MySpace?

“Strange but true”… registei-me no MySpace como músico.
Inicialmente pensei em registar-me apenas para poder deixar comentários e aceder a fotografias e vídeos nos projectos que me dizem respeito porque, sinceramente, tudo aquilo me parece muito mal feito e de uma pobreza franciscana. O código parece estar todo martelado e é claramente optimizado para IE/Win (ou seja, trabalho preguiçoso), muitas das páginas têm um aspecto péssimo, algumas são mesmo ilegíveis, mas a verdade é que há ali um sentimento de comunidade que, pelo que percebi, se fundamenta também nessas falhas. O universo de utilizadores MySpace onde acabo por me inserir, de certa forma, adopta o formato assumidamente “un-cool”, “off”…

A comunhão de ferramentas e procedimentos básicos de partilha de mensagens e ficheiros (áudio, fotos e vídeo), num formato que está “entregue aos bichos” acaba por ter um certo “je ne sais quoi”. Claro que as “redes de amigos” tipo Hi5 e sucedâneos não me dizem nada, mas a ideia de uma outra rede (de “amigos” porque é o termo deles) baseada no interesse pelo trabalho artístico, que me permite partilhar ideias e música com gente muito próxima como o Gustavo, a malta dos Soopa ou a F.R.I.C.S., gente próxima como o Nuno Rebelo, a Ana Deus ou o Miguel Cabral (Nevermet Ensemble) e gente mais distante, mas que me agrada ter por perto, como o Erik Friedlander.

“Long story, short”, acabei mesmo por usar o meu espaço para mais do que o simples acesso ao espaço dos outros e lá fui escrevendo umas coisas, deixando exemplos de música e fazendo aquilo que me parece que as outras pessoas fazem.

Se tiverem curiosidade dêem uma olhadela: www.myspace.com/joaopsmartins .

E, para quem não quiser passar por lá, fica aqui uma coisa que lá pus e que tinha espaço aqui (está em inglês, desculpem qualquer coisinha):

I believe that acknowledging one’s influences is an exercise of self-study, so I’m taking this seriously.

I tried listing all the musicians that had a big impact in my work. It became impossible to manage, so I moved that to the Blog space.
My music comes from various sources and from all of my continuing learning experiences. I acknowledge the influences (both positive and negative) of most of my teachers— in music classes, but also in science, art, philosophy,…— both in schools and on stage— thank you all, my fellow musicians.

I’ve decide to highlight four names, chosen through four different criteria, that combined, shape me as a musician, at this moment.

The first is John Coltrane, whose discography (the whole amazing thing in its huge diversity) was one of the main reasons I didn’t quit studying and playing music when I was younger.
If I was forced to pick one (and just one) musician to listen to until the end of my days, he would be second only to absolute silence.

The second is Ornette Coleman, whose records “Shape of Jazz to Come” and “Free Jazz”, opened much needed doors into my musical world, and made me aware, at a young age, that “jazz” was not something already crystalized, closed, neatly packaged and ready to be taught and engraved in History books. If a 29-year-old saxophone player could announce a “new shape” in 1959, nothing should keep us from doing the same on a regular basis.
But his influences on me are deeper, I believe, since some of my composition work and the way I deal with melody and harmony, have a lot to do with his work, even if in an intuitive way.

The third, and last saxophone player, is John Zorn, for all reasons and more. He showed me what to do with the saxophone if I ran out of notes, for example.
Through his amazing body of work I realized that I was not bound to an instrument, or a genre, or a specific role as a composer, player or improviser, since those borders are illusions that we build around us to keep us safe from ourselves. I lost some of my prejudices listening to his music, and I was encouraged to experiment new levels of interaction with my fellow musicians.
Meeting him and playing “Cobra” with him as conductor was an amazing musical, learning and sharing experience.

The fourth, non-saxophone player, is John Cage, whose influence is at such a different level that it is hard to explain. The idea of “puposeless play” from a man that collaborated with so many different creators in so many different fields is absolutely stunning. His work, his ability to defy the definition of music itself, incorporating the concept of chance in composition, using noise and extending the experiments of musique concrète and other electronic and electro-acoustic experiments, are of paramount importance to what we consider to be music today.
And his collaborations with other artists and the development of the performance/installation with sonic qualities in relation to architecture are all very important to me.