BY SAMUEL COTTELL
Double bass player Elsen Price is making his mark on the music scene in a range of settings. He recently performed his original composition ‘red planet’ as part of Sydney’s Vivid Music at the Seymour Centre, where he also commissioned a new work for double bass and mandolin. Elsen also regularly performs his original music in cafés for five hours at a time (lucky there is coffee on hand), and is undertaking many collaborations with renowned musicians. His musical style is as diverse as the musical settings he performs in and, listening to his compositions and recordings, you can certainly hear a clear cut and confident musical voice. Elsen has a way of engaging audiences with his music, but it all boils down to the level of conviction you give in the performing of the music.
Based in Sydney, Elsen grew up in the country six hours of out of the city and first heard the violin at an annual country music festival. “I’ve been fascinated by the fiddle playing from the first time I heard it,” Elsen says. “It didn’t all start out easy for Elsen, who suffered from a physical condition called ‘syndactyly’, which often leaves a person with limited use of their hands and fingers. “My mum figured playing an instrument would help my hands develop and seeing as I was already obsessed with the violin, she let me learn it,” says Elsen.
He started on the double bass and soon had switched to electric bass, which opened up another range of musical influences. “I picked up the electric bass after playing the double for a while. My brother started playing guitar around the same time I started music. He was really into rock and influenced a lot of music I listened to.”
Elsen’s first electric bass was a ‘Performer Series’ that his dad (who was a regular at auctions) scored for $40. “Electric bass is great as it opened my eyes to checking bass players like Jaco Pastorius and Victor Wooten, both of which I’ve a huge fan of for a long time.”
Music wasn’t Elsen’s first choice when he was thinking about career options. He started an apprenticeship as a mechanic but soon realised that this wasn’t the path for him. “I hadn’t considered music an actual job growing up,” he says.
“My dad had a trade and it was expected that I get a trade too. I lasted three months until it was agreed between me and my boss that I shouldn’t keep on doing mechanics.
“I asked to leave early to go to rehearsals with my thrash metal band and didn’t really fit the angry, macho vibe. The day I walked out of the shop, I got a call to join a covers band that played all over North West New South Wales. I took it up and it was awesome.”
In fact, Elsen didn’t even realise it was possible to have a career in music until he saw an advertisement calling for auditions for the NSW police band. He auditioned and was told he was too young, but that didn’t stop him. Elsen waited until he was old enough, re-auditioned and got the gig. “My parents didn’t think it was ok that I spend my days practising the bass and drive a few hours, do a pub gig, and drive home. So I figured I’d be annoying and try and find a job where I played the bass,” says Elsen.
Elsen has had many ‘musical moments’ in the early stages of his career, one which will undoubtedly take him very far. One his career highlights was meeting and performing with Mike Patton (lead singer of Faith No More), and Elsen says “performing with Mike Patton was a huge highlight for me”.
“Meeting him in person and working with him showed me a reality of top professional music – he gave 110 per cent during rehearsals and gave more than that on the gig, and never missed a line or note.”
This 110 per cent approach is something Elsen applies to his own approach to music. “As a musician, I’ve always tried to take everything seriously, and you do get pulled to the wayside from bad influences or unfortunate realities, but it is something I look on as a bar or level I should meet regularly.”
Like his diverse range of performance settings, Elsen’s musical influences are also broad and varies, something that can be heard in his music.
“When I went to study classical bass at the Sydney Conservatorium, I made an effort to try and take in as much as I could. Bach has definitely been a highlight there,” Elsen says.
“I like finding music written by Bach I haven’t heard before, because it always seems fresh. I’m currently checking out Harry Partch and awaiting his book to read. He said unfretted string players have no excuse not to use notes outside of the 12-tone spectrum, which I’m trying my best to do at the moment.”
These wide ranging influences can be heard in Elsen’s original music. Having recently listened to and reviewed ‘red planet’, I was surprised to find a mix of avant-garde techniques, yet at the same time some beautiful melodic harmonic moments that really transcend a specific placement within a genre.
“I try to draw inspiration from my own sense of reality,” Elsen explains. “‘red planet’ blurs this a bit as it’s an apocalyptic view of the future, though it is directly influenced by the current phase of climate change and the prospect of the earth being inhabitable in the near future.
“Another recording I made is called ‘complete contradiction’, which is about my own experience in believing in something that doesn’t exist, and then seeing reality as it is.”
A turning point came when Elsen realised, at 3am one morning, that he wasn’t playing any music he really liked or enjoyed. In a quest to try out his ideas, he scored a gig in a recently opened café in his neighbourhood. The gig went for five hours (he was helped along by being supplied with coffee at regular intervals).
“I prepared a bunch of solo tunes which required me to use loop pedal, and between the tunes I did free improve to avoid any silences” he says. “I asked the barista which part of the performance he liked best, and he said the weird music between the songs was his favourite. I decided it was best that I only performed the ‘weird’ music from then on, as it was what sold me the best.
“My philosophy is based on this logic that ‘weird’ music, which can be called new music, or experimental, is easily accepted by most people if performed with the same conviction as you would expect from a good classical or jazz performance. I write music that will always be performed and if played well, will be enjoyed, which at the moment, is working. What I want the audience to take from any performance of recording is a musical experience.”
A lesson about composing and providing a setting for the audiences came in the form of a composition tutorial with Phillip Houghton. “The lesson took eight hours and he asked me many, many questions about my concepts. I tried my best to answer them intelligently, and in the last two hours we listened to my recording and Phil simply said ‘great recording Elsen, but don’t write so much about the music, the audience need to be able imagine their own story for the music’. This is something that I’ve taken on board and think is very important.”
As for the future, Elsen has many plans in the pipeline and is currently collaborating on a number of a different projects, true to his nature in working in a diverse range of genres and musical settings. “I’m still developing my solo set and thinking up new ways to do what I do,” he says. He’ll perform with Alicia Crossley at the Sydney Opera House on 9 October, and is working with Sydney composer Keyna Wilkins who has written a work for bass and loop pedal.
“As far as future plans, I’m setting in motion some plans of travelling as I still haven’t seen the weird and wonderful things that happen everyday in other parts of the world.”
To discover more of Elsen’s music visit www.bandcamp.com/elsenprice.com.
Image supplied.
