Adrián Aguiar: the roads that lead to the guitar

To shake the nerves a bit or to hide the shyness, we barely exchanged a few words and Adrián was already taking out the guitar -I still can't figure out who is accompanying whom, they are both as one-. Then the first chords of the "out of tune" instrument sounded, specially designed to play the Moonlight by Debussy, in an arrangement that enveloped me from the first time I heard it, during a concert he did as a duet with Jonathan Formell at La Casa de la Bombilla Verde. After seeing him in that performance, I asked him for this interview.

 "I made a life with the cello."

When you get to music school everything is new and exciting; the "not knowing" is part of the magic that instruments possess when you see them up close and get a sound out of them, almost by chance. In that first approach they all seem to be equally tempting, how to choose just one? Fortunately or unfortunately the decision is not exactly ours; that is why Adrián, who wanted to play violin, started in third grade in the specialty of violoncello.

"I was super motivated, because I was a little boy. freaky gamer. So when I visualized the possibility of making it, of bringing out in some instrument the music that I liked the most from the games. There was a theme from a Naruto game that had a violin in it and I remember that emotion very clearly. I got the first [place on the] rung and it was super easy for me, I entered with the doors wide open (this was at the Alejandro García Caturla conservatory [for elementary level]), and I entered into long careers: they gave me the cello, yes, I made a life with the cello, I have a very nice video of me playing it. The death of the swanI learned a lot playing the cello.

"The thing is that there are times when communication with teachers is not good. fused. When I took my thumb and my thumb was very heavy; in order to begin to study, I had to take off that lining of the cupboard; and I had to pull the pin, and look for a chalk, the chalkboard, and look where to put the strap, the hole in the floor; it was like a drama to begin with. And the teachers fulas; That started to suffocate me a little bit, and when I was already in 6th, 7th grade, I said 'boy, what if I learn guitar? I looked for the teachers on my own, I went to the professor's office, and the youngest teacher, Carlos Ernesto, took me. I got a little guitar and started to give private lessons, with the Nicola method; and it seems that he saw my conditions and at a certain point he stopped charging me for the lessons".

Photo courtesy of the interviewee.

The need to choose often comes when we least want it, but it forces us to think, to evaluate our desires and our opportunities with real frankness, and that always has a positive side. When Adrian decided that his future would not be the cello, the school management put obstacles in his way; he had to work twice as hard, to learn in a hurry to reach the level of the others. At the beginning of the ninth grade, already as a student of the guitar specialty, time was again enough and the strings were only plucked. With the first chord patterns and the passing of the level, a world of possibilities and genres opened up that changed his way of understanding music and the instrument.

"The middle level for everyone is always the time of growth, everywhere, but especially as a musician. One of the things that shocked me the most at the ENA was to see the number of good musicians and guitarists. There I met Jonathan [Formell], Emmanuel [Urquía] the guitarist of Histéresis, Eduardo Corcho... We were like a guild, we were always with our little guitars, and I tried to learn from everybody, because one played Jimi Hendrix, but the other one played Petrucci, and the other one played The Beatles; and I was like 'My God, where am I looking?It's very rich when you are in a place like that where everybody is super good; that's when the desire to improvise started, because there were a lot of people improvising: I remember we did it every morning, every afternoon, jamsI would arrive very early in the morning, and first to make standards, But throwing the stone of the century, because in the end we knew almost nothing... It was a very nice stage, of growth, of everyone being ready to learn something for which the school does not give you tools, we were creating knowledge because they did not teach us that in any class".

Photo courtesy of the interviewee.

"Any time you have something preset, it's weight."

The straight line that is usually student life marked the next step: preparing to take the exams and enter the University of the Arts. Adrian, with an enthusiasm that seems inexhaustible, studied intensely guitar, solfège, harmony; in the exams he proved his impeccable skills and after all the effort, he could say that he had the ISA in his hands. But 2020 began and the Covid 19 arrived to change all the plans. Among the many negative and sad things, the pandemic gave us a lot of time to think, to question what we had lived so far, to reinvent ourselves. His experience was particularly transforming, he stopped living with his parents, he started to be interested in new topics, to consume information about economy, personal growth. From this process came, in principle, the idea of taking a new direction.

"But that was a drama, because when the time was coming I made the decision: I am not going to do the ISA. That was one of the biggest, strongest, most intense, painful and one of the most beautiful social processes of my life with good results. Because it was not only my mother. It was my family, the teachers, everyone wondered if I had gone crazy, that this was my chance to have a future tomorrow, to have a school. And it's hard, because you don't stand firm, you start to doubt if you're really right. I think I even wrote down the precepts of why I was doing it and read and reread them, it was a tough psychological battle. And that was my moment of reflection, I started visualizing everything, trying to clear a lot of perspectives of things. What is it that you really think is going to make you happy, that is going to be like your ikigai?

