Gary Muszynski Transcript
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. My guest today is Gary Muszynski, a versatile percussionist and entrepreneur. And this conversation delves into his experiences playing samba in Brazil, his discovery and exploration of the handpan, and some of his work as an educator in both community music projects and as an innovator using music in the corporate world. We also talked about his beautiful album, "Roots and Wings, Medicine Music," which won the Gold Medal Best of Show in the 2021 Global Music Awards and features 25 master musicians from eight countries. Gary plays several contrasting instruments in different styles during the episode, and timestamps are included in the description. Like every episode, this is available both as a video and podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, and everything is linked in the description to my podcast website, leahroseman.com.
Hey, Gary Muszynski, thanks for joining me today.
Gary Muszynski:
Hi, Leah, it's my pleasure being here and thanks for reaching out.
Leah Roseman:
I wanted to talk to a handpan player, and of course that's not all you do. You've explored hand percussion and different types of percussion with so many different world musics. I know you're willing to share some music with us today. So could we start with a little bit before we get to talking?
Gary Muszynski:
Sure, I'd be happy to. This is called an mbira. M-B-I-R-A. It's from Zimbabwe. The kind of larger term is kalimba, but it's more specifically an mbira.
Leah Roseman:
Nice, thank you. Now we couldn't see your thumbs when you were playing it, the mbira. If you're playing another instrument, would there be a way of angling? Are you using a webcam or?
Gary Muszynski:
I am not, but let me see if I can position it in a way so that people can see my thumbs.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Gary Muszynski:
It's really coming off the back of the wood. This is a very hard wood from Zimbabwe. I'm not sure specifically what kind of wood it is. I tend to like to mic it from the back. And you have to develop calluses.
Leah Roseman:
I was going to say.
Gary Muszynski:
If you're playing a lot.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I've tried a few times and it hurt.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. And there are softer diatonic or chromatic kalimbas from all over the world, and they're all different. They're different tonalities. This one is pentatonic, It's in D minor I believe. So I have a variety of them. And they're such a lovely instrument because they're so transportable. You could take it out in nature quite easily and it's very meditative.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I mean you've been involved in community music over the years, different projects and it seems to me that's a very accessible instrument for people.
Gary Muszynski:
Very much so. I've been involved in teaching. Probably my most important influences have been Babatunde Olatunji, the great Nigerian master drummer who brought African music to the US in 1956. He was a student at Moorefield College, close personal friend of Martin Luther King's and of John Coltrane's. And he established the first center for African music and culture up in Harlem. And I met Baba in 1985 in New York City at Sounds of Brazil, SOBs in the village. And he invited me to study with him. So I saw him out at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York one summer. And I continued to study with him for several years. So that was my introduction to African music.
And then David Darling was also someone I met at the Omega Institute, great cellist, also the founder of Music for People. And he had a beautiful way of creating community through music making, specifically around improvisation. Whereas Baba's approach and the African approach was more around holding a part down and building the percussive community or ensemble and then having one lead drummer generally, or one lead dancer. So David's concept was more along the lines of jazz. And he was a great improviser, classically trained. I think he was the first cellist for Paul Winters consort for many years. And we became friends at the Omega Institute and he became a mentor of sorts. And then the third, well two other important influences for me were the Samba Schools of Rio.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I want to talk about that for sure.
Gary Muszynski:
Should we talk about it a little bit now or?
Leah Roseman:
Sure. Actually, before we get into that, one thing that might be interesting for people to hear is the story I've heard you tell about when you were five years old.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah, that is a funny story. This really goes back to the beginning and the context I think is much larger than music. It's how do you find your calling? How do you find the work that you're meant to do in this lifetime, that's an expression of your soul? And I found that when I was age five. I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. My parents were immigrants from Poland. They were in hiding most of the war. They were hid by two Catholic families. My family's Jewish. A good part of my family was wiped out. I have my parents behind me here.
It was a hard upbringing, it was a lot of anxiety in the house. They came with a lot of trauma having been displaced and gone to different countries, including France and Italy and Uruguay and finally got safe passage to the United States. So that's the backdrop. So I was not a very happy camper as a kid. I look at a picture of me at age four and I look pretty depressed, pretty sad. And then I look at a picture of me at age five and I'm elated. And the difference was music. So music found me at age five. I went to a classroom assembly at Lomond Elementary School, and it was grades K through six. And we were all sitting on the floor in the auditorium. It was a school assembly, chirping like little birds excited because we didn't have to go to class. And the principal, Mr. Travis, came on the loud speaker and said, "And now kids, you're going to be exposed to something that probably you've never heard before and that could make a big impact on your lives." I have no idea why he had that insight into music.
But the purple plush curtains parted, and all of a sudden there was this tall African American man dressed in a dashiki, West African clothing, starting to solo on four conga drums. Solo, no other accompaniment. He was a good player. And he was playing guaguanco from Cuba, which was my first introduction to African-based music, to Afro Cuban music. And it totally possessed me. I was a shy kid, but I got up and I started dancing in front of the whole school. And what do you think the first reaction was from the kids?
Leah Roseman:
They would've laughed.
Gary Muszynski:
Exactly. They were laughing, they were pointing, they were making fun of me. And I had no self-consciousness at all. I was just swept away by the power of this incredible groove and the melodic nature of the rhythm because there were four different tones. And if that was not enough for our little sensitive nervous systems to absorb, for some reason they added a strobe on stage. So his actions were stopped down while... So this was an early psychedelic experience, the music, the lighting, just the vibe. And so I got up and started dancing. The kids started making fun of me, but I noticed something. I persevered. And within about one minute someone else got up and started to dance. And then all of a sudden it was one after another until almost everybody in the auditorium, meaning 500 people, including board members, teachers, parents, kids were all shaking their butts together.
