Ibrahim Maalouf: a conversation on harmony, heritage, and hope

LP: By way of starting, I wanted to share something with you that I came across this weekend, and when I read it, it reminded me of you. I pulled it aside and wanted to read you a very short quote and see what you think about it. It was in an interview with McCoy Tyner from a few decades ago now, and he said, this is a quote: "I am not a fatalist. I have not given up on what good music can do for people."

That made me think of you in multiple regards, not least of which was that you strike me as someone who is engaged with the world around you as an artist, as a citizen, where you've chosen to perform some of the things you've lent your talents to.

Could you talk about that for me, the relationship or the artist's role as a citizen in the world and yours in particular?

Ibrahim Maalouf: Yeah, I can identify with what you just read. There are different kinds of education and different kinds of life. I know it's not very cool to say what I'm going to say because it's always better to bring a cool vibe, and you know, I like, I like to be surrounded by people who have very nice childhoods and were raised in cool places in the world. It always brings a very cool feeling to the conversation and all this. The thing is the same for me, unfortunately, but that's okay.

Ibrahim's Childhood and Impact on His Music

Ibrahim Maalouf: I'm not victimizing or anything, but I didn't have a very pleasant childhood. I was born in a hospital that was being bombed while my mother was actually giving birth.

I lived my childhood in the middle of a war between France and Lebanon, always traveling when there were bombings. So definitely your destiny, your path is different. It doesn't mean you're not happy, right? It doesn't mean you cannot be a joyful person and enjoy your time. I'm a very joyful person. I'm a happy person, but your path is definitely different because You are fed from the first day of your life by the idea that things are not granted, that everything, even freedom, that we believe in the Western world that it's something that we won and that it's, that the rights, the civil rights, the human rights, that all this, it's okay now, it's okay, it's granted. No, it's not. So, you are raised in a world where you are extremely conscious that anything can actually change. Right? So that's in my opinion.

The Power of Music and Its Role in Society

Ibrahim Maalouf: That's why I'm not just doing music for fun and not just doing music because I like it or not just doing music because I'm making a living and not because I enjoy doing shows, but I'm doing music because I really truly deeply believe that music has a power, arts in general, but I would focus on music specifically has a power that nothing else can bring.

And the proof of what I'm saying is that every night when I'm doing a show, like now we're doing the arena tour in Europe and France, I have thousands of people every night right in front of me who don't even care what is my religion, what are my political convictions. and ideas who don't even care what are the religions or political opinions of all the people who are surrounding them.

They are just enjoying their time all together on melodies, dancing, singing, and that's it. Full stop. The message of music, especially when it's shows or in the concerts, is the proof that music has a power that nothing else can have. to unite us all together in one beautiful world. And that's actually why I do music.

LP: Well, okay. That's, that's powerful. That's powerful.

Ibrahim's Relationship with Music and His Father's Influence

LP: Something really struck me in reading about you and getting to know you in a way before getting to know you here, trying to understand a bit about your journey is if I understand correctly, it seems like, especially earlier in your life, There was a, I hope I say this the right way, but a tension in your relationship with music, like when you were doing the competitions and when you were initially studying with your father, it seems like music had a different tone in your life than it came to have.

Is that a misreading, or is there something there? I feel like that theme was coming up, that it took you time to find the joy that you're speaking of.

Ibrahim Maalouf: Absolutely. If you want to be free again, you have to struggle first because no one can actually write a book if he doesn't know many other books, grammar languages, and the science of languages perfectly. You cannot pretend to be a good writer. You can only pretend to be a good dancer if you have actually learned so many aspects of dance perfectly. The same is true for fine arts and the same for anything. And for music, it is the same. 

So, my father took the hard way to make it easier for me later, instead of having a childhood and an easy education, and I got everything I wanted. Like, if I wanted a PlayStation, I got it. And if I wanted to play with my friends, that's fine. But instead of this, he raised me in a very strict way. And music was not only a question of having fun and enjoying my time. It was a question of life or death. It was as if I was in, how do you say? In his feet, in his foot.

