Music and Ecology

I love contemplating nature. I'm not an activist. I'm not a radical ecologist. I simply protect what I love, as best I can, like everyone else.

Transmit ecological awareness isn't my job as a teacher.

Class discussions can go beyond music, of course, as everything is so intertwined with our lives. But I rarely venture into debates about politics, ecology, or feminism. Except when the questions come directly from the students and/or when there's a known interaction with our profession and our status as artists.

At the start of summer, old habits are resurfacing. Although I officially ended my career five years ago, I still receive invitations from all over the world. Cool, it's good for the ego! But I always give the same answer: "Sorry, I only fly when absolutely necessary now." Often followed by the same incredulity: "But why?"

Well... The carbon footprint, global warming, biodiversity, all that...

Since it's hot and my students are pointing out the lack of air conditioning, I decided to write a short text here about music and its connection to ecology. This isn't about giving lessons. Action, or not, is a personal choice. I won't blame anyone for having a different vision than mine. Moreover, even though I limit myself, I am a European who lives lavishly, has consumed and still consumes a lot, and therefore ultimately pollutes a lot.

We are all the unconscious polluter for one and the radical ecologist for another. Everything is relative. I believe the important thing is to participate, to the extent of one's abilities and convictions. As I write this text, I realize that my ecological conscience is very self-centered. I am eco-motivated, first and foremost because I derive real benefits from it. All the more reason not to boast.

To avoid any moralizing prose, I will therefore limit myself to testifying by highlighting the positive aspects of my approach as a musician, the only area in which I can claim to have some expertise. Here is a non-exhaustive list of my small lifestyle adjustments and their beneficial "musical" consequences.

1/Biking:

No more motorcycles. I now cycle to work at the conservatory.

1 hour 15 minutes there. 1 hour 15 minutes back (I live 20 kilometers from the city center).

Biking offers a different relationship with time. It allows ideas to wander, fast enough to escape, slow enough to stroll along the way. The mind finds an ideal creative terrain. A lot happens in your head when you pedal (I don't listen to music when I ride). These few lines, most of my texts, some compositions were born there, evolved there, transformed there.

I pedal, the movement is there, immutable (calm the tempo...), the periodicity, everything is conducive to mastering time. It's a bit like giving myself two hours of metronome time with no other task than to fill this pulsed time (and incidentally, not get hit by a car anyway). I hone my awareness of my rhythms,phrases periods, the regular and irregular beats that come with turns, traffic, emergency braking, etc. The world organizes itself in relation to my pedaling frequency. I then "see" my environment constructing itself rhythmically like a minutely scored Cage score, "once upon a time, a time, a once upon a time, in the weeeeeeest."

By pedaling year-round regardless of the weather, I've even reconnected to the rhythm of the seasons, thus adding "great form" to my grasp of the passage of time.

With its optimized, reinforced, and refined temporal awareness, the bicycle is the perfect office for rhythmic creators.

2/The Cell Phone

I don't have a cell phone. But that's a delusion, because I have a tablet and I'm almost always connected as soon as the Wi-Fi allows it. On the other hand, you can't call me, you can't send me SMS messages, and above all, I choose when I want to chat and when not.

Living without a smartphone preserves this invaluable freedom. It's sort of my permanent "right to disconnect." I have control over my silence. Nothing rings, nothing vibrates, nothing flashes, no notifications, no immediacy, no urgency. The page of my life is blank whenever I want it to be. I live slowly. Intensely (it doesn't prevent), but calmly. For a composer, this allows me to avoid systematically embodying the stress of modern life, its chronic anxiety, its darkness, or even its ugliness in my art. Sometimes I want to write music that feels good...

Musically, the absence of concentrated technology in a cell phone also forces me to maintain old modes of artistic appropriation. So I still sit down on my couch to listen to music in my living room, on my old B&W CDM-7s. I choose my CDs and read the covers to refresh my cultural knowledge. So I don't "swipe," I run my finger over the spines of the records lined up on my shelves, and each name that scrolls under my index finger—performer, orchestra, label, work, composer—are all stimulants that ward off my latent Alzheimer's ;-)

Note that I also watch films on a video projector, on a big screen to fully immerse myself in the 7th art, savoring the staging, the lighting, the framing, and the richness of the soundtracks. In short, I live on a big screen and in full stereo. 6 inches is the size of my remote control, nothing more.

3/Fasting

For 25 years, I've fasted at least twice a year: 5 or 7 days without eating, drinking only water. With practice, my body is attuned. I can work, live life to the fullest, my inner process is invisible to those around me.

The benefits of fasting are a true pleasure that I never tire of. Disconnecting from the meals that usually punctuate our days is symbolically disconnecting from all material things. Spirituality then reasserts itself; ideas are clearer, more vivid, more original, more personal. I become more perceptive and also more positive. I often feel the need to fast when my composition work isn't taking off and my output is sluggish.

Religions (of which I am not a follower) have long understood this: Ramadan, Yom Kippur, Lent—all invitations to spirituality. Fasting is almost a guarantee of regaining healthy and relevant inspiration, both in my activities as a composer and as a saxophonist.

Added to this, my body dries out and improves in performance. The gradual resumption of eating after the fast reveals tastes and flavors that bring incredible color to the grayness of everyday life. The palate is sharpened, the taste buds too, the whole body is awake and eager… sound, sensitivity, listening, breathing—my saxophone also benefits!

4/ No more flying.

I like to look at landscapes, the wide open spaces. I like to contemplate the world, almost passively. To feel it, to listen to it, to let it infuse me. My pleasure doesn't really consist in observing it as other nature lovers spy on it and wish to know it in detail. Mystics would say that I allow myself to become one with the universe. The truth is that it often ends in a nap, but no matter, osmosis is often there.

As in human relationships, it is through love that the other person opens up and their beauty is revealed. Those who make the effort to care for nature on a daily basis learn to know it, respect it, and love it.

So, protecting one's environment ultimately boils down to loving life, in its entirety... or more simply, to love, in general. And you can't destroy what you love unless you're a dangerous psychopath, which, apparently, isn't (yet) my case.

There came a time when, traveling a lot, I was aware (because these are facts, not sensations) that I was damaging what I cherished. Teaching the love of beautiful sound, listening to others, educating people around the world about beauty, the naturalness of breathing, the fluidity of lines, the balance of harmonies, the fluctuations of tempi, the importance of transmission, the depth of inspiration, the purity of spirit, cultural heritage... and actively participating in a rampant and destructive overconsumption of my planet no longer made sense.

In my carbon footprint, an objective measure of our individual pollution levels, the role played by my air travel had become gargantuan. It bordered on the absurd, given my passionate discourse about music and those who make it.

It was no longer morally sustainable.

The decision was radical. It wasn't painful at first, but a little more so now, just because I miss my international friends. I really do. I'm currently exploring the possibility of resuming some travel by train. If I succeed, it seems clear I'll have a looooot of time to compose! :))))

But I must persevere, because I love humanity (nature is resilient, it will always bounce back), because I love this planet, because I want my children to be able to live peacefully on it, and of course because I'm lucky and privileged enough to have a choice.