free jazz scene. Free improvised avant garde music. Yeah, I studied with the bass player, William Parker is a big scene in the free underground scene in New York. And then I did some projects with him. So most of the opportunities I had in New York, it was in the Avantgarde Noise musics.
Leah Roseman:
And also you had listed Reggie Workman as one of your mentors. Did you get to work with him?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, Reggie is such a sweet guy. Yeah, Reggie, he was like my instructor in a lot of ensembles. And also I did one project with the band that he founded, and we went upstate to play a little bit, which is a very, very special guy. I think he has an interesting character in one hand. It's from the all generations experienced the world in such a different way. So the way he thinks about music, he really cares about the tradition and that we know the history and we respect the history. And on the other hand, he works for so many years with young musicians, so he's really open-minded and know that the world is changing. So he's always on the spectrum somewhere. And that's super interesting.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So he had worked with Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk. Did he ever tell stories about any of those times?
Ariel Bart:
So many stories, I cannot even tell you. I mean, I don't remember anything specific, but he tells you stories, like tons of stories every day has,
Leah Roseman:
And I noticed you just worked with a lot of pianists. Some of them I hadn't heard of, some of them I had like Shai Maestro. Were there any pianists that you worked with who really helped you with your composition?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, I think also in terms of private lessons, most of the teachers I've studied with, they were piano players. Anat Fort, she's an Israeli pianist, and Shai of course. And I studied with the John Coward in New York and our Aaron Parks. Yeah, mainly piano players. Now that I think about it.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, it's interesting to me. I'm a classical violinist, and in our world, it's still kind of like you basically have your one teacher, even in graduate school. So this idea that you were able to have lessons with so many different artists, is that particular to that school or is it more the jazz scene, do you think?
Ariel Bart:
I think in general, the jazz scene is more open. You take one lesson with someone, you go back and forth a lot. But specifically at the New School, that's the idea of this school, that they don't really have a faculty. You basically can reach out to any musician you want in the city, and if they accept you as a student, you can go and study with them. It is different with some instruments, they have some, I dunno, some rules. So guitar players, they need to start with the guitar player, piano player they need to start with the piano player. Then you can go beyond that. For me, there aren't really so many harmonica players. It's a rare thing. So for my younger age, I always studied with people who plays different instrument drummer, saxophone player, piano player.
Leah Roseman:
How do you think that's influenced you?
Ariel Bart:
That's interesting. I think about it often. Honestly, I think it gave me different perspectives about a composition, about a band. The way I listened to think with the drummer, I worked mainly on rhythm with the piano player. I worked on harmonies with the saxophone players. I worked on articulation. And the fact that I don't really have a method that fits perfectly, the harmonica, I had to explore it by myself. So I think it also gave me, in terms of sound and technique, something that I cannot really say where it comes from. What is my inspiration? Where is my melody sense coming from? Everything is a bit of a blur, but it definitely, even in my composition, I think it gives me a wide perspective. Yeah. Okay.
Leah Roseman:
Hi. Just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leahroseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peaks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. And you can find that link in the show notes. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now, back to the episode.
I've listened to your albums a lot on Bandcamp. And then actually just this morning, Ariel, I was looking at some of the videos that I hadn't really noticed before on YouTube. And you have this Teardrop, this kind of narrative video, and your music, it's very, it's obvious it could be used in all kinds of contexts of storytelling. So where did you get the idea for that? And I know you're writing for film, is that sort of a way or direction you're going in?
Ariel Bart:
So I really care about visuals. This is something that I pay a lot of attention to. We shot Teardrop in Belgium. I had an idea of shooting something with people. For me, the song is very, you repeat the same melody over and over again, and it's like the harmonica is flowing above this constant thing, quite heavy things. And then I am flying above. And for me, it created two layers. And for me, I always think about people. So for me, the heavy things, the more big thing is a community, a culture group of people, whatever. And then this one person, the lonely person, the underdog, the whatever someone was trying to fit in initially, that was the thought for the video. And then I worked with two amazing directors, young people in Antwerp in Belgium, and we created this together and we showed everything on film, like analog equipment.
