tashmane
tashmane
co-creator of “Mondial Toboggan” composer, keyboardist, teacher…
musical background
• When and why did you start?
I started when I was about seven years old, thanks to my brother who is ten years older than me and a musician too (flautist and composer), and of course thanks to my parents too.
• Where did you study? Any diplomas?
I studied cello and music theory at the national music schools of Montreuil-sous-Bois (Paris’ east suburb) and Bergerac (Dordogne, close to Bordeaux), and musicology at the University and Conservatory of Bordeaux.
I have some diplomas but it doesn’t matter…
• What was your favorite musician, style, instrument etc?
My first favorite musician was my brother, of course. My first “guru” was my cello teacher René Benedetti, soloist at the Opéra de Paris. He was a very impressive and charismatic man. I have a classical formation, so I used to listen to a lot of classical music, but I listened to some disco and synth things on my parents’ tapes and vinyls too.
• Albums you loved (child / teenage / now)
As a toddler, my first musical emotions and souvenirs were the music I heard from my brother’s bedroom, for example the LP and eponymic track Laisse béton of the french singer Renaud, who composed songs with funny and slang lyrics that stimulated my young imagination. I can remember the Jimi Hendrix’s guitar solo on The Wind cries Mary that gave me a real flashback when I heard it again as a teenager ten years later, and probably Michael Jackson, The Beatles and a lot of pieces for the flute played by my brother. One of my favorite personal tapes was the 1986 soundtrack of the cartoon The Care Bears (Bisounours in french).
When I was a child and a young teenager, Love for sale by Boney M, the 1979 compilation Disco fever, the double compilation of ABBA (Gold/More gold), Jean-Michel Jarre’s Equinoxe and The Very best of Sting and The Police were my favorites, and also some soundtracks composed by Vladimir Cosma. We were in the 90’s but I lived in a 70’s music world and I was aware of the big gap between other children and me, so I had to listen to some eurodance and stuff like that… Of course, Bach (cello suites, Keyboard Concerto no.1, 1st mov.), Mozart (Piano Sonata k332, 1st mov., Concerto no.23, 2nd mov.), Beethoven (Septet op.20), Chopin (waltzes) and other classical geniuses were already in my heart.
I really discovered The Beatles when I was 15, because I thought, as a musician, that I needed to know them, and what a wonderful idea I had to ask my parents for some discs for my birthday (the “red” and “blue” compilations). I immediately fell in love with their music. Songs like Strawberry fields forever, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, A day in the life and I am the walrus changed my perception of music. I left the 70’s for the 60’s… My Mum gave me her vinyl of Sgt. Pepper’s lonely hearts club band, which is one of my favorites with Rubber soul, Revolver and Abbey Road.
And now, I love so many things that it is hard to make a list… Monteverdi’s madrigals, Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas, Jean-Jacques Perrey, François de Roubaix, Pink Floyd (Atom heart mother, Meddle), Herbie Hancock (Head Hunters, Secrets), Snarky Puppy, Surnatural Orchestra, Vulfpeck, Boards of Canada, Sébastien Tellier (Sexuality, L’Aventura), Stupeflip (The Hypnoflip invasion), Jacco Gardner (Hypnophobia), Tame Impala, Todd Terje, italo disco, afrobeat, britpop, alternative rock (Blur, Supergrass, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols), brazilian music, etc. follow me everywhere I go. What a mess, I know!
from idea to creation
• What is your Methodology? Creative process?
My process is a very basic and harmonic approach of composition. I search some chord sequences on my keyboard (piano or synth) and then the melody comes. I am very sensitive to harmony, this is the meaning of my music life. Sometimes I try to start with a constraint (chromatic movement, particular scales or dissonances, complexification of a very simple cadence, etc.).
• Do you have rituals?
No, not really. It depends on my mood.
• Gear used (can be paper & pen, daw etc but explain why you use it)
I used to write ideas on music paper but I became lazy, so I record demos directly on Cubase. Sometimes, ideas come when I’m in bed, just before I fall asleep, so I use my phone to record them while singing melodies or arpeggiated chords. It’s not very convenient, I have to really judge an idea for it to deserve to end up like this.
more about you.
• Instrument(s) (you play or would love to or in love with)
I don’t play cello anymore, now I play keyboards. My synthesizers are what they are but I like them (Roland XP-10, Casio CT-670, Microkorg XL, Arturia Keylab Essential 61). We use some other keyboards with my band (Yamaha V50, Casio CZ-3000, Roland EG-101, Arturia Minibrute and Microbrute, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer…).
I would love to play real harpsichord and organ!
• Collaborations with partners to create a disk (label / manager / agent / mixing engineer / designer / press plant etc…)
With my musicologist and musician mates from Bordeaux. They are all different but complementary and so interesting.
And the label Whales Records, founded by one of them, my dear Julien Marchal. It's a friendly affair, so comfortable and reassuring!
• Your vision of the « music industry »
“Music industry”, what an awful oxymoron that implies some form of inequality anyway. Music is an art, a beautiful science, an amazing way to express your emotions, your soul, your personality. It can’t be an industry, it can’t be a capitalist thing. Money is something to share, music too… “What would they have to do with an artist or a poet, those who believe they solve the problem of human happiness by the extension of some privileges, by the unlimited increase of industry and of selfish well-being?”. These are the words of the prodigious pianist and composer Franz Liszt in 1837, an incredible sentence that still sounds so true nowadays.
• Concerts
Not yet but stay tuned, one never knows!
• Pedagogical
I have been teaching music since 2008. “The most beautiful job in the world”, as we say in France. And don’t forget to be passionate if you want to share your passion correctly…
• Culture
Essential. Vital. Soul elevation needs culture. Access to culture must be free or inexpensive, as much as possible.
• Hobbies
Other than music and art? Hard to say… Tasting red wine and watching old cars, but watch out for alcoholism and pollution!
fresh news
The first album of mondial toboggan was an olympic opus, the next one should concern travels and transports.
future…
• Collaborations
Sébastien Tellier and L’Impératrice, for example. Paul McCartney in my wildest dreams…
• Other work?
I think it’s a secret…
• How do you imagine music in the future?
How to renew harmony? I don’t know but I will do my best. I think music will be more and more focused on the timbre and the mixture of different cultures, which is great too.
what to reply to ?a child who would like to do the same than you?
If you want to compose like I do (I consider myself as a composer more than an instrumentalist), don’t lie to yourself, don’t try to be someone else, use your memory and musical influences from the beginning of your life until now, put them in a blender and serve us a good (non-alcoholic) cocktail.
• What did you learn on your own life creating, learning, composing, playing… music.
I learned quite late (because of my shyness and lack of self-confidence) that my own musical sensibility that is reflected in my compositions can touch other people and please them. It’s a feeling that is also found in love, isn’t it?
tashmane with a radio player 🎄
