My interview in ICONA magazine of Alexandroupolis about my music that I am doing as an amateur

George Asithianakis:

“If I didn’t release my songs, I would be half a man!”

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: “The gap between how one should live and how one actually lives is so great that the man who neglects what is actually happening, for the sake of what should be happening, takes the path towards self-destruction and not towards self-preservation.” As much as I have been rejected and have believed deeply - in the course of my life - in these words, I have not stopped looking for people-challenges who would overturn them. George Asithianakis is one of the cases of people who alone take their fate into their own hands and shape it. And if he worked hard and disciplined with himself to become a well-known Neurosurgeon at the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis today, he did not hesitate to claim – and indeed very successfully – a place in the spotlight with his other capacity, that of a musical composer. In Crete, where he comes from, they say that the man makes the generation and not the generation the man.

Written by Kaiti Makri

Why do you write music, Mr. Asithianakis?

I think there is no reason. It is something I did not choose – I was born that way. Many times I feel that there is another person inside me who writes music and songs. Entire melodies come to me by themselves.

Do you write lyrics, “construct” music, sing. Does everything happen whenever something inspires you or are they already inside you?

I write music, lyrics but I don't sing because on the one hand I don't have a voice and on the other hand I would have to deal only with music - it would be incompatible as I feel it inside me at the moment with my capacity as a doctor. Everything is inside me but "inspiration" is needed for it to come out. When someone is freed from their grips and fears and the eyes of the soul open, they are inspired by everything

The one who makes melodies is, they say, ordained by God to become a musician. However, a ordained person hears differently because he has a very special material inside him. Sound is a special material! How do you understand this?

The real artist is a transformer of cosmic energy - an orgone accumulator in a way. You are born with it and words, sounds, images are just tools. The instrument is our body-mind and I consider it our obligation to keep it in good condition. This cosmic energy is sometimes called God and sometimes the devil in the various religions that have appeared on earth. As for sound, yes, it is special material. The first sounds that a person hears are the mother's heartbeat transmitted by the amniotic fluid. If the mother-fetus relationship is disturbed, there will be a problem for the adult later in his relationship with music. Each note leads to a specific frequency of cellular oscillation which in turn leads to harmonization with the universe.

If someone really has "special material" and is "ordained by God" he must overcome many obstacles to be ready to give. To put it another way: When the "heavens" intend someone for something great, they first test them and, if necessary, torture them. These obstacles have as a common denominator nonexistence, that is, death and the fear it causes us. If you do not understand the mystery of death, you will never understand what life is – a few minutes before you die, of course, you will see it, but usually, for most people, it is too late by then.

How difficult was it to maintain balance and remain consistent in your work, but also to thrive as an artist?

It is really very difficult. N/Cgiki is a very strict and demanding job that also has something divine in it. Not everyone can be a health worker. Scientific experience is not enough - being a specialized robot, that is - other things are needed

Which Greek or foreign composers are very close to your own way of expression?

I can't pinpoint exactly. The way each person expresses themselves is something unique. Maybe some anonymous Cretan composers who have written traditional masterpieces. Of course, I have been influenced by many old and modern ones. Some well-known names: Hadjidakis, Xarchakos, Theodorakis, Spanos, Loizos, Duke Elington, Paul Mc Cartney, Queens, Bon jovi... However, as a composer (and as a person) I like to deal with many different genres of music and areas at the same time.

In today's musical landscape, electronic music and experimentation dominate. Give a comment on modern music production?

All music is good as long as it is true and expresses what people really feel. Art is something that constantly progresses. Regardless of whether a music is electronic or not, the melodic line and the rhythm created by it have value. Putting 3 chords, a rhythm and various effects on the computer is something very easy and cheap that must rely on impressiveness to be successful.

scar for a while. This is not music but a subculture that needs constant brainwashing of passive listeners in order to survive. All of this will be forgotten and only music that speaks to the heart and mind of people will remain. A good melody, whether it has electronic orchestration or not, will be good. A bad one will be bad. Finally, as a musician, I love songs that rely more on melody and less on atmosphere. Today, melody has been degraded, atmosphere and impression dominate.

