July 3, 2021

Hermine Deurloo interview

Hermine Deurloo interview
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Season 1 Chromatic Harmonica Female Harmonica Player Jazz Chromatic Brazilian Harmonica

Hermine Deurloo joins me on episode 42. 

Hermine is a Dutch female chromatic harmonica player who grew up to the sound of master jazz player Toots Thielemans. After studying saxophone at the Amsterdam Conservatory, she picked up the chromatic and transitioned over to the harmonica being her instrument of choice. 

Her first album was of Brazilian music, and she has gone on to record several jazz albums in her own name. Her more recent album, Riverbeast, delves into 70s funk. She has appeared as a guest artist on numerous albums and is famous in her native Netherlands for playing the advertisement music for sausages!

Hermine won the SPAH harmonica player of the year award in 2018 and hopes she can inspire other females to pick up the harmonica.


Links:
Website:
https://www.herminedeurloo.com/

Strangely In Love film music: The Stalker
https://soundcloud.com/awintory/dostoevsky-in-love-the-stalker?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fawintory%252Fdostoevsky-in-love-the-stalker

Ambleside festival:
https://www.amblesidedays.co.uk/

Saed Haddad harmonica composition, performed by Hermine:
https://soundcloud.com/dr-saed-haddad/melancholie-for-chromatic-harmonica-orch-extract-1-2017-18

Bernie Bray SPAH award winners:
https://www.spah.org/content.asp?contentid=61

Blows Me Away Productions harmonica equipment:
http://www.blowsmeaway.com/


Videos:
Studio work videos:
https://www.herminedeurloo.com/studio-work/

Sausage advert on Netherlands TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghXe6Y75RGs


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

01:37 - Hermine is a chromatic player from Amsterdam, Netherlands

01:49 - Originally played saxophone but put that down for the chromatic, and plays a little diatonic

02:22 - Decision to drop saxophone for chromatic

03:31 - Started playing chromatic at the end of saxophone jazz course Amsterdam Conservatory, inspired by Toots Thielemans

06:46 - The transition from saxophone to chromatic

08:29 - Hermine played with Toots as he sat-in at one of her concerts in the 1990s

09:01 - Recorded first album in 1997, Brazilian music

11:12 - Then joined avant-garde jazz band in Netherlands fir 12 years, playing saxophone while keeping up chromatic playing

11:49 - 2001 album I Say Jazz

12:30 - Doesn’t play saxophone now as decided to focus on chromatic

13:29 - Hermine isn’t a singer

13:46 - Played on a famous advert in Netherlands, which is still well known 20 years later

15:12 - First solo album in 2005, Crazy Clocks

15:51 - Hermine spends a lot of time in New York, and has recorded there

17:35 - Soundbites album released in 2007

20:14 - Glass Fish album in 2012, with a modern jazz sound

22:30 - How Hermine composes songs and need to learn a chordal instrument

25:15 - Welling album in 2015 with jazz string quartet

27:50 - Living Here album in 2016, influenced by Toots Thielemans and also baroque music

29:06 - Hermine uses an SM58 to record in the studio, which Toots often did as well

31:00 - The winning combination of chromatic with the piano

32:32 - Most recent album is Riverbeast, from 2019, and playing harmonica underwater

36:36 - Has written songs for various family members on the album

38:00 - More recent albums have been a move away from jazz for Hermine

38:45 - The appeal of instrumental harmonica albums

39:51 - Approach to accompanying a singer

40:30 - The place of albums in today’s music industry

41:47 - Hermine played on Dutch Harmonica Band Fata Morgana’s album

43:11 - Performed with Al Jarreau

43:31 - Played with various orchestras, mainly of film music

45:09 - Appeared at festivals around the world, and will be playing in UK this Autumn

45:43 - Harmonica composition written for Hermine to play

46:56 - Teaching at University of Rotterdam

47:18 - Does other teaching

47:23 - Won Bernie Bray Harmonica Player of the Year in 2018

47:30 - How to get encourage more female harmonica players

49:19 - Ten minute question

50:51 - How Hermine developed her lyrical sound

52:41 - Harmonica of choice is Hohner Toots models

53:26 - Tried out Suzuki chromatics and some other models tried

53:44 - Mainly plays 12 hole chromatics, but a little 16 hole

54:01 - Embouchre is mainly pucker

54:16 - Amp is mainly Fishman Loudbox mini amp

54:59 - SM58 mic with volume control from Blows Me Away Productions

55:27 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:01.217 --> 00:00:03.861
Hermione Derlo joins me on episode 42.

00:00:04.801 --> 00:00:10.628
Hermione is a Dutch female chromatic player who grew up to the sound of master jazz player Toots Tielmans.

00:00:11.269 --> 00:00:18.978
After studying saxophone at the Amsterdam Conservatory, she picked up the chromatic and transitioned over to the harmonica, being her instrument of choice.

00:00:19.699 --> 00:00:24.725
Her first album was of Brazilian music and she has gone on to record several jazz albums in her own name.

00:00:25.304 --> 00:00:29.190
Her most recent album, River Beast, delves into 70s funk.

00:00:29.602 --> 00:00:36.780
She has appeared as a guest artist on numerous albums and is famous in her native Netherlands for playing the advertisement music for sausages.

00:00:37.661 --> 00:00:45.140
Hermione won the Spa Harmonica Player of the Year in 2018 and hopes she can inspire other females to pick up the harmonica.

00:01:30.754 --> 00:01:33.260
Hello, Hermione Derlo and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:33.581 --> 00:01:34.183
Hello, Neil.

00:01:34.243 --> 00:01:35.105
It's great to be here.

00:01:35.307 --> 00:01:36.710
Thank you so much for inviting me.

00:01:37.533 --> 00:01:37.954
Thank you.

00:01:38.114 --> 00:01:40.281
And you're joining us from beautiful Amsterdam.

00:01:40.501 --> 00:01:45.433
So you're Dutch and you're largely a Well, I think you're entirely a chromatic player.

00:01:46.295 --> 00:01:48.918
Yes, I play mainly chromatic harmonica.

00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:58.415
I started out on saxophone, but I put it aside because the chromatic harmonica took so much time for me that I quit playing saxophone.

00:01:58.594 --> 00:02:02.040
And the diatonic, I sometimes play just a little bit.

00:02:02.240 --> 00:02:05.085
You know, sometimes I need it for a recording or something.

00:02:05.409 --> 00:02:09.933
Do you play blues stuff on the diatonic or do you play more melodic things?

00:02:11.235 --> 00:02:15.919
Sometimes a little bit of blues stuff, but it's not really very good.

00:02:16.580 --> 00:02:17.820
I still have to get into that.

00:02:18.281 --> 00:02:22.544
So that decision then about, like you say, dropping the saxophone for the chromatic harmonica.

00:02:22.585 --> 00:02:25.467
So what led to that and how has that been for you?

00:02:25.486 --> 00:02:27.028
Hopefully it's turned out great for you.

00:02:27.149 --> 00:02:34.175
But I imagine in many respects, getting work on saxophone is maybe easier than chromatic harmonica or is that not the case for you?

00:02:34.395 --> 00:02:35.276
It's not the case with me.

00:02:35.376 --> 00:02:40.822
Well, first I had a lot of work on saxophone and I played in this band and we traveled all over the world.

00:02:41.102 --> 00:02:45.866
And I already played some harmonica solos with this band as a feature.

00:02:46.307 --> 00:02:59.161
But I got more and more jobs on chromatic harmonica here in the Netherlands, mainly, with big orchestras, but also with my own band and a lot of studio work with advertisement and stuff.

00:02:59.421 --> 00:03:03.425
So it got more and more, so I started to think I could focus on that.

00:03:03.545 --> 00:03:05.147
It was more special and...

00:03:05.328 --> 00:03:10.432
Besides that, I played saxophone from when I was 13 or 14.

00:03:10.473 --> 00:03:13.896
So it was time to do something new also, I think.

00:03:14.258 --> 00:03:17.580
Yeah, so do you find that playing the chromatic harmonica makes you quite unique?

00:03:17.661 --> 00:03:24.288
And like you say, maybe more in demand because there's a lot of saxophone players and not so many good jazz chromatic harmonica players.

00:03:24.508 --> 00:03:24.949
Exactly.

00:03:24.968 --> 00:03:28.652
I thought I had something special to say on this instrument.

00:03:29.013 --> 00:03:31.034
And I just really enjoyed it very much.

00:03:31.376 --> 00:03:35.280
And so you studied saxophone at the conservatory in Amsterdam

00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:36.461
Yes.

00:03:37.282 --> 00:03:40.348
And was it at this point you started playing the chromatic harmonica as well?

00:03:40.949 --> 00:03:46.558
After I finished this study, I did the jazz department on the conservatory.

00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:54.432
And just right after my last concert there, I found this chromatic harmonica in the shop and I was already a Tootsie LeMans fan.

00:03:54.552 --> 00:03:59.401
So I was very delighted and I just started it just for fun, actually.

00:03:59.842 --> 00:04:04.725
You mentioned Toots Tilmans there, who of course every chromatic player is a massive fan of.

00:04:04.945 --> 00:04:08.229
So obviously, Netherlands is very sort of closely tied to Belgium.

00:04:08.269 --> 00:04:09.550
It's a neighbor of the country.

00:04:09.751 --> 00:04:16.076
So it was Toots, someone that you were, you know, very familiar with in Netherlands as well as being quite, you know, was he on TV a lot over there?

00:04:16.375 --> 00:04:21.321
Yes, he was really playing a lot here in big halls and stuff.

00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:27.245
And he was giving a lot of concerts here and also playing a lot of tunes for television and film.

00:04:27.526 --> 00:04:29.247
So everybody knew him here.

