Visitor's Corner

An Interview With A Rock Cellist

by Siobhan Solberg

 

Hendrix and Beethoven, to most people, are the two most different musicians that one could think of, but are they really? Both Beethoven and Hendrix were composers and musicians that pushed boundaries with their playing and composing as well as influencing a lot of other musicians that followed, just in two different worlds 200 years apart. Those two worlds come together as one under one greatly talented composer and musician, namely Aaron Minsky. Aaron Minsky has been fusing rock and classical music trying to make the cello a more popular instrument in the popular music world. By doing this he has accomplished some great changes in music, composing, and making other musicians aware of a new style of playing. Aaron Minsky has taught the cello, and others, to rock.

 

As a musician Aaron Minsky has accomplished a lot. He had established himself as a great rock guitarist and a songwriter early on and then took on the cello and became an acclaimed classical musician on the cello, playing in various orchestras and ensembles, as well as solo. Now he has combined his multiple talents by fusing all elements and types of music into one.

 

Aaron Minsky started taking guitar lessons at age 7 and by middle school played guitar in his first rock band "The Sound Smashers". In high school he joined "Spunk" at 14, his first professional band. Playing the party circuit in his neighborhood in Brooklyn he achieved local fame as a guitar player. Meanwhile he picked up the cello in middle school and joined the orchestra at age 11 without any formal cello lessons. By age 15 he started to experiment with new sounds on the cello and realized that if he really wanted to make the cello a standard in popular music he had to have some classical training first. Hence he gave up the guitar and shocked his friends by dedicating himself solely to the cello.

 

His venture had started and with less then two years of official cello lessons he got accepted at the Manhattan School of Music (though he entered a year later) and graduated from there with a Bachelors and Masters in Music Performance. While studying cello he took lessons from numerous teachers at various schools, thereby expanding his horizons as a cellist. After his graduation he joined the Filarmonica de Caracas in Venezuela learning to hate dictatorial conductors and, that it was time to go back to his rock roots. Back in New York he played with various other orchestras, ensembles and rock bands, and started freelancing, at the same time pursuing his goal of changing the style of cello playing and maybe even introducing a new style of music. A successful performance with the short lived band "The Aaron Minsky Trio" at the University of Connecticut inspired him to find the right combination for a band that would let his cello rock. Hence the band "Von Cello", a band where the front man plays cello, to be specific rock cello. He has successfully shocked and inspired both his rock and classical friends with his performing career.

 

Minsky didn't just perform to introduce his ideas; he also composed a number of etudes, duets, and teaching aides to introduce a new way of playing. Having written songs from his early rock days on he has had experience in the field of songwriting and he has taken this a step further with his notable "Ten American Cello Etudes" and various other pieces for all levels of playing. But unlike the standard cello repertoire, these pieces include all elements of music and some techniques not ever used before such as arpeggiated "licks", jazz and rock rhythms, double stops, and various techniques that he himself invented, in his duets he has rhythm cello as well as a melodic cello. Aaron Minsky has been putting the limits of the music and the player with all of his compositions to the test, encouraging the player to improvise and use all elements of music possible to them. His compositions have been very well reviewed and have been added to the standard repertoire for the cello. They have been included in the curricula of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, U.K., and the American String Teacher's Association. Numerous cellists and some violists have performed his music as well, and judging by the reviews and acceptance of his compositions he has accomplished his goal of creating a new style of cello playing.

 

I had the opportunity to interview Aaron Minsky and discuss why he has been so influential and what had influenced him as well as what he has and wants to achieve. Following are excerpts from that interview:

 

***

S.S - Why rock and classic and not jazz? Besides having played the guitar, was there another reason that you have been playing rock on the cello?

 

A.M. - I do play jazz, but I did not grow up with jazz. As a child I was surrounded by popular music. All of my friends listened to the radio and everyone was into the latest music. At home, my father was a classical music lover, and he was constantly playing classical music on the radio and spinning classical records. He had a few jazz records in his collection, but I rarely heard them. So I grew up with popular and classical music. It was not until college that I really started to listen to and play jazz.

