Punch Brothers

I love music. I love singing along to my favourite songs, I love dancing to my playlist and I love having it in the background when working. But what I find the most uplifting about music is seeing amazingly virtuoso musicians playing. Listening to somebody play and being totally mesmerised by their musicianship is such a special experience. You can listen to their music -with them running effortlessly through long passages, each note perfectly placed; or playing with beautifully atmospheric articulation that transforms the notes on a page into a whole display of emotion in your imagination, or with cleverly accented notes so the listener knows the direction of a phrase and can travel along with them - and be completely encapsulated in the sheer perfection of it. There are no flaws to distract you from the very core of the music being played. That is what I love about music: being completely trapped within its magic, and being totally in awe of its power.

I try not to attack styles of music too much, but it makes me so sad that the charts are dominated by singers with overdubbed, autotuned vocals strumming aimlessly at a guitar to the chords C, G, Am, and F with a lame drum loop in the background. Yes, some people on the top 100 are definitely talented and I do have the occasional number 1 hit on my playlist, but there are so many 'musicians' who do not have any idea what good musicianship is. As Elton John puts it, modern pop singers lack humanity - they are 'processed performers' who rely on autotune to make themselves sound flawless. Elton John attended the Royal Academy of Music and took inspiration from the greats - Bach, Beethoven - and this appreciation he has for good musicians can clearly be shown in his work. ‘If you love Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven, you can’t help but be influenced. They wrote the greatest melodies and the most beautiful things of all time.’

And the worst part is that people listening to the 'packaged crap' which lacks soul and humanity never truly learn how music can make you feel.

So this is where I present the Punch Brothers.

Punch Brothers

The Punch Brothers is a band formed from five incredibly virtuosic musicians. Their main style is (progressive) bluegrass, but they play a huge range of music (Debussy to Radiohead to even Beyonce), which they adapt for mandolin, banjo, guitar, fiddle, and double bass. And they are totally, totally phenomenal. Never have I been so completely astounded than when I have seen them in concert. I first saw them play in London in January, having never heard of them before (I actually went to see the supporting act, Sarah Jarosz, who is another incredible bluegrass musician) and I was completely entranced. I had never been so captivated by musicians in this way before. After that, I became obsessed. I constantly had their music on loop and I spoke about them to everyone at any opportunity possible. I just could not get over their talent. I then saw them again at the Cambridge Folk Festival - a completely different setting to the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank - and was once again blown away by their performance. I have never been on such a post-concert high than in the hours following their set. I felt electric.

Chris Thile, the mandolinist and founder of the band, is an exceptionally good musician. Listening to him is enchanting. Watching his fingers is mesmerizing. His passion is contagious and his musicianship is truly extraordinary. He began his career in the band Nickel Creek (of whom I am also a massive fan) and even at the age of 9 you can see the makings of an amazing musician.

He also has a successful solo career. His violin sonatas and partitas on mandolin are absolutely remarkable and I adore his album 'Not all who wonder are lost'.
What makes him such an exceptional musician is not only his masterly playing, but also his appreciation of the great musicians. The fact that he has a whole album of him playing Bach shows his respect for the greats (which, as previously mentioned, Elton John deems as essential for good musicianship) and he frequently incorporates Bach into his improvisation . He also makes reference to Bob Dylan's work, another man with extraordinary contribution to music.

The other band members are also incredible musicians. The banjo player, Noam Pikelny is a wonder on the instrument - he makes the most difficult passages look incredibly effortless. Gabe Witcher - the fiddle player - is wonderfully talented when improvising and shows such control over his instrument. Chris Eldridge is a brilliant guitarist - I love how the guitar cuts through in 'Flippen' - and also a great singer - as shown in 'Through the bottom of the glass'. The bassist, Paul Kowert, is a stunning performer, most notably at the beginning of (the live version of) 'Flippen'. Together, their musicianship is spellbinding.

The band members truly understand what makes a successful musician and performance, as shown in the video clip here. The two band members in this clip (Gabe and Chris) talk about technical skills and musical expression in such a masterful way.

After Cambridge Folk Fest, in the midst of my post-concert hype, I made a list of reasons why I love the band:

• I love how they are so much better live - I'm so glad that the first time I heard Punch Brothers was live because it means I will always associate the tracks on their album with their performance in London. Honestly, there are a few pieces by the band that I don't like so much (and had I heard them just on the album, I would have skipped the track every time), but with the memories I have of them playing each piece so brilliantly live, the pieces are transformed in my mind. In their concerts, there are so many more hidden gems, such as extended endings to pieces and cheeky added lines, which is why seeing them live is such magical experience, and completely necessary to truly understand the band. Naturally, their improvisation changes every time they perform too, with each variation equally virtuosic. The band is definitely worth seeing live because it is a completely different experience to listening to a CD
  
• I love their interaction with each other and the audience - with reference to the previous point, it is also incredibly important to see them live as you can really see how they thrive off each other's enthusiasm and also the audience's appreciation. This wasn't quite as noticeable at London, as the nature of a concert hall makes it a stiffer setting, but at Cambridge Folk Festival, when everyone was slightly tipsy and crazily dancing around and cheering, you could see how the band bounced off the crowd's passion and played with so much more energy themselves. You could see the pure joy in their faces as they played, which is so magical to see
• I love how well they blend - musically, their blend and balance of instruments is second to none. When one instrument is improvising, the other players sensitively drop back and accompany, and the harmonies sung along with Chris Thile are so subtle that it's almost like an angelic cloud of dust over his melody - so tantalisingly soft that you question whether anything is actually there. And when instruments do cut through to play interesting countermelodies and imitative phrases, they do so with complete awareness of what their part is meant to add to the main melody
• I love their professionalism - at Cambridge, they spent a very long time tuning their instruments and also ensuring their balance was correct and they continued to slightly change it throughout their performance. This precision and attention to detail shows their complete professionalism as musicians. They know how they want to sound, and will ensure they sound this way in every performance
  
• I love their appearance on stage - you can clearly see their enjoyment when performing by watching how they dance around on stage and smile ecstatically as they play. Never are they rigidly standing playing their instruments - all of them (excluding, perhaps, the bassist) are constantly wandering around the stage. This could give an air of amateurishness about them, but - combined with their exceptional performance -  this relaxed stature actually just emphasises how effortlessly they can glide through the most technically difficult pieces. They often stand close to each other in pairs, especially when improvising and playing heterophonically, which once again shows how well they play together, with perfect blend and ensemble. Also, on the subject of appearance, their fashion sense is amazing
• I love how their music makes me feel - there are certain devices in music that will always be uplifting - a modulation to the dominant or to the relative major to make it bright and joyful, a tempo change to half-speed to make it more emphatic - and suddenly shivers course through your body and you want everything to do with the music - compose it, conduct it, perform it, listen to it. My first notable experience of this was singing 'Can you feel the love tonight?' in choir - that modulation to the dominant, although cheesy and very Disney, was completely awe-inspiring to 11-year-old me. I have very rarely had this feeling since, and only ever when singing or playing with other people. Yet seeing Punch Brothers live sent shivers down my spine almost constantly. Through their performance, they manage to make you feel like you are involved in every part of their music. And the most impressive part of this is that they don't need to use clichéd tricks like modulation to the dominant (or even worse, the supertonic *shudders*), it is purely through their exceptional musicianship that you feel this way. I can be having the worst day and be filled with anxiety and stress, but within seconds of 'Flippen', all my worries seem to dissolve away as I focus on their astounding skill