00:04:29.507 --> 00:04:31.069
You know, he very popular here still

00:04:31.410 --> 00:04:45.865
yeah I actually bought a postcard of two like a little post like in a postcard I've been playing at the North Sea Jazz Festival which was a festival in uh in Netherlands which I bought from Amsterdam coincidentally so yeah so the North Sea Jazz Festival doesn't happen anymore does it

00:04:46.446 --> 00:05:05.185
uh well not this year uh because of corona but it happens still every year so last year it was cancelled it was a big problem uh this year it's cancelled again but there are some concerts in Rotterdam taking place but yes the festival is still a very large festival I played there a couple of times also

00:05:05.466 --> 00:05:12.634
okay excellent so what got you interested in the harmonica you always listen to a harmonica and were you know a fan of the sound

00:05:12.853 --> 00:05:33.360
yes I already listened to Stielemans on my high school and I really liked it and I also really was a big fan of Stevie Wonder so I was always wondering how this sounds how you could make this sound on a harmonica but then the saxophone was taken more seriously in that time.

00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:39.916
So I always also searched out solos of Toots Thielemans on saxophone and stuff.

00:05:40.257 --> 00:05:47.266
Yeah, I had lots of records already of toots at my home before I really started to play this instrument myself.

00:05:48.187 --> 00:05:49.889
Any favourite songs of toots?

00:05:50.290 --> 00:05:55.334
Yes, I like the recording of Killer Joe with the Metropolitan Orchestra.

00:05:55.696 --> 00:06:07.829
The Metropolitan Orchestra is an orchestra from Holland also.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:06:10.050 --> 00:06:30.190
And there is this record, I had it on vinyl, and it's called Life at the Boerehoeven.

00:06:30.290 --> 00:06:31.374
It's like...

00:06:31.778 --> 00:06:42.857
this little place somewhere in the middle of the netherlands and toots gave a concert there in the 70s and this is just a very beautiful recording i really liked so yeah

00:06:43.757 --> 00:06:57.721
so so what about that you know moving across from the saxophone to the chromatic harmonica and playing and playing jazz was that something you were able to sort of move across and use what you'd learned on the saxophone quite easily or was it quite different playing you know playing the chromatic

00:06:57.954 --> 00:07:09.249
Playing the chromatic, it's completely different from a saxophone, obviously, because you don't use your hands, actually, and you just make a sound, and you inhale, of course, to make a sound.

00:07:09.269 --> 00:07:15.516
I could use the theory I had learned, so I knew how to study, you know.

00:07:15.557 --> 00:07:21.766
First, I studied all the scales and stuff, and I knew how to make my own exercises.

00:07:22.346 --> 00:07:26.853
But as far as the technique of playing the instrument, I had to find it out myself.

00:07:28.257 --> 00:07:34.690
I just, listened to a lot of dudes and I went to his concerts to see how he does it.

00:07:35.271 --> 00:07:46.461
Yeah, I think the saxophone is seen as being an instrument that you can play quite fluidly, whereas the chromatic maybe that's a bit of a challenge, isn't it, to play fluidly on the chromatic and to play it auto.

00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:50.004
So what about the difference between the two instruments in that way?

00:07:50.845 --> 00:07:56.610
Yeah, you can play very fast on the saxophone very easily, so it was frustrating to not be able to do that.

00:07:57.730 --> 00:07:59.151
But you have to learn to find...

00:07:59.312 --> 00:08:03.115
to make one note bent into the other.

00:08:03.136 --> 00:08:06.079
And of course you have to play fast to do that.

00:08:06.119 --> 00:08:14.427
You know, you have to be able to play fast so you can sort of make the jump between the different tones.

00:08:14.648 --> 00:08:19.372
You can make it very fast so you don't hear this, yeah, the gap between the notes.

00:08:19.853 --> 00:08:20.855
So you have a little gap.

00:08:21.194 --> 00:08:24.639
You have to sort of make it very, very small and then it sounds fluent.

00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:25.019
I

00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:28.983
believe you played with toots at some point, didn't you?

00:08:29.184 --> 00:08:29.264
Yeah.

00:08:29.264 --> 00:08:32.802
Yes, in the 90s I had a concert in...

00:08:33.346 --> 00:08:36.349
Brussels in a beautiful hotel.

00:08:36.649 --> 00:08:42.894
And Toots and his wife, Huguette, came over to have lunch and to hear me.

00:08:42.933 --> 00:08:46.076
They were invited by the boss of the hotel.

00:08:46.356 --> 00:08:47.958
So he was enjoying it very much.

00:08:47.999 --> 00:08:51.120
And then I asked him, of course, if he wanted to play something.

00:08:51.140 --> 00:08:52.942
And I was there with a Brazilian band.

00:08:52.982 --> 00:08:54.504
So he played some Brazilian tunes.

00:08:55.424 --> 00:08:57.287
He was a very, very kind person.

00:08:57.667 --> 00:08:58.427
So great.

00:08:58.467 --> 00:08:58.727
Yeah.

00:08:58.748 --> 00:09:00.188
So you went on from there.

00:09:00.269 --> 00:09:03.852
And I think you recorded your first album in 1997.

00:09:03.993 --> 00:09:05.595
Is that right?

00:09:06.215 --> 00:09:06.755
Yeah, that's right.

00:09:06.936 --> 00:09:07.756
Sozinhos.

00:09:08.217 --> 00:09:09.558
It's Brazilian, of course.

00:09:09.659 --> 00:09:18.429
And I recorded it with a Brazilian guitar player and a Brazilian band that lives in the Netherlands, some Brazilian and some people from Uruguay.

00:09:24.957 --> 00:09:25.118
Sozinhos

00:09:42.402 --> 00:09:44.586
Yeah, I enjoyed it very much to do this.

00:09:44.785 --> 00:09:50.033
I always played a lot of Brazilian music already, so I was familiar with this kind of music.

00:09:51.076 --> 00:09:57.186
Yeah, so is that something that, I always say, obviously Toots did a couple of albums, didn't he, where he played Brazilian music.

00:09:57.225 --> 00:10:02.134
So is that something you're interested in from that start, obviously that early stage where you're recording?

00:10:02.498 --> 00:10:08.163
Also, but I listened to already to Brazilian music before I knew Toots.

00:10:08.923 --> 00:10:11.546
But I think the harmonica fits so well for this music.

00:10:11.765 --> 00:10:12.687
So that's amazing.

00:10:12.886 --> 00:10:13.167
It's so

00:10:14.048 --> 00:10:14.128
easy.

00:10:14.148 --> 00:10:16.590
Is that the rhythms of it, you think, work well on the chromatic?

00:10:16.910 --> 00:10:20.573
I don't know if it's because of the rhythms, because you have to feel them.

00:10:20.693 --> 00:10:23.897
And of course, you can play it on other instruments as well.

00:10:23.917 --> 00:10:27.779
But maybe the sound goes very well with guitar and stuff.

00:10:27.799 --> 00:10:28.740
And it's very high.

00:10:28.941 --> 00:10:30.522
And I'm not sure why this is.

00:10:30.581 --> 00:10:36.792
Maybe because they also use flute a lot you know and I want to go in the same register as flute

00:10:37.217 --> 00:10:40.182
So how did you come to recording this Brazilian band?

00:10:40.201 --> 00:10:41.323
This is your first album.

00:10:41.464 --> 00:10:43.927
Did you record this in the Netherlands?

00:10:44.628 --> 00:10:49.375
Yes, in a studio with a recording engineer I still work with.

00:10:49.775 --> 00:10:56.225
Later became the sound engineer for Toots Stielemans, which was really a coincidence, by the way.

00:10:57.066 --> 00:10:58.827
He was trained with you, obviously.

00:10:58.868 --> 00:11:01.371
Yeah.

00:11:01.392 --> 00:11:05.356
So you were still playing around the Netherlands and then around Europe at this time, were you?

00:11:05.922 --> 00:11:11.547
Okay, yeah, I played not so much in other countries, more maybe Belgium or Germany.

00:11:11.907 --> 00:11:17.272
But right after that, I was asked for this by this band in the Netherlands.

00:11:17.731 --> 00:11:22.535
And it is sort of an avant-garde band, but also with jazz, a lot of jazz influences.

00:11:22.996 --> 00:11:26.600
And I became a member of this band and I played mainly alto saxophone.

00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:33.025
But I kept on playing the harmonica at my house or just, you know, practicing.

00:11:33.066 --> 00:11:43.196
And I had some solos in this band, also but you know this was a good job so i i stayed there for 12 years and this job and we traveled all over the world so

00:11:43.635 --> 00:11:48.461
you did some more some more recordings anything you did an album called uh i am jazz and

00:11:48.761 --> 00:11:50.464
called it was called i say jazz

00:11:50.563 --> 00:11:51.203
i say jazz

00:11:51.224 --> 00:12:20.660
yeah and it was um with a piano player and a bass player it was their project and i uh joined them so it's not really under my name but um yes these were just very good jazz musicians in holland and it gave me a lot of experience to try stuff out and

00:12:27.571 --> 00:12:28.913
this was all on the chromatic was it

00:12:29.192 --> 00:12:29.693
yeah

00:12:30.241 --> 00:12:32.085
So do you still play the saxophone now?

00:12:32.125 --> 00:12:37.313
No, not anymore, because with the embouchure it's difficult.

00:12:37.695 --> 00:12:43.004
And also, you know, at some point I decided only to make albums with harmonica.

00:12:43.124 --> 00:12:50.576
So I tried to, you know, get better and, you know, get a higher level and really working on that.

00:12:51.073 --> 00:12:59.011
I think a lot of harmonic players kind of worry that, you know, the instrument isn't, particularly in jazz, isn't mainstream enough to be taken maybe seriously or be in demand.

00:12:59.111 --> 00:12:59.653
You

00:12:59.673 --> 00:13:00.596
don't find that again.