He would think, am I going to save my family and save my son's life by teaching him everything he knows, everything he needs to know to become one of the best musicians in the world? Or am I going to spoil him and make him happy now? And he might struggle later. So he took the first way. So he made it difficult at first, but I woke up at the age of 10 with almost being a professional.

At ten years old, I used to play for weddings and concerts. I was almost making a living when I was a young child. And now I understand, but when you were young, you didn't understand why your father was doing this. Why is he being so hard with you? Why is he so demanding? Why can't I enjoy my time with my other friends?

It was very difficult. But afterward, when you see the situation of unemployment, the situation is everywhere in the world. And I thank him so much because I didn't have to worry at all. I did my competitions. I entered the Paris Conservatoire. I was so lucky. I used to play almost perfectly all the concertos and sonatas and all the techniques I was supposed to play at the age of 16 or 17. I was already playing classical music at a very, very high level. So I didn't have to practice it so much anymore. It was there. So I thank him now, but to be honest, it wasn't easy when you're a teenager and a child, you want to have fun with your friends, right?

LP: Something you said at the start of what you just told me that I wanted to circle back to is this notion of, by giving you this training, this intense, disciplined, rigid training, you connected it to a future freedom. Have you since discussed this explicitly? Or did you just come to understand that the idea was that it's almost like a tradesman teaching his child that if you know how to build a house, you'll never be homeless, or if you can lay bricks, you'll always have work? Was it that type of freedom?

Ibrahim Maalouf: Yeah, let me make it clear. I would never do this with my children. I'm not strong enough to do it with my children. I have three children. I want them to be happy, right? So I wouldn't be able to do what my father did with me. But my father had a very difficult life.

When he discovered trumpets, he was in the Lebanese mountains, and he was 24 years old. He was a farmer. He was a poor man working as a farmer. 

When he started to learn trumpet and when he decided to travel to France and Paris, which is actually completely crazy, you know, he didn't speak any French. He didn't even go to school. He didn't have money. He didn't know anything about classical music. He just used to play music and sing music in the church in Lebanon, in the Lebanese mountains. He didn't know anything about Western culture. He didn't know anything, but he decided just like this, they had, he had this thing, his light, something clicked in his mind, and he decided to go to France and study.

So once he studied in France, after six or seven years, he reached the highest level of classical music on trumpet, which is also completely crazy. Actually, I think one day I would definitely do a movie about it because that's one of the craziest stories one would ever hear about. Meanwhile, he actually invented a trumpet, a quarter-tone trumpet, but his life was difficult.

He didn't want me to go through this much difficulties. When I was seven, eight, nine, 15, and 16, he used to say something every time he used to say to me: if you don't have a diploma, the master's degree from the National Conservatoire of Paris, which is the highest level in France, which is actually where he graduated. If you get the diploma of this conservatoire after the age that I discovered the trumpet, that means that you failed your life. He used to say this. There was something that I had to prove. I had to be on the same level as my father, but earlier, and finish my studies before the age when he discovered the trumpet. This was something related to survival that would save your life.

LP: Yeah, the story or the movie of his life would be fascinating to become elite at anything, but especially music starting so late in life is almost unheard of. Not entirely unheard of, but very unheard of.

Ibrahim Maalouf: Yeah, very unheard of, especially someone who really, I know I'm insisting, but still, it's crazy. He doesn't speak French. He didn't go to school, so he barely reads or writes Arabic. He knows nothing about classical music. The only thing he knows about trumpet is that his father used to play clarinets with people who used to play trumpet, too. That's the only thing. And he doesn't have money or anything. And actually, there was a German musician who came to Lebanon. She was there, and he fell in love. They actually fell in love, but she was supposed to marry a man in Germany.

So they had a love story, and then she left. And he was feeling so frustrated and so humiliated that he decided to go to Europe and study trumpet because he was feeling so low. His self-confidence was very low because she left him to marry another man in Germany. 

She used to tell him that if you wanted to play trumpet, you have to go to Europe. Nobody knows the trumpet in Lebanon. That was true, actually. And she used to tell him, you should listen to Maurice André. You should listen to Maurice André. He's the greatest trumpet player in the world. My father was a farmer, a 24-year-old farmer, in the Lebanese mountains. We had never seen anything else in his life other than the Lebanese mountain.

