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| Interview with Klaus Schulze |  |
Q: You once were the "Master of the Berlin School", now it is said that
you're the "Godfather of Trance/Techno". Would there have been any
"house", "trance", "ambient" without KS?
KS: Since a quarter of a century I do what I am doing: Electronic music, my electronic
music. Compared to all of today's many stars-for-just-one-season, this is quite a long
time. Since a few years I do music, also with electronic instruments, but I don't do just
"Electronic Music" anymore.
Q: You started with very simple equipment, first by manipulating an old
organ, an electric guitar or a tape-recorder. Then you created sounds with
the first analogue synthesizers. On the last albums you use the sampling
technique a lot. Did you return to the first starting-point?
KS: I did not "return". I was and I am still looking for sounds that fit my imagination.
Of course I am bound to the available technique in each time. That the technical means
are different from 1971 to 1994, is normal. That outsiders are sometimes just interested
in those technical means, and not in my music, is understandable but also puzzles me.
Maybe it's much easier to talk about the hardware you can see and grasp? But, I
wonder: Who's interested in the brand of reeds that Charlie Parker used, or the microphone of Billie Holiday, or the kind of paper that Wagner used for his notations?
Q: Your music is built around rhythmical structures and sound patterns
more than of melodies. Is this due to the fact that you aren't a keyboard
player by origin?
KS: You are certainly right. I started as a drummer. I am still no keyboard player. In
comparision, say, to Oscar Peterson, I am an amateur. Because my craft is not playing
the keyboard, but finding and combining sounds, building and using the structure to
create emotions with sounds.
Q: What's the meaning of using singers frequently? Expressions of emotion
in a pure technological environment?
KS: I use singers sometimes, because I like it. As simple as that. The human voice is
the only natural instrument, and the most emotional instrument. I used a singer on
Blackdance in 1974, I used a singer in 1979/80 (Arthur Brown), and I used a
singer on my album Dreams (1986). What's so sensational about it?
Q: Although your music is far from the traditional classical idiom, you did
use classical elements in an innovative manner. What's the philosophy
behind it?
KS: I did re-works of some compositions by Brahms, Beethoven, Smetana, Schubert,
Grieg and von Weber, because it was fun to do. It brought me joy, satisfaction. As
simple as that. Doing music is also a handicraft. And doing a variety of music is more fun than doing always the same. This album had the title MIDI Klassik; the record company changed it into a more saleable title: Klaus Schulze Goes Classic. To me, it's still MIDI Klassik.
Q: During one year you did release at least 4 albums, after all the important new work on the Silver Edition set. Either you are a workaholic or a
super creative artist. Which one do you prefer, which is true?
KS: Music is my profession and my passion. I work every day, or, more correct: every
night. And as every self-employed tax payer, I work not just 35 or 40 hours a week, but
80 to 120 hours. And if I have the chance to release a lot of music, I'll take it.
Q: Totentag seems to be a crucial work in your career. Why did it take so
long to record it?
KS: The actual recording took not such a long time. The breaks between were so long.
Q: Totentag is about the life of Georg Trakl.
Why did you choose the "opera" to express your ideas?
KS: I can't really say, why. To create a ballet about Trakl would be stupid, because I'm
no choreographer, the same goes for a theater-play, a book, or a film about him. Of
course I chose music, because it's my metiér.
Q: Who is Georg Trakl?
KS: Georg Trakl is Austrian, was born in 1887, and died 1914 as an ambulance man in
World War I, because of a voluntary overdose of drugs. He is remembered because of
his expressionistic lyric. I love him because of these poems.
"Our music is now accepted"
My main audience is not dependent on any recent trends. But of course it's great
to see that also a new generation knows about my music. Something of what I did in the
last 25 years must have been stuck...
I did my music when "electronics", "synthesizer", "computers", "trance" and
"techno" were not existing, or fashionable, and I'm sure that I will still do it when any
recent vogue is gone.
It was Edgar and me, who fighted hard, who starved, who put our souls into
Electronic Music in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, etc.; it was
me with my money who established in 1979 the first label for young electronic musicians: Innovative Communication (and gave it completely away in 1983). It was me who
founded a school to learn synths, from 1978 to '79. It was me who did turn-on Kitaro
(1975) and many others to electronics. It was Edgar and me who made hundreds of concerts since 25 years, and who gave literally thousands of interviews, showing and
explaining the world about this crazy new music, the music of today and tomorrow...
Our music is now accepted by a new generation who does not have the prejudice
of their parents; these kids grew up with electronic music of all kinds. That these
people, listeners, artists, or journalists look for the beginnings of this music, is
normal. And what do they see? KRAFTWERK, TANGERINE DREAM, and me. We are indeed
the only few, who did very consequently our music, with "exotic" electronic instruments, against a lot of opposition and laughter, but with no compromise. We paved the
way, if I may say so.
Since many years I work mostly with computers. Certainly the technique did
change in the course of time, and certainly my music did change during the long years
from 1970 up to today. This is a most normal mutual relation: I change, the audience
change, the instruments change, the fashions change... That's normal life.
The sampling technic was a radical step. And if I think a while about it, it's
more radical than the step from analogue to digital sounds. Because, in the change from
analog to digital, just the sound quality was changed, was improved. Sampling is
completely different. It's a new way of creating a piece of structured noise, of music.
It's another step. The sounds are suddenly very easily available, and in addition there
is much more of it available. During the seventies, we had to create sounds by ourselves
by doing it the hard way, with heavy and expensive equipment.
During a concert I still like to play the Minimoog,
and the audience loves to hear
it. The sound of the Minimoog is like a sign, a recognition signal for my Electronic
Music, like the electric guitar is for Rock'n'Roll, the honking saxophones for R & B,
the Hawaii-guitar for Hula music...
Your expression "pure technological environment" puzzles me. It reminds me on
the same old prejudical or naïve questions from the seventies. Are the violin, the piano,
the organ, the saxophone no "technological" inventions to make music? Of course, they are.
The kids who enjoy Trance and Ambient don't ask those questions. They understand.
Of course, I love and revere the music of the said composers and many others,
no doubt about it. I'll maybe do a second MIDI Klassik album.
Many lovers of my music will not agree with the statement, that my music is
"far from the traditional classical idiom" - they will say the opposite.
Music in itself has no meaning, it can only create moods: joy, sadness, anger,
happiness, fear, and-so-on. If I want to say something with music about Georg Trakl,
I have to use words. Using words with music can lend to a handful of forms, and I
chose the opera.