So it was a really extraordinary experience. And a voice went off in my head that said, "I want to do this someday." And I had no idea what that meant, but it became the basis of my life's work, to explore rhythm from different cultures and to see how it can be used as a force for wellness, for unity, for collaboration, for positivity and cross-cultural collaboration. So I followed that thread and I think what was next for me is that there was a chair. People often say, "Well, what was your first instrument?" And I will say it was a chair in my brother's room. He had a really nice mahogany chair. And I noticed that when I played Santana albums, again, Afro Cuban music, I could reproduce those conga parts on the chair. So my first instrument, for a year, I played the chair. I was first chair in my own orchestra. And then my parents finally said, "I don't think this is a passing fancy. I think we need to buy him some drums." They tried to steer me into other less loud instruments.
And then I remember my father taking me on a field trip to Difiore's House of Music on Cleveland's west side. And it was my first experience of a music store. And I remember the smell. When you go into a music, especially as a kid, it's just like a palace. There's guitars and drums and people are generally happy and playing things. It's a pretty cool thing. So he said, "Well, what do you want?" And I don't know why, but I saw, this is almost like a mythic story. I saw these bongos that were almost up by the ceiling, and I remember them as very tall ceilings. And it was precariously perched on this huge pile. And they were white oak and made by Gon Bops. And I'm pretty sure Gon Bops, they may have gone out of business by now, but in the day they made incredible congas and bongos, handmade, pretty sure in California.
And so I said, "I want those." And then took them down. And of course they were the most expensive bongos. And to my dad's credit, I think they were $125 back in the day. That was a lot. So he said, "Okay." So I played the hell out of those things. And so I started learning how to play conga parts and bongo parts listening to Santana records. And then I got into Chick Corea and Miles Davis and odd meter times through Dave Brubeck. And then I discovered Brazil through Airto, probably through Miles Davis, through Chick Corea. And there was something about the Brazilian beat and samba that, I don't know, just I am trained to.
And so I bought some congas, I took some lessons. It was mostly self-taught, but I studied with a really good teacher who really knew Afro Cuban music. My technique got better. I had a band in high school called the Dukes of Earl. It was a 10 piece band, doo wop, early rock and roll, but in between sets we would do Miles Davis and Chick Corea tunes, rather unusual combination of music.
In 1989, I successfully wrote and was awarded a grant to study music in the Amazon. So I was living in St. Louis at the time, grew up in Cleveland, went to school in St. Louis, was the jazz director of my radio station. Got a chance to meet and interview Pat Metheny when his first quartet album came out. Got to meet and interview and hang out with the great Bill Evans a few months before he passed away. And I just recently met his last bass player, Marc Johnson, incredible Marc Johnson, who's married to Eliane Elias, incredible Brazilian jazz pianist and vocalist. And we were both reminiscing about that concert.
So I fell hard for Brazil. I went in August of 1989, I think August 9th sticks out in my mind. And I landed in Rio and I did this whole thing, which I think is really important when you're... You fall in love with another culture and then you actually get to go to the culture. And I said, "Okay, I'm just a student here. I'm a beginner. I want to really respect the culture. I want to study with really top people." I did an ego adjustment, which I think was pretty cool thing to do. But I was met by remarkable magic. And what happened is that my first night in Rio, I heard one of the greatest samba singers, Martinho da Vila. I don't know who to compare him to here, but it would be like maybe meeting Howling Wolf or Chuck Berry. And I befriended his daughter and his family and his daughter, Mart'nalia is now a very famous samba singer, roots samba singer, and performs all over the world. We're still close friends. And she invited me to come and study with their samba school.
So in Brazil, people prepare for Carnival all year around. It's more than just a cultural thing. It's a spiritual religious thing.
Leah Roseman:
And they're community centers as well, the Samba Schools?
Gary Muszynski:
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. They're social clubs, they're neighborhood clubs. They're oftentimes funded by drugs and gangs where someone will be their patron. And it's really mostly for the Black people of Brazil, the poor people from the favelas, from the slums. And this is their time to regain imaginal power in society. Carnival has traditionally been an inversion of the social order in many ways. In Roman times, the Saturnalia Festival, all the way up through, how it's been reclaimed in various African diaspora communities. So talk about an introduction to samba, and I met the king of samba and my first night in Brazil. But I've had continual experiences like that in Brazil. I feel more at home there than I do in the US.
Leah Roseman:
How was your Portuguese when you first went?
Gary Muszynski:
Oh, absolutely horrible. Those people were so patient and so kind to me, but look, they could tell that I had a true passion for their culture and that I had studied and gained a lot on my own, which they said, "Yeah, that's how you play tambourine. Where'd you learn that?" I learned from books and listening to records and they saw that I wanted to apply myself and I wanted to learn the language. And so they met me and accepted me and took me to really remarkable places. I just had a beautiful conversation with Brian Lavern Davis, who's the percussionist for Pink Martini. We're good buddies. And he also has studied Afro Cuban music and Brazilian music. And he also was fortunate enough to gain entrance into the top levels of samba. And so we traded some incredible stories a couple weeks ago about those experiences. And so I got in the ground floor and then I continued to study and I created a samba school in St. Louis.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I definitely want to hear about that. There's a couple things I wanted to ask you about, Gary. One of them was actually, I heard you tell this story, which really says a lot about your wonderful chutzpah of getting a ticket-
... tell this story, which really says a lot about your wonderful chutzpa of getting a ticket to go to the first Carnaval.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. You're reminding me of some great stories. And, yeah, I think this is important for people to know. If you have a dream, go for it. Don't let your own internal demons say, "I don't have money," or blah, blah, blah. So, here I was. I had been invited to return a few months later, after this first trip, by Martin's family and by the samba school Vila Isabel in Rio, one of the... Was it twelve or sixteen? Fourteen? Something. There's a certain number of Class A professional samba schools. Kind of like the major and the minor leagues, right?