So it was just a super interesting experiment as well. For me, eventually, the video for me is like you looking at the main character you see that is going through something, but so many things are going around him, but he's so in his own head that he cannot pay any attention to everything else that's going around. And from the other people's perspective, they don't see him, they don't see what's going on. They're just going around. There's some rain, they're living their own life, but someone very close to them is going through something, but they cannot pay the attention he needs.
Leah Roseman:
Now you're going to hear Teardrop from Ariel's album Documentaries.(music)
And your most recent album, The Trio Project, you released this video the same time, is the music on the video the exact same tracks that you released on?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's recorded live and was shot live also on film. Everything is analog. Yeah. So everything is live. Yeah, it was quite an experiment. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
It's really powerful. Really amazing.
Ariel Bart:
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
So the childhood video that you included?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, we basically project them on a wall and we shot them again with the film camera. Basically, I discovered tons of materials from my childhood that my father took with an old video camera. So I have, I dunno, hours of videos and recordings. So I just, I dunno, playing with it a little bit. Did some editings myself, tried to edit the musics, the sound recording, and I improvised over it. Then eventually I decided to include it in the project.
Leah Roseman:
When I first heard it, it was just the audio and it was the sound of your voice. And I knew it was probably you because you're saying your name and
Ariel Bart:
Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
It's really, it gets to you. But then the title, do you want to talk to that,
Ariel Bart:
The title of the song or the title of the project?
Leah Roseman:
Well, the title of that song is Listening to Shame, right? Where you include you.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, listening. Listening to shame. It sounds like a cliche, but I think all my songs, in a way, it's a cliche, but basically it's like the inner shame, the inner child within yourself, the things in you that you feel like shamed about, but you have to live with them. You need to make peace with them, and the constant struggle. Yeah. Okay. I think it's maybe a common experience for most of the people in the world. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
This next musical selection is from The Trio Project, part two, Listening to Shame. You'll find the links to all the music and videos included in this episode on Ariel Bart's website linked in the show notes of this podcast (music)
I'll be curious to see where your art goes in the future. Have you talked about collaborations with, I dunno, different artists in different media, like theater or dance or film?
Ariel Bart:
Yeah. I wrote one project for theater, and I did some things for a fashion shows, a short film. I think maybe the media that attracts me the most is video, and I'm really interested in film scoring. I also studied that a little bit at the New School. So yeah, I don't know. We'll see where it's going.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I really love your tune. Well, I wanted to talk about your association with cellists, because also the compliment of your ensembles is a little unusual. Did you start working with cellist because you knew the people and their playing or because you wanted that sound under the harmonica?
Ariel Bart:
Both. I have a really good friend, like a cellist, and I think through her I got familiar to the sound a little bit and the quality of the instrument. And then it was natural for me. I think only after we played a little bit together, I understood the interesting atmospheres that the blend of these instruments creates. Basically, for me, the idea is that the harmonica is super metallic instrument, high range instrument, always above. The tuning of the instrument is higher. It's 40, 42, so everything feels like you're going to the sky, basically. And cello is much more grounded. It's much more heavy, much more like, yeah, it's a grounded instrument, lower instrument. So for me, using these two as the, I dunno, the bottom and the top, then you have a lot of space in between to fill it with a lot of things. With piano parts, with drums, with improvisation, with sounds, textures. You have a lot of space in between. So I think this is what I like about this combination.
Leah Roseman:
I think Mayu is featured on Time is Blind. Yeah, very beautiful. In fact
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, she's amazing.
Leah Roseman:
I discovered you through her because she was playing in a duo with Kelly Thoma, who I interviewed last year. Oh yeah. And it was that connection. I was looking to see what else she'd done on Bandcamp, and then your album popped up that you just released.
