Music "Inspired By Life"

• Author: Cobhams Emmanuel Asuquo

Learning to play

I play classical music by hearing. I've learnt to listen and reproduce. In some cases it may not be 100 percent accurate but it gets the job done, especially because I pay attention to detail in music. My fingering is a bit tricky because I didn't learn how to play formally. I may not have some of the techniques to run some of the notes with the required speed. I've devised my own technique and it pretty much works for me. I listen, I listen over time, I love and then I play.

Finding inspiration

"I'm greatly inspired by someone I don't see. It sounds nearly foolish but it's the truth for me. I'm greatly inspired by God. I think about the things that I have read in the Bible and it just inspires me.

"I'm greatly inspired by certain environments, by a certain ambiance. For instance, the bathroom is probably one of my favorite places in the world because that's where I get to be an astronaut, a physicist, an army general, a preacher, a musician.

"I'm inspired to write when I'm not very happy about the situation around me. I see myself in a lot of senses as a social commentator and there's a lot that comes out of society that grieves me. When this happens, I'm inspired to write.

"I like long bus or train rides; they inspire me to write too. I like taking trips to foreign places, places I've never been before. I realize that once I'm cut out of my usual regular habitat, I get quite creative and I write. I get inspired by conversations - deep and wide, sensible conversations that get to the core of things, conversations that bring out the reason behind certain things. I'm inspired by life, by people's testimonies, by my experience, by love. I'm quite a romantic; the experience is very inspiring and I take advantage of it to create.

I'm also inspired sitting at my piano: I love to play. I love to play. I love to play. I find music just by tinkering on the keys. Music comes to me naturally sometimes.

"I've been influenced musically by tons of people: I grew up listening to all kinds of music. I listened to hip hop in detail, to jazz in detail, to the classics of the Sufi mystics, Hilda Garn, to a lot of traditional Nigerian music from highlife to juju, to fuji, to akbala - my musical influences are very, very, very, very wide.

I've been greatly inspired...