David Frankel: The Story Behind His Guitar Journey

[Music] the guitar strikes you as a gentle instrument the violin or the piano for example they're very powerful and dramatic but the guitar touches on very gentle chords in our soul I think I was very attracted to that side of music that is often forgotten or ignored it's almost as if guitar speaks to you about the Forgotten beauty of the world or the silent beauty of the world you know when you listen to its course [Music] that's something only a guitar can do and I identified with that very [Music] much people often ask what I play and I say I play classical guitar they ask is that not electric guitar say yes it's not electric guitar but it's more than that is that acoustic guitar no it's not acoustic guitar acoustic guitar has metal strings and is used for American Music so is it a regular guitar well it's also not a regular guitar cuz a classical guitar is not something you find in a store but first let's speak about the music that you play in a classical guitar the classical guitar is not about strumming chords classical guitar is also not just about playing Melodies classical guitar is when you play a full music piece on the guitar you use the guitar as an advanced instrument just the way you use a piano or harp so you play music like this or music like [Music] this you see he used the guitar to play both Melody and Harmony at the same time but many people don't know that guitar can sound like that I've never heard before when they hear it for the first time they say wow you're using the guitar like a piano what was that I never heard the guitar sound like that I didn't know guitar can sound so warm and beautiful that's what makes me so glad to introduce people to this unique warmth of the classical guitar precisely in places where they haven't heard it before the classical guitar also has many features for example we use a lot of color in our playing we can play like this very metallic or like this very warm like a harp almost and then there's the middle ground so when we play we can change the colors of course this isn't possible on a regular storebox guitar that's why we use special handmade guitars which allow you for all that color and all that beauty and the rich harmonics so we can play even like this we can let the get guitar ring which is natural harmonics produced by the wood and the strings and then we have all kinds of you can play on the base we can play on the treble [Music] strings we can strum with the guitar and we can do things like [Music] tremolo and we use all these different sides of the guitar to produce beautiful music this is the the whole world of classical guitar that is only possible for well-trained guitarist and on well-made guitars so this guitar was built by Christopher Dean in England who built a beautiful guitar this is a project he did just once in his life meaning he builts guitars all the time but this is a unique guitar that he only Built once and he told me that if something happens to it he doesn't intend to build another one which is how classical guitars work you don't buy them in a store you go to someone who builds them and he builds them very specially and if you like it you buy it he never produces two times the same guitar they're they're really built especially so I was looking for guitar I was a student in Belgium and when you're looking for guitar many people come to show you the guitars they have to sell and I didn't like any guitar no guitar felt worth buying and then I went to my teacher Yan the pror in antrop and he came back from some judging competition where they judge guitars blindly and this guitar was the winner so he told me this is a new guitar I would like you to try I took the guitar and I played my first notes on [Music] it I played my first chords on it [Music] and I could hear that this guitar sings this guitar resonates my whole body could resonate with it this is the guitar on which I wouldn't have to work out to produce music this is guitar which would help me in that process I immediately knew that this guitar have to buy and I've been very happy with it for now for I think around 6 years so that idea came to me one day I was studying classical guitar and although I love classical guitar it felt to me like it's not not all that is me and classical guitar only covers one side of me and I grew up with all these warm hidic songs and I wanted to express them differently and I had this idea what if I put it together what if I performed a hdic song on classical guitar so I began arranging my first song I already had this idea in my mind of how warm and melancholic it could sound and I tried it [Music] and I was immediately satisfied with the result so I started arranging a few songs I chose four songs uh to do first and then I knew this lovely guy in Belgium Dimitri who told me if you want to go to the studio to record it as a sample maybe someone want to publish it I'll sponsor it so we went to the studio and we recorded those four tracks rough recordings no editing or anything in the end I ended up publishing those tracks myself which became the album cdic jewels and then seeing the response to it that people had I went on to do more of those arrangements and that became my next album Timeless intimacy and I really found my language there of combining the classical guitar which I so love with with its warmth and all that it has to offer along with the the beauty and warmth of the cidic songs that I grew up with I find that they're a match made in heaven there's nothing like it combining these two worlds it's so rewarding [Music] like it's almost like they were made for each other and I love to be the one to put them together like that playing music together with other people is the greatest joy I know and I love to play with other people but the guitars gentleness and subtlety is very easily over clouded by other instruments who are much more powerful when you play guitar together with a piano you want to hear the subtlety [Music] of the subtlety of each vibration I put in there you can't hear that the same when you play together with a violin or a cello or flute they overpower you so it's very hard to play together with with other instruments that's why I mostly play alone however here and there I find a partnership where I play together like for the kabad album with did I played with aami wonderful chist and we found a way to make it work so that we showcase the beauty of each instrument without over clouding each [Music] other for [Music]