Mena McCarthy Oral History: Andrew Salamanca

MHC Interview Transcription

 MM: Okay, so I’m here with Andrew Salamanca and I guess the first thing I would ask is just for some background information.

AS: About me in general or?

MM: I guess about you in general, just to put a little perspective on it.

AS: Okay, well right now I’m twenty-four years old; I grew up in Queens for most of my life. The last two and a half years I was living in Taiwan. Lets see, what am I doing? I guess a little more about me. Yeah well I’m really quite interested in arts and culture and languages and these types of things. These are important to me. So that was a super brief bio, I guess.

 MM: Well I guess the first, I mean second, question would be: Where did you get started with music? I noticed with drums and some other ones from class [note: I met Andrew at my belly dance class, where he was a guest drummer] Like what was the first instrument you played, or your first musical experience?

AS: Well I started playing music at the age of ten, I played saxophone in the school band and I loved it. So I did that for five years, and played in the school band in high school as well and then I kind of abandoned the orchestra. I started to teach myself instruments, like the Ukulele, Guitar, Bass Guitar, and I also taught myself the drums, but it was really after learning the Ukulele that I started to get interested in world music and composing music as well. So after that I spent, you know, a couple of years, I think about five years, composing my own music. I wouldn’t actually play other people’s songs until recently. It was only until I think this year that I started playing other people’s songs, and I only choose works of Master composers or master performers. Other then that, in total I play eleven instruments, and let me see if I can remember them all, there’s Ukulele, Bass Guitar, Drums, Dumbek, Mridanga (from India), Piano, Melodica, Steelpan (Steel drums), the Pipa, and the Gu Zheng.

MM: That’s pretty impressive! Is there a specific reason why you didn’t play other people’s works, or just because you wanted to see your own creative influences first, or?

AS: Well, I don’t know. At the time I just really didn’t get the same enjoyment or satisfaction from playing, you know, a simple pop song, or a cover song that’s been done. Really what I’m focusing on is trying to find new sounds and new ways to create sound. So to play another person’s song really wasn’t satisfying. It was really boring to me. So I was only, I strictly, for five or six years, just composed my own music, and really in the long-term plan, it was to develop a style of my own, which I believe is most important. So that’s pretty much why. After college, I spent two and a half years in Taiwan, for two reasons: One was to learn Mandarin, and after I learned Mandarin, the next step was to learn, to study Chinese classical music. So I learned two Chinese classical instruments, one called Pipa. This is an instrument related to the oud. It’s a, the Pipa is a four-stringed lute from China, and it has about two thousand years of history in China. I think most notably it was played by women, throughout the history it’s mostly played by women, but it was most favored during the Tong Dynasty, in about the fifth century. So that instrument I find really fascinating. It’s one of the most challenging and complex instruments out of the Chinese traditional instruments. The other one that I studied a little bit on is called the Gu Zheng, and Gu Zheng literally means like “Old Zither.” So the Zither is a harp-like instrument with about twenty-five strings, so this one is also very interesting to me too, and actually these two instruments are primarily played by women in China.

 MM: That’s interesting!

AS: Yeah, yeah, so for me it was very important to pick up on any musical influences in my travels. I also picked up a little bit on the Taiwan indigenous music, which I didn’t get to study enough of, but next time I go I probably will. Now let’s see what else. I can say right now my focus is travelling to different parts of the world and experiencing their culture mainly through music, and also through language, but to study different musics, and to combine them into a new theory or philosophy of music.

 MM: Did you kind of have a musical background in college too? Did you major in something music oriented?

AS: It’s kind of funny, as like a person who is really into world music I remember I took a music theory class once, which I did well in, and I took a world music class that I got a B in which is kind of funny, considering that’s what I do now. But other then that, I was really, I studied Psychology in college, and I was expecting that I would go into music therapy in Graduate school, and right now I’m kind of doing a type of sound healing through mantras, or through kirtan. But yeah, I guess my perspective has changed. My focus has changed a little bit.

MM:  What was either your first performance, or your favorite performance that you’ve done?

AS:  Yeah, that is a good question. Actually I haven’t performed that much. Mainly in Taiwan, I mean I do performances in Taiwan, but I was mainly there to study, so people would have to invite me to perform and then I would say yes. But I wasn’t really looking to perform. I would the one favorite performance there was just a concert, a concert with Ukulele and Tabla, also Pipa, and also Dumbek, and it was a two-hour performance of just us, just my friend and I. It was at a well-known venue in Taipei, probably the best known in Taipei, for interesting music. So that was probably my favorite performance, mainly because it was very personal, it was a very personal feeling. We were the only band for the night, and it was a very intimate type of setting, and I like that.