They said, "A fantasia will be waiting for you," which means the uniform, right? I had it. They measured me. They said, "This will be ready for you. You have to come back." Well, I didn't really have the money. I was working for the Missouri Arts Council at that time in St. Louis, and I was teaching part-time. I created One World Music as a 501(c)(3). It was just starting to get funding. And so, I thought, "What the hell? I will write an airline and tell them that they should give me a round trip ticket. That I have the chance to perform in Brazilian Carnaval, this gringo from North America." And in return, I was starting to bring a program called Synergy Through Samba into corporate America.
And I collected a lot of instruments. I worked out a deal with the Remo drum company. I actually got to meet and hang out with Remo Belli several times. We got to be friends. And you could see how much good fortune and grace I had. Just all these things happened, really. But there's a saying that the gods help those who help themselves. And Goethe has a beautiful quote about boldness has magic to it. That when you take action that, oftentimes, the mystery will meet you. And that's what happened. I looked up who the vice president of marketing was, and I wrote him a letter. I don't remember if I typed it out. I think this was before... Well, it wasn't before computers. Who knows?
But at any rate, I wrote the guy a letter, thinking nothing's going to happen. Well, a week later, I got a call from that person's admin, saying, "Mr. So-and-so was fascinated by your offer and would like to speak to you about it." And so, I called in one day and I said, "This is Gary Muszynski. I'd like to talk to Mister..." I think his name was Ladd. I don't remember his name. And the secretary said, "Can I tell him who you're with?" And my cat at the time was on my desk, and I said, "Tell him I'm with my cat. Who are you with?"
Well, she hung up the phone. Called back, gave her a little bit of a better answer apparently, and spoke to the guy. And he said, "Yeah, we like your offer, but instead of teaching our executives how to play samba, what if you put together a band and played for one of our promotional conferences?" And so, that's what I did. I traveled to Chicago, I hired a few Chicago musicians, some from Brazil, and we played at their booth. And sure enough, they sent me a round trip ticket to go to Rio and I went to Carnaval. And what a life-changing experience that was.
Leah Roseman:
The costumes are something. I was looking up images from the... What did it feel like when you put that on?
Gary Muszynski:
I didn't really like my costume. First of all, you have to realize that you're talking about three-hundred people to one samba school.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Gary Muszynski:
I'm sorry. Thousands. Three-hundred just in the percussion section.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Wow.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. So, the percussion section, the bateria, is generally wearing one type of costume. The dancers are wearing different costumes. But it's basically like a moving opera. You have ninety minutes to complete your passage. This is in Rio. Not in Bahia or Olinda. Those are different Carnaval experiences. But in Rio, you have ninety minutes, and it's timed, and you're disqualified if you're over that. And they're judging it based on ten or twelve different criteria. And the different costumes tell part of a story.
So, there's a song called an enredo, which is like a themed samba. It's a story. And it might be about the state of the Amazon. Or it might be on the 200th anniversary of slavery. Or it might be on the infiltration of big oil in Brazil. Whatever. It's oftentimes a political theme. Not always, but oftentimes. And then, the different sections are maybe relating to one line or one lyric, so they're bringing that alive. So, the year that I was parading with the samba school, there was a line about the bandeirantes. Not exactly soldiers, but something like that, close to the border near the Amazon in the northeast of Brazil. And so, we were dressed like bandeirantes, and we had funny little hats and we were carrying fake rifles.
Leah Roseman:
Oh wow.
Gary Muszynski:
So you can imagine that when you're arriving to set up for Brazilian Carnaval in Rio, you're mostly either walking, or you're taking buses, or, if you're wealthy enough, you're taking a taxi. But a lot of people are going through the metro, so there are people from all these different samba schools crowded together on the metro. So, you've got feathers in your face, and we're holding a bundle of rifles, and you emerge from the main metro area in Rio where the judging takes place, the parading. You emerge out of the ground and you see thousands of people in amazing costumes. And the music, at least the year I was there, that was playing, what would you imagine would be playing over the loud speaker to kind of welcome people?
Leah Roseman:
No idea.
Gary Muszynski:
Strauss waltzes. Right? So, it's very otherworldly. And it can be dangerous. There were a couple times when it felt like I was going to get crushed by the crowd. But I went to... I guess I just did one Brazilian Carnaval in Rio. One in Bahia. I was supposed to do another one in Olinda, Recife, north of the state of Bahia, for a different kind of music, which is maracatu: a mixture of Afro and Indian.
But when I was in Salvador, Bahia in 1994, I believe, I got an offer. The head of Ole Doom, the Great African Block, another parading troop but more based on Afro-Brazilian music and Bahian music. Different than Rio samba. He invited me to parade with Olodum in 1994. And I was the only white man in a sea of three-hundred men in the percussion section, so it was a huge honor.
Neguinho do Samba, who met Paul Simon, and of course Paul Simon brought Olodum into his album, Rhythm of the Saints, and went on tour with Paul Simon. Kind of put them on the map. Interestingly enough, maybe I look a tiny bit like Paul Simon, but when I was in Brazil, a lot of people thought I was Paul Simon. I said, "You know, I would love to have his budget, but I'm sorry. I'm not Paul Simon."