00:13:00.635 --> 00:13:04.946
You find that, you know, that uniqueness to the sound again gets you the work.

00:13:05.250 --> 00:13:06.071
Yes, I think so.

00:13:06.110 --> 00:13:10.696
But at first also I was worried, so I didn't quit the saxophone for a long time.

00:13:11.437 --> 00:13:15.942
But I could build up my harmonica career besides that, you know, on the side.

00:13:16.163 --> 00:13:21.950
So when that worked out very well, then I could have the courage to stop with the saxophone.

00:13:21.990 --> 00:13:28.557
Although I miss the instrument sometimes, but you know, you have to choose if you really want to focus on something.

00:13:28.898 --> 00:13:30.720
And you don't sing at all, do you?

00:13:30.759 --> 00:13:31.620
No, no.

00:13:31.921 --> 00:13:34.123
Of course, only for fun, you know.

00:13:35.504 --> 00:13:36.404
Not professionally.

00:13:36.445 --> 00:13:39.187
It's just another profession, I think.

00:13:39.606 --> 00:13:40.187
Okay.

00:13:40.268 --> 00:13:42.250
And so you've done this second album, as we say.

00:13:42.289 --> 00:13:45.152
During this time, were you starting to get other session work?

00:13:45.591 --> 00:13:50.437
During that time, I was asked to play these advertisements in Holland.

00:13:50.836 --> 00:13:57.663
And one of the advertisements turned out to be the most famous tune on Dutch television.

00:13:58.563 --> 00:13:58.803
So...

00:13:58.864 --> 00:14:03.350
I played this and I think they used the music for 20 years already now.

00:14:16.086 --> 00:14:19.370
This is to advertise some sausages, is that right?

00:14:19.610 --> 00:14:20.812
It's true, yeah.

00:14:20.832 --> 00:14:21.293
It's true.

00:14:21.312 --> 00:14:24.798
And if I play it, people will always recognize it.

00:14:25.077 --> 00:14:25.479
Everybody.

00:14:25.578 --> 00:14:27.942
If I go into a cab, you hear this music, so...

00:14:28.193 --> 00:14:31.197
So how does it feel to be the sound of sausages in the Netherlands?

00:14:31.537 --> 00:14:32.437
Yeah, it's weird.

00:14:33.499 --> 00:14:36.821
It's not only sausages, it's also soup and stuff.

00:14:37.182 --> 00:14:37.701
Okay, yeah.

00:14:37.922 --> 00:14:39.543
I assume you're not a vegetarian.

00:14:40.144 --> 00:14:40.565
I'm not.

00:14:43.086 --> 00:14:44.928
So great, but no, great to get that exposure.

00:14:44.948 --> 00:14:46.490
So did you do that quite early on?

00:14:46.769 --> 00:14:49.371
Yeah, I recorded in 2001.

00:14:50.033 --> 00:14:51.774
So it was exactly 20 years ago.

00:14:52.075 --> 00:14:52.355
Wow.

00:14:52.434 --> 00:14:55.798
So did that get you a lot of exposure then and it really helped your career?

00:14:56.097 --> 00:14:56.578
Yeah.

00:14:56.599 --> 00:14:59.682
Some people still think it's, two to three months.

00:15:00.062 --> 00:15:03.586
You know, I always have to tell that it was me.

00:15:04.307 --> 00:15:09.894
But yeah, it gave me a lot of exposure and still gives me a lot of exposure.

00:15:10.275 --> 00:15:10.696
Fantastic.

00:15:10.716 --> 00:15:11.977
Always great to go on the television.

00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:18.547
And then, was it your first solo album or the first album in your name in 2005, Crazy Clock?

00:15:23.352 --> 00:15:24.094
Yeah.

00:15:30.785 --> 00:15:34.293
Yeah, I recorded this with a friend in New York.

00:15:34.514 --> 00:15:37.259
He's a very good bass player and guitar player.

00:15:37.299 --> 00:15:40.187
It's a home recording, but he has a very good studio.

00:15:40.206 --> 00:15:44.154
Yeah, it was a lot of fun to make and I still like it.

00:15:44.515 --> 00:15:46.159
I still play music with him also.

00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:49.366
He's also on my last recording, this bass player.

00:15:49.386 --> 00:15:50.610
That's Tony Scherer.

00:15:51.265 --> 00:15:53.648
Yeah, and so have you spent much time in New York?

00:15:54.168 --> 00:15:56.350
I just go there regularly.

00:15:56.750 --> 00:15:59.253
Not now, of course, but I've been there a lot.

00:15:59.293 --> 00:16:01.995
I've played also there with Dutch bands in New York.

00:16:02.416 --> 00:16:09.402
So I recorded this album with Tony in 2005 and my last recording I made in 2019.

00:16:10.022 --> 00:16:15.407
We also mixed in New York and we did some overdubs with violins and stuff.

00:16:15.826 --> 00:16:18.168
So New York, of course, has got a great jazz scene.

00:16:18.229 --> 00:16:20.191
Is that something you've managed to tap into?

00:16:20.230 --> 00:16:21.231
Not really.

00:16:21.231 --> 00:16:29.125
But I have some connections there, but still, I would like to go there longer and go to sessions or something.

00:16:29.546 --> 00:16:30.768
But I know some people there.

00:16:31.028 --> 00:16:31.850
Yeah.

00:16:31.870 --> 00:16:33.854
Are there many chromatic harmonica players

00:16:33.913 --> 00:16:34.955
there?

00:16:34.975 --> 00:16:35.576
More and more.

00:16:35.596 --> 00:16:38.701
Of course, you have Grégoire Marnin living there.

00:16:38.721 --> 00:16:39.803
Yeah.

00:16:40.384 --> 00:16:40.885
Yvonne Nick.

00:16:41.567 --> 00:16:42.268
Yeah.

00:16:42.889 --> 00:16:45.413
And you have Hendrik Merkens, who is already...

00:16:46.241 --> 00:16:51.428
working for a long time and uh yeah some new young people also

00:16:52.250 --> 00:17:14.238
this uh this crazy clock album you've a lot of it was written by the bass player wasn't it and this has kind of got this this kind of african beat on there on one of the songs and so

00:17:19.329 --> 00:17:20.992
We did a lot of covers.

00:17:21.253 --> 00:17:26.563
So this is a cover of Ali Farka Toure, you know, from Senegal, I think.

00:17:26.583 --> 00:17:34.557
And yeah, we just found covers that are not really familiar, but we just gave them a twist, you know.

00:17:34.817 --> 00:17:37.742
Your next album was in 2007, Soundbite.

00:17:38.804 --> 00:17:43.171
So was this kind of a bit of a homage to Toot's Man Bites Harmonica?

00:17:43.571 --> 00:17:44.573
Yeah, a little bit.

00:17:45.034 --> 00:17:48.900
First I thought maybe I can call it Woman Bites Harmonica.

00:17:50.021 --> 00:17:51.262
That was a little bit too much.

00:17:51.282 --> 00:17:55.971
So I thought Soundbite, like sort of a reference to this album of Toot's.

00:17:56.371 --> 00:17:58.374
And it was recorded with a big band.

00:18:03.162 --> 00:18:03.261
Music

00:18:04.961 --> 00:18:17.598
And

00:18:17.638 --> 00:18:21.483
it was recorded by the same person that wrote this advertisement.

00:18:22.045 --> 00:18:25.249
So this very successful advertisement was made at the studio.

00:18:25.890 --> 00:18:28.613
And he decided to make this whole Big Band album with me.

00:18:29.253 --> 00:18:31.837
So it was also a lot of experience for me.

00:18:32.417 --> 00:18:35.842
Yeah, so as you say, it's with a big band and it's all these big band arrangements.

00:18:35.922 --> 00:18:41.929
And so what's it like playing in a big band, that little small harmonica with all that big band sound?

00:18:42.269 --> 00:18:47.515
I thought because we had some recordings of Toots also with the Metropole big band.

00:18:48.497 --> 00:18:56.306
And I thought it was a challenge to make the arrangements in a certain way that the harmonica still gets a lot of space.

00:18:56.769 --> 00:19:01.919
Because it was within a big band, were you playing sort of written pieces or were you just improvising?

00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:07.910
I did a lot of improvising, of course, but only the melodies are written out.

00:19:08.971 --> 00:19:10.034
And where was that one recorded?

00:19:10.054 --> 00:19:10.094
In

00:19:10.835 --> 00:19:12.317
Amsterdam, in the studio.

00:19:12.609 --> 00:19:16.894
And how did that come about with the big band and recording the album with them?

00:19:17.334 --> 00:19:25.922
I just talked to the man of the advertisement and he thought, let's make a kind of a 70s atmosphere big band harmonica album.

00:19:26.422 --> 00:19:31.205
We hired some arrangers to make this different kind of arrangements.

00:19:31.767 --> 00:19:33.248
So we recorded it there.

00:19:33.407 --> 00:19:38.732
And afterwards, I was a guest at a lot of big bands and I took these arrangements to the big bands.

00:19:39.153 --> 00:19:44.299
There's a song on there called Holland, which is a kind of tradition traditional Dutch sort of sound.

00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:56.766
It starts out with, I think it's a harmonic with an accordion, isn't it?

00:20:03.041 --> 00:20:04.703
Yeah, so this is the advertisement.

00:20:04.944 --> 00:20:05.685
Everybody knows.

00:20:06.106 --> 00:20:06.547
Oh, is it?

00:20:06.586 --> 00:20:06.887
Okay.

00:20:07.167 --> 00:20:07.969
The beginning of it.

00:20:08.109 --> 00:20:11.855
And then it goes further away into a jazz arrangement.

00:20:12.435 --> 00:20:13.356
Yeah, no, a great album.

00:20:13.458 --> 00:20:18.545
And so in 2012, you did another album in your name called Glass Fish.

