Mikkel Ploug (II)

This interview with Mikkel Ploug was conducted by email during April-May 2022.

 Tony Reif: How does Day in the Sun build on your previous solo acoustic release Alleviation, and how has the music evolved since then in different or unexpected ways? Does your Gibson LG-2 continue to suggest new approaches to playing it? And tell us about your flamenco-classical hybrid guitar from Spain and how you discovered Spanish classical guitarist Josefina Robledo (a contemporary of Segovia).

Mikkel Ploug: Working on Alleviation I became more interested in the history of the guitar and music specifically for guitar. I heard an old recording of Josefina Robledo apparently done by her husband at home, and even through the very poor sound you can hear her amazing guitar tone. Partly this comes from her not using nails but the flesh of the fingers, and gut strings (which were the only ones available at the time). I found a gut string maker in the US and ordered some sets to try out on my newly acquired flamenco-classical guitar built by Granada master luthier Manuel Bellido. When I spun this light, resonant guitar with gut strings and worked on a no-nail technique I found a warm sound that inspired the first piece of the album, “Nocturne.” I took my 1944 Gibson “Banner” to Willi Wenkes in Tübingen who gave it a fantastic makeover and afterwards it played like a dream, just in time for the recording. This old guitar is full of songs – its warm midrange tone means it can offer an almost classical type of sound, though the steel string “western” element still dominates. But it means I can create music that doesn’t remind me of typical guitar recordings, and that helps leave prejudices at the door when composing.

 TR: Tell us more about your new hybrid flamenco-classical guitar. Was it a special order or is this a standard model? And what does this guitar do for your music that your Gibson doesn’t? I must admit I find it hard to reliably hear the difference – what should I be listening for? (Quoting from Ballido’s website: “Manuel`s guitars are known for their volume, balance, sound beauty and richness of nuances and tones, as well as for ease of execution.”) 

 MP: The way Manuel builds is in the Granada builder tradition, but he has his own touch and methods. It was Manuel’s son Mauricio who suggested I try this model when he heard me play in the woodshop. He said Eric Clapton had also favoured this type when he was in the shop sometime ago and that there seemed to be a link to electric players with these light build flamenco-type guitars with some classical features. You can make a rich sound on it with a very light touch, the guitar is very light and super alive. Playing this guitar with gut strings gives a sense that every note is huge, independent and broad. Almost like every string is its own personal voice in a choir. So this means for me that a simple triad can sound very exciting!

TR: How does your solo guitar music (acoustic or electric) relate to your overall aesthetic, composing and music-making in groups you lead or co-lead, such as Equilibrium?

MP: Playing solo is in some ways easier than anything else and also the ultimate challenge somehow. I like to try and cover all the sonic space available with just a guitar. But yet I feel like all the people I’ve played with a lot, like Sissel Vera, Joachim Badenhorst, Mark Turner, Sean Carpio, and Jeppe Skovbakke, are a big part of my solo playing. They’ve had such an impact on me, they continue to hover over my shoulder with every note somehow.

TR: Are there other composer-guitarists doing solo music that you admire or may have been influenced by?

MP: Yes, a player like Carles Trepat, Josefina Robledo, and Julian Lage’s great acoustic playing are inspirations. I continue to find new classical guitarists that I like also. But lately my inspiration has been found in the solo piano music of composers like Bent Sørensen, Hans Abrahamsen, Valentin Silvestrov and Shostakovich and in jazz pianists Craig Taborn and Jason Moran.

TR: What is it about contemporary Danish composer Bent Sørensen’s music that draws you to it, and has it inspired your thinking about music generally? Are there other classical composers that you’re listening to these days.

MP: Sørensen’s piano nocturnes have a fantastic use of space, counterpoint and melody – I just feel connected to his music like it’s the continuation of Carl Nielsen’s music from my childhood. So I feel like there’s a deep historic and cultural connection there. My music is a total bastardization of influences from all over the place, but somehow Sørensen’s universe feels like home to me.