But I was the official beer-holder that year for... There is an afro-bloco in Salvador, Bahia. Again, the Rio samba schools are organized in samba schools. In Bahia, they're called the afro-blocos. And they're also very large contingent of percussion and dancers and these things called trío eléctricos, which are huge flatbed trucks that move slowly through the street with thousands of people singing and dancing behind them; and on top, they have blurring loud speakers.
And because I was there with a dear friend of mine who has since passed, Bob Fleming, he was a professional photographer, we got word that you could score international press passes at the governor's office if you arrive before 5:00 PM on certain day. And these press passes and badges, I don't know if I still have mine, but they allow you to go anywhere you want in Carnaval, including up into the trío eléctricos, which are moving through the street.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Gary Muszynski:
So, it provides an incredible three-story up view of Carnaval. And Bob was there with his professional gear. Nikon. I was there with my little Kodak camera. Disposable. But they treated me like a famous professional photographer. And so, I cozied up to the front of the trío eléctrico. And this was for Filhos de Gandhy, which means "the sons and daughters of Gandhi." So, they basically have adopted non-violence and other aspects of Gandhi's life and philosophy as their patron saint. So, all of these people are dressed in turbans, and they're playing Afoxé rhythms, a type of Afro-Brazilian rhythm that you hear in Bahia a lot.
They're singing. They're playing these large agogôs. This is partially what they're known for is these large agogôs and atabaques. We might call them conga drums, but in Brazil they're called atabaques, and there are three sizes. They're also used for Candomblé drumming for the synchronistic expression of worship of African Orixás, or deities. So, you find this in Cuba. You find this in New Orleans through voodoo. You find this in Brazil.
So, it's a fascinating experience. And Gandhi Jr, he really looks like Mahatma Gandhi, where he's bald. He looks like he could be from India, although Gandhi was from South Africa. And he wanted me to hold his beer, so I was the official beer-holder. And every once in a while, he would say, "Cadê minha cerveja?" Which means, "Where's my beer?" And I'd hand it to him and he would bless me with the beer, and then hand me back the beer to hold; so, it was a rather entertaining cultural experience. And so, that was my time in Bahia.
Leah Roseman:
So, could you actually show us some of the typical samba rhythms? Do you have any instruments there that would be possible to-
Gary Muszynski:
Let's see. What can I use for samba? Sure. Yeah, let me grab a couple things.
Leah Roseman:
Sure. Thanks.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah, so there's a lot of different kinds of samba, but there are certain common elements to samba, and there are certain instruments used for samba. There's a very low, deep drum called the surdo, a cylindrical-shaped drum. A samba is really a mixture of a military march from Portugal, so Western measured 1/2. It's in 2/4. But unlike a march, like a Sousa march, a samba is inverted, in that the strong beat occurs on the second beat, not the first. A march is about marshaling people, sending them to war, or showing off military strength. A samba floats, because the-
Leah Roseman:
Wanted to ask you about some of the micro grooves. Those sort of unique... That it's not quite a straight... That the subdivisions aren't exactly-
Gary Muszynski:
That's true. That's very true. And that's what makes it swing. And that's what makes it also hard to really understand the Brazilian groove. Because if you look at the way it's written and you play it as a straight 16th note, it loses its flavor, its swing. So, for example, the agogô. So, in African music, the bell is very important. The bell kind of sets... It's the clave, if you will, which means "key" in Spanish and Portuguese. And so, samba, there could be different bell parts. And again, there's samba mixed with reggae in Bahia, samba-reggae, which is a different feel. But there are certain similarities. So, two tones. And so, an example could be... But unlike the African bell or the Latin Bell, the beauty of the Brazilian double bell is you can click these two parts together so you can get...
Leah Roseman:
Cool.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
For those listeners who aren't watching the video, if we could just describe the way the bells are attached. They're sort of fused together, and it's sort of flexible.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah, it's because they're all part of the same piece of metal. And there's just a high bell and a low bell, basically.
Leah Roseman:
Yep. Thank you.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. So, that's one instrument. So, these other types of rhythms and bell parts. So, there are lots of different bell parts, depending on the rhythm. But the underlying groove for samba is... Again, Westerners tend to think of this in four because some of the patterns last four beats. But in Brazil, they really think of this as a two-beat rhythm. So, this is a great drum. It's called a surdo. And again, this is very much from African music that there are three different surdos. There's like the mother drum, the father drum, and in some ways the baby drum. So, you find this in African music, and it's also replicated in samba. This is actually the highest pitch, it's the baby drum, and it does the most soloing. But the basic samba rhythm is...
Leah Roseman:
That's great. Thank you.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. And the syncopations with the left hand are what make it swing. So, in a bateria in Rio with three-hundred percussionists, you might have fifty surdos.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Gary Muszynski:
That's the heartbeat. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Before we leave this whole samba parade topic, which is fascinating: So, you mentioned each school has ninety minutes and there might be fifteen of the Class A schools going past, so the judges are judging for an entire day practically.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. Yeah, well, Carnaval pretty much lasts a whole week. And I told you I was supposed to go to Recife, to Olinda, to hear the maracatu. Different rhythm. Different types of instruments. Yes, they have an agogô, but it's a different type. And yes, they have three low drums, but they're different than the surdo. But I got this amazing offer I couldn't turn down to parade with Olodum in Bahia, so I went to Olinda, Recife afterwards, and it was like a war zone. It was like a bomb had been dropped. Because these people had been up and partying non-stop for a week, so after Carnaval, nothing was happening. It was quiet. You didn't really see people. They were all catching up on their sleep, or they had colds or flus. So, yeah, it goes on for at least a week, and in some ways, the month preceding, the rehearsals intensify.
