In the Sept 2024 issue of AKR Magazine, I featured global percussionist and handpan artist, Gary Muszynski, a local to the San Francisco Bay Area. Gary Muszynski, an award-winning global percussionist, handpan artist, composer, producer, and organizational educator who brings to light the neuroscience of music, and the powerful role music plays in healing the body and mind seems to be evolving into a phenemon. He composes and produces original music across genres and countries. His first album, Roots, and Wings: Medicine Music, won the Gold Medal at the 2021 Global Music Awards. And I have no doubt that his newest album, The Journey Home: Songs of Longing and Belonging, which was released in August of 2024, will garner even greater accolades. Gary Muszynski has met and/or collaborated with some of the greatest musical luminaries throughout the world. Early on his music journey he had the priviledge of spending time and with Brazilian samba legend, Martinho da Villa, and then Olodum in Salvador, Bahia. More recently, he has collaborated and played with the great Bobby McFerrin, Omar Sosa, Mads Tolling, Jaques Morelenbaum, Teco Cardoso and vocal sensation, Varijashree Venugopal, to mention just a few.Below is the transcript of Gary Muszynski's audio interview. Because we could not meet in person in time for the publication of the interview, I gave Gary my questions and he responded via an audio recording. So, his responses are beautifully extemporized and authentic. And he's quite an elaborative and engaging speaker. Enjoy!
An Interview with Gary Muszynski, Global Percussionist and Handpan Artist
"Rhythm can change culture, and that's the power of the groove"
Gary Muszynski: Hello Raine, what beautifully crafted questions. I just think these are great and I'll try and be succinct, but they open up a lot for me. So let me do this one by one.
Raine Jordan: Tell me when and how you became involved in music?
Gary: At age five I attended a music assembly at an elementary school in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I grew up in Shaker Heights. I was a really shy kid, and it was a musical assembly. I was five years old and in kindergarten, and I got to hear an African American percussionist play. I don't know his name, but he starts soloing on four conga drums. I’m pretty sure he was playing guaguanco. So, it was my first introduction to Afro Cuban music. And even though I was shy, I kind of was impelled to get up and I started to dance in front of the whole school. And this provoked finger pointing, and the other kids were kind of ridiculing me, but I didn't feel any shame or embarrassment. I was transported to another world, a very happy place. Within a few minutes, the first brave follower stood up and joined me. I can't remember if it was a boy or a girl. Then all of a sudden, that made an aberrant behavior into a normalized one. More and more kids got up and started to dance and within a few minutes the whole auditorium of five hundred people, including board members, teachers, principals, schoolteachers, kids, were up shaking their butts. Lo and behold, it was a bifurcation point. It was what we call critical mass. It was how change takes hold of the culture. My insight was not very well articulated or formed then, but the insight was that rhythm can change culture, and that's the power of the groove. And, as I studied neuroscience, the brain, I found out more about the entrainment via the mirror neurons, and how basically whether you want to call it emotional contagion or you know, an energetic cohesive state that gets formed, that was my first taste of it. And I had this voice in my head that said, I want to do this someday, and to me that became my life's work to this day; to investigate the impact of music, rhythm, melody. and harmony for well-being, for wellness, and for culture change. So, it led me to learning about how percussion and rhythm can be used as a tool to create more harmonious collectives and spaces. I've brought my work into organizations, conferences organizational retreats, leadership development, team development, as well as onto the stage. I think that's really what became my interest in music. So, based on that, I got turned onto Brubeck, Miles Davis, Santana, Return to Forever, you know in like in 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade, something like that. I remember hearing Kind of Blue when I was in 6th grade and falling asleep. I'm pretty sure it was either Flamenco Sketches or maybe it was Freddie Freeloader, but I was in this half-awake, half-dream state. Well, that just went directly into my subconscious and my soul. I was hooked. Then I started being involved with the band and choirs. In 8th grade, I formed a ten piece acappella, well it was a ten piece band. We did doo-wop and early rock'n'roll. We were called, “The Dukes of Earl”. I kept that band together for four years. I promoted it, and the five instrumentalists, the five singers, five-part harmony. Our piano player, since then, went on to The Tonight Show band. He had perfect pitch, and he was an extraordinary vocal arranger. So, we were playing and in-between our doo-wop sets, all the musicians played Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock (laughing). It was quite an incredible early music education. Then another seminal event was really getting into Airto [ Moreirat] through Chick Corea, Return to Forever, and Weather Report and Santana. And then starting to play bongos and congas. My first instrument was my brother’s mahogany chair, for a year. I learned all the conga parts to Santana, Santana conga parts, on that chair. Finally, my dad said “I think we need to get him some drums. This is not a passing fancy”. So, he got me my first pair of bongos, paid $110.00 for them, way back then. They were amazing. And so, I played along with records and started to develop my own methodology. I wasn't formally taught. After that, I started taking formal Conga drum lessons. I really got badly bit by Afro Cuban music, samba, and Brazilian music. In 1989 I got a grant to study music in the Amazon, in the state of Para’ at a Music Conservatory. At that time, I met Martinho Da Vila. He is kind of like the Stevie Wonder of samba, and in Brazil he's a living legend. I got to meet his daughter Martnália. They musically adopted me, and I started studying with her samba school in Rio carnival in 1990. Then, I went to Salvador and studied with Oladom. I was the only white person parading with them in 1996. It was a complete honor, amazing, life changing experience. So, I know this is a very long answer to your question, but I hope it's relevant.