Ariel Bart:
Okay. Well, interesting. She's a good friend of mine.
Leah Roseman:
And then on your most recent album, I was really interested to learn about
Ariel Bart:
Talia. Yes, Talia, yes.
Leah Roseman:
And
Ariel Bart:
She's basically a classical cellist. She's playing the Jerusalem Symphony, and now we just came back from a tour together, so we're playing quite often recently. She also has a special touch,
Leah Roseman:
And she's also a singer and composer, I noticed.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, she has a solo project, really cool project. She sings and plays the cello. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So you were on tour recently in France and Germany?
Ariel Bart:
In France and Luxembourg, and we're going to Germany next month. Okay.
Leah Roseman:
So around the time this will be released, actually, are you playing mostly your own material at these gigs, or do you mix in other stuff?
Ariel Bart:
Only my own material. Yeah. Only original music of mine. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. You had started a European jazz masters. Have you continued that?
Ariel Bart:
I quit. I did one semester in Berlin. Are you familiar with the program?
Leah Roseman:
I researched it. I was curious to learn about it.
Ariel Bart:
Okay, so the idea is a two year program. Basically you have a home base. So mine was Berlin. So you do the last semester and the first semester in Berlin, and then you go to two other European cities during the rest. So I started in Berlin, was amazing. I really had a good time. Then I moved to Copenhagen and I decided to quit after a week, not because of Copenhagen. Copenhagen was amazing, but already in Berlin, I felt like I got what I needed from there. For me, it was the connections, the people, the pianist I'm playing with now regularly. I met him on this program. So I felt like I've made strong connections and now I need my free time to create, to make music. Yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe we could talk a little bit, are you teaching at all now or have you taught quite a bit in the past?
Ariel Bart:
A little bit. I feel like I need to grow up more in order to do that. Maybe I know to establish my method in a way. I feel like I have the knowledge, but it's not, I don't know how to explain what I know. I don't know. It's not organized in my head. So I feel like this is the main reason that I'm not doing this now.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I understand that. I started teaching quite a bit when I was around your age in my mid twenties, and I really knew nothing. I hadn't taken any pedagogy courses, and it's been quite an evolution. I mean, now I've been teaching for 30 years, and I was speaking to Jeeyoon Kim, she's a classical pianist who's created quite an interesting career, and she was saying, despite the fact she had all this education, she had a doctorate, but she realized she couldn't teach a five-year-old at the beginning stages. How do you teach? So she went back and did a master's in pedagogy, and so we talked about that. You need to be able to teach to different styles and strengths and different levels, and it's a whole thing, right? It's not,
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, it's a big world. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
I'm always curious to know about music education, having gone through myself and feeling now what was missing from my education. And it seems like for the younger generation, there's better options, and I noticed there were required music business courses.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, I think for the whole two years it was mandatory, actually. It's amazing that they do it. It's so necessary. Honestly, I feel like I learned the most from just experience, just doing the things on my own. But of course, that it was a big lesson at the New School. Just understand what is royalties and copyrights and label, how do we approach a label? What is the idea of a booking agent? Why do I need it? Yeah. Yeah. I think in a way, half of the job as a musician is the business. There are so many talented musicians, talented instrumentalists. But if you cannot handle the business or you don't want to, or you don't have, I dunno, you don't have the option to do it, then it's really hard to make it.
Leah Roseman:
And so of the help you've gotten professionally, what have been the elements that have helped you has been publicity agent or booking agent?