Leah Roseman:
Wow. And then, you started the samba school in the Midwest. One of the first samba schools in the States, from what I understand.
Gary Muszynski:
Right. Well, in the country actually.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. Yeah, I got funding from an arts agency and I had a troupe of about ten people. We were called the Sambistas. We did an album together called Rhythm Fest. It wasn't just samba, it was a percussion ensemble, so some of it was informed by Afro-Brazilian music. Some of it was inspired by rumba and Afro-Cuban music. Some of it was just percussion mixed with jazz. But I had the ensemble for eight years and we had quite a following. So, my life at the time was being a visiting artist in schools, teaching percussion, and then doing workshops for the general public, for adults, as well as for older adults in their seventies, eighties, and nineties in shopping centers, learning samba, and doing parades up and down the escalators.
Leah Roseman:
Wow, that's fantastic.
Gary Muszynski:
These people were so joyous and so full of life, and people were like... We're not used to seeing older adults happy, vibrant, creating; and this was the Midwest and people weren't quite sure what box to put them in. But we used hand out egg shakers and we'd have other people that would abandon their shopping and kind of go off with us.
Leah Roseman:
That's great. By the way, when I said "the States," that's because I'm Canadian so we refer to your country as "the States." Sometimes, I forget it's a Canadianism.
Gary Muszynski:
Right, right.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
The other way.
Gary Muszynski:
Right, right. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So I do want to talk about the handpan. And do you have one close by? I know you must have a few tuned differently
Gary Muszynski:
I do, I do. Yeah. I'm happy to wax on a little bit about the handpan.
Leah Roseman:
Because you were one of the... Sort of an early adopter of what is now a really, really popular instrument.
Gary Muszynski:
Yes. I discovered the handpan probably in 2003. They first came out in 2001. They were made by two artisans outside of Bern, Switzerland. So I never met Felix and Sabina directly, but I was in touch with them. I had some close friends who would go to the "House of Hang" as it was called in the countryside of Bern. And they were pioneers. They had studied how to make steel drums for about 20 to 30 years preceding the invention of the hang, H-A-N-G. And basically it was their idea to combine the sound of Trinidadian and Tobago steel pans.
Through these tonal centers along with the sound of an Indonesian gong.
And the sound of an udu drum on the underside.
So this side... You hear this instrument in South India called the ghatam, which is like an udo drum in Nigeria. It's referred to as an udu drum, it used to be used for carrying water or liquids. It's a ceramic pot. And you can purchase it. I have an udu drum, I can play it later.
But what an incredible idea to bring these three different sounds together to create a new acoustic hybrid instrument.
So I discovered this instrument in a medieval castle in Croatia in 2003. I had arrived for an arts and business conference because the other thing I do through my company, Orchestrating Excellence, is I bring music making processes into organizations for innovation, leadership development, team development and company milestones. Keynotes around the art of listening and looking at music as a powerful metaphor for collaboration and creativity.
So I was there for an arts and business conference and when I walked into the entrance of this medieval castle from the 13th century, I heard three different handpans playing and I thought I had gone to heaven or something. It was just so incredible. And so I approached one of the members, he's become a really close friend, Jason Sampson. Jason, if you listen to this program, we should get you on here to be interviewed. But he's a great percussionist, composer, great handpan player and has become a really dear friend. He lives in Den Haag, the Netherlands. Yeah.
So yeah, him and Mark Van Roon and one other person were playing handpan and it was like, "Holy crap. Beam me up." So the next summer I went to study vocal improvisation with Bobby McFerrin at the Omega Institute. And I look and outside the dining hall there are, like, 25 handpans in the lawn. Different modes, different tunings. And at that time they had a North American distributor for the hang. "Hang", by the way, means "hand" or "side of the mountain" in Bernese dialect of Swiss German.
And I said, "Oh my god, I would like a family of three." It was really influenced by what I heard in Croatia and I wanted to replicate that. So I got three of them. I think each one cost me 500 bucks. Those original ones are now worth eight grand and more because they're not made anymore and they're collector's items. So who knew there would be a hang bubble? Any rate, so I purchased three and I started falling in love with the handpan. Now it's called handpan or pantam, two appropriate words for this instrument. I like handpan, that's what I call it.
Sometimes people say, "Oh, you play a hang, or hang." Well, not really. That was a very specific instrument made by PanArt from Switzerland. And in about 2013 they decided to not make it anymore. They were pissed at other people making them and they didn't have a strong international copyright on their IP and it was impossible to get them. And there was growing worldwide demand. So of course other people... It took people a while to figure out how to make them well. But there are probably about 20 really good makers around the world now.
And this one was made by Josh Rivera in North Carolina, Veritas Sound. It's a really nice one. He customized this to my specifications 'cause I originally had an eight note hang with this scale, D harmonic minor. And I've written some songs with it that I wanted to replicate again.
There are different kinds of metal used to make these. The one I like the best right now is called nitrided steel. It's heated at a very high level. It's a heavier and harder metal, so it stays in tune longer. And I like the overtones.
This particular one is my first stainless steel handpan. It's a softer metal. It has a longer sustain.
Who needs reverb when you have a handpan like this, right? It's a very long decay and it's a little bit lighter. So different makers are making them differently. There are different helmholtz frequencies these are tuned to. Oftentimes you can hear the octave in the fifth most prominently.
So then the third type of steel is called ember steel. And I'm not yet exactly sure what's different about what they're calling ember or amber steel compared to these two other types of steel. And there's so much variance now in the handpan world of type of material, the circumference, the thickness, whether people are hand making the pans from a form, form fitting and then hand hammering. There are more production-oriented versions now at lower cost points.