00:20:19.666 --> 00:20:21.388
This is quite different, isn't it?

00:20:21.409 --> 00:20:23.593
It's quite a sort of modern jazz sound, this one.

00:20:24.053 --> 00:20:29.882
Yeah, I thought, let's try to make my own band and write some own pieces, you know.

00:20:29.981 --> 00:20:31.625
I think I wrote one or two on this...

00:20:32.834 --> 00:20:48.532
So I wanted to do more modern jazz also to do the gigs I really liked, you know.

00:20:48.553 --> 00:20:57.284
Yeah, and I was very happy with these musicians because, you know, Jesse van Ruller on guitar is, you know, one of the best guitar players I know.

00:20:57.324 --> 00:20:59.086
And he played here as a guest.

00:20:59.490 --> 00:21:01.938
You have the bass player that I really like.

00:21:02.259 --> 00:21:05.169
And also we use a different instrument, the hang.

00:21:05.189 --> 00:21:06.733
It's kind of the hang.

00:21:06.934 --> 00:21:07.676
It's...

00:21:08.162 --> 00:21:09.623
It's this special instrument.

00:21:10.003 --> 00:21:11.765
It sounds a little bit like bells.

00:21:12.286 --> 00:21:15.228
And with this band, I played on the North Sea Jazz Festival.

00:21:15.627 --> 00:21:23.015
Yeah, we recorded this in Germany with my sound engineer, beautiful studio in a farm.

00:21:23.355 --> 00:21:26.758
There's lots of space, isn't there, for the harmonica at Real Place for you to play?

00:21:26.798 --> 00:21:33.763
Yeah, I thought, let's not do too much drums because that can be a little bit crowdy, you know?

00:21:34.505 --> 00:21:36.446
There's a song on there called Glass Fish.

00:21:38.087 --> 00:21:38.127
He...

00:21:38.127 --> 00:21:45.038
Thank you.

00:21:57.953 --> 00:22:01.157
You seem to have a bit of a water theme in some of your album titles.

00:22:01.178 --> 00:22:02.240
Is there any particular reason

00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:02.640
for that?

00:22:02.660 --> 00:22:03.300
Yeah, it's weird.

00:22:05.022 --> 00:22:10.289
It's not on purpose, actually, but I like to write this African-influenced music.

00:22:10.671 --> 00:22:13.555
It's a sort of African song, Glass Fish.

00:22:14.155 --> 00:22:21.404
I just had this image of a tropical sea with these almost invisible fishes or something.

00:22:21.826 --> 00:22:24.189
I'm like, yeah, it's just an association, you know?

00:22:25.289 --> 00:22:27.773
The song Glass Fish, is that a song that you composed?

00:22:28.034 --> 00:22:29.476
Yes, I compose this, yeah.

00:22:29.695 --> 00:22:31.518
So how do you go about composing a song?

00:22:32.199 --> 00:22:36.423
Are you doing that on the chromatic or do you use another instrument to help you do that as well?

00:22:36.805 --> 00:22:43.093
First, I sit at the piano and I see if I can find nice chord changes.

00:22:44.034 --> 00:22:47.979
And sometimes I just have a groove or a very simple chord.

00:22:48.199 --> 00:22:52.423
And then I play some melodies with a chromatic harmonica.

00:22:52.463 --> 00:22:57.309
I write the melodies from my harmonica, but sitting behind the piano, you know, like...

00:22:57.410 --> 00:22:59.659
So how is your piano playing?

00:23:00.099 --> 00:23:00.903
Well, not so good.

00:23:02.609 --> 00:23:03.071
Not so good.

00:23:03.432 --> 00:23:07.207
But of course I can find chords, you know, and I can play a little bit.

00:23:07.789 --> 00:23:07.869
Yeah.

00:23:08.097 --> 00:23:10.339
I think that's a big thing, particularly with jazz, isn't it?

00:23:10.380 --> 00:23:14.023
Do you need that second instrument, particularly an instrument which plays chords?

00:23:14.104 --> 00:23:18.567
Like, you know, obviously Toots played guitar to a good standard as well.

00:23:18.667 --> 00:23:21.691
So do you see that as being a really critical thing in your learning?

00:23:21.872 --> 00:23:24.834
I mean, I guess when you were studying saxophone, you had to have a second instrument.

00:23:24.874 --> 00:23:26.076
And was that piano for you?

00:23:26.336 --> 00:23:27.277
Yeah, it was piano.

00:23:27.376 --> 00:23:36.605
And of course, you needed to understand the harmony, you know, to just check out and see how it could sound and play.

00:23:36.705 --> 00:23:38.367
You know, I'm still working on that too.

00:23:39.148 --> 00:23:40.109
You keep on learning.

00:23:40.150 --> 00:23:50.683
And on the conservatory, I learned to play the chords a little bit and to accompany people a little bit and to get new ideas.

00:23:50.703 --> 00:24:01.938
And if I'm starting to compose songs, sometimes I play a lot of other songs to check out if I find some nice chord changes I might use or something.

00:24:02.402 --> 00:24:13.531
Yeah, so I think a lot of people who play, particularly the harmonica in this case, you know, the thought that you need to learn a second instrument is quite, you know, it's daunting, yeah, because you have to spend a lot of time playing another instrument.

00:24:13.592 --> 00:24:17.255
And, you know, so you think that brings definite value, though.

00:24:17.275 --> 00:24:20.738
You think it's something pretty critical, particularly playing jazz.

00:24:20.758 --> 00:24:26.663
I think it's very, yeah, it's really necessary, particularly if you want to write tunes, you know.

00:24:27.143 --> 00:24:30.967
For me, writing my own tunes is sort of necessary to...

00:24:32.367 --> 00:24:42.979
go further into music i really enjoy it and i really like to try out new tunes and of course you don't always want to play tunes of other people not me anyway

00:24:44.280 --> 00:24:47.723
but when you're coming up with a melody you say you do that on the on the harmonica

00:24:48.105 --> 00:25:04.762
yeah most of the time yeah because also you know there's not much written for harmonica and if you of course you play things that are good sounding on harmonica you know and you you can use stuff you can use little lines that are easy on a harmonica.

00:25:05.022 --> 00:25:10.170
So do you come up with the melodies on the harmonica before you would put chords to it on the piano?

00:25:10.529 --> 00:25:14.454
Well, it's more going back and forth.

00:25:14.855 --> 00:25:29.193
Okay, so and then your next album, three years later, I think in 2015, called Welling, which is done with a jazz string quartet called Zap 4.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
...

00:25:33.665 --> 00:25:38.013
Thank you.

00:25:41.473 --> 00:25:45.477
Yeah, they are very popular here in Holland.

00:25:46.157 --> 00:25:52.163
At first I thought, let's make an album with a string quartet and maybe a piano or bass.

00:25:52.943 --> 00:25:58.087
And I had a more conservative idea, you know, like playing standards or something.

00:25:59.028 --> 00:26:02.571
Then I met this string quartet and they are really original.

00:26:02.592 --> 00:26:06.476
They play on tunes and very strange arrangements.

00:26:06.615 --> 00:26:11.440
And I enjoyed it so much that I thought, let's make something really...

00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:26.548
original you know and play with them so this was really a cooperation they brought a lot of arrangements and songs and I brought I think one but I had some other ideas that we made arrangements from

00:26:27.105 --> 00:26:28.627
No, I really love the album.

00:26:28.647 --> 00:26:30.209
It's quite quirky.

00:26:30.249 --> 00:26:31.150
Yeah, it is.

00:26:32.131 --> 00:26:32.392
Yeah.

00:26:32.751 --> 00:26:33.792
Yeah, it's really interesting.

00:26:33.833 --> 00:26:34.973
Lots of great stuff.

00:26:35.134 --> 00:26:36.316
Una Volta is...

00:26:36.635 --> 00:26:38.198
Yeah, that's my song, yeah.

00:26:38.498 --> 00:26:39.358
Oh, that's your song, is it?

00:26:39.419 --> 00:26:48.769
Oh, no, that's the one I really liked on the album in particular.

00:26:49.349 --> 00:26:51.211
Oh, great.

00:26:51.992 --> 00:26:56.257
Thank you so much.

00:26:56.277 --> 00:26:56.798
Thank you.

00:26:56.993 --> 00:27:00.700
there's a song called welling what where does that come from

00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:02.843
welling is a bar in amsterdam

00:27:02.863 --> 00:27:03.483
okay

00:27:03.865 --> 00:27:17.885
this band was playing there a lot so it's the alto violin player he wrote this song he writes a lot of songs and arrangements so one he contributed to welling so

00:27:27.617 --> 00:27:35.204
Do you still play with that band at all?

00:27:35.546 --> 00:27:39.849
No, they quit playing together a couple of years ago.

00:27:39.869 --> 00:27:45.516
Of course, I saw also, we did a couple of concerts and then we moved on to next things.

00:27:45.955 --> 00:27:48.719
But you never know, maybe we'll play one day.

00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:55.625
And then in 2016, you did another album called Living Here with a pianist and composer.

00:27:55.905 --> 00:27:55.965
Yes.

00:27:56.130 --> 00:27:57.653
Yeah, Rembrandt Freerichs.

00:27:57.992 --> 00:28:14.542
We started working together in 2014, and he has sort of the same musical background as me, also listening a lot to Stielemans, but also listening a lot to Baroque music, because I grew up with Baroque music with my parents.

00:28:15.064 --> 00:28:40.125
So we had some similarities, and we made a whole repertoire of our own songs but also some standards we just adapted, you know.

00:28:40.450 --> 00:28:53.520
And so we did a couple of concerts for a couple of years, and then we decided to make this album and to invite this cello player as a sort of a classical line or, you know, a counter voice to the harmonica.

00:28:53.842 --> 00:28:56.243
Yeah, so that was also a lot of fun to make.

