The Aesthetic Shocks

Temps de lecture/Reading time : 4 minutes

(Fragments of a Musical and Mystical Journey)

There are moments when music is no longer something we listen to — it moves through us.
It doesn’t just resonate in the ears but in the whole being.
These moments, I call aesthetic shocks — sudden encounters, awakenings of consciousness, where sound becomes an inner light.
They are what shaped the musician — and the human being — that I have become.

The Foundations: Romanticism and My Mother

It all began in my childhood living room, around a piano.
My mother, a piano teacher, was my first priestess of sound.
Under her fingers, the world unfolded: Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert…
I was too young to understand form or structure, but I could already feel the truth of those notes — their way of inhabiting the air, of saying without words what only the soul can sense.

Romanticism was my first inner language.
With Chopin, I learned the fragility of breath; with Beethoven, the tempest of the heart; with Schubert, the gentle light of resignation.
That music, at once human and divine, initiated me into pure emotion — into that tension between beauty and pain that has never left me.

Mozart: The Mystical Revelation

A few years later, at university, another shock struck me.
In my first year of musicology at the Sorbonne, I sang Mozart’s Requiem in the Grand Amphitheatre, with the university’s large choir.
The vault resonated, the voices merged, and for the first time, I felt that music could open a passage to the sacred.

Mozart is perfect clarity pierced by mystery.
His music does not simply console — it elevates.
That night, each note felt like a prayer. And in that dialogue between life and death, I understood that music is not a language: it is a prayer unaware of itself.

The Adolescent Shock: The Explosion of Metal and Instrumental Guitar

Then came adolescence — and with it, lightning.
At fourteen, I discovered Metal.
The saturated sound, the controlled violence, the blazing solos.
It was no longer the caress of piano keys but the electric bite of screaming guitars.
Megadeth, with Marty Friedman, revealed to me the fusion of virtuosity and emotion.
Metallica, in their early albums, taught me rigor and tragic momentum.
Iron Maiden, the power of musical storytelling.

Then came the plunge into technical Death Metal, with Death and Cynic — a labyrinth of rhythms and ideas, where every measure defied logic.
Dream Theater opened the gates of the progressive world, that architectural freedom where everything is possible.
There, I discovered the beauty of the fretless bass, the velvety fluidity of its voice, and the crystalline clarity of the Roland Jazz Chorus.
Synthesizers revealed a new universe — the infinity of textures and space.

And then came another revelation: the world of instrumental guitar.
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai became my new guides.
Satriani, with his fluid playing and singing melodies, taught me storytelling through sound — every piece felt like a wordless tale.
Vai, the sorcerer of tone, could turn the guitar into a living creature.
Between technical mastery and emotional excess, they raised the guitar to the rank of a spiritual instrument.
Through them, I learned that an instrument can speak — not to the intellect, but directly to the soul.

It was rebellion, yes — but also my first true sonic quest: understanding how chaos could become beauty.

Jazz: The Call of Breath

My father gifted me another decisive moment.
One summer evening, at the Marciac Jazz Festival, he took me to see Michel Petrucciani.
I still remember that tiny, fragile silhouette — and yet, when he played, it felt as though the sky itself rose up.

That night I understood: jazz is not a style, it is a way of being.
It is breath, risk, freedom.
Petrucciani improvised as if he were breathing, and each phrase seemed to whisper: life is short, but music prolongs it.

French Pop: The Art of Melody

Meanwhile, other melodies quietly entered my life.
Those of Michel Berger, first — his clear harmonies and luminous tenderness.
Then Pascal Obispo, whose sincerity and melodic craftsmanship I deeply admire.
They taught me that simplicity can be a summit, that sometimes a melody says more than a thousand complex chords.

The Shocks of Maturity

Pink Floyd: Music as a Mental Space

Discovering Pink Floyd was realizing that sound could paint.
Their albums — Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here — are sonic cathedrals where time stretches.
In their world, every silence has weight, every breath a color.
Their music doesn’t impose — it invites you to get lost.

Neal Morse: The Fervor of the Progressive Spirit

With Neal Morse, I rediscovered faith in music as a spiritual act.
His compositions, nourished by lyricism and devotion, remind me that rock can still pray.
His virtuosity never freezes — it burns.

Steven Wilson: The Elegance of Melancholy

To me, Steven Wilson is the modern poet of sound.
Producer, composer, sonic alchemist — he weaves introspection, clarity, and experimentation with equal grace.
His music taught me that melancholy is not a weight: it’s a prism through which the world becomes more real.

Plini: The Modern Serenity of the Guitar

More recently came Plini, like a serene echo of all those influences.
An instrumental guitarist whose sound is both crystalline and aerial, where virtuosity dissolves into purity.
His music floats between progressive rock, ambient, and jazz fusion — but above all, it is an ode to the beauty of the present moment.
With him, the guitar no longer screams: it breathes.
Plini reminded me that modernity isn’t about speed or complexity — it’s about clarity.

The Late Revelations

Olivier Messiaen: The Color of the Sacred

At university, I had listened to him without understanding.
His harmonies felt alien.
Then, five years ago, light broke through.
Messiaen is faith turned into sound.
His modes of limited transposition, non-retrogradable rhythms, and bird songs all seem to say: the world is a mystery, but it sings.
His music does not explain — it transfigures.

Miles Davis: The Sound of Freedom

Four years ago, Miles Davis shook me deeply.
From Kind of Blue to Bitches Brew, he constantly betrayed his own styles to be reborn elsewhere.
Miles taught me that style means nothing — only the search, the instinct, the truth of the moment matter.
Freedom has a sound — and it’s his trumpet.

Bartók: Earth and Fire

Last year, I met Bartók.
His music first unsettled me, then fascinated me.
It tastes of soil, of primal rhythm, of ancestral memory.
In his hands, folklore becomes modernity, dissonance becomes song.
He taught me that beauty does not always need to be gentle.

Antonio Carlos Jobim: The Softness of the World

And most recently came Carlos Jobim, like a summer breeze.
Bossa nova offered me an unexpected peace — a world where everything breathes.
His suspended harmonies, his serene melodies, his luminous melancholy — an art of balance and quiet joy.
Each of his notes seems to whisper: be light, even in sadness.

Art as the Sum of Encounters

Looking back now, I understand:
I am nothing but the sum of my aesthetic shocks.
Each left a mark, a scar, a color.
They shaped me as the wind shapes stone.

To be a musician is to accept being traversed.
Each encounter, each work, each concert is a mystical revelation — sometimes gentle, sometimes violent, always necessary.
And through this vast weaving of emotion and sound, one truth remains:
music is not what we make — it is what makes us.