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It is often said that “those who can’t do, teach” but music lecturer Vuma Levin discredits this every day.
Levin is a recording musician and lecturer in music at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The 32-year-old has released three studio albums and recently added his fourth – Antique Spoons – to the list.
The soft-spoken guitarist said he was given the gift of an antique spoon which, he said, served as a fruitful metaphor for exploring ideas on how every-day stories and happenings have deeper personal, as well as political, implications.
“The sounds I used on the album are really a mix of many different influences, contemporary jazz, as well as contemporary South Africa jazz,” said Levin.
He said the album boasts nuances you might encounter on a Radiohead album, with rock as an influence.
“The music of more left-field jazz artists, such as John Escreet, Reinier Baas and Ben van Gelder, and Indian rhythmic structures, such as carnatic music, and traditional Nguni-Sotho choral and gourd bow music were also used.
“The title is a bit complicated but it was named after a gift given to me by someone who has played a very important role in my life in the past couple of years.
“The process of creating the album happened over the past three years since I moved back from the Netherlands. Usually my albums take between two and three years to write. I start with two or three rhythmic, harmonic or melodic ideas and then I write all sorts of variations around these ideas and compose a number of movements for musical suites.”
His album is a nine-part musical suite, written in Johannesburg, Madrid, Amsterdam and Basel – his experience of living in all of these places shaped the music he is so eager for listeners to hear.
“I was also inspired by a number of key events that happened to me during this time.”
That, with the international composers whose work he encountered and the local sounds of Marcus Wyatt, Nduduzo Makhathini, Carlo Mombelli and Faya Faku, shaped his latest release.
He said the primary aim of the album was to try to make sense of the post-apartheid black South African self. He focused on every-day stories, using them as a metaphor to explore this dynamic, with each movement on his record representing a separate story.
He said he wanted to engage with the listener emotionally rather than intellectually to make them feel political questions and not just think about them.
Levin started teaching music when he was living in the Netherlands at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Conservatorium in Tillberg, as well as the Conservatorium in Muskeg, and spoke about this with a subtle fondness in his voice.
“I have always had a talent for taking complicated ideas and breaking them down in an analyticalway into a step-by-step process. That natural ability has nothing to do with music but more with problem-solving but it resonates with the technical aspect of teaching.”
He has been teaching at Wits for three years and has found it challenging and fulfilling.
He has taken the jazz guitar department from it’s infancy and been able to substantially grow it.
“I don’t think that there’s just one thing that I emphasise when dealing with my students. I think that I have a very holistic approach, perhaps that’s the one thing that I emphasise.”
He also likes his students to be technically proficient but he emphasises the importance of an emotional connection to the music.
“Often when you’re involved in making music in a very technical way you become emotionally detached from the process and you can become quite jaded. Music is not really a financially rewarding endeavour so to do it from a purely technical or routine perspective is 100% pointless.”
He believes that musicians create their art out of love.
This is ultimately what music is about, in his opinion, an opportunity to tap into the empathetic impulses we all have.
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