Back in April of 2021 I wrote a little something about Davids song La Solitude, but today the focus is entirely on the piano artist! Lets have a talk with Daniel Rosenholm!
Where are you from? And where do you live?
I’m originally from Åkersberga outside Stockholm, Sweden. After a couple of years of moving around different locations I’ve finally landed in Dalarö, south of Stockholm in the archipelago.
How long have you been playing the piano, and do you play other instruments as well?
I started playing piano around the age of 10, but when I was a teenager guitar became my main instrument. During many years I only played keyboard in the studio when producing music, so I kind of forgot about the piano until a couple of years ago when I started making music for film. It made me really rediscover the piano and now it’s my main instrument again.
Tell us about how you started playing music.
As a kid we had an acoustic guitar and a piano at home, my mom sang and played and it really tempted me to try it out. Later on in the teens we started bands. We were quite early in my house with getting a computer, and I quickly learned how to make music on it and I haven’t looked back since.
How long have you been making piano music?
If we talk about piano music where the piano is the main focus, it’s about 3 years since I started to make more and more instrumental, piano based music.
Tell us something about that moment you realized you could make songs yourself!
I remember sitting with our guitar in my early teens trying to learn the chords of a song, but it was too hard, so instead of learning to play that song I wrote my own with the few chords I had learned so far. And that’s how I continued, I learned to play the instruments by writing songs and composing.
What are your favorite artists in this “piano genre”?
I think Agnes Obel is an amazing artist, composer and pianist, don’t know if she counts in the ”piano genre” but she has a couple of wonderful solo piano pieces. Other than her I’d say Jan Johansson and Joep Beving. But I also have to mentioned that this genre is flooded today by so many excellent pianists! I discover new ones all the time, there so much amazing talent out there!
Is there one song which you play over and over again as soon as you sit down by a piano?
I enjoy playing my song La Solitude, because it has nice flow in it, it’s quite meditative to play, really great if I’ve had a stressful day. I’m not so good at playing other peoples music, I don’t read sheet music, so I still experience music the way I did when I was learning it in the beginning, by composing.
What rules (in making music) needs to be broken?
I don’t think there’s one specific rule that needs to be broken. But I believe that good music benefits from having a combination of elements that breaks rules and others that follows rules.
How do you record your music?
I record my music mostly at home. I have a guest house where I have a my music gear, except for my piano which is in my house in the living room. I also have a corner in the house where I have a midi-keyboard and all the necessary stuff to quickly record ideas or when I need to practice quietly.
Whats your take on sampled instruments?
I like them, I love to sample instruments myself, there’s lots of creative stuff you can do with sampled instruments. I’ve actually created my own sample library from my living room piano, it’s called November Piano and I’ve shared it for free on pianobook.co.uk. That said, there’s something really special sitting with a real instrument, the way the instruments starts to vibrate and spread in the room, the atmosphere that’s created when the room and the instrument becomes a unity. That’s something that’s, I’m not gonna say impossible, but very hard to recreate in a sampled instrument.
Anything else you want to share?
I’d like to encourage everyone to learn to play an instrument, it will give you lots of pleasure and can help you through hard times, playing an instrument is really meditative and extra important these days when we need find activities that keep our eyes off all the screens that surround us and constantly fighting for our attention.
The last question is asked by my 6 year old son:
Where do all your songs come from?
I gather inspiration from many sources. All the music I listen to, the books I read and the movies I watch are like seeds that’s planted in my head and eventually grows to songs that appears to me when I least expect it. So I always make sure I have my phone with the voice memo app close to me so I can catch the songs when they come to me.
Thank you very much for the David!
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