00:28:56.564 --> 00:29:02.828
We all recorded these albums, like Welling, but also this one again in Germany.

00:29:03.150 --> 00:29:04.069
In the same studio.

00:29:04.371 --> 00:29:05.352
Same studio, yes.

00:29:06.112 --> 00:29:07.113
You talk about the studio.

00:29:07.133 --> 00:29:13.065
So a question, we'll get onto gear a little bit later, but when you're recording the chromatic harmonica, what equipment are you using for that?

00:29:13.547 --> 00:29:14.590
Microphone, for example.

00:29:15.333 --> 00:29:19.688
I just use an Assure SM58

00:29:20.417 --> 00:29:22.619
Okay, so you're holding that when you're recording,

00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:22.779
are

00:29:23.401 --> 00:29:23.461
you?

00:29:23.961 --> 00:29:24.662
Yeah, that's all.

00:29:26.103 --> 00:29:31.468
But the recording engineer is this friend of mine who worked for Toots Stielemans 10 years.

00:29:31.847 --> 00:29:36.172
So he exactly knows how to record a chromatic harmonica.

00:29:36.311 --> 00:29:39.173
So did Toots also record with a SM58?

00:29:39.253 --> 00:29:40.474
Yeah, mostly.

00:29:40.515 --> 00:29:46.760
Okay, because it's interesting, a lot of people would use like a large condenser microphone, wouldn't they, which they would stand off when recording.

00:29:46.820 --> 00:29:53.027
Obviously, I know Toots played an SM58 when he was playing live, but he Yeah, it's interesting to hear you use that to record as well.

00:29:53.507 --> 00:29:58.031
I don't know if he used that always, but in his last recordings, he definitely did.

00:29:58.692 --> 00:30:01.496
Yeah, and you do always use an SM58 when you're recording.

00:30:01.875 --> 00:30:02.156
Yeah.

00:30:02.576 --> 00:30:16.531
So don't you find you get quite a lot of noise on the microphone when you're playing that way, particularly in the recording, that maybe it wouldn't be so noticed in a live performance, but when recording, it picks up a lot of knocking the microphone, breathing noises and things?

00:30:17.192 --> 00:30:21.897
It does, but I think my sound engineer removes it all.

00:30:22.478 --> 00:30:22.898
Okay.

00:30:22.999 --> 00:30:24.460
A lot of it, anyway.

00:30:25.501 --> 00:30:26.423
You've really got that down.

00:30:26.482 --> 00:30:27.384
That's really interesting.

00:30:27.784 --> 00:30:28.124
On the

00:30:28.183 --> 00:30:37.094
other hand, you know, I'm holding the microphone before the harmonica, but not against the harmonica, so you don't hear bumps or something.

00:30:37.594 --> 00:30:39.656
Okay, so you're sort of putting your finger between...

00:30:39.717 --> 00:30:40.376
Yeah, it's

00:30:40.718 --> 00:30:42.219
a little bit of distance, of course.

00:30:42.759 --> 00:30:48.026
And still, also, because with the other instruments, you don't hear so much the noises anymore.

00:30:48.385 --> 00:31:07.465
Sounds like you've got a great recording engineer you there so yeah so this living living here album as you say there's lots of great piano on there and there's this thing that the chromatic harmonica works so well with the piano doesn't it I think they're both quite gentle sounding instruments aren't they which just complement each other so well

00:31:07.787 --> 00:31:19.338
yes I think it's a beautiful combination and of course you have to find the piano player that suits you he's also playing not too much you know like giving me space and stuff yeah

00:31:19.578 --> 00:31:23.943
is that something you do yourself when you're, you know, practicing at home with a piano?

00:31:24.003 --> 00:31:27.907
Do you sort of record yourself parts or do you even play the chromatic at the same time as the piano?

00:31:28.249 --> 00:31:29.128
No, I don't do that.

00:31:29.410 --> 00:31:30.171
Some people can.

00:31:30.250 --> 00:31:31.571
It's very amazing.

00:31:32.633 --> 00:31:34.694
Like Antonio Serrano, I think he plays.

00:31:34.955 --> 00:31:35.135
Yeah.

00:31:35.496 --> 00:31:42.523
You know, sometimes I play a chord with my left hand and I try out a melody, but now it's very basic.

00:31:43.224 --> 00:31:45.747
Got a great song on there, which is a samba one.

00:31:45.807 --> 00:31:50.192
So another sort of Brazilian theme one on there, the Samba de Umbreca.

00:31:50.192 --> 00:32:07.759
That's really a Brazilian song written by Guinga.

00:32:08.780 --> 00:32:11.945
That's a very well-known Brazilian musician.

00:32:12.289 --> 00:32:15.277
And well, we changed it, of course, a little bit.

00:32:15.317 --> 00:32:20.849
We didn't play it really very Brazilian, but we played it more like a wild song.

00:32:21.330 --> 00:32:24.097
And it is with Jim Black on drums.

00:32:24.679 --> 00:32:31.134
And Jim Black is a very famous modern jazz or even avant-garde drummer.

00:32:31.298 --> 00:32:41.646
and then your most recent album which you alluded to earlier on is called River Beast another water themed and it's got a picture of you on the album cover playing the harmonica underwater

00:32:41.686 --> 00:32:57.701
yeah we really went to a swimming pool just close to Amsterdam and I went there with this photographer and we could make photos there for like an hour so we dived underwater and he had this underwater camera so it was a lot of fun to do

00:32:58.101 --> 00:33:00.242
so why the title River Beast

00:33:00.542 --> 00:33:25.150
well I just wrote a couple of songs about my childhood i went with my family my cousins a lot of friends and we were swimming in all these rivers and we had a great time so i wrote a couple of songs inspired by that and one of them is called river beast so

00:33:48.001 --> 00:33:51.125
So that song has got a really sort of languid feel about it.

00:33:51.145 --> 00:33:53.650
It's the rhythm kind of judders along, doesn't it?

00:33:53.670 --> 00:33:57.434
I guess it's trying to get that Riverby sort of feel about it.

00:33:57.795 --> 00:34:04.805
It's also, you know, Herbie Hancock wrote this Swamp Rat song and it's a little bit inspired by that.

00:34:05.125 --> 00:34:08.208
It's also a little bit inspired by groovy 70s music.

00:34:08.489 --> 00:34:10.833
My whole childhood was, of course, in the 70s.

00:34:11.253 --> 00:34:17.161
On this album is drummer Steve Gadd, famous for his beautiful rhythms.

00:34:17.601 --> 00:34:19.387
in a lot of 70s songs.

00:34:19.969 --> 00:34:26.208
So this was my whole goal, to make songs that would fit really for this drummer.

00:34:26.690 --> 00:34:28.331
Yeah, it is very funky, isn't it?

00:34:28.391 --> 00:34:32.574
And it's great to hear the harmonica in that setting, and I think that is another setting that it really suits,

00:34:32.594 --> 00:34:33.036
doesn't it?

00:34:33.056 --> 00:34:35.777
Yeah, that's not really done so much, I thought, also.

00:34:36.077 --> 00:34:41.081
Yeah, but the question I really want to know is what happened to the harmonica that you put underwater in the swimming

00:34:42.202 --> 00:34:42.284
pool?

00:34:42.304 --> 00:34:43.945
Well, it's not playable anymore.

00:34:45.726 --> 00:34:46.786
It was an old harmonica.

00:34:46.806 --> 00:34:50.931
I have many harmonicas here that are just a little bit out of tune,

00:34:50.951 --> 00:34:51.110
you know.

00:34:51.130 --> 00:34:51.150
I

00:34:51.472 --> 00:34:54.994
keep them to see if I can take something from it.

00:34:55.534 --> 00:34:57.076
So it was an old harmonic.

00:34:57.436 --> 00:34:58.657
Yeah, it's ruined.

00:34:59.659 --> 00:35:04.844
So people listening should not try to replicate that at home and put their harmonicas underwater.

00:35:05.085 --> 00:35:06.445
Particularly chromatic harmonicas.

00:35:06.666 --> 00:35:07.807
Yeah.

00:35:07.827 --> 00:35:10.391
Imagine the wind servers didn't like that very much.

00:35:10.411 --> 00:35:11.811
Yeah, it's completely ruined.

00:35:11.831 --> 00:35:14.894
So could you play the harmonica underwater or was that impossible?

00:35:14.936 --> 00:35:15.976
Yes, I heard sounds, yeah.

00:35:16.016 --> 00:35:17.378
It is possible though, yeah.

00:35:18.099 --> 00:35:18.659
Yeah, great.

00:35:19.059 --> 00:35:24.306
You say this is quite a funky album and there's quite a lot of nice strong melodic lines on the chromatic that you're playing.

00:35:24.686 --> 00:35:29.971
So I understand that you and the other band members composed what pretty much all the songs in this album did you

00:35:31.052 --> 00:35:46.125
uh yes uh i think there's maybe two two covers i don't know i think i wrote four or five songs there's a cover of an american band it's called doctor's wind so there's a cover of earl randall it's if we can trust each other yeah

00:35:46.905 --> 00:35:52.030
and that that song is with a singer isn't it alan clark yeah

00:35:52.050 --> 00:35:55.773
and uh

00:36:05.697 --> 00:36:11.525
Yeah, so that's what it's quite a soul feel about, isn't it?

00:36:11.927 --> 00:36:12.146
Yeah.

00:36:12.708 --> 00:36:15.672
And you released that song sort of as a single as well, haven't you?

00:36:16.353 --> 00:36:22.681
Yes, I released it as a single because Alain Clarke is also a very, very well-known singer here in Holland.

00:36:23.483 --> 00:36:28.068
I was playing with his band in all kinds of big theater halls.

00:36:28.865 --> 00:36:32.010
And then I thought, maybe he wants to play on my album as well.