So one question I get from people is, "Well, how much does this instrument cost? I heard it's very expensive." I'd say 1,200 is about the entry level for a decent handpan to about 2,500. There are ones that are 2,500 to 8,000. So if you wanted 16, 17, 20 notes, if you wanted full chromaticism, if you wanted additional notes on the bottom. These are extremely hard and time consuming things. So that's where the price starts to go up.
And so basically when people say, "Well I really want a handpan. What maker should I buy one from? What scale? How much should I spend? How do I know if it's a good one?" So these are complex questions, but generally I do offer a consulting service for 90 minutes, basically, just to get... It could be in person if they're in the Bay Area, otherwise I do it on Zoom. But it's basic orientation on what you should look for, different scales, different manufacturing techniques. I mean, here I have three or four different kinds. So I can show people, if you like the feeling, the sound of stainless steel, this is what it's like. If you want nitrided, this is what it's like. This is what a C sharp minor pentatonic sounds like. This is what a D minor, D harmonic minor sounds like. This is what a B minor, this is what an E major...
So there are a lot of decisions to be made, but it's better just to dive in and get started. But I tell people, when you hear a particular scale, if it moves you emotionally, if there's something like there's something about this D harmonic minor that's very mysterious. It's like dark roast coffee.
And I recently played this for one of the greatest living big band arrangers in the world, Nailor Proveta, from Brazil. I just hung out with him for a week in the Redwoods playing incredible music. And I played this for him and he said, "Wow, this takes me to the Middle East." So different scales, they're... Each scale has its own journey it'll take you on. So that's the beautiful thing about handpans and handpan improvisations is their musical journeys. And that's true with any scales but modes and pentatonic scales...
I got an interesting discussion with a very talented western classical trained musician on the virtues of chromaticism versus the handpan. And of course you can get chromatic handpans now, but I said, "Well, most of the world's folk music is pentatonic. So why do you think that chromaticism should be higher and mightier?" I think it depends on the emotional truth conveyed and the resonance with a particular scale rather than how many notes you can play. And I said, "If you look at blue or modal jazz, I don't think John Coltrane and Miles Davis felt too constrained by the constraints imposed because it opened other doors to being able to solo." And Stephen Nachmanovitch, who wrote two beautiful books... And actually, didn't you-
Leah Roseman:
Yes, I did. He was featured on this podcast, which is-
Gary Muszynski:
Okay, great. So he has a seminal book called, "The Art of Improvisation in Music and Life". And also his latest one is called "As Is", I believe?
Leah Roseman:
"The Art of Is" is his second most recent book. His first one is called "Free Play".
Gary Muszynski:
Oh, "Free Play".
Leah Roseman:
And it's actually because of Stephen, I actually bought a handpan because he talked about how it's good to play an instrument that you're a beginner on for improvisation. And as a violinist, I was really attracted to the idea of a percussion instrument that was also melodic. And having a limitation of notes is actually helpful to me as an improviser.
Gary Muszynski:
Exactly. My point exactly. People ask me, "Is it hard to play?" And my response is, "Yes and no." It takes some skill. You have to spend some time with it. You have to fall in love with it. And you can't worry about hitting a wrong note. In a way, you can't hit a wrong note because all the notes are... They like one another.
By the way, the best definition I've heard of "harmony" is by Paul McCartney who says... An interviewer asked him, "Well, how do you think of harmony?" And he said, "I find notes that like other notes." There's something beautifully poetic about that.
So yeah, those constraints open up worlds. So my approach to teaching handpan is really teaching music and improvisation and compositional forms and understanding ostinato, understanding pattern and variation, understanding tension and release, understanding different time signatures and how to create tension and release and basically, storytelling through music. What's the message? What's the story? What's the journey? What's the beginning point? How do you enter? Where do you take people? That's really how I approach teaching handpan. And the technique is important, but only in service to these other elements, I think.
Leah Roseman:
The handpan is definitely associated with meditation. And I know you've done some of that with meditators, people leading meditations. And Jack Kornfield's name came up with regard to yourself. And I was like, "Oh, that guy." And I think the first guided meditations I did back in probably like 1990 or something was Jack Kornfield, little cassette tapes I bought. It's just one of those things. He was really a leader.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. Well Spirit Rock is about 10 minutes or 15 minutes from where I live. I've gotten to know Jack over the last 25 years and I've opened for him many times or closed for him at Spirit Rock for hundreds of people.
And it was very interesting, I had some friends in from out of town yesterday and I have a puppy who can be very spirited, especially when we have guests and she was very worked up and then I played the handpan and all of a sudden she just went into this calm thing, almost sleeping. And my friend said, "Wow, that was amazing." I said, "Yeah, it's a very powerful instrument." In terms of... And Jack Kornfield, his beautiful quote for me is that handpan is perfect for meditation.
Now again, you can play in a very busy way. And this is the thing, I love jazz. I love jazz. And sometimes people that are into fusion or bebop, there's a density of notes and I tend to like more spacious music, even if it's fast. There's a way of creating space and the handpan's perfect for that, but I can play...
So it depends on what one's intention is. Usually in a jazz piece, your intention is not necessarily to induce trance. If you listen to certain players, I mean, certainly John Coltrane, but he always had a spiritual element to his music. If you listen to Abdullah Ibrahim from South Africa, I've had the honor of hearing him live two or three times. I've always been struck by... There's some quality that is so deep. It's not about the virtuosity, it's really about emotional truth or being touched on a very profound level and it's an energetic quality. So that's really what I try and do with my music.
