Jonny Greenwood had to “unlearn” Western music for Dudu Tassa collaboration
Radiohead guitarist and revered film composer Jonny Greenwood has just released a collaborative album, Jarak Qaribak, with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa.
The record sees the pair reinterpret Middle Eastern pop songs, with different guest vocalists appearing on each track. “It’s a whole universe of music and, more excitingly, there are these young singers who are just mind-blowingly good,” Greenwood told Consequence.
“And that’s two inspiring things right there. So it’s hard to not get sucked down this rabbit hole when there’s so many amazing songs down there,” he added.
“One of the frustrations I feel when I hear how these kinds of songs are often interpreted is that, rhythmically, it’s usually reduced to just four on the floor, kind of loud, not very good techno.”
“And that always struck me as a real shame, because what’s great about the original is the delicacy of the rhythms and how subtle and complicated they are in the best way,” he said. Thus, Greenwood has ensured that the songs retain the intricacy present in the original versions.
While recording the album, he also had to test his knowledge of music theory and challenge his ideas of Western composition. “It’s not something I’ve come to that late, but working on the style of music is a new thing, that’s true.”
“And I had to kind of unlearn lots of things about harmony that Western scales often don’t help or ruin what’s going on. So, there’s times where you have to really step away and not impose what you think is a major or minor chord on something, because there are no such things in Arabic music – or very often, anyway.”
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