A Day in the Life of Serbian Gypsy Jazz Musician Dejan Krsmanović
RADIOSPARX: Hi Dejan, thanks for joining us on our VIRTUAL yellow-orange sofa. It’s great to have you here. We know you’re a hugely talented GYPSY JAZZ composer, pianist and guitarist. Tell us about your day composing; from waking up to going to sleep and how your composing day pans out.
DEJAN K: My day starts at around six in the morning. I drink coffee and play the guitar or the piano for about an hour or two. Ideas for a composer’s or producer’s approach to work are often created during those moments of improvisation playing, so playing guitar or piano in the morning in a relaxed way with no particular composition or end-game in mind, will actually give me loads of ideas. I also only compose music on the basis of album projects — never song by song, so playing for a few hours in the morning can help with ideas of groups of songs that lead to albums.
With regard to writing for albums, for any particular project I’m working on, I will keep going, composing new tracks for that project, until I have at least 10 tracks for that project or album.I tend to work in two blocks of three-to-four hours per day.
It’s important too that I make time for family and friends, and there are also the rehearsals with my band, but that’s usually in the evening between the hours of eight and nine. Our band rehearsals always last between two and three hours, so my day is packed with music and very full-on, but I love it. On the days we don’t have rehearsals, I use that time in the evening for promotions and business. Sometimes I might even treat myself to a little rest.
RADIOSPARX: Amazing. It sounds like a very intense day, music-wise, but you’re very prolific with your music production, so your methods are obviously paying off. How did you get started as a musician? Tell us about your childhood aspirations regarding music.
DEJAN K: As a small child I loved music a lot; it permeated through my young child’s body from my feet to my head. As a four-year-old, I was entranced. At the age of seven, my parents enrolled me in a Music School for very young children. I was there for six years. I had a talent for classical guitar, from a very early age and so at this school, I learned a lot about Bach, Francisco Tarrega, Fernando Sor, and similar composers.
I also participated in competitions and won some prizes, although that was not very important to me. I don’t like competitions in music. To me, music is personal, about being free with your expression and competitions put too much pressure on students. I personally don’t like that.
Later in high school I started a heavy metal band and we toured Serbia. This was a time for maturation and improvement for me, and I concentrated on my guitar playing, perfecting various styles from Rock to Blues, to Thrash Metal, Electronica, Techno, and finally I became interested in Jazz, which keeps me going and which I love to this day.
RADIOSPARX: You paint such a picture Dejan, of your passion for music from early childhood. Lovely. Right now, though, tell us where you live, what town or city, how many languages do you speak, and what languages make their way into your music?
DEJAN: Thank you. Music has been my life, all of my life and so it’s great to talk about it with you. I live in Serbia, in Čačak, about 150 km from Belgrade. I speak Serbian and English, but all the tracks I write and compose are instrumentals. The language of instrumental music is the language of everyone; here is our common humanity in the musical notes and instrumentation.
RADIOSPARX: That’s so true and so beautifully put. Can you tell us about the bands or groups you perform with? Do you consider yourself a solo artist or a member of a group?
DEJAN K: I am both. I have my own band, the Dejan Krsmanovic Band (trio, quartet, quintet), and we perform my music which is acoustic Balkan Gypsy Jazz. You can hear and see us on my Youtube channel. The band is a duo, trio, quartet, or quintet., depending on the project. We perform at Gypsy Jazz festivals, plus World Music and Jazz festivals. I have released four albums of this type of music so far. The band is an on-going project for me and as we grow and develop, we are becoming more well-known and more engaged with our fans and followers. This year in June 2023, we are going to one of Gypsy Jazz’s most important festivals, the Django Reinhardt Fontainebleau in France. I am really looking forward to performing at this festival. I think it will open some new doors for me and my band.
RADIOSPARX: That sounds amazing. We’ll watch out for it and see if we can go and watch you, so thanks for sharing this with us. Tell us now, what technology and software do you use?
DEJAN K: I use Cubase as a DAW and of course, classical instruments such as pianos, violins, and the like. I use live instruments in my recordings, as these beautiful implements are my natural habitat.
RADIOSPARX: So, you’re a traditionalist, in a sense, working with the touch sensibility of physical instruments as opposed to the digital! Fascinating! You’ve told us how you get your inspiration, by improvising in the morning with your instruments, but how does your song writing develop to the finished product?
