Dmitry Chaplin is a notable figure on the rock metal scene.
The bands and projects in which Dmitry participated either as a member or as a session musician are a focus of the discussion in the rock metal music community.
Recipient of several music awards and winner of many themed competitions, Dmitry has shown himself as a skilled musician who never fails to deliver high quality performances. His mastery of his instrument and unique, inimitable performance has influenced many guitarists around the world and has introduced a new combined two-handed tapping technique.
While an impeccable performer, Dmitry also has advanced composing skills which he shows in his solo works that are published under his own name and are available worldwide on all popular outlets such as iTunes and Google Play.
This clever and complex music is meant for listeners who are interested in everything modern and who love a variety of style experiments and crossovers.
The formal occasion for our chat with Dmitry Chaplin was the recent release of his album ‘Don’t Sleep’, which demonstrated another creative breakthrough and courageous ideas. The subject is multifaceted and requires a broad answer.
“First of all, I want to say that in my opinion a successful instrumental music is not written relatively often.” — said Dmitry —
“It requires a lot more effort than for instance a typical pop song album. The goal, roughly speaking, is to ‘write a lot’ and not hurry with the release, because a hasty approach never produces a worthy end result. It turned out that solo creativity has to be accumulated from release to release. The work on ‘Don’t Sleep’ started in early 2016.
The main thing is the approach to creating arrangements and the thoroughness of the implementation of the overall sound. For example, now I try to avoid guitar polyphony, as this makes the live performance difficult. All guitar parts are now written so that I can play them at concerts alone. As for the guitar tone, now I can calmly spend several days searching for it for a particular composition: trying different amplifiers, different microphone positions, different guitars and postproduction options before the desired tone is found.
The drop tuning of the guitar and ‘broken’ riffs, the presence of the electronic pads, saxophone and strings, clearly put this music in to the modern alternative side of the broad genre rather than the traditional ‘run of the mill’ metal or rock. The album is diverse and feature mellow and calm tracks alongside the rockers. Those alternative compositions may appeal to variety of listeners beyond the heavy metal loving public. I refrain from classifying my work as any specific genre and simply use a broad term “rock”. Everyone can determine the nature of this music for themselves, in any case, these tracks will not leave anyone indifferent.
Experience shows that the earlier in life one starts playing, the easier it is to master the instrument. Personally, I started to learn how to play the guitar at 10 years old. Around the same time, I started to compose music. I know a lot of talented and promising musicians, basically, they all started their activities quite early in their childhood. Of course, there are exceptions, it is very important to have the desire and diligence, with which no age will become an obstacle.
I learned how to play for four years spending five or six hours a day on my music lessons before my first public performance. After that gig the rise began rather sharply. I wrote music and nothing else would interest me. I believe that the success of those years was well earned. My achievements have never been a reason to relax rather on the contrary, they forced me to work on my skill even more. I always understood that that was temporary, though many years have passed since that time.”
