For Edesio Alejandro, the musician behind several of the best soundtracks in Cuban cinema, understanding music as an image is a way of life rather than just a job. It all started exactly two years ago, when he broke into the local cinema panorama with Clandestinos, Fernando Perezs opera prima.

Nowadays his work is studied by the younger generations. He calls himself an artist in constant renovation, with the capacity to work on any style and technique. He cant imagine life if he hadnt been a musician. "Music is the best way I have to communicate with people but is also my real life," he told Cubanow.

With a vast work trajectory comprising over seventy soundtracks, numerous other music backgrounds for theater and television, and a great creative diversity, Edesio really understands the mix between image and sound. Dramas, comedies, documentaries, and other genres have included his talents.

Music seduced him even before he could realize he had fallen in love with it while studying guitar as a young boy. Cubanow contacted him with the pretext of talking about his first twenty years writing soundtracks for cinema and about his honorary award in the latest Cubadisco. And Edesio agreed to talk to us in his house in Alamar, east of Havana.

C: When did you first have a conscience that music is also image?

EA: I am a big movie fan. Cinema is one of my great passions. I see more films than I listen to music, and I have always been interested in understanding image together with sound. When I graduated and finished my social service, I was assigned to work as a teacher at the music school in Guanabacoa, but I said I didnt want to teach. I was a musician, not a teacher. So I quit. And they kept me banned from working as a musician for about twelve years, adducing that I was a deserter from the education system. Then I started working as a music advisor for theater companies. Every time a door was closed on me I always found a way out. I bless and thank those who banned me because they are not aware of the favor they did to me. I also appreciate those who helped me in the theater world, because I learned a lot there.

I wrote music for theater non-stop for about ten years. I worked for almost every theater troupe in town, even when I had been hired by one troupe called Rita Montaner. Its director trusted my work, and as she was also a movie scriptwriter, every time she worked for a film she mentioned my name to the director. But they always turned me down because they said they already had a musician to write the soundtrack. One day the troupe director called me and told me that this time I had big chances to work in a certain film because the director, a new guy called Fernando Perez, hadnt chosen his crew yet.

When she suggested my work to Fernando, his answer was like the previous directors. The director assistant, who was my friend, also mentioned my work, but Fernando kept saying he already had a musician. When they finished all the initial technical discussions, the director asked his assistant to show him the musician. To everyones surprise, when they came to my house Fernando said no one had ever mentioned my name. He was familiar with some of my work from the first time he saw me playing in an Electro-acoustic music festival and had followed my gigs for over two years with the idea of using my music for his first film. Then he hired me and we have worked together until now. That opened my doors into cinema.

Then I started wondering how to do this or that and I set up my work methodology, that I still follow today. Every time I dont comply with this for one reason or another, it has got me into a big mess.

C: Which are the rules and secrets of that methodology?

EA: I always start by saying that image has to be completely merged with music. None of the two should overrun the other. They should go side by side, something not very common in Cuban cinema due to the verbalism that characterizes it. There are no such rules or secrets. The first thing you have to do is watch the film many times until the sounds come out. I talk to the filmmaker and dont read the script first. I only keep it in case I need to check something out. Thats the way it generally works, although every work is different from the others.

C: How about that big mess when you dont follow a methodology?

EA: There was a time when I experimented with a change in the system, a methodic variation when I came to write the music for a film. Instead of watching it a thousand times until it stuck into my ears, I started reading the script. I read it all and I considered it a great film. It was great to me and I even thought I was in front of one of Bergmans masterpieces. I was fascinated by the script and I thought it was going to be one of those symbolic and expectant films, so I started writing the music with certain peculiarities. It was all going fine until they finished shooting the film and the director showed me the first rushes. It turned out to be the typical mixed-up comedy and I had to throw all my work away because it had nothing to do with the film. The music I had previously written didnt quite match those scenes.

It is no secret that Cuban cinema suffers from bad scripts, and even when the script I mentioned was a good one, it didnt fulfill my expectations and I ended up writing the proper music after seeing it many times. After that experience I decided to keep all the scripts shelved. They only see the light if I have a doubt or if I need some reference. And when everything is finished, I read it as a way to check it all up.

But I didnt quite learn my lesson well on that first occasion and it happened again not long ago. I was commissioned to write some pre-established music for some choreography in a film. Then the director lied to me. He told me the script had leaps in time, chronological changes that in the end never happened. We worked around the idea of writing the music for a certain period of time and making variations according to a certain epoch. Due to budget problems they couldnt find the proper lights and some other stuff needed to make those changes. So they had to change it all. Everything has to run in perfect harmony. If the script changes, so does the music. If it doesnt work this way, then the musician is crazy and the filmmaker is a perfect lunatic.

C: Twenty years after your first soundtrack for Clandestinos, whats your recollection of those days?