And that kind of brings us to my current album, Roots and Wings. I had subtitled Medicine Music and as influences, I cite Yo-Yo Ma's, Silk Road Project and Bobby McFerrin's, Medicine Man album. I've known Bobby for 30 years and I've had the honor to jam with him a few times. And I'm also hoping that he'll show up at our Freight & Salvage show on November 17th because I'm bringing in one of his very favorite singers from India, Varijashree Venugopal, who has collaborated with Bobby. And so there's a chance Bobby might show up since he lives locally now.
But yeah, I've always been drawn by some of Bobby's music in terms of chant and holding something for a long time. So you find this in African music, you find it in Moroccan music, you find it in, to some extent, Indian classical music. Because the intention in some ways is to settle the nervous system. In people like Terry Riley or Philip Glass in "the minimalist school", you often have pieces that are long-form ostinatos with other pieces that change slowly over time. And it's a very different way of tuning to music than what we're used to in terms of chord changes. Again, it's a different-
Again, it's a different effect on the nervous system. In Ragan music, whether it's North Indian, Hindustani, classical music, or South Indian, Carnatic music, you also oftentimes have a drone. So those elements have informed what I love and what I try and bring into my music. The handpan is central because I don't play keyboard so I use it as a tonal center. I use it as a way of creating melodies that allow me to begin to create harmony and interlocking patterns with other melodic harmonic instruments.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I really think it's a wonderful album. I enjoy it very much.
Gary Muszynski:
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. I mean, it won the Top Global Music award last year with more than 10,000 entries so I was ecstatic. And then, they voted it one of the top 10 CDs or album that's released. It's now in the Grammy's for consideration. If there are any recording Academy voters out there, please vote for Roots & Wings. We'll see what happens. But yeah. So I've tried to bring these different musical traditions into my compositions, into my music, so that there's a... I just played it for an incredible musical shaman, Tito La Rosa, who lives in Cusco, Peru. I just saw him last week. He was visiting and he's actually on the CD.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. He invited you to Peru a few years ago, right? To do some teaching?
Gary Muszynski:
Right. Yeah. I went to Peru to perform with him in Lima and then I went to Cusco. He wasn't living in Cusco at the time. I had to see Machu Picchu. What an incredible culture. I mean, the way they've developed the flute there, all of the different Indian flutes, and he's a master at that. So in between the longer pieces of music on the CD, you have these incredible... I call them moments of sonic sorbet. They're intended to clear the oral palate, if you will. So rather than dance a lot of different instruments, just this purity of tone. So we have Tito on the quena flute from Peru. Beautiful solo he recorded here in Marin County when he was here. And one of the great oud players in the world, Yair Dalal. I think it'd be great for you to interview Yair and Tito. And two incredible musicians from China.
Leah Roseman:
Yes. I love that track. It's beautiful.
Gary Muszynski:
Oh, it is beautiful.
Leah Roseman:
It's kind of bluesy, actually. Sorry.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. Well it's great that you heard that. Yeah. It's so soulful. He's playing the Chinese guquin, which is a seventh string lap zither, actually. He has it on a table. It's a 4,000 year old instrument. Not only is this guy master of it, Master Wong or Master Wang, but he builds these things. He's got a workshop compound. This guy is like a renaissance man. I'm sure there's another term for it in China. But he does landscaping, he does interior design. He builds these instruments. These instruments start at $50,000. He showed me the process of takes two or three months to make one instrument, and I got to hang out with him for a day and meet his disciple, who also plays the Chinese xiao, the flute. And so yeah. That beautiful piece called Waking Before Dawn. I study qigong. And it's a gorgeous piece in terms of... To understand the concept of space and timing and the glissando slides. Micro tonality is such an incredible thing, whether you hear it in Arabic music or Indian music, you hear it in American Blues slide guitar.
One of the people I wanted to get on the album and it didn't work out, but I'm hoping to collaborate within the future is... Oh my God. Well, I reached out to Jerry Douglas, but I didn't get a response from him. But I also reached out to Roosevelt Collier, who's in a group called Bokanté, which is started by Michael League from Snarky Puppy.
And when this guy goes into his slide, laptop playing, he can make it sound like Aretha singing gospel. I mean, so on the album you'll hear a lot... And that's why I love cello too. It's a fretless instrument. Hearing someone attuned to not just... Not tempered scale, but to have the whole continuum of sound available. And that's the extraordinary thing about Varijashree Venugopal, one of the great rising singers in the world. Why Bobby McFerrin loves her. Victor Wooten, I just got a beautiful quote from Victor about Vadi, Anat Cohen, John McLaughlin. All these people are head over heels in love with what she can do as an artist.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. She's great.
Gary Muszynski:
So I'm over the moon thrilled that she's coming to my show on November 17th. She's going to be our international guest artist. And my vision for Roots & Wings in One World Music is to do an annual showcase that brings the best of Bay Area musicians or California based musicians. They're incredible people I know in LA with the best global music folks in the world. And my interest in music making is to draw from classical music, Western and Eastern, folklore traditions and jazz. Jazz sensibility, and sometimes the sounds of nature. So yeah. That's kind of my vision for the music side of my work. And then there's the empowering people to find their inner musician. And I call that workshop and that process, finding your musical mojo. And that's a tip of the hat to David Darling.