00:36:33.313 --> 00:36:34.275
So then he said yes.

00:36:34.355 --> 00:36:35.416
So this was very nice.

00:36:35.456 --> 00:36:38.101
There's a song in there called Song for My Sister.

00:36:38.141 --> 00:36:40.144
Was that one that you wrote for your sister?

00:36:40.545 --> 00:36:42.307
Yeah.

00:36:46.755 --> 00:36:47.998
Yeah.

00:36:58.465 --> 00:37:04.480
So my sister, she's a very happy person and I decided to write this song for her.

00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:08.809
Also, The Road to Garganza is a song for my cousin.

00:37:08.849 --> 00:37:12.978
It's about us going to this little village in Italy.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.626
And So Long Redhead is also for my cousin.

00:37:15.938 --> 00:37:18.260
You know, Zombie Chicken is also for my cousin.

00:37:18.559 --> 00:37:19.320
The same cousin?

00:37:19.621 --> 00:37:20.762
No, it's a different cousin.

00:37:21.101 --> 00:37:23.384
So that's a little bit the whole album.

00:37:23.664 --> 00:37:25.326
So I hope your family liked this album then.

00:37:25.565 --> 00:37:26.007
Yeah, they

00:37:26.047 --> 00:37:26.527
really liked

00:37:26.927 --> 00:37:26.967
it.

00:37:26.987 --> 00:37:27.248
Yeah.

00:37:27.407 --> 00:37:29.250
Yeah, with all the songs devoted to them.

00:37:29.269 --> 00:37:30.329
I really enjoyed all your albums.

00:37:30.411 --> 00:37:33.293
The more recent ones, I think, you know, are getting better and better.

00:37:33.313 --> 00:37:33.853
Thank you.

00:37:33.873 --> 00:37:35.795
Yeah, I hope so too.

00:37:35.815 --> 00:37:38.237
For myself, I liked the last album the best.

00:37:38.538 --> 00:37:42.320
Also, the musicians I made this, you know, they're all really great.

00:37:42.721 --> 00:37:44.583
All American musicians from New York.

00:37:45.083 --> 00:37:59.157
Of course, they're uh very good musicians everywhere but i choose these musicians because they understood what i wanted to do and to do this kind of style of music and they were so dedicated and yeah it was really a big pleasure

00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:15.856
so you say you like this album the best of the ones you've done so does that mean you're sort of you've going away from jazz more it's not because you haven't done an old jazz album by any means have you but you've definitely had a sort of jazz uh you know jazz leaning in most of them haven't you is this you know does this see you going a little bit away from jazz or

00:38:15.856 --> 00:38:44.547
yeah that's true because I'm planning another album like this but then with Dutch musicians I just really like sort of groove kind of music you call it Americana actually I like a mixture of sort of African style and Americana actually but I will always play a lot of solos I will always improvise so in that in that aspect I will stay to play jazz in a way like not really jazz but improvise

00:38:44.987 --> 00:39:10.695
and a lot of your albums are mostly instrumentals aren't they there are a few vocals on this album for example but mostly instrumental so I mean how do you find that that goes for just the success of the album because you know there's a perception that people like to hear vocals yeah although personally I much prefer instrumental albums but most people prefer vocals don't they so is that that's a decision on your part to do instrumental albums or because that's what you prefer or you know and how about that for the success of the albums

00:39:10.914 --> 00:39:23.907
I always wanted to make instrumental albums because I listened to it myself a lot of course it's difficult to sell and I'm not thinking of selling the album in the first place you know maybe I should

00:39:24.951 --> 00:39:27.177
nobody buys albums anymore everyone streams them on

00:39:27.679 --> 00:39:28.382
their own yeah that's true

00:39:28.481 --> 00:39:30.244
Spotify and the like, don't they?

00:39:30.324 --> 00:39:34.007
So yes, that kind of market's gone to some extent, isn't it?

00:39:34.507 --> 00:39:35.188
Yeah, it's true.

00:39:35.248 --> 00:39:43.635
But I'm planning to make an album in the Netherlands with some well-known singers in the Netherlands that are in my kind of music.

00:39:43.894 --> 00:39:51.081
I plan to do an album with like six vocal numbers and six instrumentals and then, you know, make a combination of that.

00:39:51.282 --> 00:39:54.724
Getting the chromatic harmonica works really well accompanying singers, doesn't it?

00:39:55.184 --> 00:39:58.447
A song you've released recently called Love Came to Me you did with a singer

00:39:58.447 --> 00:40:12.949
called Kate Fenner, yeah?

00:40:13.289 --> 00:40:14.431
So

00:40:14.572 --> 00:40:16.074
how do you approach playing with a singer?

00:40:16.577 --> 00:40:22.782
Of course, it's very nice to give the singer space and then, you know, make sort of a duet.

00:40:23.103 --> 00:40:24.003
That's how I see it.

00:40:24.244 --> 00:40:30.010
I'm not really accompanying the singer, but it's more working together and having a duet.

00:40:30.170 --> 00:40:32.431
Going back to this conversation on making albums.

00:40:32.472 --> 00:40:38.456
So obviously making albums costs quite a lot of money if you do it well and you get great musicians and you're hiring studios and things.

00:40:38.496 --> 00:40:44.362
So is it something that you feel you need to do to tour and to get the bands together to tour?

00:40:44.541 --> 00:40:47.485
Do you think that's the main driver these days to to make albums?

00:40:47.744 --> 00:40:49.367
Yeah, one hand it is.

00:40:49.407 --> 00:40:56.394
On the other hand, I also just like to make an album and I like concept albums, you know, like albums that tell a story.

00:40:56.695 --> 00:41:03.902
And my experience is that if I make an album, I will get work out of it, but not necessarily with that band.

00:41:04.123 --> 00:41:06.686
So it's a broader perspective.

00:41:06.965 --> 00:41:16.014
I get attention, I get media attention, I will be asked by other people, you know, and I can play this music also with a smaller band or with Dutch musicians.

00:41:16.416 --> 00:41:18.224
Yeah, So it gets you that exposure, as you say.

00:41:18.465 --> 00:41:19.431
So it's important to do it, yeah.

00:41:19.934 --> 00:41:20.938
Yeah, there is.

00:41:21.201 --> 00:41:21.884
And...

00:41:22.369 --> 00:41:29.936
like this album River Beast maybe I probably I will make vinyl from this and I will sell maybe more than a CD

00:41:30.317 --> 00:41:36.181
so yeah but like you say if you want to make a kind of themed album a concept album then you know it's great to do that too

00:41:36.422 --> 00:41:42.447
and that helps me with writing songs if I have a theme or you know it's easier for me to make songs

00:41:42.867 --> 00:41:53.818
that's your albums now you think about making some more but you played with lots of other people we touched on and one famous harmonica band who you've recorded with is Fatima Garner who also a Dutch band.

00:41:53.858 --> 00:41:54.057
Yeah.

00:41:54.197 --> 00:41:58.121
I've had Fatima Goner on the podcast and we've been through the album of those.

00:41:58.161 --> 00:42:00.965
So Fatima Goner and Friends is the album you're on with them, isn't it?

00:42:01.085 --> 00:42:01.306
Yes.

00:42:01.686 --> 00:42:02.447
This was amazing.

00:42:02.467 --> 00:42:06.271
It was so much fun and it is so good to, you know, meet colleagues.

00:42:06.831 --> 00:42:11.356
Rob Jans is a very good chromatic harmonica player, very virtuoso also.

00:42:11.617 --> 00:42:14.298
And yeah, they play all kinds of music.

00:42:14.559 --> 00:42:14.840
Yeah.

00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:15.079
Yeah.

00:42:15.099 --> 00:42:15.300
Great.

00:42:15.340 --> 00:42:16.961
And you play with other people.

00:42:17.722 --> 00:42:17.963
Yeah.

00:42:18.083 --> 00:42:20.666
A guy called Chris Beckers, you played on his album.

00:42:20.686 --> 00:42:20.887
Yes.

00:42:21.067 --> 00:42:21.246
Yes.

00:42:21.286 --> 00:42:28.155
He's a great guitar player from Amsterdam.

00:42:28.175 --> 00:42:42.755
And with a singer called Britta Maria.

00:42:42.775 --> 00:42:42.815
Oh

00:42:43.655 --> 00:42:45.077
yeah, I recorded with her.

00:42:45.697 --> 00:42:51.027
She's doing a lot of French chansons.

00:42:51.427 --> 00:42:58.760
And I recently recorded also with a Greek singer, Irina.

00:42:58.860 --> 00:43:06.211
And tomorrow I'm going to do a recording with a German band called Coason.

00:43:07.014 --> 00:43:09.338
And this is a flamenco tune.

00:43:09.762 --> 00:43:10.422
Completely new.

00:43:11.402 --> 00:43:13.364
So you've also played with Al Jarreau.

00:43:13.644 --> 00:43:16.367
Yes, this is a long time ago, in 2000, I think.

00:43:16.648 --> 00:43:21.771
I was a guest in a Dutch television program of a piano player, Cor Bakker.

00:43:22.032 --> 00:43:22.952
I still play with him.

00:43:23.454 --> 00:43:28.137
And Al Jarreau was a guest and he had this song with a harmonica solo on it.

00:43:28.157 --> 00:43:30.699
So I was asked to do that, which was great.

00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:33.483
And you played with various orchestras as well.

00:43:33.543 --> 00:43:37.106
So you played in the concert ball in Amsterdam, where I've been myself.

00:43:37.346 --> 00:43:39.086
So you played in various orchestras.

00:43:39.228 --> 00:43:40.949
So is this What, as a guest soloist?

00:43:40.969 --> 00:43:42.610
Or are you playing classical music here?

00:43:43.331 --> 00:43:46.574
Yes, I was soloist and it was mainly film music.

