When you were a child, who inspired you to say “when I grow up I want to be that”?
Very important, in childhood, men are always attached to our mothers. My mom and I were going to wash in the river. My mom was always singing the songs on the radio. She started to sing and I told her, “Mom, I want to learn to sing that song.” And she taught me. I remember it was a Leo Dan song, “How I Miss You My Love”. It was when I realized that I could sing as a child. Through the connection I had with my mother.
If you were not what you are today, what other profession within the world of art would you choose?
I think that the art that I would have previously selected had to do with earth, clay, ceramics. More than anything, something I could have done with my own hands. I always wanted to be a surgeon, that was what I dreamed of. But I could not. I studied agronomy, totally different. But if I grab a scalpel, my hand doesn’t shake, which is the most important thing. You have that conviction. It seems to me that the art of ceramics or sculpture would have been something very beautiful for me.
Was there a trigger in your life where you perhaps said “I can’t” or “I want to stop”?
Some time ago I suffered from a spasm in the vocal cords. That made me stop for almost 2 years because I lost my voice. I gave up music and composition during that time. I thought I would never sing again. That happened due to sudden changes in temperature and my regular job was like this, I was always outside, I went into a cold room, I went out and then I went into the machine room and that affected me a lot.
Do you consider that you created your own style or took inspiration from someone else when you started?
SYou always have to hold on to an inspiration, someone who motivates you, someone to learn from. I didn’t go to the academy at the beginning. I had no teachers but I looked for my own teachers. So I started studying. For example, the Italians, who I like the way they are as musicians, are very deep. An Italian musician not only plays the guitar, he plays the piano, sings, composes, plays various instruments. So I started looking for great artists… I wanted to look for an artist who was already there and see what I liked about him. And I was not going to copy it. I wanted to know why he was up there. So that helped me a lot. I was able to develop my own technique, even to speak you have to know how to speak, you have to use the sounds of music or of the voice
After you have already created this technique, the style is created; the style of dressing, the style of speaking, the style of looking, the style of being able to express yourself on stage and that is what leads you as an artist to stand in one place and not be afraid because you become sure of yourself. You already worked 50% at home. When you go up to a place you say, “what you have to do here is nothing.” To be able to always have an energy with me. That energy of being able to let go with all the connection that is in my heart. And that the people or whoever is seeing me, or in the workshop we are in, feel good having talked to me.
What process do you go through to write your songs? I don’t think all singers do the same process No creo que todos los cantantes hacen el mismo proceso
It has a lot to do with a personal connection. The very connection that you want to be creative. Creativity has to do with your own intuition. And that intuition is a motive. The motive is the main basis that you want to be creative. There has to be a reason. If there is no reason I don’t know how you are going to be inspired. If there isn’t that self-interest to develop creativity, it’s going to cost you a lot, because you won’t know what you want to write about.
You also have to know the basics to write poetically, whether in couplets, in tenths, in free verse, in rhyme, in metric. What are composition rules? If you want to write a poem or some verses, you have to know to what extent you should do them. How many verses rhyme with each other. That the verses are written in lines. Not all at once running like a letter. The verses have a discipline. After you do your verses related to the motif you can get more inspired, you accommodate them more, you arrange them more.
What do you try to convey with your songs?
Every song that a composer makes, he will feel like a mother who gave birth to a son. Each verse or each book that a writer writes is like a son because it is born from his bowels, born from his depth. So when the time comes to do a piece, a song, I can’t say, “Hey, this is a song and it doesn’t have music because I just wrote the lyrics”. You must have something else. It has to carry a melodic guide arrangement. And for that you have to know a little about music. You don’t have to become the music doctor. Music is simple, so simple that you learn the basics of music and you have to write about everything. For example, if you know the numbers from 1 to 10, which are the numbers that exist, but with the numbers from 1 to 10 everything is done, the world works. Vectors, coordinates, physics, chemistry. What you want. With only 10 numbers the world could be made.
In music only 4 numbers are used. It’s even easier. You are going to make your own world with 4 numbers. Music is counted, music is marked, music has sounds and music has silences, it has spaces, it has pauses, it has accents, it has rises, falls, cadences. You learn that in one day but you have to know how to feel it. You just have to keep preparing. Many times, according to my criteria and spiritually, as far as I am concerned. I feel a spiritual connection to everything. Mine comes way up. Sometimes it’s so far but sometimes it’s so close. It’s a connection. If I don’t have that connection, I have nothing
Could it be said that to this day you are still learning?
Yesterday I called a friend by chance, while I was practicing with a good guitar teacher. Every time I meet him, or someone who can be a good teacher or have wealth of their own, I can learn from what he has without him giving it to me, I just connect, ¨like that Avatar movie¨, that person arrives and connects the beast with his hair. I also arrive and connect with him, with whomever he has in art. And suddenly we live a creativity. And for that reason there are groups on stage that, because they connect with each other, and what comes out of that stage is something impressive. For example, Andrea Bocelli starts to sing and you arrive because it touches your soul. Pavarotti. I listen to reggaeton and suddenly I like it too, not all of them but I like some of them. Example of a great composer is Erika Ender. She is a woman no one could believe that Erika Ender could turn the ear of an entire world.[Despacito …..]. And the song Despacito has millions and millions of followers. And she was a Panamanian lady, she lives in Miami. She connected. She is a pianist. All that creativity is a world where you play. It’s a game, you move your tiles. But you have to know the language. If you don’t know the language you have to have someone to help you or someone to show you how to play a little bit with words.
To a certain extent, connections are important to the art world.
Definitivamente. Definitely. If I had remained somewhat shy and introverted, I would not have met the cast of 4 Culture where I was able to apply for the US, or I would not have been able to participate in the National Tour (inaudible) where I won 1st place. (inaudible) I then became part of the elite of artists in the United States. 4 Culture, is a space that supports artists, and I already have a webpage on their page. I am part of that website. The website of that great organization connects me with all the others. And sometimes they call me from New York because they want me to do something for them. So connections are important. If you don’t make connections and you’re not sociable then you’re a limited artist. You have to be open, communicative, expressive and fearless. You have to leave your fears for when you go to sleep, after you have prayed or enlisted to sleep. Even to sleep I exercise first, an hour before I am exercising.
What would be the message as an artist and as a Panamanian that connects your art with your identity that you would give to the youth or to the youth within you?
As a composer, strong artists were embodied, and not just one. Locally in Panama there are 5 artists who have performed my songs as a composer. Dorindo Cárdenas, Samy and Sandra, Alfredo Escudero, Ulpiano Vergara, and Victorio. Those 5 artists have come to keep my interpretations/songs to classics. They are over 35 years old and if you get to Panama, turn on the radio and hear a song, that song is mine. It didn’t go out of style, it’s still ringing, they pay me a royalty.
