Vincent de Malherbe: “From immersion comes creation”

Vincent de Malherbe, HUS as musician, Utopie Tangible webzine founder, Playtronica producer/France Development.

When I’m with Playtronica, the most interesting thing for me as a musician is to see how people can get really immersed in sound. I truly believe that from immersion comes creation.

It works for every age and every kind of people. You are not alone playing music, you are creating something together. It is an educational process both for kids and adults who thought that they could never compose and play music. For a musician, this way of sharing your music is very rewarding.

There is one cool track from the 90s that’s quite often played in french parties — Crystal Waters — “Gipsy Woman”. I cut this song into pieces, mixed them up and then made people play the sounds in the right order as a challenge. It was during a Playtronica workshop at La Ferme du Bonheur. So people stood in line and tried to rebuild the song one by one. When they made a mistake I pressed the buzzer and the next person would try.

When I’m talking about immersion I’m talking about this feeling of controlling music and being an actor ; not only a spectator.

I didn’t do a lot of workshops in Russia but in France it’s different. People are very enthusiastic and say something like “C’est génial!”. In Russia everybody is also focused, but in a different way, less emotional. But it’s really interesting to observe how differently people are reacting to the same things. And that’s one part of Playtronica’s experiences: cultural differences. The way you can still surprise the audience and yourself by playing with cultural codes. In the same way, I really like the idea of working with local musicians and having an exchange between professionals from different countries.

I think the way Playtronica is expanding, is the best way to cross cultural and musical borders.