“Ignorance is our biggest enemy” - Thomas Regin

If music be the food of love, musical gluttony could never be construed as a cardinal sin. Music is a refuge from the miseries in life. Its vibrancy paints multiple hues that inspire and indulge human feelings. It constantly evolves to reflect the ever changing attitudes and perceptions of the human race. Such evolution is triggered by a change in focus and a transition from the old to the new. IndianWatchdogs.com made a transition from CricketWatchdogs.com to address the issues in terms of perception, as we try to establish ourselves as the Watchdogs of the Diaspora that is India.

Some of our esteemed members, hailing from such diverse fields as medicine, investment banking, business, real estate, music and IT pushed us to expand our horizons in order to attract a wider audience. One of the exponents who triggered this transition is a dazzling musician from Denmark. Thomas Regin, whose style is often compared to that of Elton John, has been a composer practically all his life, and his power ballads soar with a vitality and emotion very rare and precious. He works predominantly with keyboards, be they piano or computer.





Recently, Thomas famously sang one of our members', TerrificSam, compositions and did a thoroughly remarkable job with the rendition as his vocals beautifully performed the emotional context of the lyrics. The song titled, State of Frenzy, is the story of an immigrant who comes to the USA in search of greener pastures leaving his old and weak parents behind by themselves all alone and is constantly haunted by the memories of his parents back home. TerrificSam is an amazingly gifted poet and composer. He possesses an uncanny ability to let his compositions and poems echo the true sentiments of the heart and mind. His lyrics are powerful and reflective of the myriad states of mind in different scenarios. IWD is proud to have him onboard as a member.

Thomas Regin started playing piano and composing music when he was just 10 years old. At the age of 11, he staged his first public classical concert where, among other pieces, he played Shubert’s Impromptu in Ab. For a young talented aspiring musician, this was a great success, and even the local newspapers featured and lauded his debut performance. Later on, he moved his focus from classical music towards pop and rock music. He started writing powerful, harmonic songs and became a very talented songwriter. Thomas started exploring new styles of music, and wrote more than 2000 songs in a period of 5 years. Many of his songs became huge hits on the former gigantic music portal, mp3.com. In a period of just 6 months, he had 5 songs in the Top 5 Danish artists on the site. His song Always peaked at an overall 70th place on the entire site with more than 1.000.000 downloads. 

With the release of new amazing orchestral sound libraries like Garritan’s Personal Orchestra and Easy West/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (EWQLSO), Thomas' love for classical music has been re-ignited, as he enters a completely new era in songwriting, as a classical film music composer.

Here are excerpts of the interview conducted with Thomas Regin.

Q. What appealed to you most about Shyam’s (TerrificSam) song?

Thomas: Shyam writes some really heartfelt and honest lyrics. He writes exactly how he feels, and I completely fell for that. The same goes for his music. His songs are small snapshots of "right now". Not many composers can do that, because we always start thinking about "would this work" or "can we improve this by adding this" etc. Shyam just writes and the effect he's had on me is striking: His honesty goes straight to my heart.

Q. How did it all start for you?

Thomas: The hesitant beginning of my music career began in 1983 when I was 7. My aunt saw an ad in the local newspaper that the cathedral in the town I lived in was looking for singers for their boy's choir. We were about 20 boys at the audition and I was one of two who got the position. This was my first paid job as a musician. It paid about $100 a month, which was quite good for a 7-year old kid. When I was 8, I realized that I wanted to play the church organ and the organist in the church said I should start playing the recorder (flute) to become familiar with the basics of reading sheet music. After 2 years of playing the flute, I decided, when I was 10, that I would rather play the piano. So I started taking piano-lessons and when I was 11 I played my first public event.

Q. Describe your music to us. Have you been influenced by any particular musicians during the years?

Thomas: The bass player in my band once said: "Thomas you write the simplest songs, so how come they are so hard to play?" This sums up my music pretty well. My songs are simple on the surface but they very often hide something unexpected below. And I think that these unexpected details are what make the music interesting to the listener. My music style is quite versatile. I don't want to be limited by something as silly as music style borders. If one day I want to write a song for big band, an R'n'B ballad or a techno-song, I want the freedom to do so.

As with any other songwriter I have been inspired over the years. From Billy Joel to Mr. Bungle, The Beatles, Dire Straits, Elton John to Django Bates. Even the old, classical composers such as Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Bach play a big role in the music I write.

