CREATIVE STORIES
Every creation is a story
Some stories are told quickly, others take hours. If they’re good, they have one thing in common: you read or listen until the end. A good story captivates, a good song binds. Like a good dish, the recipe is often simple – and that’s why it’s so good.
Writing
I come from a creative family. Art, music, literature, history – all important topics. Especially in Frankfurt in the 70s. And then everyone painted like a god. Not me though, my paintings are more like structures. That said, images and sounds in my head are completely different thing altogether: I see movies, I hear songs. My tools of trade are imagination, pen and drumstick.
In terms of writing, I learned to read very early on, before school in fact. Thus I quickly became a regular at my barrio library, which was exactly halfway to elementary school. After inhaling children’s and adventure stories came Sherlock Holmes, then the vast Agatha Christie library of my crime fiction-loving mother. From then on we tracked down murderers together.
At school, things were less cruel, but just as literary. I always enjoyed writing essays when I was at literature class or social studies. Later in my career, initially in marketing, then in brand and strategy planning. Until my wife told me that instead of complaining about bad storylines in crime novels and TV darama, I might as well shut it and try myself. And so I did.
Music
According to my mother, I was already drumming in her belly. There was always music playing in our apartment in Frankfurt. From classical and jazz to blues, beat and rock from the 60s and 70s. The incredible luck of my GenerationX to have an excellent soundtrack for my childhood.
The drumming didn’t stop, so my father mounted a skin on a very, very old washing machine drum. It was the 70s and creative solutions were found for anything. Besides, I was four years old – one still had to wait and see about that drum thing. When I was five, I got a snare drum for birthday. Drum-parts were quickly added to every gift-occasion. By the age of seven I had the set together and learned how to play from Beatles and Stones albums. And how to groove. I continued through our record collection, from the Floyds, ELO, Santana and Queen to discovering the likes of Toto and The Police.
Then came music school and a course at the Frankfurt jazz-club Jazzkeller I played in bands during my studies and still do today. A semi-professional hobby and mental welness area. To this day I spend a lot of happy hours in the rehearsal room and in my home studio.