 

While I have a great respect for jazz, I feel it reaches fewer people than popular music, and I want to reach as many people as possible, and I would like to see the cello reaching as many people as possible, therefore my interest has been primarily in playing rock music. The cello though has a great tradition in classical music, so it seems natural to me that in playing the cello in rock one would bring in some classical influence. However, I do bring some jazz influence into my music too. Had I not played the guitar, I doubt I would have decided to play rock on the cello. Originally I was a rock guitarist, and though I picked up the cello in school, I did not see it as a serious thing until I realized that I could do something unique with it. It was not a situation where I really wanted to be a cellist, per se, it was more that I was a person who always was looking to find an original path through life, and I found that in revolutionizing the cello I could blaze a new trail. Of course, I wouldn't have picked this path, if I didn't also love the cello as an instrument in general.

 

S.S. - Do you think that this movement (?) will have an impact on the way classical or rock music will evolve, or is this just a phase?

 

A.M. - I do believe the New Directions Cello movement, and my contribution to it; will have a lasting impact on the way the cello is played in the future. If the cello becomes accepted as a popular instrument that will change the sound of popular music. Classical composers will also change the way they write for the cello incorporating the new sounds.

 

There are high-level musicians who have made statements about the importance of my etudes in this process. For instance, David Johnstone, an English concert cellist living in Spain said the following: There are a number of works for the cello which, although not apparent in their time, have changed the course of cello writing or at the least have had a telling influence on the next generation of cello literature. We all know about the Bach Six Suites, a great and singular work of about 1720 that although the classical period composers did not 'dare' follow on, has been a major source of inspiration during the twentieth century. The concerto of Dvorak in the 1890's was also a major watershed in cello literature where the cello finally became the almighty king instead of a most promising prince. The Kodaly Solo Sonata of 1915 turned the cello on its head, for the first time being able to free itself from the wonderful melody instrument that it is, calling on even aggressive sounds and being able to obviously accompany itself in a number of ways. And too it's worth mentioning the Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante which came to its finished state in the post World War II days, where the cello is used in extreme registers, at great speed and with all the technical tricks that a first-class virtuoso violinist would be proud to employ. And now we come to AARON MINSKY. Maybe at the moment less known than his renowned predecessors, I predict that his work for cello may well assume a similar importance.

 

S.S. - How do you think this is affecting the current trend of music?

 

A.M. - I don't think cellists have yet made much of an impact in today's music. You do find cellists occasionally backing up famous rock stars. There have even been groups that featured cellists, but those groups have been on the fringes. There is no cellist out there today who is looked upon like the great guitarists such as Hendrix, Clapton, Van Halen, or even Santana. Then again even they, for the most part, are on the sidelines. Today's music seems more and more dominated by singers, who dance, or dancers, who sing, entertainers who rap, or rappers who entertain, and engineers who scratch records and program musical computers. There is almost no interest anymore in a great instrumentalist, or a composer in the Western tradition. While pop music has always been involved with selling sex and style, today it has become so overt that it is hard to tell the difference between a fashion video featuring pop music or a pop video featuring fashion. The line between pop and porn is getting more and more blurred. So sadly, the efforts that are being made in the cello world to modernize our instrument are going pretty much unnoticed by the pop music world...at least for now.

 

S.S. - What is it that you are really trying to achieve besides for making music and fusing different types together?

 

A.M. - Ultimately, music is a reflection of the culture that produces it. In America today, we have a divided culture. On one side is popular music and the culture that surrounds it, on the other side is classical music and the culture that surrounds it. Jazz is somewhere in the middle. Very few people can fit into both cultural and musical extremes, and there is often animosity between those on each side.

 

I would like to see the cultures coming together; to have the barriers broken. One way to start to achieve this is to break the barriers between the musical worlds. The cello seems the perfect instrument to do this because it is still considered a "classical instrument" yet it is very well adapted to popular music. If we can get "rock people" to appreciate classical music and "classical people" to appreciate rock music, and have the two musics and cultures influence each other, I think life in America would be a better over all.

 

S.S. - Does your goal now differ form when you first had this idea or have you achieved your goal and are just taking it further?

 

A.M. - I have the same basic goal, and I feel in some ways that I have achieved it beyond my dreams, but in other ways I still have a long way to go. In the cello world, the success has happened much sooner and stronger than I could have allowed myself to imagine. My etudes are now considered "standard cello repertoire" by many cellists around the world. They are in the curriculums of prestigious musical organizations such as the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (U.K.) and the American String Teachers Association. They are taught in colleges and performed worldwide. I have received royalties from over twenty countries, and I'm sure they are performed in many other countries from which I haven't received royalties. So on the classical side, I am happy with the acceptance I have found.