And suddenly, once she left him, he just decided to quit. Everybody, all his friends, all his family, everything he had. Just take this trumpet, go to Paris, and study with Maurice André, which is crazy. Yeah, it's absolutely crazy.

LP: Well, what's crazier is that it happened.

Ibrahim Maalouf: Yeah, I know. I know. My father is what makes me always very grounded, and that would help me stay humble all my life, whatever the successes are. I want to have more and more success, of course, like everybody.

I wish my life would continue like this, but I think that my life would never touch the craziness of my father's life, and he would deserve all the credit for everything I'm achieving right now in my life; you know, he deserves it all.

The Philosophy of Improvisation

LP: Alright. Let me change gears a little. I'm curious about two parts of your music, or two sides, to your music, your life as a composer, your work as a composer, and also the role of improvisation. The basic question I have is: Is improvisation a form of composition, like automatic writing or channeling, or where are those two things the same, and where are they different?

Ibrahim Maalouf: I wouldn't just say something that all composers would share. Each one of us has a way to compose and work and all this. On my side, it's the same thing. It's just a question of time. All my compositions started with an improvisation, but it became a composition because I developed it. I produce it, I work on it, I do the orchestration, I write the strings part, I write the drums, or I produce it with the computer, or I put electronics, or I don't know what, I add things, but it's always at first. 

It always starts with an improvisation, always. I've never sat on a desk and decided, Oh, let me compose something that doesn't work with me. Maybe some people do, but it doesn't work at all with me. I need it to be completely spontaneous. I need it to be completely free from all the codes, you know, never too much inspired by something that I love because that's the biggest trap. You can go into when you're a composer; it's like you, you so much love something that without even noticing, you copy it.

That's something I really want to avoid. So I do my best to take like a blank page, nothing. A white, totally virgin page and let my ideas come spontaneously and see if there's something good. Sometimes it's not good at all, but that's okay. I allow myself not to do good music sometimes, but sometimes, some ideas might be interesting to develop. So I keep them, I sing them. Usually, if I remember them, it's a good sign. From that point, I started to develop them, and that became a composition. But for me, it's the same process. Does it make sense?

LP: Yes, absolutely. It does.

Ibrahim Maalouf: I don't know if you know about this because my book has yet to be translated, but I wrote a book about improvisation. It's called The Little Philosophy of Improvisation. I hope one day it will be translated into English. But the idea of this book was to explain how much improvisation is a philosophy more than a musical technique or a process in itself. It's a philosophy. It's allowing yourself to make mistakes, not to be perfect. It's allowing yourself to accept all your defaults and imperfections, you know, and it's about improvisation when it's with other people. It's about the connection, how to find our common points all together, even though we are so different. There are so many beautiful values that our society doesn't really care about. 

And it's the opposite of what school does. School usually teaches you the codes of society. But the problem with school is that if you rely on it and only on school. You don't have the other side of education from your parents, for example, or from society or sports. If you don't have the other side, you can actually sincerely believe that life is like school, which means If you're not good, you're a zero, you're an F. The process of how you think actually to find the solution is not so important, and the most important is only the solution. That's not true. Life is not like this because you can cheat. If the most important is only the result, you can cheat. You can actually watch on the sides, see the result, and write it. 

That's not life. Life is the process. It's, "How do you get to the result?" And if the process is good, but the result is not good, you should have a good point. You should have a good grade. If you rely on school, it's a big problem because you need to adapt to society correctly. And that's why the other side of school is everything that improvisation teaches you. All the values that improvisation teaches you.

LP: I would love to read the book one day. I do hope it gets translated before I learn how to read French. I don't know which one's going to take longer. (laughter) 

Which is more important in the improvisational mindset than fearlessness or acceptance?

Ibrahim Maalouf: Oh, both of them. It's very complimentary. Self-consciousness is being aware of where you are, who you are, with whom you're living, and what kind of planet you're living in. When people talk about the values of music, when people say that music makes people better, what is it about? What is it? Is it just music because it sounds good? It makes us better? Beautiful music contributes to making us better, but that's not all; it's not the most important thing. The most important thing is the values that it actually brings. 