Raine: What was it that attracted you to the Hand Pan and can you tell us a little about the instrument?
Gary: Well, you know, this has been a lifelong learning journey. I discovered the hand pan in 2004. it was invented in Switzerland in 2001 by two people Felix and Sabina. They have been making steel pans for about 10 years. They were really into the Trinidadian steel pan. Then they got the inspiration to create a new acoustic hybrid instrument that combined the sound of the Indonesian nipple gong with the tone fields of the steel pan. And on the bottom basically the sound of an udu drum, a deep earthy sound. The udu drum is from Nigeria. It's a clay ceramic pot with two holes in it that create a really incredible watery, deep sound. It's also in South India and it's called the ghatam. In the music of
Shakti [fusion band] you can hear Vickku, one of the great masters, I forgot his exact name, play the ghatam, similar to a tabla. So, this new acoustic instrument was born when I was studying folk and improvisation with Bobby McFerrin at the Omega Institute. In 2004, I met the North American distributor and fell in love with them. I ordered three of them. But before that I should mention, I think it was in 2003, I went to Slovenia for an arts and business conference. It was actually held in a 13th century medieval castle associated with the Knight Percival. When I walked in, we were greeted in the courtyard by the sound of three people playing hand pans. It was like, “oh my God beam me up”, so I was hooked. And there's something about melodic percussion that is very special. Because I don't play keyboard or a chordal instrument, guitar or anything like that, what melodic percussion allows me to do is to create rhythmic motifs, but also melodic lines. Then this allows me to then create compositions that involve both rhythm, harmony and melody. And then to collaborate with masterful musicians from around the world to create sonic landscapes to transport people. And that's one of my favorite things to do. That's really become the basis of what I call my global medicine music. And I would say that my influences have been Bobby McFerrin for sure, and his Medicine Man album and also his Circle Songs album. I've gotten a chance to perform with Bobby a few times and have gotten
to know him over the years and the people he collaborates with, foremost, Joey Blake and David Worm are featured prominently in my recordings and in some of my workshops. So, I'm so indebted to him in terms of his inspiration, includingvoice as an instrument in my music. It has been really important to me. And in a way, you could say that's also part of the legacy of Brazil and what Milton Nascimento brought us, and Flora Purim, and people like that. I just got to hear Aubrey Johnson last night in Healdsburg. She and I had a conversation about her uncle, Lyle Mays, and also Pat Metheny and how much they were really inspired by Milton Nascimento and Naná Vasconcelos. And so, one of the greatest compliments was paid to me by Brian Walker, who's an incredible sound engineer at The Freight and Salvage. He said, “you know your music reminds me a lot of Lyle May’s music. I said, “holy crap man, that is like wow, okay”. He said, “yeah it's just transporting”. So, after my conversation with Aubrey last night, I had kind of a deeper “aha” moment around, yeah, I think that's what has attracted me to Brazilian music. It's got everything. It's got incredible rhythmic complexity, harmonics, sublime harmonics. It's just this sense of harmony. It's a little bit different than what we think of as jazz harmony. And then the melody lines, oh my God. I mean if you listen to Milton Nascimento and Jobim and Ivan Lins and Djavan. I can go on and on. Tonight, I'm going to go hear Monica Salmaso, one of the most incredible vocalists in the world. And, her husband Teco Cardoso, master of all the saxophones, and flutes is on the new album. You know I'm just like beside myself that Teco said yes. If you listen to the track, Roots and Ragga, you'll get to hear one of the best flute players in the world.