Composition is taught, is it a gift from God, is it conquered, all three together or something else?

Is it a gift from God, it is not taught. Musical knowledge, however, helps. On the other hand, the Conservatories remain on the surface and in a way kill free expression and emotion

Everything, in the end, serves art in a divine way. Whatever one loves, that is. But do you feel satisfaction as a creator? What remains inside you when a work is completed?

A creator can be someone in many areas. It is the highest level of completion of the human being. Everything else, such as collecting money, exercising power, etc. is an illusion of comfort, because one feels dead inside. I feel like my children with any of my works - music and my songs, etc. If I deserve something to remain, I will be satisfied.

What vulgarizes and trivializes Greek music today?

All the bad things in Greek and world music have a common denominator: money as an end in itself. The "grabber" dominates, it is essentially a ball that is played between passive listeners who want to jump around for 4-5 months with a purpose, in the various shopping trips that are constantly taking place and in the various companies that commercialize art. The Greek public – as in all countries of the planet – is a victim of a political production of a subculture that deliberately keeps the world in a state of passivity and generally stupidity. There is a continuous effort, mainly by the mass media, to subjugate, disorient and direct consciousness. The goal is to enter and remain in a small box in which you rejoice, grieve, jump until you die, to believe that you are free, that is, controlled. For all of them, it is necessary for the world to eat all kinds of material, spiritual, artistic garbage and to feel garbage inside. The main work of disorientation is done by television and less by the internet, for known-unknown colossal interests. There are so many mediocrity and talentlessness today that come to the surface with the technology that exists that it is much more difficult today for someone to stand out than in the past. Despite all these sad things, if some music, song is truly worth it, people will embrace it. It's just that, as I said, it's harder to do that today than in the past.

What place do the mantinades - something that characterizes Crete - have in your musical creation?

I am a Cretan of the diaspora and I write mantinades of the diaspora - something like that

How does singing, as an expression, work?

It is something like the air we breathe, it is freedom. Just as there are two categories of people, those who breathe deeply and those who breathe superficially, so there are people who sing and those who don't sing.

To what extent should an artist entrust his artistic development to dreams and luck?

Without dreams you are dead and luck does not exist. Basically, each of us knows what will happen. There are no impossible things - although one person in the world has achieved something, you can too. Success is a combination of genes and willpower. Of course, social origin, social obstacles play an important role. But saying that everything is corrupt and that is why nothing is done is an excuse not to fight. Of course, the artist must dream and fight for his dreams. The main enemy is first himself - as in each of us - and then everyone else

With your double CD "Songs of the Waves" we got to know your work and loved it. On YouTube, your songs are being searched for more and more. Your orchestral "Polemiko", "O Tycheros" but also the very tender and special songs "Tha po apopse s' ena asteri" and "I kierotere Poini" that you composed on lyrics of also "our" doctor Surgeon and Lecturer at the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis, makes us feel that in our parts of Medicine, alternative and supportive "music therapy" is being "attempted". What are your future plans? Tell us what's next.

Yes, it's true that our collaboration with Kostas Romanidis came about effortlessly and some gems were indeed born. I'm moving on to other paths. A new work called "Planitis Hellas" will be released soon where the orchestration of the songs has been undertaken by Michalis Nikoloudis. The initial idea is very original

The reading material for the 5th and 6th grade of primary school has been written and set to music. I collaborate with two other excellent composers, Kostas Petrakis and Stelios Housas. The lyrics are by Dora Protopapa, the lyricist and writer with whom I also collaborated on Songs of the Waves and whom I love to co-create, and Marianthi Theodoropoulou. Singing are Manto, Katerina Tsiridou, Alexandros Hatzis, Kaiti Makri, Giorgos Daskalakis, Nikos Androulakis, Sofia Tserou. I also have various other job offers but they do not interest me directly at the moment. It is important for me to follow wholeheartedly and consistently the birth of my songs in each of my individual works.

What place does Thrace hold in your heart? Is it in your songs?

When I came here I knew nothing about the area. But the more I discover its people, the more I love them. I believe that at some point this will come out in my songs.