MM: What would you say the musical scene was like in Taiwan and Taipei?

AS: Very limited, I would say, and you really have to kind of understand the culture perspective first. And I guess it really comes down to the work ethic because in places like China and Japan and Taiwan, it’s very normal for people to work six days a week, and it’s really even normal for people to work every day. And it’s not like in the United States where we have a holiday like every week or so, like “Oh, surprise holiday, you’re off!” No actually in the Chinese calendar there are really like four main holidays, with Chinese New Year being the longest, that’s like a Christmas holiday. So people are literally always working, like so it’s normal to have a sixty-hour workweek, perfectly average. So with the focus being on work, there’s very little emphasis or appreciation of arts. So you’ll see this in advertisements, in architecture, in the music, you’ll see it everywhere. With that in mind, in Taipei, which is the biggest, which is the capital city, and kind of had the biggest scene, it was very limited actually. You could probably go around and find all the major venues within a short bit of time. And there was also a smaller group of people that would be kind of interested in more avant-garde music for something that’s actually interesting rather then just a singy-song, like a pop song on the radio. I found it, it was frustrating actually because I was working with a drummer and we’re actually thinking of getting a little group together, but it was literally impossible to find the proper musicians for it. And it wasn’t surprising. We were looking for, like, a different type of musician, someone who can improvise and create music without sheet music. But actually because also the way that education is there, there are a lot of technically good musicians, like their technique are amazing, but if you ask them to, if you ask them to improvise or “feel” the music, they don’t know what to do. So it’s very different from here. I think in the end, I mean it is actually growing, and there are small pockets of cultural, of maybe cultural centers that are really growing, but other then that, it is very limited I think.

MM: What was your experience here, like with music and performing and studying music here in New York City?

AS: I’ve been back either seven or eight months, and actually before that, before I went to Taiwan I didn’t perform. I was strictly studying, strictly practicing. Right now my focus is teaching so a lot of the time I’ll do performances to promote my class. Or mainly just for the experience of playing this type of music. Here I’m starting to get into different scenes, I mean here it’s really I think a city where you can make things happen, whatever it is. That’s something I like about it, like whatever style you have, someone’s going to like it, and there’s already a place for that. So far I’ve kind of done strange performances, not really like a showcase for myself, but usually I’ll choose, I’ll get together with people who are doing certain events, like artists or theater and actors, and they’ll say “Hey, I’m doing this event and we need some music, can you do it” and I say yes. In the past, I’ve done like music for meditation classes, I’ll still play the guitar and drums or the Dumbek for a kirtan ceremonies, which is a bhakti yoga tradition, and these are ceremonies of sacred chants as devotional music. So, I’ve done that. Let’s see, other then that, I’m still kind of branching out. I was invited to do a kind of a theater production that’s coming up, what else? Right now I’m working on basically taking rag-time for piano and arranging it for ukulele to play for the Museum of Interesting things, which is a travelling museum event.

 MM: I’ve actually never heard of that before.

AS: Actually, I think it may be new, more recent? I’m not sure. I just found out about it maybe like two months ago. So here there is definitely more to explore, there’s always a place for you to go play. So that’s what I like. And really can make a lot of things happen, and there are people supporting it, and there are people who are interested. So that’s why I like the music scene here.

[I then asked Andrew where he plans to go on his next trip, and he’s planning on going to Peru to study the Curanderos, or “healers,” that use sacred songs and local herbs and plants as a way of healing both physical and “spiritual” maladies.]

 MM: Well I think that’s all I have to ask; any closing comments about your musical experience in general and tying it all back to New York and its musical culture?

AS: Yeah, something that’s very interesting about this. I listen to a lot of old style music, so like ragtime and jazz and swing, and I was acutally very surprised upon coming back that there’s quite a large swing scene and very authentic, like old time jazz bands here, which =, you know, I kind of didn’t believe existed anymore. I thought it was kind of a dead genre, but I was really happy to find that when I came back that there were these old styles of music, and that you can hear a song that was composed a hundred years ago being played live for you. That’s also something that’s cool too, you’re not really going to find that in many other places. In that way, I think New York is a very unique city.

MM: Okay, well thank you for your time and input Andrew!

AS: Sure, alright, and thanks for asking me!

To listen to some of Andrew’s music, visit soundcloud.com/faodre