Raine: Can you describe your current creative process?
Gary: I try and create motifs. My saying when I'm teaching other students about my compositional process is it starts with a groove, or it all starts with a seed. If you think of, like a mantra, it's repeated, it's a groove, and it becomes a seed for a much longer process once you unpack it. So, the seed can be a series of notes like a scale or a mode. Most of the hand pans that I play and compose with are in modes. Some have diatonic scales, some are pentatonic, and some are close to being fully chromatic, if there are enough notes. I'm not that sophisticated in terms of written music. Although, I have had people help me turn in stuff I've composed into charts. It's very useful when you're playing with different musicians in different parts of the world or country, and you have a set composition, or an A part, a melody and then a variation, to have it written down. It is very useful. So, I try and start with something that sounds beautiful. I remember Paul McCartney’s quote and he just attributed it to Mozart. But when someone asked him, “what is harmony?”, He said, “I like to find notes that like each other”. (Laughing) I think there's something very poetically beautiful about that. And that's it. It's as simple as that. I like a certain sequence that moves me, or surprises me, or provokes me. But it takes me to a different place, you know. That's the magic of music and sound. The last thing I'll say about my creative process, is how I invite people. My last album, Roots and Wings: Medicine Music won the top Global Music Award in 2021. It made it through the first round of the Grammys without doing any lobbying. I got praised from Zakir Hussain, Omar Sosa and Brian Davis who's the percussionist for Pink Martini. At any rate, I think it's an extraordinary album, and it took eight years to produce. But when I'm thinking of inviting someone to collaborate, I need to be really moved by their music. I need to understand their music. I need to kind of immerse myself in their musical world so when I invite them, I can say, the reason I'm reaching out to you and want you to be on my new album is that these aspects of your work really appeal to me, and they also align with who I am as a musician. So, if they're local, I'd like to invite them over for a jam and some food because I want to get to know them as a person. Do I want to hang out with this person? You know, do I want to do a show with them, do I want to be in the studio with them for hours or days? I need to feel a personal kinship. In fact, I have turned down working with a few people who are exceptionally talented because I just don't really like them, or I find them difficult to work with, or I find them pretentious, arrogant (chuckles). So, I won't work with anyone like that even if they're extraordinarily talented. But probably 98% of the people I invite, including some of the most amazing musicians in the world, say yes. A lot of people have asked me how I pull that off. I said, “well you need a clear vision of who you are as an artist, and you need to be able to articulate it. You need to be able to provide examples of your work that are well recorded with top players, and you need to know how to ask and negotiate around timing and price. And you gotta get them excited about what you're going after. What's your vision? What's the story? What's the narrative you're telling with this new project?” I’m good at that. I've worked at it but I'm very good at doing that. So, people naturally want to be part of it. The only people I have not successfully ensnared yet (laughing) are Bill Frisell, Andre’ 3000, Bella Fleck and John Patitucci, but that's fine. They at least know who I am. And Bella and John have listened to my albums. Well, I don't know if they have or not, but they have received them. But when someone says no, or doesn't answer, I just figure either they're not the right person, or it's not the right timing. But it doesn't mean that I won't ask them again. So, hopefully that's a little bit relevant for other artists too.
Raine: So far, what are the most memorable performances of your career, and why?
