How much of creating music is practice?
Séb Pipe : It's like anything you do, for example cooking, sport or learning a language, there is no secret to improvement, just structured&n bsp;daily practice and self-analysis to focus on you weaknesses, learning from people in the past and people around you. In my case music is no different, practising, listening, experimenting, composing forms part of my daily life. There is never really a destination in life, just a perpetual journey of discovery. It’s the same with music. And just like an athlete has to maintain a state of physical fitness, a musician has do the same – both physically and mentally. My philosophy encompasses a desire for continual development, always keeping an open mind whilst striving to learn and better myself.
I think there’s sometimes a misconception that in jazz music, musicians just play ‘anything’ that they feel20– but I don’t buy that. That’s just like someone talking with random sounds – when you learnt to speak you initially used words, which developed to speech using phrases, grammar etc. but once you learn how to speak you don’t consciously think about all those aspects. It’s the same with improvisation you learn notes, how to phrase and eventually you can create coherent phrases and structure them – you hear all the high level jazz musicians playing spontaneously but using their own language that they’ve developed which becomes their style – Bird, Monk, Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, Steve Coleman to name just a few.
A lot of the world is 24/7 about money and expect the artist to suffer. Do you think the tables are turning ?
It’s always been hard for creative musicians now and in the past – especially if you’re trying to survive earning a living from it. I’ve spoken to musicians older than me who said that being a jazz musician is the only profession where the pay has remained the same or either gone down since they first started out! There’s no way any jazz musician would be playing if they were in it for the money. I play music because I have a need play music and express myself and develop myself through music, and I try to make it work financially, but yes it is tough. In fact I feel fortunate that I can do what I want to do in life, especially when I see the majority of people following careers and paths that they don’t really enjoy. Jazzz musicians are very fortunate to have support and funding from institutions like the Jazz Services and the Arts Council - without their help things would be even harder, if not impossible.
We’re fortunate too with the recent developments with the internet – in terms of getting music heard, sharing ideas, information, gigs and meeting musicians. It’s all there 24/7 and we’re in control. Most record sales are via the internet now or on gigs, so artists have more direct bene fit from CD sales.
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