Q. As a composer, where do you draw your inspiration from? What kind of thought process do you go through to churn out a particular composition?

Thomas: My inspiration always seems to come from my everyday life. Depending on the project, I normally sit down and ask myself: "How would my girlfriend break up if she was _really_ fed up with me?" That's how I came up with the song "Dissected" that turned out quite well. When I'm writing pop-music I always start by writing the lyrics, which is quite rare in this business. To me, the words are the most important part of a song and the music's role is just to set a mood. Today many songwriters focus primarily on the beat ' will it work on a dance floor/on the radio? They use a standard template for writing the music itself: AA B A B C BB. Verse, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus. They're timing everything because ideally the first chorus should come within 30 seconds after starting the song and the song itself should never last more than 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Finally they find a singer who often writes her own lyrics to the song. I have absolutely nothing against this type of "mass produced" songwriting, but personally I would feel limited knowing that I had to write hits all the time.

Well, back to the inspiration. Sometimes I can go for days with a theme in my head that I just have to get out. And I can wake up in the middle of the night thinking "oh my God, I have to write this music now ' otherwise I won't be able to sleep again!" That's often how the really good pieces are written.

Q. Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule. Give us your thoughts on this please.

Thomas: Contrary to life, there are no rules when writing music. Composing music is the wildest and craziest playground I've ever played on. And whether people like the outcome from my visits to this playground is not very important. The important thing is that I'm having a lot of fun. When you start setting up rules for your music you are also limiting yourself and the end result will almost always suffer.

Q. Is composition an infinite exercise in creativity? Will it ever end?

Thomas: Composition will never end. Some people say that one day all music will have been written and there will be no need for more. But that's not true. There will always be music left to write. It may not be revolutionary or new, but what does it matter? It's all about feeling and soul. Two artists can interpret the same song completely different.

Q. Describe the effect of computers in your life especially when it comes to your work.

Thomas: Ah, computers have changed my work progress completely. Working with computers is amazing. Not only do they provide me with a visual presentation of my work-in-progress, but they also play back any type of instrument I ask it to. This means that I can add an 80-piece symphonic orchestra to a song and hear the results straight away. And it sounds so close to the "real" thing that, with a bit of effort, I can put it straight onto a CD. Thank God for modern technology. (Smiles)

Of course, writing your sheet music with feather and ink is charming and helps maintaining your theoretical knowledge. But when you're in a hurry to get your ideas down, computers are invaluable tools!

Q. Do you think software engineers make good musicians or not?

Thomas: Yes, why not? Being a software engineer requires analytical, mathematical and creative skills. Exactly the same three skills required to be a composer/musician. Traditionally there have been heavy borders between the two, but not anymore. Software engineers even know how the music software works and spend less time trying to understand the technology and more time writing music.

Q. Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. How do you think music could play a positive role in society considering that a lot of shootings and violence amongst the youngsters are blamed on Rap, death metal, etc?

Thomas: Well, this is a tricky question, because I don't think you can blame anything on music. While it's true that music can evoke different moods in us, I honestly don't believe that music can kill. The shootings and violence amongst people is more likely the consequence of a tough upbringing. Of course it's much easier to blame music, and if this will help people ease their bad conscience, then fine by me, but it's not true. What kills people are guns and knives, and as long as our society condones the use of weapons the violence will continue. And music has just become a scapegoat just like movies and video games.

Q. Please give us a feel for your understanding on cricket.

Thomas: (Laughs) To be perfectly honest I don't really know too much about cricket. However, it's the frontrunner for what in America is known as baseball, although cricket is much more advanced and much more a "gentleman"-sport compared to baseball. What I do know, however, is that it's a very popular sport in England, India and Pakistan and it's been known to bring the three countries together in something other than war, though traditionally I believe it was England who, during their colonial days, brought the game to India and Pakistan. The game has also been known to stir up some diplomatic crisis between the three countries every now and then! (Smiles)

Q. If God were a musician, what kind of music do you think He would have composed?

Thomas: Oooh, now THAT was a tricky question! I'm sure God would write a bit of everything. He probably wouldn't write hymns in honor of himself, so he'd most likely write about us, his creations!

read complete interview of thomas Regin only @ http://indianwatchdogs.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=9862

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