Gary: Great question, wow. Well, the two last performances at The Freight were mind blowing. First of all, you know what an honor it is to perform at The Freight. And it was during COVID. It was in what I call the half- breath between Delta an Omicron. We just had a very slight pause when people are were saying, okay, if I go to a show, it probably won't kill me. But we still managed to draw about 200 people. The Freight was kind of blown away because most of their shows had been cancelling. I've been doing this a long time, but on that level, I was kind of a new local artist. I'm good about promoting shows because I'm just so passionate about the music and the experience I want people to have. So yeah, that first one was a milestone in my life. And, winning the top Global Music Award in the world out of more than 10,000 entries, getting to record two pieces with Omar Sosa and Mark Summer. And having them say to me, “you're a really good musician man”. And I’d go, “well thank you and why do you say that?” Then really being able to hear them say, “Well, you listen. You follow. You lead. It's a beautiful conversation. And you know how to create a lot of space and texture.” Those were some seminal moments. The second show at The Freight, which was November 17, 2023, was when I brought Varijashree Venugopal in from India. Talk about a big a big move. I think she is one of the top musicians in the world right now. At age 4 she had memorized 400 ragas. Both her mother and father are major classical music people in South India. Her father is a master guru flute player. I forgot if her mother's a singer. I can't remember now. But Varijashree is a phenomenon. She's kind of like a Jacob Collier. In fact, Jacob found out about her and she's on DJesse Volume 4. She's also collaborated with Victor Wooten and Hamilton De Holanda, also a child prodigy, a 10 string mandolinist from Brazil, one of the best. At any rate, Michael League from Snarky Puppy just produced her first album. I discovered her probably about four years ago, just on Facebook. Someone posted her incredible YouTube video. She was improvising John Coltrane’s solo on Giant Steps, Carnatic skat style. And it went viral. I checked it out and I thought, oh my God, who is this woman? So, I reached out to her via messenger. And I said, “Hey, Vari, I'm finishing up a new album (this was for the Roots and Wings album. I've been working on it for eight years). Here's the video of the album. Here's who else is on it. Would you consider recording a solo?” About an hour later, I got a ping from India saying, “I’d be honored”. That's just how she is. She's one of the most humble people, especially given her enormous talent. She's also one of the sweetest and funniest people to hang with. A quick story about meeting Vari. I actually wrote a little blog about “How Gary met Vari”. So, on that piece which I called Roots and Raga.I had Joey Blake doing vocal udu and other kinds of base singing. David Worm on vocals and other harmony parts and lead parts that he created, and pedal steel EBow guitar, which is kind of like pedal steel guitar, and all these other textural things. It's a total Trance piece. So, I sent it to Vari and I said, “would you do like a two-minute solo?” A week later I got 2 tracks, both of them were drop dead gorgeous. It was kind of hard to decide which one. So, she made it on the album, and I forgot why I went there with the story. But, bringing her to The Freight and performing live with her was kind of the next iteration of that. It was actually on the same day that she was part of the Latin Grammy winning album that Hamilton de Holanda produced. So, we ended up doing that song. It was just very, very dreamlike, all of these incredible synchronicities and musical grace.
Raine: What music or musicians do you listen to most and how do you listen to music?
Gary: Okay, another amazing question. Oh gosh, I listen to everything. But mostly I listen to
classical a lot in the car. I'm really interested in training my ear to think differently. In terms of like symphonic works or concertos of different movements. I do like long form pieces with different soloists or different shifts in mood. I listen to a ton of Brazilian music, popular Brazilian music, Brazilian jazz, folkloric music from Brazil. I listen to Cuban music. I absolutely love jazz, American jazz. You know, American songbook stuff. I mean I never get tired of listening to Miles and Monk and Mingus and Ellington, all of the greats. I'm looking at my album collection right now, it's Ahmad Jamal, John Coltrane, Johnny Hartman, Joe Pass Virtuoso, Joni Mitchell, Dexter Gordon, Miles. Blood, Sweat and Tears, Beethoven's Early Quartets, Duke Ellington and Caetano Veloso. Those are just some of the albums at the top of different piles that I could see.
Raine: Can you share an upcoming project, album, tour, or collaboration that you’re particularly excited about?
Gary: Well as of tomorrow my new album The Journey Home: Songs of Longing and Belonging will be available worldwide on all platforms. I'm really very excited about this new batch of 10 songs and all the new collaborations on it. So, in terms of other collaborations, after hearing Aubrey Johnson sing, we're talking about a possible duet or co-creating a piece together. I just love how she thinks melodically, harmonically and compositionally. And so, I'm really curious about that. I like the idea of recording a hand pan piece with a string trio or string quartet. Mads Tolling and I just started to talk about that. He's on the new album. He's on 2 pieces. So, I think that's as far as I've gotten right now in terms of thinking about that. I'm thinking about maybe writing a book about the healing powers of music but there's so much already out there. I don't know. And I am already in contact with Daniel Levitin whose new book comes out in a week, called “I Heard There was a Secret Chord”, Music is Medicine. He was actually supposed to be part of our last gig here in Marin, but he got called away to a family emergency. We weren't able to perform together but hopefully in the future we will. So, I'm always thinking about what I want to express that I haven't expressed, and what instruments have I not explored yet. For example, on the previous album, Roots and Wings, I had three remarkable cellists, Mark Summer, Eugene Friesen from Berkeley, who was also part of Paul Winter's group, and Jami Sieber who is an extraordinary electric looping cellist. And four flute players, one from China, Peru, the U.S. and I'm forgetting someone, oh and India. I'm always thinking. On the new album, there is a cello on one piece, the incredible Jaques Morelenbaum who played with Jobim, and is Caetano Veloso’s cellist. We've become friends, so he added a beautiful solo to the Roots
and Raga extended piece. I have violin on two tracks or three tracks, I can't remember I think it's three tracks, Mads Tolling, and also Michele Walther, wonderful violinist from Switzerland is on the new album. So those were new developments. Also, bass clarinet and regular clarinet and muted trombone. So, I'm always thinking compositionally about what textures, what voices, what frequencies do I want to bring in that will help me really flush out. Also pedal steel guitar Ed Littlefield Jr. is on two songs. I've never really thought about pedal steel guitar but after listening to a duet with incredible jazz fado singer Sofia Ribeiro from Portugal, I thought, wow I wonder what pedal steel guitar would sound like. And sure enough, I heard Ed at The Freight and invited him into the studio. And it's just pure magic what he does. That's part of what keeps me going, Raine. There is just such an incredible world out there of sounds and sonority and texture and voicings. It's endlessly fascinating.