DEJAN K: I get inspired as I play, and I play a lot and every day, without fail, mostly acoustic guitar, sometimes piano, and sometimes bass guitar; these instruments inspire me constantly, give me ideas for composition. It’s so natural and I’ve been like this since I was very young. Right now, I am working on a project featuring only a bass guitar. The album will be called “Bassical Music” because all of the instruments — and there are about eight of them — are all bass guitars. It’s a very really interesting, getting to the crux of sounds using many different versions of the same instrument.
When ideas accumulate in my head, and when it is clear to me what genre I want to work in, I create a PROJECT in CUBASE, and choose the instruments I will work with on the entire album.
I try not to overdo it as I like the sound of a minimal orchestra — where, with a few instruments, some clever writing and a good performance — you can achieve the sound effects of a much larger orchestra. It’s all about dynamics and counterpoint. I also keep thinking about harmony. A good progression can bring the whole song or even an album together.
This year I released two albums of library music and the third one is currently a work-in-progress. I give myself deadlines, and I usually give myself a month or two to write and record 10 tracks. As for our band music, things move more slowly, as we are always rehearsing for performances, so we only record one band album every year or two.
RADIOSPARX: Awe-inspiring and fascinating Dejan, thanks. What’s your favorite musical style/genre?
DEJAN K: That’s an easy question to answer. It’s Jazz, Gypsy Jazz, Classical Music, Cinematic music, World Music, and especially Balkan music.
RADIOSPARX: Naturally. Could you tell us now about your approach to the business side of your composing life?
DEJAN K: I have not written a soundtrack for film before, but that’s definitely on my ‘bucket list’ and I’d love to do that, it’s my dream. With that in mind, I write and compose as much production music as I can.
Working on an album of production music brings a lot of freedom, especially genre-wise, and along the way I develop my composing and production skills. And there is the ever-present demand from music supervisors, agents, music libraries, production houses and publishers which always keeps me on my toes, and in touch with the MUSIC INDUSTRY. I always keep connected to what’s going on with the music business; that’s majorly important for an independent musician.
RADIOSPARX: Agreed, and it sounds like you’ve got that side of things very well-organised. Finally, can you tell us what your KIT consists of?
DEJAN K: Yes, of course, here’s my list.
· Laptop — Dell Precision
· Audio interface — SSL 2
· Headphones — Sennheiser HD 650
· Midi keyboard — Native Instruments A49
· Acoustic guitar — Gerrit van Bergeijk
· Bass guitar — Schecter T Session 5
· Mics — DPA d:facto II, Audio Technica AT831R
RADIOSPARX: Thanks, Dejan, it’s been lovely talking to you. You’ve inspired us, and we know that you will inspire others too. Let’s leave the last word to you.
DEJAN K: Thanks, it’s great to talk to you too, Meryana. I just want to say this: that no matter how talented, hard-working, dedicated, and self-sacrificing you are with your music, you will NEVER achieve success if you do not have people around you to work with. John Lennon and Yoko Ono once said:
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”
I think they were 100 percent correct.
DEJAN KRSMANOVIĆ from Serbia is a composer and guitarist, and he’s released four albums to date. He performs at numerous jazz and world music festivals across Serbia and the greater Balkan region. His first album entitled You know what!? was released in 2012.
He has collaborated with Norwegian award-winning guitarist and producer Jon Larsen who released one of Dejan’s compositions “Maro, Maro” on an anthology compilation dedicated to Belgian-Romani JAZZ GUITARIST DJANGO REINHARDT, which featured many world-famous names of this JAZZ GENRE.
He released his second album “Komedija” in 2019, in collaboration with accordion virtuoso Jordan Đević.
In 2020, The Dejan Krsmanović Trio performed at the Nashville Jazz Fest, and in 2021 he released two more albums called “Ja sam!” and “Repertoar” where he published more of his own original music as well as some well-known jazz standards.
In January 2022, as a representative of the culture of Serbia, he performed a one-hour concert at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. In August 2022 Dejan performed with his quartet at Django Feszt Budapest where he shared the stage with Roby Lakatos, Aurore Voilque and Angelo Debarre.
Dejan’s band performs the original music by Dejan Krsmanović in various styles of Balkan, Gypsy and Jazz and their repertoire includes a variety of jazz standards. The repertoire can be performed as a duo, trio, quartet, or quintet.
Check out Dejan Krsmanović’s music on AUDIOSPARX: https://www.audiosparx.com/DejanKrsmanovic
And RADIOSPARX: https://www.radiosparx.com/DejanKrsmanovic
