The Language of Music

To speak about this subject, I have to go back to a trip to Senegal, during a percussion workshop at the very beginning of my journey. I went there for the music, but I discovered much more than rhythms: a way of life, an openness of spirit, a way of being connected… In the eyes, in the smiles, everything passed through, and I felt at home.

One evening during that stay, I was sitting with my musician friends. They were talking among themselves in Wolof, and that time, I didn’t try to understand. I simply let myself be carried away by the music of their language. Their voices, their intonations, their laughter… everything sounded like a collective improvisation, almost like a percussion solo played together. It was beautiful, raw, and spontaneous.

At that moment, I recalled an idea often mentioned: the drum once used to spread news or bring people together. Right before my eyes, I saw the same truth: whether spoken or musical, language is part of the same expression.

Learning music is identical to learning a language. We repeat words, imitate phrases, absorb accents and turns of speech. Then, little by little, with patience, work, and wisdom, comes the moment when these elements come together to form a thought, a personal discourse, a unique way of expressing oneself. Some learn in conservatories, others through oral transmission, still others alone, guided by instinct. The path doesn’t matter: what counts is moving toward self-expression. To be oneself, to take risks, to create! Because reciting a poem does not make us poets, and playing only other people’s works is not enough to become a musician.

That’s why, for me, the fulfillment of a language always comes through creation, whether in the form of composition or improvisation, because the two are inseparable. Classical music and jazz both testify to this: improvisation has always been at the heart of a quest for authentic expression.

It was with this aim of opening my musical language that I created the Jazzy-Kora. Unlike diatonic koras, it allows me, thanks to chromaticism, to cross new musical boundaries. It gives me access to new colors and nuances, broadening my possibilities of reaching a language faithful to my way of being.

Because flourishing through the language of music, as in all artistic practices, is always the same adventure: repeating, absorbing, then daring to be oneself. And in the end, what matters is not only what we express, but the way it resonates with others.

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