Raine: Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience or maybe share a bit about your recording process for your new album?
Gary: Well, I will say this about my recording process. I think it'll be interesting for people to
know that 95% of the newest album is completely improvised in the studio, which means that I have to select my collaborators very carefully. They're all phenomenal improvisers, like Kai Eckhardt, an incredible bass player, lives in Berkeley, toured and played with John McLaughlin for 10 years. What an honor and joy to collaborate with Kai. When you're listening to what he's doing rhythmically, melodically, harmonically with other people in real time, it's really something. It's kind of like, I just recently got into a groove of listening to Hejira, one of Joni Mitchell's later albums. Perhaps it might be the first one or the second one that Jaco [Pastorius] is on. When you listen to the way that Jaco is working off Joni's voice, rhythmically in terms of the amount of space, tonality, and also harmonics or harmony, it reminds me a lot of Kai’s playing on these two tunes. One is called, On the Road,
it's cut #2, and the other one is called Saudade in B Minor, really just extraordinary. So, improvised in the studio, some multi tracking, some all real time, and then we got some tracks from Jaques and Teco from Brazil. Samir [Langus] who lives in Brooklyn who's from Mali. I'm sorry he's from Morocco. He recorded it in Brooklyn. The piece is called Mali meets Morocco, and then in parentheses, (Berkeley meets Brooklyn). And it includes Mamadou Sidibe, who is based in Berkeley, and plays the 14 string Malian ngoni, which is a smaller version of the West African kora, which I believe is a 22 or 23 string harp with a gord at the bottom. Samir created the foundational groove. I heard him on Facebook. I said Samir I'm looking for kind of a medium tempo, medium slow Blues desert groove. He said cool so that's what he did. Then I brought Mamadu into the studio, since he's local. I played it for him, and he said, “oh yeah man this is nice”. After I did that and created the piece, I didn't know this, but apparently there were slaves that moved from Mali that were brought to Morocco and brought their music. So, there's a close connection between Mali and Morocco in terms of the groove, and the music, and the phrasing, that I didn't know about. I just kind of got this wild hair right. And I know how to produce. I know how to invite people. So, if I get an idea, I can implement it quickly, and at a high level. I had to learn how to do that during COVID. So,they [Mamadu and Samir] created this beautiful dialogue. Then I thought, well this is cool, but it needs a more provocative solo over the top. So, I reached out to Mads. We had collaborated on a couple of projects already. I said Mads, “are you available to come in the studio in two days and record over the top of something that is pretty extraordinary?” He came in, and wow. It's a very powerful piece and it's totally a fusion world hybrid experience especially having Mads in the mix. Then I added some low end percussion on the bottom. So that's probably enough of me blabbing. I think that's it. Hopefully you've got plenty of info. Raine, No one has done a feature story about me. I'm trying to get the word out. Not just because I want to puff my feathers out. I think there's a deeper story here around ross-cultural collaboration, and the original music that's being produced at a very high level, the amount of accolades I've received from some of the top musicians in the world, and it'd be nice to get the story out. I'm trying to build more awareness for what I'm doing, and hopefully more grants and donors and public support, so I can sustain this. It's my gift to the world. Thanks so much for this opportunity. I look forward to meeting you in person sometime. Be well.
The audio version of this interview and my feature article on Gary Muszynski entitled "A Higher Love", is available in the magazine (starting on pg. 92).
click here AKR Magazine — AUDIOKEY REVIEWS