Leah Roseman:
Now Gary, I'm curious, when we had the strict lockdowns in the earlier part of the pandemic, how did that affect your work? Because you're going in live and working with people's instruments.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. It's a great question. That was hard. Very hard. So it pretty much killed that work. And I have been doing... I do executive and team coaching online for organizations. It's not music based in that we're not playing music together, but we're listening to music, to deepen listening skills. And there are five skills that I teach executives and managers and teams on listening to at three levels self, other and system and listening at a systemic level. We train as musicians to do that. We listen to the room, we listen to the music that's emerging as an ensemble, and we ask, "How can I further that story rather than what's the next flashy thing I can play to show how cool I am?" So it's a different way of listening. And then there's synchronizing around a shared beat or in organizational terms around a shared purpose. I call that synchronization. And then there's orchestration, which is an act of directive leadership. There's collaboration, which is more about facilitating and coaching, which is a very different way of leading than being an orchestrator.
And then lastly, improvisation. How do you shift in the moment? How do you read a room? How do you attune to more subtle voices? And it's really about emergence rather than planning and predictability. And this is something that Stephen has spent a lot of time giving voice to in his writing.
Leah Roseman:
It's cool that you're able to pivot and be able to do that stuff online without... That's good. Because you thought so deeply for so long about those issues that you're able to do that.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. It's not as fun. It's not as fun as showing up with anywhere from 15 to several thousand drums. I have them warehoused.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Gary Muszynski:
And orchestrating something that goes from cacophony to cohesion in two to four hours with a very high level of somatic learning about issues that are directly resonant and relevant to the workplace.
Leah Roseman:
So we... Actually, we were just talking about community music in the sense of your corporate life and that playing music is actually better than just listening to be active is so important. And you had mentioned the school drumming program you had done, it started in 1987. I think, before you started the Samba school. I was... Yeah. If you wanted to speak to that or we could go somewhere else with this.
Gary Muszynski:
I could speak to that a little bit. In 1987 when I started One World Music, I got a grant to start bringing music and drumming into mostly inner city schools, but also to some white affluent suburban schools in St. Louis. And my idea was to bring those two groups together for joint performances. So I teach them the same kinds of things. And a lot of it was derived from my teacher at the time. So here is white Jewish guy with a Polish last name in St. Louis teaching African based music to these kids. And when I brought Babatunde in at the end of the year, I got more grant money and I raised money and was responsible for an $18,000 budget. And it was my concert.
And I actually produced six, seven different events in seven days. He went into five schools. We presented him at a combined performance for 300 kids at the St. Louis Art Museum. So they were bused in from all over the city. An assembly like the way I started. Right?
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Gary Muszynski:
And then I presented him at the Sheldon Concert Hall. I sold 735 tickets, sold out. To our performance and then one hour up in the ballroom with kind of a world beat concert. I worked the guy and his troop. I broke even. And that was a great success. That was when I was 28. I took that off. And that was a year before I went to Brazil. So I'd go into these schools and do these artist residency programs and I figured out that's a hard way to make a living. And I was moving instruments to different schools. And that's when I started to branch out work with adults in the general public and to organizations.
Leah Roseman:
Something that's been coming up in this series more and more is just how people are actually making a living. Because it's not always what people outside the music world think. And also what is a musician? If you're a professional musician, is it that you're earning most of your living from music? Certainly not. I don't think. It's just... And there's a question of semantics, how we use our words. And Stephen Nachmanovitch earned a living, also use computer... Being a computer programmer. And just a variety of guests I've had where really musicians at the top of their game do different jobs.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. It's true for many of us. Really. You got to have multiple revenue streams.
Leah Roseman:
And backup plans.
Gary Muszynski:
And backup plans and hopefully live in inexpensive place. The San Francisco Bay area is not one of those. But lot of people are leaving to find less expensive places to play. I do believe that music and the arts will continue to be an important voice in these huge transitions we're going through. But they're still kind of marginalized in American life unless you are Sting or unless there's a very small range of musicians that just really have been able to be commercially successful. But even great musician, jazz musicians have to tour a lot. They don't necessarily... I think of Joe Levono or Charles Lloyd. I mean, those guys are just road warriors. So let me play a piece. Let me improvise a piece.
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful.
Gary Muszynski:
Yeah. And for your listeners... Yeah. I'd say, maybe I don't need to say this... But what I try and do... What I sometimes try and do in my improvisations is explore particular motif or theme or rhythm and kind of expand there. I mean, sometimes when I orient students about how to listen to music, I can say, "Well, think about it in painting." You can listen to... You can look at representational reality, then you can move to impressionism. And then you can move to expressionism, which is more about color and feeling. And then you can look at Rothko. If your mindset's just about representational reality, then you can look at Rothko and dismiss him as, what's this guy trying to do? I could do that. And same thing with John Coltrane. If you're trying to listen for Duke Ellington and you're listening to later Coltrane, it might still not be your thing, and that's cool. But as soon as you listen for color and texture, it opens up new worlds. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Well said.
Gary Muszynski:
So I'll just play this scale.
Leah Roseman:
Thank you. That was so beautiful.
Gary Muszynski:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
It was wonderful. Getting this chance to hear your stories today was really inspiring and fascinating. So thank you.
Gary Muszynski:
Thank you. What struck you?
Leah Roseman:
I learned quite a lot about the samba culture that I had no idea. And I don't know. It's always interesting because I do a lot of research before I speak to someone. So you have a certain impression of someone in their life and their career, but it's not the same as actually getting a chance to sit down and talk with them.
Gary Muszynski:
Well, thank you for doing this podcast and for all of the incredible research you do. The questions you ask are so intelligent and insightful. And it's a breath of fresh air.
Leah Roseman:
Thank you.
My life is so enriched by getting to know these incredibly inspiring creative guests and their perspectives on their lives and music. Please follow this podcast and sign up for my podcast newsletter to get sneak peeks for upcoming guests and find out about newly published transcripts.