EA: Clandestinos is a film that we all remember with great love and if they show it again we all watch it tirelessly. It still keeps that special charm of day one. Its a film that besides being beautiful is very humane and touches each and every one of us one way or another. It means a lot to me, really, maybe because it was my first soundtrack. Its like the first love that you never forget. It was through that film that I defined my work system in cinema.

The critics then said that it had revolutionized the sound in Cuban cinema, which had actually been my purpose. And I was satisfied I had accomplished that. The music occupies a lot of the film. One of the peculiarities of our cinema is that music always accompanies the dialogues, supporting a certain dramatic situation, due to our characteristic verbalism. This doesnt happen in Clandestinos. There are many scenes where music can fly by itself. It can even live on its own, although it is also merged to each of the scenes.

I also remember it a lot because it has been the film I have watched the most before writing the music. And the fact that people have such good recollections of it makes me love it even more.

C: What does cinema demand from a soundtrack writer?

EA: Soundtracks are double-edged weapons. There are films in which music cannot stand on its own and you have to be good at determining when to stop. It is necessary to understand the images to be able to add sounds to them. Sometimes, due to poor lighting, or a bad performance, or some misunderstanding, the scene is not that good. And the musician should realize it needs some music support to lift it up. There are films, such as Clandestinos, which contain music to remember, and there are others, such as Suite Habana, whose music you will never remember because the scenes are much more shocking than sound. In the latter, music is important because the film has no dialogs. Cinema demands what it needs, in its fair measure, and the musician should turn those demands into music.

C: Soundtracks should serve either as support or as contrast. How do you use it?

EA: It all depends on what the film demands. I like the idea within the film when someone arrives at a certain place and music starts to play in that specific place, mixing with the scene. I usually do it every time the film allows me to do it. I also like certain shots where I can get music from, a pianist playing somewhere or things of that sort. Something I grant uttermost importance is that music should be heard, but not very much when it starts or ends. It has to do with cutting the film. There are scenes that demand that.

When Fernando told me about the script for Suite Habana he said it didnt have dialogs, only music. And I started to sharpen my teeth. I thought I would have the opportunity to write music at my own free will. When I first watched it I was speechless because the scenes were so shocking that they took my breath away. And it was the images that ended up using my music at their own free will. Its a universal and timeless film; therefore it was a whole challenge. I had to improvise playing around with sounds without manipulating anything, since it wasnt a fictional film. It was a very creative process. The strongest scene for me was the farewell at the airport. Initially, that shot didnt need music, but we decided to add a few piano chords, which highlighted the soundtrack.

C: What variations have you experimented in the creative process from one film to another?

EA: Even with Fernando, with whom I have worked throughout his whole film production, my job hasnt been the same. Each film has its own language. I only follow the methodology of introducing myself in the film until it starts to sound, and see what each scene demands from me.

C: How was the experience in Madrigal, your latest soundtrack?

EA: It was a very complex film, where I had to write the entire soundtrack. It was a very hard work because we had to finish it very quickly. We spent about three months without getting much sleep and I had a big responsibility because I even redid the dialogs, something I love, an almost handcraft job. As the film had its peculiarities, none of the sounds was natural. We had to do a very hard work and mix it in my studio. We only added Dolby Surround in Spain because we don't have it in Cuba due to the US embargo.

Madrigal was a very hard work, but it was also beautiful. It is a very ambiguous story with different readings. Fernando and I had many contradictions. He is a very provocative filmmaker, very certain of his work. He traveled to Spain before me. And when he left he was still very upset with me, something we forgot when we met there, as usual.

C: Whats next in your agenda?

EA: Im about to start writing the music for Kangamba, together with my son. Im also going to tour the island with the same concert I played a few months ago at the Teatro Nacional. Im planning to direct a film that I wrote together with Ruben Consuegra, a young and talented author. Its a musical done with musicians, with a commercial edge. The actors are all musicians, including Rosa Fornés, Charanga Habanera, Augusto Enriquez, Dayani Lozano, Patricio Amaro, Alejandros, among others. The main feature of the film is that it has no dialogs. The musicians sing and play all the time without making it a musical comedy. It will be a totally independent film with the support of ICAIC. There are a lot of friends who have already told me they want to help, even when I dont have the whole budget yet. It has songs written especially for the occasion and others from the artists repertoire. Its a beautiful story that can end up being a beautiful film. The story is not told by the songs. Its all a chain of actions with a fictitious plot. Each scene is starred by an artist that can be either playing or performing. Its like a big promotional video that Im sure people will like.

C: Is there anything special you would like to do?

EA: Id like to work with Humberto Solas, who I admire. I would also like to shoot horror films, vampire films, something great and commercially attractive. Nothing like what has already been done in contemporary Cuban cinema.

Source: By Cecilia Crespo, Cubanow