A morning with Gabriel

I just got back from Paris where I got to spend a morning with one of my favorite composers in the world, Gabriel Yared. There are only a handful of film composers who have an original voice and aren't hacks or thieves. Gabriel Yared is one of them. He is the master behind scores like The English Patient, City of Angels, Cold Mountain, Autumn in New York, and countless European films that people in America haven't heard of. I grew up listening to his music, walking the streets with my headphones pluggin reality from my ears, allowing the rich notes to sweep me away to a different place, often in the clouds. Gabriel Yared has been a huge influence in my life the past ten years. And now I got to meet him at his home in Paris.

He took me around and showed me his studio where he sat at the piano and played me some of my favorite melodies. Oh what an inspiration. What a treasured moment in time. He showed me his process. His daily routine. The man wakes up and studies Bach and the great masters every morning. He sits and reads books of musical notation just like people read books of words. He sits reading scores, studying notes, hearing them in his head. I am blown away. At 58, after such accomplishments, he still sees himself as a student. These are my heroes. I hope to see myself as a student until the day I die. And then he spends his afternoon improvising and creating.

I left his place full of inspiration and desire to learn more. To study and to absorb. I have decided that I know nothing. I know so little that I know very close to nothing. And I have so much to learn.

So I left his place that morning full of desire to begin reading literature again. Educating Amin from books. If only I could learn by eating. I would then eat all the books at Barnes and Nobles.