Ariel Bart:
That's a good question. I think none of these things, it's the idea that you need to look like widely on all these things that you need to put an effort in all these areas, you need to split the cake into, I dunno, eight pieces. You need to put some effort into booking, again, recording, then a label, then publicity. You can release an amazing music, but how do you bring it to people, how people, I mean, so yeah, I think it's the whole thing. I'm still learning. I'm super young. I did nothing in my life, so it takes time. But yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, it's interesting talking to you because most, I'd say the majority of the people I talk to in the series have had long careers, and they're often reflecting back on the experiences they've had. And a few times I talked to young upcoming stars like yourself, and it's interesting to see kind of where you're at, but of course you've been playing so long as well. It's not like you're new to music,
Ariel Bart:
Actually. It's always like, I'm going back and forth with it. Sometimes you put so much effort on the business part and you don't, maybe you have the time, but you're not in the right mindset. So how do you keep this balance that you can do these together and still be happy and creative? Yeah. So that's a mission,
Leah Roseman:
Especially with social media, right? It can really suck your focus away.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, it sucks.
Leah Roseman:
This next clip is a short excerpt from Ariel's new Duo Project with guitarist Omri Bar Giora. The album is called Deep Down. I have this album and it's beautiful. Here's a small taste.(music)
Ariel Bart:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Do you set aside time, creative time, and do you separate composition of the piano from improvising on your harmonica? How does that work for you?
Ariel Bart:
No, for me, it's always been like, I'm going all over. Depends what I feel at the moment, what I need to do. At the moment, I don't really have a schedule or I dunno. I can be really out of focus. I can play the harmonica for 30 seconds, then I'm going to compose something for two hours. Then I'm going back and yeah, I don't really have anything, any structure. This is why I like practicing with other people. Then I can, I feel like the obligation to be in focus, but also I get some feedback and I get - I mean, that's a good thing to do. I really recommend.
Leah Roseman:
I agree. In fact, being a musician can be so lonely, so many hours, just learning your instrument, learning your tunes.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah. Being with yourself in, I dunno, in a dark room for 10 hours.
Leah Roseman:
Have you ever had trouble with neighbors objecting to the sound of the harmonica?
Ariel Bart:
Actually, no. No.
Leah Roseman:
I was just curious. It could.
Ariel Bart:
I've been lucky.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It could be piercing if it's going through the walls.
Ariel Bart:
Yeah, that's true.
Leah Roseman:
And for your booking agents, is it a novelty that you're a jazz harmonica player? Are clubs and theaters welcoming to that, or is it a bit of a barrier?
Ariel Bart:
Well, probably both in a way. I think so far it's been mostly it's benefits me. People are looking for something unique, something special. I'm also a woman that a unique instrument, so it fits a lot of boxes that people are looking for nowadays.
Leah Roseman:
And you're playing as I find, very vocal. Do you sing just for yourself?
Ariel Bart:
Not at all. I'm a horrible singer.
Leah Roseman:
Really?
Ariel Bart:
You don't want to hear me. Yeah, but I think I mostly listen to singers. I rarely listen to instrumental music. Okay.
Leah Roseman:
That's interesting. I was thinking your recorded track of Nine Souls, which is so beautiful with a frame drum, it's very atmospheric. And then I saw your solo video, which is just this incredible solo improvisation by a river for 10 minutes. Was it intended to be that long or you just
Ariel Bart:
Went, yeah. Okay. There's a photographer in Israel, it's his project. It's called Take a 10 Minute Break. So it takes very specific instruments, Arabic instruments, some unique instruments that can play solo in the nature wherever. And so it should be around 10 minutes. That's the project, but it's not like a complete improvisation. He really wanted me to play a song, a melody, a form to give it some structure. It was difficult. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
This next clip is the ensemble version of Nine Souls from the album Documentaries and features, Mayu Shviro on Cello. If you heard my episode with Kelly Thoma last year, her duo with Mayu is featured on that episode. And if you'd like to hear Ariel's solo harmonica version of Nine Souls, I will link it in the show notes. It's on the YouTube channel Take a 10 minute break. (music) Yeah, it's really, really compelling. Well, thanks so much, Ariel, for sharing your perspectives and your music today. Really a pleasure to meet you.
Ariel Bart:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure to talk to you.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support the series, that would be wonderful. The link is in the description. Have a wonderful week.