The Importance of Diversity in Classical Music

Let me give you an example right now in Europe, everywhere, but in Europe, and I can feel it in France because I'm living in France. There is a huge amount of people. And I would say even more in the media world that don't really see where is the problem of xenophobia, right? They don't see it. No, they don't see where the problem is. They are actually trying to bring the idea that xenophobia is not necessarily bad, which is crazy. It's absolutely mad. It's unbelievable, but it's actually happening. And I don't know how. 

So why am I telling you this? Because last year, each year, there is the amazing, astonishing Vienna Symphony Orchestra that plays for New Year's Eve, right? They do a wonderful concert. Since I was a young child, we have had a tradition in my family. On the 1st of January at 10 or 11 a.m., we will actually be watching the Vienna Symphony live, playing all those waltzes of Strauss and all this, right? I love this orchestra. I love this music. I've been raised in it, right? 

Last year, I watched the show, and it's stunning. It's a wonderful show. The orchestra is extremely beautiful. The sound is crazy, but as usual, There are only white people in the orchestra, older people and whites. I don't have anything against white, older people, right? (laughter) It's not a problem. But symphony orchestras and orchestras give a picture to our youth of what classical music is. I really believe that, when I was young, if I could have watched such beautiful orchestras, but with people colored different people, I could have identified, and I could have seen myself playing in these orchestras. Right? But I didn't. 

Maybe you're going to say it's for the good because now I'm doing something else. But when I was young, I would have loved to do that, but I couldn't identify. I couldn't see anyone who looked like me doing this. So, for me, it was something different. It was like, not for me.

So I tweeted because it was still Twitter that I loved the show, that it was unbelievable, and that it was one of the most beautiful shows I'd seen, and blah, blah, blah. But I hope that in the future, there will be more diversity in this orchestra. Believe it or not, after what I wrote on Twitter, I received an army of messages. Even the press and the media started writing terrible things, such as Ibrahim Malouf wanting to replace whites with Arabs and black people and stuff like this. And it went everywhere in the newspapers. 

People don't know anything about what classical music is. They don't know that the symphony orchestra is based on instruments that come from Asia from the Middle East, like the rebab the violin comes from the Middle East, that the drums, the percussions, the marimba, and the timpanis come from Africa, that the oboe and the flute come from Asia. They forget how mixed all those cultures brought this wonderful symphony orchestra to what it is now. What is considered as European is actually a big mix of cultures from all over the world. And that's why it's so fascinating and beautiful. People forget this.

The Death and Revival of Classical Music

LP: And it's the same people who are complaining about the death of the music because it's being held so tight. If it were freed, then it would stand a better chance of living.

Ibrahim Maalouf: Absolutely. And since it became the music of museums in a way, they complain, why people don't go to concerts? Why do we have to put so much money and sponsors to make it work? And why not? And I, every time I say, but because nobody's interested, why nobody's interested? Because it actually didn't follow the path of life. It stopped at some point, and people who loved this music didn't want it to change anymore because they wanted to protect it. 

So when you want to protect your child, and you say you are going to be exactly like I am and your children are going to be exactly like you and me, and we will not change because this is what we are. It's completely mad because you create a generation of people who don't evolve with the path of the world, and they stop and are stuck in one specific time.

So, I was talking about the values of music. People think that music makes people better just because of the melody. No, actually, it's all about values. It's all about what the values of music are. And people sometimes tend to forget those values.

Appreciating Dissonant Music

LP: It's interesting that you say it that way because as you were speaking, I was thinking about Just my own journey as a listener going back for quite a long time, but very much accented in the last few years is that I like to listen to dissonant music. I like to listen to music that sometimes people would, if your ear wasn't ready for it, or if you weren't exposed to You might say, that's not music, or it's just not as easily accessible.

In those instances, it is the values of the music that are appealing. Of course, I like it aesthetically. I've learned, I've developed the ability to appreciate it, but there's also the confrontation or the challenge or the puzzle behind it, or the different type of emotion it's exposing, like, it doesn't have to be just pretty melodies and nice orchestration that makes us all feel good. It's all those other elements that music can confront you with that's exciting and enriching.

