Bensusan’s approach is steeped in influences that span the globe, including Celtic, folk, jazz, Latin, and Middle Eastern music. And, like a master storyteller, he uses his pieces to convey unique points of view, narrative development, dialogue, and movement. To that end, he infuses his tunes with distinctive voicings, counterpoint melodies, and pulsing bass rhythms. Another Bensusan hallmark is his exclusive use of DADGAD tuning. In fact, he’s one of the world’s leading DADGAD exponents, having spent his entire career exploring the breadth and depth of the tonalities the tuning has to offer.
In addition to recording Altiplanos, Bensusan recently collaborated with two renowned luthiers to create a pair of signature guitars. The first is a steel-string model designed by Kevin Ryan that now serves as his principal instrument. The second is a nylon-string guitar built by Juan Miguel Carmona. Bensusan also continues to spend several weeks every year conducting master classes and seminars that impart his techniques and collected wisdom to students worldwide.
How did you put together the tunes for Altiplanos?
Many of the pieces on Altiplanos go back ten years. They derive from improvisations that grew on me, and that became more substantial over time. If a particular idea appealed to me, I started to compose by putting ideas on paper or tape. From there, the pieces grew, were forgotten and abandoned, and then emerged out of the blue to become mature compositions.
For instance, “La Dame de Clevedon” started as a studio improvisation. After listening back to the tape one day, I thought I could do something more with it. So, I started performing it in front of audiences for a while. Then I thought, “Okay, now I have enough information. I’m going to go in my little cavern and record it.” The result is the version on Altiplanos. There are also other pieces on the album—such as “Sylva”—that are entirely improvised. In addition, the album includes new versions of pieces from older albums, such as “Falafel à Montségur,” which combines “Falafel” from 1993’s Wu Wei and “Montségur” from 1987’s Spices. I believe the life of a tune is endless. A version that appears on an album is just one snapshot. Tunes evolve like we all do. They each have a story with a past, present, and future.
During your seminars, you ask students to sing their improvisations and compositions prior to touching their guitars. Why do you encourage that approach?
I want my students to play what they truly hear inside their heads. I also want them to have a sensual experience with the music before they touch a guitar. Your fingers have a simple, physical memory when they’re placed on a guitar. To go beyond that, you have to feed your fingers with your imagination. That’s why I tell students, “Forget the guitar. Just think about the ideas you would like to hear on it. Sing them and give them some air. Now, make them real by transcribing them on your guitar.” I find this gives the students an amazing sensitivity. I often do this during my own creative process.
“If Only You Knew” has an American gospel feel to it. Tell me about your interest in the genre.
That one relates to the fact that my family listened to all kinds of music when I grew up in the ’60s and early ’70s in Algiers and Paris. We lived in small apartments, so I could always hear the music everyone played. My father was into opera, Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman, and Stephane Grappelli. My mother sang Arabic and Jewish lullabies. My younger sister was the big rebel. She listened to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Don McLean, and Elton John. My elder sister listened to a lot of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and American gospel stuff—including the Platters. “If Only You Knew” comes from listening to the Platters’ “Only You” so many times when I was a kid. It’s amazing how much impact a song can have on you when you’re young. All of the music I heard at home deeply influenced my musical vocabulary. I think this is why my records tend to cover a very wide range of styles and sounds.
What kind of studio setup did you use when recording Altiplanos?
I record in my home studio near Paris with a Mac G5 and Pro Tools. I played my Ryan signature guitar with a B-Band pickup. The B-Band offers very clear, even, and accurate reproduction. I have two Avalon VT-737SP preamps that have EQ and compression built in. I like the Avalon, because it’s very faithful to my acoustic sound, and it adds warmth when working in a digital environment. In addition, I use two CAD VX2 dual-valve condenser microphones. They are exceptionally reliable, and they don’t color my sound.
Contrast the way you work in the studio with being onstage.
Onstage, I start a tune, play it, and finish it. It’s never perfect, but the tune has a life in that realm and benefits from the enthusiasm of the audience. When I’m alone in the studio, I feel I have to be accountable to the music and my sense of perfection. I’m trying to get as close as possible to capturing the piece exactly as I envision it. So, I’ll usually play many different versions of my tunes from beginning to end, and record everything direct to hard disk. Then I edit the piece together from multiple takes to capture the best performance. I used a similar process with my 2001 solo guitar album, Intuite, which I put together using Digital Performer. Having said that, there are also pieces on Altiplanos such as “Demain, dès l’Aube” that were recorded live in one take.
What gear are you using onstage these days?
It’s a very simple setup. The B-Band pickup from my Ryan guitar goes into a Boss volume pedal that I place on a foot riser. I use it to turn off the volume so I don’t bother the audience with tuning sounds. The pedal goes into a TC Electronic Element TC1128 EQ. It’s a mono, 31-band unit I’ve been using for the last 15 years. From the EQ, I go into a TC Electronic M2000 stereo reverb that goes directly to the mixing desk. I love TC Electronic stuff because it creates such a pure, musical, and dynamic sound. I always use Elixir NanoWeb guitar strings because they last forever.