 

On the rock side success has been slower and harder to achieve. There actually seems more resistance to classical music on the rock side than resistance to rock music on the classical side. I think classical musicians have learned the hard way that they need to embrace popular trends in order to stay relevant and make a living. The pop music establishment feels no such pressure. They are making billions of dollars, and the last thing they care about is reaching out to music of the past, or instruments that are perceived as old fashioned. It is the pop world today that is the one that is narrow minded and resistant to change. Trying to get accepted as a rock star cellist is like climbing up a steep, tall mountain. Yet I feel I must keep trying.

 

S.S. - How did you come about starting to compose and what elements influence your composing most? Playing your music I can tell there are both rock and classical influences. Is this your way of mixing them both?

 

A.M. - I started composing popular songs in my early teens, but even earlier I wrote some crude compositions in a classical style. I was always fascinated by the great classical composers and dreamed of being like them, but mostly I listened to popular music as a child and naturally started composing in that style. I was also influenced by one of my early guitar teachers to improvise and write songs. I found it easy to write a song and wrote many songs throughout my teens.

 

During my college years I started to think that I could use my abilities as a popular songwriter to write cello etudes. I felt that through etudes I could use my melodic sense, and combine it with the classical techniques that I was studying, and come up with unique music that would be of interest, if not to the masses, at least to cellists around the world. I felt that I might not get a "hit" on the radio that would be listened to by millions of people, but I could possibly get a "hit" in the cello world that would be listened to by hundreds of thousands of people.

 

Knowing that I wanted to compose, I took extra theory classes at Manhattan School of Music. I analyzed melodies and harmonies, from simple baroque inventions to the complex quartets of Beethoven, and the revolutionary ideas of Debussy. I was always interested in songs, listening to songs from other countries, even going back to songs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I also listened to ethnic music from Africa, the Middle East, South America, and other lands. I tried to stay open to every possible influence, with the hope that one day it would all somehow have an affect on my music. If you listen carefully to my various etudes you will find rock influence, but also country, blues, jazz, folk, Caribbean, African, Brazilian, French, Jewish, and other influences.

 

S.S. - What do you think about all the string quartets etc. that are out there such as Ethel, Turtle Island, etc. playing Pink Floyd and Radio Head? Do you think they are aiming for the same that you are, or do you think they are just proving that they can play rock too?

 

A.M. - I think that the quartets that are out there playing arrangements of rock music are doing an important thing. They are showing what string instruments are capable of doing. They are probably aiming in the same direction as I, but they are not going as far. I am not a classical musician playing rock, or a rock musician playing classical: I am equally a rock and a classical musician. I can't even tell myself which one I am more. I grew up with an interest in both musics, and though I started out as a rock guitarist, when I became serious about music I went full throttle into classical cello, all but giving up on my rock past. So what I am trying to do is break down the barriers to the point where there is no difference between a rock musician or a classical musician.

 

There are very few people who have done this before. I think of George Gershwin as the best example from the past. He wrote classical masterpieces like An American In Paris and Rhapsody in Blue, yet his songs are still popular standards today. Miles Davis is a good example of a musician who broke the barriers between popular music and jazz, although jazz started out as a form of popular music, so one could say he reestablished its connection. In order to really make the cello accepted by the masses of pop music fans, we have to do more than play rock arrangements in string quartets. We have to become bandleaders, and rock stars ourselves. Who is the Hendrix, the Elton John, and the Ian Anderson, of the cello? Who gets up and jams on cello with the other rock stars at the Grammys? Who has a following of kids across the country that are listening to cello music and think it is cool? Who is making people rethink their ideas and prejudices about the cello, about music, about culture? I didn't see anyone else out there doing it, so I figured it might as well be me. I will keep trying, but if I don't succeed, maybe someone else will in the future.

***

 

When we have gotten to the point in music history when the cello is a part of popular music we'll have Aaron Minsky to thank, even if he isn't the one to achieve it. Aaron Minsky has influenced so many musicians to expand their horizons and encouraged them to improvise and to try new sounds. He plays at most classical and rock venues to bring his music to all people possible. His dedication to this movement has changed the course of music history and will continue to do so. He has proven and keeps on doing so that someone can cross over from rock to classical and back to rock again and be both a great rock and classical musician. We have Aaron Minsky to thank for a new style of playing the cello and other classical instruments.