Ibrahim Maalouf: Absolutely, and I totally agree with you. And I love this sonnet music. I've been playing it for years. I used to play Stanley Friedman music. I used to play Robert Henderson music, I used to play Iannis Xenakis music, I used to play so much, and I love these things, but there are only a few people educated to understand this, and that's okay.

But if you, as someone who wants classical music to be popular, you cannot rely only on this. You have to open it in a different way so that people understand it. It's like free jazz. So contemporary dissonant music, for me, is all about freedom. You have the right to do it. And that's crazy.

Actually, you have the right to do it. You have to, you have the right to write any kind of harmony. You can write nothing John Cage, and that's okay. You have the right to do it. That's actually extremely interesting. So you're right. We're talking about values here, but that doesn't mean that. It's not music, it is music, but there are not so many people who will understand it because it needs a very specific education, and that's okay.

But you have free jazz, but near what was happening with the free jazz, you also had another kind of jazz, another kind of like different schools of jazz happening at the same time. And if you would have relied only on free jazz and nothing else, there wouldn't be anything called jazz anymore.

I agree with you that the values and all this can also be present. It can also exist in those very specific music that are dissonant. But it doesn't have to be only there. It can be anywhere else. Even in Shostakovich, it can be there. The values are here, too.

When people listen, for example, to Mozart, you have to educate them to understand why Mozart was a genius. Why? Because he changed so many things to the rules. He was a punk. (laughter) He was ruling things in a different way. He was changing what Haydn taught him. He was trying something else. And if you study things, you understand that all those people who changed the course of music and the path of music didn't actually respect the rules. They did something else. They changed it.

The Influence of Bach

LP: In that context, what rules did Bach change?

Ibrahim Maalouf: In my opinion, Bach was also a punk, by the way, but a very clever one, knowing that he couldn't create if he weren't working for the clerks and the church. What is absolutely incredible is that he tempered the keyboards to create polyphony.

So he totally changed the way people used to say the intervals. Before Bach, there were people playing quarter tones. People used to play quarter tones, even on keyboards, they used to have quarter tones and stuff. Bach used to play the oud, the Lute, the Arabic, actually inherited from the south of Europe, from Spain, coming from the Arabs.

Lots of people, by the way, forget that the music of the Renaissance actually used to be played with Arab instruments. That's right. The flute, the darbukka, the oud, all those instruments. Even the, you know, what we, the, the harpsichords, which we call "clavecin" in France. The keyboard with the hammer. The hammer is actually a qanun in Arabic. It's actually the heritage of the qanun. You know, qanun is the same as the harpsichord. The only difference is that they put it on the table and they put white and black things to play it, but it's the same system.

Bach decided to open a new way to see harmony, and he created counterpoint and polyphony. After him, Olivier Messiaen, and all those people, they developed even more and more, of course, but he's the first one to actually temper the keyboard.

LP: And I know it's a bit of a parlor game, but is he the dividing point? Is there a before and after with him? Is Bach one of those transitional figures where there's what came before and what came after?

Ibrahim Maalouf: Oh yeah, no question about this. Definitely. He totally changed the way people see harmony. 

They used to write chords, but the person who was playing the harpsichord could play the chords the way they wanted. It didn't used to be at all this way. Nobody used to do this before this. I'm not educated enough to confirm 100 percent that he was the only one doing this at his time. Still, definitely, he's the one who concentrated so much around him, all his students, all the school he built, everything he wrote, all the oratorios, and all the music for Sunday at the church, the mass.

Everything he wrote and everything he asked his students to write is so big that we can definitely consider him as the turning point for harmony and tempered music.

Film Music and Artistic Life

LP: What's your love and affinity for film music? How does that fit into your creative life? It is something you gravitate towards repeatedly. My perception is that of the arts of the last 100 and 125 years, film is certainly the most collaborative. And I wonder where film work fits in your artistic life. What need does it fill for you?

