Violin Purse Stories -
A Collaboration between Becky and Brother, Musician, Author, Composer Paul Brody
Story Number 1
Gypsy Violin Story
Roman Rolli - Gypsy Violinist in Paris. How I got here:
I got to Paris in a very strange way. As you know, the French, although they can be quite mistrusting of southerners, they adore the gypsy, at least when he has an instrument in his hand. They all have the music of Django and Stephane Grappelli in their heads. The Germans are even more into the gypsy then the French. In Germany you have the love of exotic cultures plus the guilt of WWII going for you. I swear, I could tour Germany and make a mint with barely playing a note!
Anyway, I was invited to play in Paris. In Romania, my thing is to make mess of the music. I don't play traditional. I do what the French say, L'experiment. But when someone pays your way to fly across Europe, they are buying something. Most of the time they want to buy the picture book gypsy who walks off the plane with colorful clothes, smells funny, and is ready to play romantic music for the first blond who walks his way.
Well, I got called for one of these jobs. It was quite a rich bunch of Parisians. I swear, if they had a barn in back of their house, they would have put me, the gypsy, there to sleep. They take me to the venue and there is a big sign saying something about Music for Tolerance. And the other musicians were a little Algerian, a little black, a little jewish. So I was ready to play some standard Roma music and then I thought about the 'tolerance.' How tolerant would they be if I didn't act like a gypsy?
So I take out my i phone and hook it up to a speaker and I have this special mic system, very high tech. I play my violin and the sound goes in my i phone and I loop some things, that is, I record myself on my i phone many times and play it back through the big speaker boxes. So I put the violin down, and do like the DJ with my i phone!
I am playing my recorded violin through my i phone on stage, then I do a beat like in the music of Prince together with my violin sounds. I look at the audience. Let me tell you, they did not want to see the gypsy with the i phone. But maybe I am the one that's racist, maybe I just read that into it. It is the multi-cultural chicken and egg question here. I stop for a second to change a setting and tell the audience in English that I am an i gypsy, well, an i-gyptian!
They look at me like I am the crazy man. I really think that Django would have loved the i phone too! Many people leave. Especially after I do the Prince beat. But there is one guy who was a promoter. He was there because his wife dragged along. He didn't even want to be there because he hates folk music and world music stuff. He likes experimental music and electronics.
So I am playing music that almost no one wants to hear, and the one guy who didn't even want to be there ends up really liking it and gets me more concerts. And it's because of him that I live in France. What a mixed-up world!
by Paul Brody
www.paulbrody.net
