David Garrett knows how to wow an audience. In an interview, he explains how he sees the magic on stage. He also talks about his mentors and reveals whom he is particularly grateful for.
FOCUS Online: Everyone has to present something now and then. It doesn’t matter whether it’s school, university or work. What are your tips for inspiring performances in front of an audience?
David Garrett: The most important thing is that you don’t look left or right! It doesn’t matter what you present: Make your very own presentation that you would also passionately present to your girlfriend, your mother or your father. Use your own words! Don’t copy anything and always stand behind what you say 100%.
And if there’s only one person in the room, don’t be disappointed. This text must always come out well – regardless of whether only your mother is in the hall or an audience of ten thousand people. Then you have a great text! This text will then always work. Why it is like that? Because you wrote the lyrics for yourself, and that’s the most important thing! You do things in life for yourself. Then you let people participate in them afterwards.
That sounds almost – well, magical.
David Garrett: That’s the magic on stage for me! When I make music on stage, I play for myself and for the musicians. The audience has an insight into a really intimate and private moment in my life. That is the magic of a concert.
Ultimately, people don’t want to be yanked from their chairs. Rather, people in the audience want to be touched. And touch only happens with honesty. Honesty on stage never works when you’re playing for the audience. Everyone on stage plays for themselves and the audience can take part in it.
What rituals do you have when it comes to being creative?
David Garrett: What I can tell you is that my head is spinning all the time. I think the only ritual I have is my self-doubt. My self-doubt of not being good enough or missing out. Or not getting something first. That’s exactly what drives me.
Did you have a mentor, i.e. someone who particularly encouraged your skills?
David Garrett: Right from the start, I’ve always been fortunate to have people around me who encouraged me. Even as a five year old. Teachers are happy to take on great students, because for them it is also a musical calling card of their ability.
What are you thankful for?
David Garrett: For their time! Many of these mentors have never paid to work with me. Ida Haendel must have spent hundreds of hours with me and didn’t charge a penny for it. An Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, a William Pleeth or even Rostropowitsch – all the people have worked with me for nothing. And I’m incredibly grateful for their energy and time.
In general: To what extent can mentors or role models help to take oneself to a new level?
David Garrett: By the students! To be fair, I have to say that I have taught one or the other child before. As a teacher, you learn just as much from the students as the student learns from the teacher!
The only way I can explain it is that when I listen to a young violinist, I see the mistakes she makes. But in their mistakes I also discover mistakes that I make in turn. So I think it’s really mutual. A great teacher can teach a good student a lot. In the same way, a great student can still teach a good teacher things. Mutual listening is very, very important in the student-teacher relationship!
What was the best piece of advice you received in your life?
David Garrett: There’s a nice quote from Oscar Wilde. It goes: “The worst blow is the advice!” – I would say the really good people, the really exciting personalities in my life, have never given me advice. They always told me what they considered important in their lives and left the rest to me.
Why? Because it is always the most important thing for great personalities that the student’s or the person’s own identity grows! The more advice you give, the more you indoctrinate your thoughts into a person!
And I believe that as an artist you have to discover your very own thoughts for yourself. So you have to experience all the wisdom and philosophies for yourself. Everyone has to find out what works for them personally.
When I think about it, all my teachers have said across the board, “Do it your way! But if you do it like that, you have to be able to explain it and you have to stand behind it 100 percent. You can never take this freedom from an artist to do it exactly the way you want it to be!”
Looking back, what would you say: How important are contacts in the music business?
David Garrett: If there are good contacts and people get together with common sense, so that it is worthwhile in the end, I find relationships in the music business very important. I also think social contacts are very important in the business world. Also the way you present yourself as an artist and how you deal with people.
Or learning how to read a contract properly. This also means that you ask if you don’t understand something or if you sit down with a lawyer and go through the contracts together. You have to at least understand every single nuance of this business!
And how have you built up your personal network over the years?
David Garrett: Try it! I believe the same way you try friendships. You give a lot of people a chance and the older you get, the fewer chances you give others. If you are lied to once, it will happen a second and a third time. But of course life experience comes with it. I certainly gave people a lot more chances in my earlier years. I’ve gotten a little tougher now.
Of course you can also make mistakes, but then you have to admit the mistakes directly and own up to them. Then I have no problem with errors at all. But what I have a problem with is unprofessional behavior and especially dishonesty. That’s not possible and then a business relationship is immediately over for me.