Ibrahim Maalouf: So many things. First of all, I think I started feeling that my music could be really related to images when I noticed that each one of my music corresponds to a story, each melody, and each song is linked to something that I have actually experienced or dreamed of or imagined or seen.

Every time, there is something that I see behind the music. So I don't always explain it, but there is always something. The other side of this is that every time I watch images, whether it's a movie or anything else, I always have these musical ideas coming spontaneously. I relate to them so much; these two, the image and the sound, are always related for me.

Also, every time I used to go in studios and record some music for myself, even before doing albums, just like recording music to listen to it and all this, I used to love listening to my music when I was actually living something like when I'm in the train or a plane or when I'm walking in the streets of a city I've composed so much music in Paris or New York walking or Beirut, or I've composed so much things so many music just while having the ideas in my ears or listening to what I recorded and in the same time living something, experiencing something. I link all that music to an actual life experience. So, it was very difficult for me at first to dissociate those two things. That's why my favorite moments in music are when I'm on stage because I give a life to this music.

It's not only something you listen to in your ear pod, but it's something that actually is living, is alive, you know? And at some point, watching movies, listening to amazing musics composed by amazing composers for amazing directors, you know, it makes me dream of doing something similar. So I grew up thinking that I was going to be a composer for movies. I really always had this in mind. It was even a secret because I wasn't even daring to talk about it to anyone. It was like my little secret. And it took me a long time before the first people asked me actually to try to do it. 

I had this beautiful experience on a film about the life of Yves Saint Laurent. It was actually a success. The movie was a big success in France and the world. The music didn't get an award, but I was nominated for the first time in what we call the César in French, which is actually the equivalent of the Oscars in the United States. So it was like, "Oh my God. So people think that I'm not so bad at it. So let me do this again." Since then, I have composed 20 or a bit more movie soundtracks. I love doing this, and it has become part of my life.

LP: I've heard different ways that directors interface with the composers, everything from just telling them the themes of the film or giving them a script or giving them a cut to compose to. Do you have a way you like to do it? Or is each one a challenge? Do you have a requirement as to how you'll do it? Or are you open for the ride with a director?

Ibrahim Maalouf: I'm open to all kinds of techniques. Artistic collaboration has to be the same way you actually encounter people.

If you think that every time you meet someone, you want that person to love jazz, and you don't want them to speak too loud, and you want them to drink beer like you, and you don't like when people are not vegetarian and like you fix conditions. So you're never going to have any friends, right? But if you're open, like, some people like to work this way.

Some people will tell you some interesting things, some people are completely lost, and every day they call you, and they say, "Oh, I know what I want. I want this, this, this, this, and this." But the next day, they say the contrary. On the third day, they say something else. And you have to adapt every time.

And I actually adapt because it's a movie. It's usually their movie, you know, a director. It's his baby. So you have to respect this, and you are not only working on something that is going to be your thing, but it's going to be a collaborative thing. So you have to share, you have to know how to share.

I have never worked with similar directors. Each has completely different ways of working. And every time I have, I adapt to them. The only thing that I actually appreciate is when directors accept that part of their movie can also be the music, which means it's highly appreciated. It doesn't have to be.

Some people would say, sometimes the directors told me, I want you to do an invisible music, you know, invisible. Something that people don't actually hear, but they actually are listening to it without even noticing, you know, invisible. So you have to adapt, but it's always highly appreciated when a director tells you.

Let's bring some of your music to my movie. Let's make the movie look a little bit like your music. Then you feel that what you are doing is way more intense because it's really going to feed the whole story. It's not only adding something. It's more than adding. It's bringing something to the characters.

The Electronic Experience

LP: I noticed that you're touring in the US next spring. I was looking at your tour dates, and you're gonna be near me, and it's listed as the Electronic Experience. Please tell me a little bit about that. What is that configuration?

Ibrahim Maalouf: Look, I've always said that for me, being a musician is like being a researcher in a lab. You have like those tubes, and you put things in it, and you see it, and you're like, is it going to work?

I like this. It's what is interesting in music is that you cannot pretend that you always know what's going to come out from your creation. You cannot. Otherwise you would be scary. You know, if you always control everything, right? You don't know if it's going to be good or not good. You have to be honest with yourself.

