Philos60

Artist description
Location
Bergheim, NRW - Germany

Chaz the Spaz
You seem to be one of the more level headed and helpful members of this community, how do you view the craziness that goes on around here?

philos60
Characters, level of education, opinions and behaviour are quite different here on this BB.
In particular the intolerance and egoism lead to irreconcilable quarreling.
Due to the fact of assured anonymity here, verbal slander can be written uncontrolled without
fear to be punished.
Don't forget that the InterNet is a virtual world and a parlour game. You are not forced to participate.
Conflicts can be avoided, if there is no reply to any verbal aggression.
Leave brawlers alone...zero reply! They will lose their fun...
P.S. It's very late in Germany now... 1:30 a.m. Please wait for the next question

Chaz the Spaz
Great answer, very insightful!
You will get another question after I listen to your music.

Chaz the Spaz
Does vocal improvisation mean a made up language? It sounds like you are singing in Italian, but I don't recognize any words.

philos60
Exactly: vocal improvisation does mean
a spontaneously made up language.
The music itself (guitar or keyboard play)
is improvised too, in order to express authentically
the musical mood and feeling I have at that time.
Therefore each song is recorded live
- voice & play simultaneously - at once.
The "NON-language" sounds sometimes like Russian or Romanic,
like Italian or Spanish. I don't know why...
Maybe it depends on my musical mood at that time.
By the way, I cannot improvise at any time I would like to do.
I have to wait for a moment when the "muse has kissed me"
Next question please.
It's 4 p.m. in Germany

Chaz the Spaz
Philos, thank you for your response. I too have a muse that moves me. And sometimes I don't know where the music comes from, it's amazing! Also, I may not ask question after question, as you have noticed there are many INTERVIEW threads (and more to come) that I will be managing.

philos60
Hi *FANARO*!
You did not complain that there
was no BIO on my mp3.com page.
Here it is:
PHILOS' MUSICAL EVOLUTION
I was born during the Second World War (1943).
The first 18 years of my life were a hard time for me, nevertheless,
I discovered my musical talent very early on,
when at the age of 5, I got my first MOUTH ORGAN.
There was no money for other musical instruments like guitars.
Nobody trained me, but I learned through trial and error.
At the time I played folk songs on my MOUTH ORGAN.
When I was 14 years old a dream was fulfilled:
I got a MANDOLIN from my uncle (my father died during
the war). I learned it by playing whatever I could.
When my uncle listened to my mandolin playing
he was so impressed that he supported me
having 2 years training on VIOLIN at a music school.
The VIOLIN was a gift at Chrismas when I was 16 years old.
But my real dream was a GUITAR, which I bought second-hand
when I was 17.
Again, I taught myself to play the instrument.
So, I have developed my own guitar style and
"total vocalistic improvisation", as I call it,
when even the language is made up during the playing of any melody
I have in mind and from feelings at the time.
Later, when I was about 40 years old,
I started to learn the KEYBOARDS, again by myself.
The results you can now all hear.
I've been playing GUITAR about 43 years in total...
I love it, and I will not stop playing for as long as I can...

Chaz the Spaz
Hi Philos, your missing bio was going to be my next question. Can you tell us where you have played? In concert? Or studio?

philos60
Due to the fact that my music is totally improvised, I cannot play on command on a stage.
Depending on my mood and feeling I can play on private parties, what I've done many times.
My best musical ideas & expressions I've inwardly when it's quiet and nobody disturbs me.
But there was a one-man show on a Congress of Healers in Germany
close to Stuttgart when I was young... see the pic
There is no studio play up to now... only own recording!

manicd-
As a listener I find your music...especially the fantasy language...very strange(in a good way). However I cannot help but wonder.....can you remember these fantasy lyrics or once you make them up for a song then it's over? I mean could you play them and sing them word for word again?
Other than the sounds there's nothing for the listener to connect to. Do you think that if you actually wrote some lyrics that were understandable you would connect with a larger audience?