00:43:46.815 --> 00:43:50.599
So I played a lot of film music that Toots played.

00:43:50.940 --> 00:43:55.023
Also, they made arrangements of this advertisement tune I did.

00:43:55.224 --> 00:43:56.326
I played it with the orchestra.

00:43:56.905 --> 00:44:04.094
I'm going to play the film music again this November in the Ziggo Dome, which is the biggest hall in the Netherlands.

00:44:04.373 --> 00:44:09.579
But that's with the Major Paul and we play, of course, The Man with the Harmonica, which is just only...

00:44:09.679 --> 00:44:10.902
three notes, as you know.

00:44:10.981 --> 00:44:14.188
But I also play some other things of other movies.

00:44:14.588 --> 00:44:17.452
You mentioned that you've done various film soundtracks.

00:44:17.472 --> 00:44:20.277
There was a film called Strangely in Love.

00:44:32.860 --> 00:44:33.981
Strangely in Love

00:44:36.289 --> 00:44:44.061
This is where I did some lines on harmonica, and I did some children's movies.

00:44:44.643 --> 00:44:48.327
I did some music for that in 2000, but it's already a long time ago.

00:44:48.347 --> 00:44:54.518
And I played the music with a nature film about Amsterdam, about all the animals that are living in the city.

00:44:55.418 --> 00:44:56.800
Is that called the Wildstad?

00:44:56.840 --> 00:44:57.181
Is that that

00:44:57.461 --> 00:44:57.603
one?

00:44:57.822 --> 00:44:59.806
Yeah, that's called the Wildstad, yeah.

00:45:00.193 --> 00:45:06.655
And I also played a classical piece, a small group of people of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

00:45:07.257 --> 00:45:09.284
I think it's Vulcan Williams we played.

00:45:09.922 --> 00:45:12.503
Played numerous festivals around in different countries.

00:45:12.523 --> 00:45:14.786
You mentioned the North Sea Jazz Festival already, of course.

00:45:14.806 --> 00:45:17.027
You played in Cairo, played in Trondheim.

00:45:17.469 --> 00:45:19.110
Yeah, so you're playing festivals.

00:45:19.210 --> 00:45:24.313
And you're supposed to be, you're set to play in the UK later this year, yeah, for the UK listeners?

00:45:25.074 --> 00:45:29.119
Yes, I play in Ambleside on a Thursday, 2nd of September.

00:45:29.438 --> 00:45:33.222
And I play in the Ribble Valley Festival.

00:45:33.541 --> 00:45:35.003
It's 29 October.

00:45:35.023 --> 00:45:39.887
I also play the 28th or 27th on the Ulverston Festival.

00:45:39.887 --> 00:45:42.931
And on the 31st of October, again in Ambleside.

00:45:43.452 --> 00:45:48.998
You played a harmonica composition in an orchestra written by, is it a German?

00:45:49.557 --> 00:45:52.260
Yeah, he's a composer from Jordania.

00:45:52.702 --> 00:45:55.664
He moved a long time ago to the south of Germany.

00:45:55.704 --> 00:46:00.210
And he's a very well-known composer in modern classical music.

00:46:00.349 --> 00:46:02.411
He wrote a piece specifically for the harmonica, did

00:46:02.751 --> 00:46:02.791
he?

00:46:02.811 --> 00:46:04.333
Yeah, he wrote a piece actually for me.

00:46:05.735 --> 00:46:10.621
One day I just got an email from him that he would like to try to write something.

00:46:11.101 --> 00:46:13.284
He had also this festival.

00:46:13.364 --> 00:46:15.905
It's the Donaueschingen Festival in Germany.

00:46:16.286 --> 00:46:17.949
So we could do the premiere there.

00:46:18.108 --> 00:46:20.411
So he wrote me two years before that.

00:46:20.490 --> 00:46:26.958
So first he wrote this tune and he talked to me about what was possible in the harmonica.

00:46:27.259 --> 00:46:31.043
He even tried to play it a little bit himself just to get to know the instrument.

00:46:31.302 --> 00:46:32.744
Well, he wrote this beautiful piece.

00:46:32.925 --> 00:46:34.206
So I was very happy.

00:46:34.306 --> 00:46:45.373
Of course, it's very difficult with a lot of big jumps, you know, and double notes and and stuff, and it's really modern, but I think it's melodic too.

00:46:56.257 --> 00:47:00.461
You also have done some teaching of the harmonica at the Conservatory of Rotterdam.

00:47:00.802 --> 00:47:05.686
Yeah, I've been teaching there for four years on more the technical part.

00:47:05.945 --> 00:47:17.876
So I had a couple of students that were studying jazz on chromatic harmonica, and they had lessons from a trumpet player, and I did the technique, so etudes and scales and stuff.

00:47:18.157 --> 00:47:19.458
So do you do any more teaching?

00:47:19.838 --> 00:47:23.181
Only at home, yeah, just some private students, but not much.

00:47:23.702 --> 00:47:26.043
And in 2018, you won the Bernie Bray...

00:47:26.224 --> 00:47:27.273
Harmonica Player of the Year.

00:47:27.293 --> 00:47:29.958
Yeah, it was such a big honour.

00:47:30.434 --> 00:47:37.179
A question now that I'm sure you probably get asked a lot, which is why aren't there more female harmonica players?

00:47:37.199 --> 00:47:40.623
And maybe how do you think we can get more female harmonica players playing?

00:47:40.922 --> 00:47:44.206
It's difficult because, of course, I don't know why this is.

00:47:44.606 --> 00:47:51.652
It's also in the jazz world, there are not many instrumentalists, not many female drummers or female bass players.

00:47:52.213 --> 00:47:54.534
There are more and more female saxophone players.

00:47:55.114 --> 00:47:57.416
It could be a role model could help.

00:47:57.777 --> 00:48:01.681
So I hope to inspire other women to try out this beautiful instrument.

00:48:02.681 --> 00:48:07.547
Of course, there are lots of great female musicians, although they tend to be more classical on the side.

00:48:08.047 --> 00:48:13.733
Yeah, because maybe the classical musicians are encouraging women more or something.

00:48:14.255 --> 00:48:17.157
I think it will develop and become better.

00:48:17.478 --> 00:48:21.603
Of course, the jazz scene was a kind of macho scene still.

00:48:21.882 --> 00:48:27.809
When I was young, to go to bands or play in bands, they were all guys, of course, and you have to adapt.

00:48:28.170 --> 00:48:52.536
And also on workshops or jam sessions you have to be more outgoing you have to a little bit fight for your place you know so if you don't if you're not persistent enough maybe you stop you know if I think of myself I just did it and I try to get my place in these jam sessions and stuff but it's difficult

00:48:52.916 --> 00:48:58.422
well it's great to see I mean like you say it's appealing for the females in the audience as well to see a female player isn't it

00:48:58.442 --> 00:49:11.097
I think so yeah it can be inspiring and just know that.

00:49:18.806 --> 00:49:25.733
A question I ask each time, Hermione, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:49:26.146 --> 00:49:36.422
I would practice five minutes of scales, and I would then, you know, go over all the 12 scales, either in major or melodic minor.

00:49:36.842 --> 00:49:44.853
Although the first thing I would do is play a long note or a couple of long notes, listen to your sounds, then do the sub scales, like our old 12 scales.

00:49:45.195 --> 00:49:47.257
And then 10 minutes, I would play songs.

00:49:47.699 --> 00:49:50.463
I divide my time always in thirds.

00:49:50.804 --> 00:49:52.266
So one third is technique.

00:49:52.545 --> 00:49:58.150
One third is playing chord changes and go over new tunes with chord changes.

00:49:58.550 --> 00:50:05.978
And the last third, I really play a whole tune with a solo and I try to play a beautiful thing, like I would be on stage.

00:50:06.478 --> 00:50:08.539
Yeah, and you do that with backing tracks or without?

00:50:08.699 --> 00:50:21.311
Sometimes with backing tracks, but lately I'm doing this very difficult thing, like just putting on the metronome and only play with the metronome and keeping the one on the good place, you know.

00:50:21.610 --> 00:50:22.472
It's harsh, but

00:50:22.512 --> 00:50:23.853
It's very

00:50:23.893 --> 00:50:24.094
good.

00:50:24.134 --> 00:50:31.762
Yeah, it's a good way instead of, because I practice usually songs with backing tracks and yeah, you kind of rely on the backing track for your timing and things, don't you?

00:50:31.902 --> 00:50:35.326
You do it with a metronome, you have to be much more disciplined.

00:50:35.905 --> 00:50:41.172
It's very disciplined and sometimes it's difficult and I just want to relax and I put on a nice backing

00:50:41.192 --> 00:50:41.952
track.

00:50:43.213 --> 00:50:48.500
But my experience is that I moved forward by doing this with a metronome.

00:50:48.920 --> 00:50:50.842
I really improved, I think.

00:50:51.702 --> 00:51:08.061
And your sound, you know i think it's been described as having a rich lyrical sound effortless fluency gentle lyrical i think does sum up your sound nice you get a very nice tone it is it's quite gentle and you know that lyrical is very accurate you know have you worked on your sound in a particular way to get that

00:51:08.400 --> 00:51:26.559
well yes i just did a lot a lot of playing long notes from soft to loud and back again and also to really hear where the sound can be more round and warm and i adapt my embouchure in ways that I get the sound.

00:51:26.981 --> 00:51:37.172
So it's a lot of listening to yourself and adapt how you play and relaxing the embouchure and still making a good sound, you know, and having a lot of air inside of your mouth.

00:51:37.552 --> 00:51:40.675
So do you record yourself a lot when you're practicing to listen back to yourself?

00:51:41.056 --> 00:51:42.617
Not so much, but a little.

00:51:42.958 --> 00:51:44.780
I just listen to myself while playing.

