Successful beginning of the semester and the best microphone in the world

Before Christmas, as every year, I performed at the accordion festival here at KMH, which attracts many people every year to my joy. This year's attendance was unusually high, and there was almost five hundred people listening to the final gala concert, which is the highest attendance of a single concert in the history of the festival.

At Christmas, I was very pleased by the results of the audition of the Royal Academy of Music for the National scholarship where I performed last fall. I am very happy that my playing has convinced the jury, so I have received an extraordinarily generous scholarship to purchase a new instrument and invest in further education. Especially, I am delighted by the fact that this audition was open for musicians from all music universities in Sweden.

However, the most important moments for me came after Christmas holidays when I started my last semester at KMH. In January, I finished one smaller project - a new EP with the Spanish singer Paula Calbet Boldú with whom I started collaborating last spring in Stockholm. This EP will be officially released at the beginning of March, and I am happy for another piece of work that I have produced all by myself and which has again improved my skills in the field of music production.

Recently, I have been selected to participate in the ActinArt Boot Camp as the only representative for KMH, which is another thing I am very happy about. This intensive course will take place in Jakobstad in Finland at the beginning of May this year, and the course is focused on business in music industry and development of entrepreneurial thinking among musicians. I am looking forward to this new experience so much, especially since I have been very active in this area lately and I try to make and realize my own authentic and innovative music projects. Thus, I hope that I will benefit a lot from this exceptional course in the future. On top of that, all prestigious music universities from Scandinavia and Baltic countries are involved in the ActinArt project, so it will surely be a great opportunity to meet new interesting people.

Another major theme of my last months and days was my master's thesis. As I planned at the beginning of this academic year, I managed to finish my thesis by the beginning of January. So, I could apply for a first possible opportunity to defend the thesis in February. I have successfully defended my thesis so I can fully focus on the accordion and concerts during the remaining part of the semester. However, my master’s thesis has given me so much. Its theme Recording and amplifying of the accordion is truly my beloved subject which I will be dealing with whole my life. During my research, in order to delve deeper into the subject, I have done several things with my accordion that I would not do under common circumstances. I have spent a substantial amount of time in studios when testing different microphones and recording solutions. I have learned a lot about acoustics, construction and functioning of microphones, I understood the sound string of live amplification, got a lot of new skills in mixing, mastering and using artificial sound effects, learned about a proper usage of various recording techniques, and I had a chance to work with different microphones and professional equipment, visited professional recording studios and talked to interesting people in this field. In general, I have learned how to approach recording and amplifying of my instrument. As a positive personal outcome of this work, I can clearly define what kind of amplification and setup I need in my live performances, I have a very clear conception what my accordion can and should sound like, and I can confidently direct the process of recording on my own. Now, I am able to record, mix and master an accordion recording so it meets high audio standards. And I'm looking forward to using these new skills and knowledge in my future work.

However, my master’s thesis was not my only winter activity. During last month, I played several concerts that I enjoyed very much. And simultaneously with my out-of-school concerts I'm practising for my master’s concert on May 23rd, which will be a climax of my studies at KMH so to speak. Among the concerts in last few weeks, I would like to point out the solo recital on Vaxholm island in Stockholm and the concert of our duo Rydén & Řehák in a beautiful church in Kungsholmen, where over two hundred people came to listen to us. Amazing experience! Me and the cellist Johannes Rydén play concerts quite often nowadays, and apart from that, we continue with our school project for children that I have mentioned in my previous posts. And most importantly, we are practising for the finals of the Ung & Lovande 2019 competition. So, there is still a lot to work on, every day.

Last, I would like to share a very strong experience from one random encounter with an extraordinary person. At one of the recent concerts of our duo Rydén & Řehák, I met a mysterious shy man who asked me before the start of our concert whether he could make a recording of our concert for his personal purposes. Of course, I agreed and did not pay attention to him any further. But I focused my attention on him again when he pulled out a large, unusually looking bronze retro microphone, an old analogue tape recorder and original magnetic tapes from the 50s. Due to my passion for recording, I started a conversation with him to learn more about his work and the unusual microphone. That man is called Dedrik De Geer, the manufacturer of most likely the best microphones in the world. After a minute of conversation, I got so curious about him and his work. When he started talking about his aversion towards stereo and digital music reproduction, supported by unusually strong and logical arguments, and on the contrary, about his love for monaural analogue sound, I immediately expressed my interest in hearing his recording of our concert. He was also pleased by my interest for his work, and immediately after the concert he invited me to his place where he manufactures these unique all hand-made microphones by himself from scratch. I was totally overwhelmed both by his absolute passion for what he does, and by the machines and equipment that he has in his workshop. There is only 36 Dedrik’s microphones in the world and they are owned by the world's best recording studios and used by artists such as Celine Dion, Metalica, or actors in Star Wars movies. No wonder that the price of this microphone is astronomical. The production of this microphone is Dedric's only and greatest lifelong passion. He could speak ages about sound, his knowledge in this area is overwhelming. To achieve the best possible reproduction of sound, he goes to the absolute foundations of physics. When he played the recording of our concert on one specially modified speaker, it took me a while to get used to the sound. But after a few minutes, I was amazed by the sound that was coming out of the speaker in its purest form and without any adjustments. Eventually, I spent almost five hours at Dedrick’s place, discussing and listening to his unique original live recordings. I could talk much longer here about my impressions from this meeting, but that would be for another essay. In terms of pure sound quality, that day I heard the best reproduction of music in my life, and maybe I will never hear anything better in the future. I am happy that my instrument was recorded by the best microphone in the world, even though I know that Dedrick's tapes will probably never see the light of the world and remain stored in his workshop. Dedrik himself does not have a mobile phone nor a computer nor anything that would evoke digital era. He is unknown to the public, so I am glad that I can tell people around me about this meeting with him at least. Dedrik is truly an admirable person and he is a proof that there are people out there who are the very best in their fields, but do not aim for material wealth or publicity. All he needs is a pure joy from what he loves. And such random encounters with seemingly ordinary, yet extraordinarily inspiring, people can happen at any moment, just watch out!