Why did you choose to work with Kevin Ryan for your new signature steel-string?
Kevin is a real artist. His craftsmanship is stunning. He is also a big fan of my music, so he has an intuitive knowledge of what I’m looking for—which is a guitar with a beautiful, singing high end, a deep midrange, and a very warm bass sound. Starting in 2002, we collaborated for a year-and-a-half on different prototypes. I wanted a wider fretboard that provided more space between the strings so I could use a variety of classical, flamenco, and fingerstyle techniques. I also wanted a narrower body that didn’t force me to hold my right arm so high. To compensate for that—and to ensure good bass response—we increased the depth of the body. —
What wood combination do you favor for the guitar?
My main Ryan signature guitar uses Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides, and cedar for the top. It’s an extremely attractive combination, because it provides a beautiful and transparent sonic response that lets you hear the music, not the sound of the guitar. This particular wood pairing requires you to invest a lot of time so the guitar can mature. It can be frustrating knowing you have a green instrument in your hands that will one day become a Formula One racing car. You have to be patient. So, I decided to exclusively play my new Ryan for 15 months before recording with it. I really wanted to feel intimate with it, and truly understand what language to speak with it. I’m very happy with the result.
Surprisingly, your other new signature guitar by Carmona is a nylon-string instrument.
Juan Miguel Carmona is a dear friend, and a very talented luthier from Granada. He said, “I think a lot of what you do would sound great on nylon strings. Let me make you a guitar.” I said “Okay, I’ll tell you nothing, and you go ahead and do it.” I was blown away with what he came back with. The guitar is small. It’s somewhere in between the size of a classical and a flamenco guitar. It also has a cutaway and the same B-Band pickup as the Ryan—which classical guitar makers would never typically consider. But Juan Miguel has no issue with those things. He’s very open to experimentation. The neck is similar to the Ryan in terms of spacing between the strings.
What do you find attractive about the nylon-string world?
I’ve always thought of that world as an alien one, even though nylon-string guitarists are technically playing the same instrument. I feel the steel-string guitar world is extremely immature and young in comparison. In the steel-string world, there are a lot of people who play guitar, but don’t necessarily play music. They aren’t always concerned with what sounds right musically. In the nylon-string world, guitarists play more musically because the culture of that instrument is ancient. There have been many more composers who have spent their lives writing music for it. I like the idea of exploring both worlds, because I think something great could come out of the contrast. I have yet to record with it. I’m going to have to spend a lot of time with the instrument to understand the language I have to apply to it. I’ll also have to be extremely humble as I come to terms with it.
Altiplanos includes three pieces that find you experimenting with loops again after a long hiatus. What brought you back to that realm?
Although I stopped doing live looping a few years ago, I thought incorporating that on the record would create a nice contrast, as well as provide a sense of my experimental nature. Those three pieces reveal that, in addition to solo guitar, I’m very much into improvising and playing grooves. Those tracks feature the TC Electronic 2290 Dynamic Digital Delay, which I’ve used ever since I started looping.
Why did you stop using loops in a live context?
It used to be my trademark. I would use all sorts of effects and MIDI technology to create elaborate layers that I would solo over. Those tricks, gimmicks, and toys were fun, and they helped me learn about my guitar. But one day I said, “I’ve had enough.” I decided I didn’t need those things, and I pursued a more naked and simple sound. I wanted to return to the pure acoustic sense of one instrument and two hands. Going through that looping phase made me a better improviser, and it established me as someone willing to take chances. I wanted to incorporate the knowledge I gleaned from that phase, and attempt to play in a way that made one guitar sound like multiple instruments.
It has been 43 years since guitarist Davy Graham introduced DADGAD to the world. How do you think the tuning has fared since it first emerged?
I think a lot of people play in DADGAD to obtain an immediately gratifying effect and sound. They know you can use it to create beautiful, sympathetic resonances, and moments with deep, dramatic bass. But if you just use DADGAD for these things, you kill the overall effect. Many people don’t necessarily know how to play in DADGAD. They just do whatever is obvious, and they end up sounding like everyone else. Regardless of the tuning you play in, you need to be able to answer one question: Do you know where you are on your fretboard? I’m afraid there are a lot of people who don’t know their fretboard to the point where they can be completely spontaneous on it. Guitarists should know all of the scales, chords, and modes in order to move their fingers where they need to to express themselves. I made my choice to play exclusively in DADGAD in 1978. Doing that enabled me to learn my way around the tuning, evolve my approach, and go beyond playing what’s known as “guitar music.” Gaining a comprehensive understanding of DADGAD allowed me to think in a really musically diverse way. As a result, I don’t look at the guitar as an instrument. I see it as purely as a vehicle for conveying emotion and telling stories.
