Buy Me A CoffeeMusic has always been my favourite mystery. As a medium, an energy or exchange, there’s no other frequency that carries as much potential.
I grew up learning classical music as a French horn player in orchestras. Most of my teenage years were spent exploring musical brass ensembles from the Baroque era. However, deep down, I was always drawn to rhythms and unusual textural sounds, and fascinated by music production. I initially discovered improvisation by playing the didgeridoo, before going on to study tabla in India and other hand percussion in West Africa and South Africa. I’ve continued to explore a combination of hybrid contemporary percussion, which I incorporate in my music and ever-changing percussive set-up.
A large part of my musical career has been influenced by me having lived in different parts of the world. I was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in Germany, where I spent 18 years before moving to South Africa, where I lived for 25 years. Now I’m back in Ireland, living in Dublin. As a performing artist, I’ve had a very diverse career, spanning many genres, bands and projects, both as a side man and band leader. I’ve toured extensively, and have had the great fortune of sharing the stage with greats such as Johnny Clegg, Rodriguez and Manu Dibango.
Much of my experience as a percussionist has involved me refining the process of capturing the sounds of my instruments, especially in a live context. This has given me a better understanding of the sonic spectrum of sound, production and recording, prompting me to explore production music for films. This knowledge, coupled with my years of experience as a recording artist who’s played on more than 100 albums to date, further enhanced my understanding of the role of a producer in studio contexts, and has characterised my more current and recent projects.
As with many artists, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced me to reinvent myself as a musician, and saw me pivoting from being more of a performing artist to creating soundtrack music. What fascinates me about this genre is the simplicity with which music can function: the musical score provides the emotional content, setting the tone and directly influencing the dramaturgy of a storyline. This type of music-making has been a constant source of exploration, ever since I was involved in creating the score for the 2020 Oscar-winning documentary film, My Octopus Teacher. Ultimately I’d like to be involved in scoring a feature-length film or providing the theme music for a TV series. I’m always working on some sort of soundtrack music, and have made specifically curated library music for several labels over the past few years.
There is a downside to making this kind of music, though. It can be quite solitary and often takes hours of recording specific sounds in sequence, like a puzzle that forms over time. Also, this process can become quite self-indulgent, which is why I’ve been realising of late that the performer in me would like to get back on stage and be part of a new project that I could collaborate on.
The Dublin music scene is still very new to me, and I’ve not had a chance to explore my place in the live music scene as yet. Irish traditional music fascinates me and I’d be interested in collaborating with trad musicians. I have great respect for the cultural significance of traditional music of this nature, and I realise that my role as a percussionist would have to be carefully curated. I’ve always felt that as long as you learn the basics and don’t disrespect the origins, then you’re in honest territory. It’s important to understand the heritage of musical offerings and find appropriate ways to build bridges with old and new sounds. Instruments evolve, compositions adapt accordingly, and people and new collaborations shape new contemporary styles and genres.
Currently, I’m part of the Ingrid Lukas band, which is based in Zürich, Switzerland. We have regular shows and usually tour at least once a year. There is also a new album in the making. Apart from that, I am a guest lecturer at the University of Limerick’s World Music Academy, teaching tabla and percussion on a part-time basis. One of the concepts I’ve been developing with the students is part of a future project that I’ve been distilling for a few years and is finally coming to fruition. Essentially, it’s a space within which rhythmic exercises can take shape in a group dynamic, where the focus is on listening, working as a unit and understanding the “ghost notes” that make up the space between the beats.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/didgi_taal/
Website: http://ronanskillen.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/didgitaal
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