Yet I often have this feeling that I understand 75 percent of his notes, and the rest is like magic that I have to go and discover slowly. So that has kept me engaged for the last 4-5 years, and I am very happy I have gotten to know Bent quite well too during this time, our meetings have really helped me understand his music on a deeper level. I have also been listening to Monteverdi, Silvestrov, Abrahamsen and also Nielsen, who wrote hundreds of short melodic pieces that carry so much weight and beauty. They are part of my upbringing and cultural heritage but I’m only now starting to realize the quality and depth of this large body of work

TR: Improvisational sections happen in some of these pieces (which?) but many of them are through-composed. Could you talk about what improvisation adds to the pieces that have it, and how you decide to leave space for it or not in these performances? I would assume that some of these pieces were developed on the guitar through free improvising – are those the one that continue to involve improvisation, and other pieces you compose on paper and those have a more fixed final form? Or is that an over-simplification? Did some pieces evolve further during the recording sessions?

MP: My writing process is long and the pieces evolve over time, sometimes years. Very often the first idea jumps straight out and then the work starts to see where it can go and where it wants to go. 

I tent to not involve that much improvisation in my solo pieces as the interpretational aspect is enough to keep me engaged. But if I’m naturally drawn to start improvising on part of a tune or the whole piece that often means that there should probably be improvisation in it.

“Afterthought” is a piece like that ­– I take a classic “solo,” playing on the entire form as if it was a standard. But I am very aware of only doing this if I feel it really adds to the music. I’m not taking a solo just because it is expected of me or the “normal” thing to do. On the other hand, playing with other people I find it against my nature not to improvise, I can’t help but improvise.

Most of the pieces were in place before the recording session, but if something happens naturally like the outro on “Dance Of Minor Motive” then of course I go with it and let it unfold.

TR: Since I first got to know you when we did the first Equilibrium record I’ve thought of your music as quite distinctive melodically and harmonically – not radically different, but still your own. There’s the sweetness of the folk-like elements, combined with the “soft” astringency of a sophisticated use of chromaticism. And it always ends up sounding beautiful and organic (an overused word to be sure) – not as if you had certain melodic-harmonic models you’ve developed to which you then apply various transformations to come up with new pieces. So what’s the secret for keeping your music fresh? 

MP: I’m realizing more and more that I actually have some musical roots, namely the Danish folk songbook tradition – a collection of folk music and classic Scandinavian hymns. And the harmonic landscape and the melodic character of this music is deep within me, but I only discovered recently that this is the case. I had a bit of an aha moment realizing that I hear everything through this music that was with me from my earliest childhood. I think I’m maybe just trying to recreate the feeling I had hearing some of these powerful melodies for the first time.

Every day I look to write a little bit if I can. I feel I’m on a lifelong search for little melody bits and harmony that is surprising or at least satisfying somehow. And often the road to finding these superficially very simple elements is very very long and requires so much time, deep listening and dedication. I always felt like I was more a songwriter than a composer. I always set out again and again trying to write the strongest, most powerful melody I could, and I’ve been doing that since I was a kid. But for me this always means some kind of chromaticism and often some kind of harmonic twist or turn that at least takes me by surprise and therefor touches me. 

So for me there is a nice mystery in why this process of writing from a blank canvas, just me and guitar trying to write a song, keeps being fresh. It’s like a lifelong relationship between the guitar, music and me. “We” sit down and go “OK, so where are we at now?” And I feel that if “we” are in tune or can get in tune then I’ll write something that I like and that I care enough about to document on a record. I almost never work with any preconceived ideas or formulas, however I will often explore a harmonic idea or any musical curiosity I might have picked up, often from classical pieces. But my guide is always melody, step by step, slowly, and a feeling of being honest as well. So my process is just the same after all the years, but how I might prepare myself and fill myself with inspiration is absolutely different even from week to week.