"I like to connect things, and it's the same thing that happens, for example, with improvisation. People want to improvise, but they hold on to the music that's already written because it's like the safe place, whereas in improvisation you have to just let go. And it's been super interesting because I've been very conscious of what my mental process has been like in learning to improvise. At the beginning I would learn the solos, then I would create them for the concert; many times it came out, other times it didn't come out at all. And I had to learn that every time you have something preset, it's weight. It's important to have tools, but also to be aware of the present moment, to feel light to connect with the source of the ideas.

The process was much longer and more complex, the voice and gestures with which Adrian describes it are untranslatable, they speak of a maturity gained after approaching the background. It is from here that we begin to discover the musician we know, the professional life begins with the orchestra Sonantas Habaneras, live performances with Frank Fonte, Camila Guevara, and a list that is increasingly extensive. It was also the time to think about the creation of content for networks, which curiously began with what later would become Pine tree and swingAdrián's first song, a sort of interpretation of the state of jubilation with impressionistic eyes, recorded as a duet with Jonathan Formell.

"It wasn't just whether I played well that was evaluated."

His philosophy at this stage was "yes everything", which has, as he could later understand, its pros and cons. Thus, accepting one more proposal, from the hand of Anne Frank arrived at Ludi Teatro. For someone with Adrian's spirit the experience could not be less than dazzling: together with the cast he learned that there is a whole world for sounds outside of music itself, that notes can be transformed into concepts; that his character also had to be tuned and ready for immediate sensations and, perhaps most importantly, that none of this is possible without a previous ritual, without warming up the soul and the body.

"I remember that Nabil Severo wrote me to cover it, because he was "entangled". I started the preparation process with him, he passed me the audios of the play. I had to learn things like how this music came in after this girl said the 'butcher of Prague', for me it was crazy, and I got super intense, I learned everything in like a week. I started to see the rehearsals, to get to know the actors and actresses, who for me were like demigods, but I had to go through the process of humanizing them. Many concepts changed, not only was it evaluated if I played well, but also the connection I could achieve. I was the first person to enter with Ana and stand in the middle of the stage and look at her with a specific expression that I had to define, and then sit down and break the silence. With Ludi I had my first international experience; we were invited to Mexico, to a Conjunto Santander festival, and the reaction of the audience was incredible. One of the most beautiful things, for example, was that before starting the show we made a circle, we held hands, with our eyes closed, and the director always talked about something different, about the emotions we had to explore that day, about the social burden. I don't think I had ever experienced anything so intense before an artistic act".

Photo courtesy of the interviewee.

More than a year passed before he made the decision to leave Ludi, with that bittersweet feeling of leaving behind certain things that were still dear to him. This is Adrian's most experimental and daring stage, also the freest. He performs with any musician or singer he feels a real connection with, attends numerous concerts in which he ends up taking out his guitar and getting on stage ("I'm very fresh", he says jokingly and with certainty). It didn't take him long to become known on the jazz scene, to collaborate with artists he admired, to feel part of the sound of Havana's nightlife. Adrian Aguiar, who is surprised by his achievements with an almost childlike naivety, has performed during the last year with Tobias Alfonso, the duo Aguas de Marzo, William Roblejo, Daniela Barreto, the Argentine group Noise Jazz Merlo, Richard Fando, Lachy Torriente, Boomerang, Rafael Paseiro, Maikel Gonzalez, Eduardo Sandoval, Jose Portillo.

In addition to being a masterful performer, he composes not only instrumental songs, but also songs -which until now can only be heard live- in which an unsuspected voice speaks of deeply felt loves. Recently, he published in the main platforms of streaming Guajira in the riverThe duet with Dayron Ortiz, a dance between two light guitars that evoke the freshness and beauty of the most improvised bush.

As a young, independent musician, he has among his daily challenges the search for economic sustenance through alternative means, the multiple simultaneous jobs, the constant exchange with his community to maintain his presence in networks. However, his energy seems to have no near limit. Among his main desires is to achieve professional development and satisfaction on the island, and this is probably one of the aspects that most identify him with the new generation of emerging artists who want - despite the usual obstacles they must overcome - to create a future for Cuban music.

"I recently became aware that what I saw as something far away (playing with great musicians, playing concerts, getting to do good solos and enjoying it, entering the world of jazz with my acoustic guitar and people listening to me), all that is happening. And I'm doing it with my own language, with my own way of seeing things. I also feel that the community that is being created around my music is something very nice, I'm grateful for what I'm living now, that's happiness. The next thing is a collaboration that I want to record with Fabio Abreu, an arrangement of a song called Violet teawith an African instrument. In the future what I hope is to be able to continue playing and creating, without losing the feeling of lightness."

When Adrián plays it feels like he is giving you a hug; there is an evident desire to connect with the listener, to deliver something very precious and human. You can perceive in him a kind of sensitivity that is not so much associated to easy emotion, but to intelligence, to the ability to understand how we feel, and that is something that is also very enjoyable in his conversation. The path that has led him to become a referent within the universe of the Cuban guitar today -still in crescendoThe dialogue was intense and unexpected, as are all those that bring about memorable things. Like a promise, this dialogue seeks only to place you in expectation of all that is to come.