7mama
I have a statement, not a question, your music is always very relaxing to me and just wanted you to know that!

philos60
Thank you 7mama!
I'm very pleased to get this feedback.
It was and is my intention to make "soothing music"...

philos60
Hi Les,
I can't repeat any song, because each song
is totally improvised and reflects a unique mood
or feeling at the time of improvising and recording.
By the way, I never tried to repeat a song tone by tone
and word by word. If I try this, I'm used to improvise
again and a lot of new variations came in.
Refering to the audience:
There are so many musicians worldwide with songs & lyrics
repeatable that I don't see any differentiation to
reach higher attention than YOU and all the other successful
artists.
My differentiator is TVI = Total Vocalistic Improvisation.
The more I promoting this the more listeners get used to
this improvised playing and singing in a phantasy language.
I have a philosophy:
Music should be the dominating song factor.
The used language has to meet the musical mood.
If you have a new melody in mind, you will find
with some training that the NON-words/syllables
are acoustically fitting to the sound/melody/rhythm.
OK, that's only an opinion and not allying

Chaz the Spaz
Is Philos your name, or is it short for philosopher? ANd can I call you Phil?

philos60
I selected this nick because I'm very much interested in
philosophy. A lot of friends called/call me in German
"Philosoph" = philosopher. So I took the abreviation "Philos".
But the nick "Philos" was already used, so I added my
current age 60.
By the way, my real name is Volker Zdunnek, and if you
search for this name within the InterNet, you will see a
lot of text I've written mainly with philosophical and psychological content...
"Phil" is a given name / forename... I don't know the meaning.
If it means philanthrope than you can call me "Phil",
because I'm a convinced philanthrope, you might have detected
already?...

Chaz the Spaz
After listening to your songs I can sense certain emotions portrayed in the music. Do you intentionally put a mood in the music, or it just happens that way?

philos60
I've never the intention to express a mood I don't realy have at the moment
of recording. The mood of my music is always the mood I have at the time,
when I have the inner need to make music by improvisation.

Chaz the Spaz
Since your music does not have words to tell a story, how do you decide a title for a song, and what is a clou?

philos60
For me it's easy, because I've learned to decribe my feeling by words too.
As you should know now, my music expresses my feeling directly.
When the track is recorded I've two facts for consideration:
The feeling I remember and the "output" of my song I can listen to.
I feel and hear my expressed inner situation again and can name it.
If it was hot love then it's "Hot Love".
Let's take an example: "Memories Of Love" was recorded
April 9th of 1993 when I was 50 years old. I reviewed my life
and a lot of memories came up... memories of love.
If you think of memories of love during listening to my song
you might feel and understand this...?

What is a clou?
For me it is the most important thing on the considered situation.
Related to a person or the loved one it could be the "lynchpin"
of the affair of the heart: "My Clou Are You".
I selected "Clou" because of "You"
By the way, "My Clou Are You" was recorded Febr. 27, 1993
in deep love...

Chaz the Spaz
I notice the theme of love and emotion in your compositions. In this day and age there is popular music that promotes violence and crime, do you think that music has changed for the worse?

philos60
I notice the theme of love and emotion in your compositions. In this day and age there is popular music that promotes violence and crime, do you think that music has changed for the worse?
The situation is ambivalent...
On Sept. 11th in 2001 I was shocked and just after I must
express my feeling with the peace "The Day After 11th Sept."
Although violence and crime are omnipresent
I know that humankind is ambivalent in terms of hate & love...
violence & ahimsa/nonviolence... war & peace... crime & honesty...etc.
So my intention is to focus on overcoming the badness,
because that's the intenion of nearly all religions and philosophies
and the ancient dream of humankind to reach peace worldwide.
My four electronic classical peaces about "Thanatos & Eros"
recorded in October 2001 are dealing with:
Sigmund Freud's duality of human nature emerged from two basic instincts:
Eros and Thanatos. He saw in Eros the instinct for life,
love and sexuality in its broadest sense, and in Thanatos,
the instinct of death and aggression.
Eros is the drive toward attraction and reproduction;
Thanatos toward repulsion and death. One leads to the
reproduction of the species, the other toward its own
destruction.
This has been a source of inspiration for artists over the
centuries.
Here some statements of my understanding:
Hate and love are enormous powers between
human beings,
but only love can overcome hate.
***
Hate destroys the individual,
but love can save a community.
***
Humans need three things: thoughts,
senses and the passion of full love.
***
My music is strongly influenced by these thoughts...

