WORLDS...
Of Natural Composer David Barraco
David Barraco is a French, Neo-Classical Natural Composer…
Artist with no pedigree, David Barraco is a composer who didn’t graduate from a prestigious music school or conservatory, nor was he groomed into a musical career. Instead, his journey is the lifeblood of his Art and made him the unique composer he is today.
Barraco was born in 1970 with heightened senses and a mind that automatically generates music when scenery, emotions, a story from a book or a film touches his mind. He started to experience internal flows of music along with technicolor-like visions of stories from an early age, and often felt an overlap between Time/Space and physical perceptions throughout his childhood.
He grew up in Ardes sur Couze, a remote village in the centre of France, raised by his GrandFather, a man of great taste and Culture who worked as 1st assistant to the Mayor of that small county; and his GrandMother, who had the capacities of a professional mezzo soprano Opera singer and was a light in their home. In many ways being raised by them was like experiencing life in a bygone era for they were people with an understanding of life and values of another time.
Religion was a regular part of life and Sundays and Religious festivals were marked by attending mass at the local Church, which introduced the young Barraco to a ritualised medieval atmosphere that eventually played a great role in his musical conception. The mystical feeling upon entering the old Church, the bells and candlelight processions, the smell of incense, the Baroque Organ playing softly… All this had a great resonance on Barraco’s musical development and certain pieces he composed at adult age, “Black Moon” for instance, was partly conceived in these moments.
Early he picked up an old guitar that had belonged to his aunt and a xylophone, and with no-one around minding what he was doing, he started to reproduce the sounds from his mindscape. From 1974 to 1978 rivers of music would cascade through his mind on almost every occasion. He consistently conceived soundtracks for the experience of going to school, exploring a ruined medieval castle, or simply playing in the woods and fields…It is also during these years that Ravel, Dvorak, Wagner, Puccini and Stravinsky emerged as his favourite composers.
On the essential role his Grandparents played in nurturing his natural gifts he says: “My GrandFather gave me Jules Vernes to read, the films of Wyler, Wise or Sturges to see, the Music of Dvorak or Ravel to hear… there was nothing but Culture at home…”
This picture, the first record of me with an instrument, was taken by my grand father in May 1972, I was two and a half…I hold a crystal clear recollection of the moment, I wasn’t too happy with the picture being taken because I was… working.
By age 8, he had become an avid reader. Devouring Vernes, Dickens or R.L Stevenson…Reading brought to
his mind musical illustrations of these stories. In fact, tales such as Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the centre of the Earth, Ivanhoe or the legends of Medieval Knights became the seeds for Barraco’s developing internal soundtrack. He was reaching the age and the time when he maybe would have started to express a desire to be a musician but tragically in 1978 he was torn from his home and taken away. The trauma and struggles that ensued eventually somehow became a catalyst, but laid down a long road to find ways to survive and express himself artistically…
In 1984, he learned drumming rudiments based on the Dante Agostini method with a percussionist from the local conservatory. It lasted a few months during which he also formed his first band. Drums had become his first medium to experiment with music and he played in bands through the 80’s until 1991.
It is also during that time that he started to practice Martial Arts, disciplines he says acted as “anchors” in an uneasy life, this incidentally started a profound interest in Asia, particularly Japan…
In the late 1980’s Cinema became a major source for emotional stimulation and progressively replaced reading. Mentally recreating soundtracks while watching movies became a hobby. He also started to use the basic instrument skills he had picked up from observing the musicians he played with when he was drumming in bands. While being a rudimentary method, it was nonetheless a way that would progressively allow him to consign music, almost miraculously allowing him to salvage a few themes that came to him in his childhood.
* About natural Composers:
https://lithub.com/david-epstein-on-the-genius-of-the-self-taught-musician/
The 90’s were a dark time for Barraco, who had stopped playing the drums and was now struggling between jobs in Paris. Discouraged by a few unsuccessful attempts to have his music transcribed or played by other musicians he confined his work to mentally rehearsing in what he calls “autistic sessions”, and moments of crudely consigning ideas on an acoustic guitar. These were also 10 long years of indescribable inner struggles inherited from the fracture in his past. He tried somehow to balance out with the deep interest he had for the Asian Cultures and Philosophy, and it seemed to him light was shining in the East. A thought that had progressively developed between his discovery of Japanese Cinema, his undertaking of learning Japanese in University, and the regular practice of Martial Arts. Of that period he says: “In those years I felt a constant desire to leave, to go away and find some sort of equilibrium.”