Sometimes you don't know. Every time I record an album, and I'm working on new music. And if you listen to my discography, you might notice that it's very rare that two albums actually sound alike. Like I can name them. My album called Wind and my album called Kalthoum might sound the same in some aspects because it's the same quintet with whom I recorded it, right? But all the other albums are totally different experiences. Every time I try something new, my last album, Capacity to Love, is a tribute to hip-hop, pop, and hip-hop culture. I've never done this before. I wanted to try, and I tried it, and I'm happy with it because it speaks to me even though it's a bit outside of my comfort zone.

So now I'm working on this crazy project that has nothing to do with what I did before. And that I call the Ibrahim Malouf Electronic Experience. And I want to bring my audience of people who enjoy my music to something different. Also, I bring them and take them with me in an experience, again, a little bit outside of my comfort zone, and try something different.

In the same way, I don't hear the word 'experience' as always being something completely avant-garde and distracted and noisy or experimental. I don't see it this way. You can do great music, but at the same time, music that's understandable by many people. Experimental doesn't always have to mean weird and strange to hear. It can also mean, just let's try something we've never done before. Let's try it. My compromise, and it has always been like this. is to find a way to do experimentation around electronic music and electronic sounds, but try to make it sound cool to listen to that all ages can relate to, all generations, to make it sound in a way that people can actually connect to it.

I always compare my work as a researcher. I always compare it to someone who's trying to say complicated things. It doesn't mean that if you want to say complicated things, you always have to use complicated words. The best teachers, for example, or the best scientists or the best philosophers in general, the best artists are the ones who make you feel that something very complex is actually very easy and easy to understand.

The Art of Communication

Ibrahim Maalouf: It's like at school, right? When you have a teacher who makes you understand something that is quite difficult but makes it sound very easy to understand, that's actually the best teacher for me. So, for me, it's the same. I want to experiment. I want to do some experimental music with electronics, mixing with all my culture, my music, my environment, and everything I love to do, but I want it to sound easy to listen to. And I'm not saying easy listening, like cheap; no, I want it to be easy to listen to but very complex at the same time.

LP: It's interesting. It's in the tradition of the public intellectual who is not cheapening their intellectual pursuit or their conceptual framework. They're just effective communicators, and they can bring ideas to large audiences and introduce people to new things.

Ibrahim Maalouf: In my book, one of my goals was to be able to write something that anyone can understand, from a child to a scientist or a doctor or a musician or someone who's not a musician, but being able to explain all the philosophy that I'm trying to explain without using strange, complicated, scientific words, just simple words. It's not easy. Sometimes, you don't have any more words than the complicated ones. You know, so you have to find out how to say it. 

And this is something that was taught to me by life because when I was young, I used to speak Arabic at home. We used to speak Arabic at home because my family intended to go back to Lebanon after the war, but they didn't expect 17 years.

So they waited in France. We used to go back and forth speaking Arabic because we were supposed to go to an Arabic school in Lebanon. But at some point, they couldn't go back to Lebanon because of the bombings. So they had to put us at a school in France. So we had to learn French at the age of four or five or six.

It was very difficult for me to understand what the teachers were saying or what my friends were saying. I had to understand quickly with the eyes of people, the look, what it was actually meant. And when I had to explain truly complicated things, I had to use easy words because I didn't have the complicated ones.

Then I learned, then I read, then I lived. Then, I complicated my vocabulary, and I completed it by reading a lot. And now, I know those complicated words, but I also know that if you use them, 80 percent of people will not understand you. And I'm not actually looking to be intelligent in front of people, or I'm not trying to show that I am on a certain level or anything like that.

But what is most important for me is my connection with the people around me. That's the most important thing for me. So when we were talking about this experimental, complicated music, contemporary music with weird intervals, and all this, I liked it. I love it. I used to play this a lot, but I want to be in connection with the world I'm living in.

LP: That's a great place for us to end. Thank you. I'll look forward to seeing you when you're in Seattle next year. Until then, thank you so much for making time. 

Ibrahim Maalouf: Thank you so much. Take care.