7mama
hope you are doing well Philoso60!

philos60
Hi 7mama!
I've more confidence than doubts!

Chaz the Spaz
If the intenions of religions and philosophies
are to reach peace worldwide, I'd say that religions are a big cause of what is bad with civilization and have caused many deaths throughout the centuries, although, they have also provided a positive framework to live by. As man progresses towards the future, will the need for religion become antiquated?

Chaz the Spaz
That's good Philos, the info page gives listeners a little insight into the artist.

philos60
If the intenions of religions and philosophies
are to reach peace worldwide, I'd say that religions are a big cause of what is bad with civilization and have caused many deaths throughout the centuries, although, they have also provided a positive framework to live by. As man progresses towards the future, will the need for religion become antiquated?
Based on its nature one religion is intolerant against others.
They caused a lot of calamity because of the force to fulfil
self-defined fundamental maxims without taking into account
the nature of mankind. It's obvious that the mankind is subject
to evolve and not to be imprisoned within one philosophy.
The matter of fact that several world religions and many sects
and philosophies are existent at the same time worldwide
proves the multiple needs of human beeings in terms of different
ways of life and life concepts.
The existing world religions are only evolutionary steps of mankind's
evolution. Like cultures they have a life cycle. Within each life cycle they have
dedicated impact on the evolution of humans. But all indications
of today point at new behaviours, new needs and new visions of
an increasing number of humans without the institutions of religions.
The hierarchical institutions of religions are losing more and more
influence on human lifes...they are going to to die out like the dinosaurs.
But important cognitions extraced out of religions will survive.
While institutions of religions die away, new life philosophies and
life visions arise, including extracted experiences and insights out
of the eras of religions.
Humankind need beliefs, visions and life concepts, but individually
adapted to the different races and cultures, especially adapted to
each evolutionary status of each individuum.
Nowadays we have a multicultural civilization with strong requests
of tolerance and a peaceful co-existence of partly extreme different
cultures and political systems.
Don't forget: these thoughts are only my opinion and
there are many opinions on the world.

prevoyance
Your music is very expressive and emotive. Which Philos60 song relates the most to any personal situation you were in?

philos60

When I lost love and reviewed my life at that time (50y):
"Story of my Heart" is genuine and pure life recorded,
but expresses the feelings of passion, joy and mourning make the heart concerned.
Thus I tell musically the stamped experiences of my heart with my
'vocalistic' guitar song "Story of my Heart".
"Story of my Heart"

Chaz the Spaz
What are your goals and what do you have planned for your music?

philos60
After ca. 35 years business within computer industry as product manager I retired last year. Playing music was all the time my hobby.
Now I've the time to "publish" my songs, which I've recorded during the
last 10 years. Before that time, the recorded songs are of bad quality.
My goals are today to make music with increased quality for fun & recreation,
because I love music and I would like to support other musicians.
Up to now my songs are available on 15 Internet sites. If I discover new
ones I'll upload my songs again.
My goal is more or less ideally to convince listeners, that music has it's
own language, even then when vocals are invented - a phantasy language,
and to demonstrate that improvisations are originally and authentic reflections
of a special mood at recording time.
I will see the results in future...

Chaz the Spaz
"What is the meaning of life?", has been an age old philosophy question, what have modern thinkers postulated?

philos60
My thoughts about life are influenced by Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Hegel:
Life is a cyclic evolutionary and dialectic process between emergence and disappearance of existence,
especially an area of conflict between birth and death of human existence.
The meaning of life depends on the self-given concept of an individual life,
again depending on the spiritual / mental level of evolution of the individual.
The different ideologies and religions close to the individual life have influence
on the self-determination of the individual during the process of life.
By the way, there is no final or absolute definition of the"meaning of life",
because the evolution of human race is still ongoing, and new visions and life
concepts arise.

  -- Rick Munarriz

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