00:51:45.099 --> 00:51:49.804
Of course, I did a lot of studio work, so I listened a lot to myself in studio.

00:51:50.106 --> 00:52:17.889
But also I spend a lot of time with bending and bending and influencing the tone making waves or not you know bending it down or not you know also listened a lot to violin players like classical violin players they have so much nuance and subtlety yeah but it all has to do with how do you make the sound and do you play it softer or louder do you bend it or not you know

00:52:18.190 --> 00:52:21.032
yeah so you obviously spent a lot of time thinking about getting the sound

00:52:22.233 --> 00:52:22.333
music

00:52:24.130 --> 00:52:45.509
so we'll move on to the last section now so last section talking about gear so um Talking about what harmonica you play, I believe you play the Toots models, do you?

00:52:46.110 --> 00:52:48.318
Yeah, I still play the hard bopper.

00:52:48.458 --> 00:52:54.617
I started playing on the mellow tone a long time ago, but the hard bopper is now good for me and

00:52:55.266 --> 00:52:56.987
They're the ones I play as well.

00:52:57.027 --> 00:52:59.889
I mean, I do have other ones, but they're the ones I do prefer.

00:52:59.909 --> 00:53:01.251
Definitely the Toots ones.

00:53:01.291 --> 00:53:02.492
I think they're still great, aren't they?

00:53:02.512 --> 00:53:07.096
I think the one downside with them, of course, is that they don't have screwed-on replays.

00:53:07.115 --> 00:53:08.476
So, you know, they've got nails and things.

00:53:08.516 --> 00:53:11.519
So I really wish that Honi would make a model with screwed-on replays.

00:53:11.800 --> 00:53:12.260
Yeah, me too.

00:53:12.280 --> 00:53:13.521
Yeah, like a wooden one.

00:53:13.742 --> 00:53:17.664
Like the wooden one, but then with changeable replays.

00:53:17.684 --> 00:53:21.568
Yeah, which they're doing, of course, with their 270 models now.

00:53:21.748 --> 00:53:23.210
So I really wish they'd do with the...

00:53:23.931 --> 00:53:25.231
So, yeah, so you're still playing that.

00:53:25.231 --> 00:53:25.594
one.

00:53:25.614 --> 00:53:27.972
Do you not play any other models of chromatic then?

00:53:28.938 --> 00:53:30.268
I tried out a Suzuki.

00:53:30.530 --> 00:53:32.130
Which is also very good.

00:53:32.431 --> 00:53:35.994
Still, the sound didn't appeal to me as much as the Hard Bopper.

00:53:36.235 --> 00:53:39.157
And I played like the Ace of Hohner.

00:53:39.538 --> 00:53:40.237
Good one too.

00:53:40.639 --> 00:53:43.181
And this other model, the Super 64.

00:53:43.320 --> 00:53:43.521
So

00:53:43.802 --> 00:53:45.222
do you play much 16-hole?

00:53:45.583 --> 00:53:46.583
No, I play 12-hole.

00:53:46.643 --> 00:53:50.387
But sometimes if I need a 16-hole, I play the Super 64.

00:53:51.047 --> 00:53:51.949
It's also very good.

00:53:52.188 --> 00:53:55.050
But I don't know why I still want to play the Hard Bopper.

00:53:55.572 --> 00:53:57.612
For me, it's the most subtle one.

00:53:57.873 --> 00:54:00.496
So it's about subtlety that I'm looking for.

00:54:00.496 --> 00:54:03.023
Yeah, and you mentioned embouchure earlier on.

00:54:03.224 --> 00:54:04.610
So what embouchure do you like to use?

00:54:05.552 --> 00:54:05.873
Pucker.

00:54:06.436 --> 00:54:07.960
Okay, so all pucker then.

00:54:08.481 --> 00:54:14.766
Yeah, only if I have to play double notes for these classical pieces, of course.

00:54:15.088 --> 00:54:16.088
I use thumb blocking.

00:54:16.949 --> 00:54:19.672
Equipment-wise, what amplification do you like to use?

00:54:20.231 --> 00:54:25.456
Now I'm using a Fishman amplifier with the SM58.

00:54:26.297 --> 00:54:29.480
So do you use the Fishman for most of your live playing then?

00:54:29.539 --> 00:54:30.501
You don't use a PA?

00:54:30.621 --> 00:54:31.782
Do you mic up the small amp?

00:54:32.123 --> 00:54:36.666
If I know the sound engineer or I can bring my own sound engineer, I will use the PA.

00:54:36.967 --> 00:54:40.829
But otherwise, I bring my Fishman amp and we just plug it in you know

00:54:41.353 --> 00:54:43.070
and do you use any effects pedals with that

00:54:43.202 --> 00:54:46.985
I just used a little bit of the reverb of this amp.

00:54:47.306 --> 00:54:48.806
Do you know what amp that actually is?

00:54:48.887 --> 00:54:49.807
Which model of Fishman?

00:54:50.547 --> 00:54:51.969
I used the Loudbox Mini.

00:54:52.449 --> 00:54:53.971
So it's a small amp then?

00:54:54.632 --> 00:54:56.052
It's a very small amp, yeah.

00:54:56.092 --> 00:54:58.094
Yeah, and an acoustic sounding amp.

00:54:58.896 --> 00:55:00.836
And we obviously talked about you using the SM58.

00:55:00.936 --> 00:55:03.199
Is it one with a volume control?

00:55:03.900 --> 00:55:05.201
Yeah, it's a volume control.

00:55:05.320 --> 00:55:07.643
It's from the company Blows Me Away.

00:55:08.003 --> 00:55:08.764
Greg Newman, yeah.

00:55:09.123 --> 00:55:09.985
Yeah, Greg Newman, yeah.

00:55:10.244 --> 00:55:11.025
I really like them.

00:55:11.766 --> 00:55:13.168
I know he makes the body...

00:55:13.168 --> 00:55:15.951
shorter doesn't it and obviously puts the volume control in it as well

00:55:16.311 --> 00:55:26.481
yeah so it's it's a little bit easier to have it in your hand and also i put it on three quarts and then if the drummer goes very loud or the band i can put it a little bit louder

00:55:26.742 --> 00:55:34.650
yeah and what about any future plans that you've got now i see things are opening up now you you're starting to get out there now playing or what have you got coming up

00:55:35.050 --> 00:55:46.864
i had already a couple of concerts i had a project about plants so i wrote all kinds of songs about plants And it was inspired by The Secret Life of Plants by Stevie Wonder.

00:55:47.425 --> 00:55:50.731
And so I'm doing a couple of concerts with that.

00:55:51.210 --> 00:55:55.257
And then later I will play some Brazilian music with a Brazilian band.

00:55:56.398 --> 00:56:01.246
I will play this modern classical piece again in September here in Holland with a big orchestra.

00:56:01.697 --> 00:56:06.264
And I will do the evening of the film music also with the Metropole Orchestra in November.

00:56:06.304 --> 00:56:10.568
And of course, the concerts in the UK.

00:56:10.989 --> 00:56:12.090
I'm really looking forward.

00:56:12.592 --> 00:56:15.074
So most of your work at the moment is in the Netherlands, is it?

00:56:15.715 --> 00:56:16.976
Most in the Netherlands, yes.

00:56:16.996 --> 00:56:19.300
Yeah, obviously travel is still difficult at the moment, isn't it?

00:56:19.420 --> 00:56:20.420
Yeah, it's very difficult.

00:56:20.481 --> 00:56:20.802
Yeah,

00:56:21.463 --> 00:56:25.467
but obviously, hopefully, as you say, later in the year, we have to come across the UK and other places.

00:56:25.748 --> 00:56:27.389
Hopefully, yeah.

00:56:27.521 --> 00:56:28.103
Yeah.

00:56:28.123 --> 00:56:31.427
So what did you do with yourself over the pandemic time?

00:56:31.467 --> 00:56:35.831
Were you busy playing and writing things or did you have a break from music?

00:56:36.072 --> 00:56:40.396
First, I had a little break, two months, and then I started practicing again.

00:56:40.416 --> 00:56:47.545
And then I did a lot of live streams also here in the Netherlands, but also some international live streams also for spa.

00:56:47.846 --> 00:56:52.371
Yeah, I did a lot of also paid live streams here in the Netherlands, which was great.

00:56:52.650 --> 00:56:52.891
Great.

00:56:52.911 --> 00:56:53.152
Yeah.

00:56:53.192 --> 00:56:54.672
So you managed to get some income that way.

00:56:54.733 --> 00:56:55.134
Yeah.

00:56:55.297 --> 00:57:00.224
Also a lot of recordings, like a guest with people's albums.

00:57:00.585 --> 00:57:03.289
And were you recording those at home or going to a studio for that?

00:57:04.311 --> 00:57:10.079
Mostly to my sound engineer, the same one that was sound engineer of Toots.

00:57:10.820 --> 00:57:13.163
He lives a couple of streets away from here.

00:57:13.182 --> 00:57:15.045
So I did a lot of recordings there.

00:57:15.606 --> 00:57:18.311
So thanks so much for joining me today, Hermione Durlow.

00:57:18.771 --> 00:57:19.672
Yes, it was a pleasure.

00:57:19.713 --> 00:57:20.614
Thank you, Neil.

00:57:21.826 --> 00:57:23.248
That's it for episode 42.

00:57:23.288 --> 00:57:29.577
Thanks so much for listening and thanks once again for Hermione producing such beautiful music for us all to enjoy.

00:57:29.617 --> 00:57:31.599
She's really doing it for the sisters.

00:57:32.061 --> 00:57:35.927
Now let's hear more ladies playing that chromatic harmonica and diatonic.

00:57:36.306 --> 00:57:40.373
So it's just over to Hermione to tell us a long story short.

00:57:49.045 --> 00:57:55.389
So Thank you.