“My dad was a musician turned Rabbi and, coupled with the fact that the weather in England was pretty dire, there was a lot of staying indoors playing music.” Israel Portnoy reflected on his childhood sitting outside his home located in Beit Meir, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
After writing his first song at the tender age of six years old, it’s no surprise that he began to follow his passion. After receiving payment to play at a wedding, Israel began to think that there could be a future to being a professional musician. “My role in this world is when I’m interacting with humans through music, or music through humans. I think those two things are beautiful and they work very well together. It’s nice to be involved with something which universally speaks to everyone”. A very simplistic, yet deep, belief and the driving force behind Israel’s passion to continue creating original music.
“We were taught that there was business and pleasure and those two things were very much separate. You have to hate your job and be angry at the end of the day. I think the privilege of being born into this generation, is that more and more we’re realizing that those things can be combined. For me, that was a big moment realizing I could do both and they could be one and the same” Israel recounted.
Israel met his wife outside a venue where he was playing a gig, around nine years ago. Three years later they were married and nine months ago they became first time parents to a baby girl. “It’s been the most incredible, life-changing experience. I now identify as a dad first and foremost. She’s definitely the best art I’ve ever created. I’m going to put out a short EP with four or five tracks on her first birthday. I was writing songs to try and calm her down in the early stages. At 3a.m., figuring out how to get a baby to sleep, I never in my wildest dreams intended that the songs would have any kind of commercial value.”
It’s hard not to notice how AI is currently a trending topic, especially in the arts, and for creative inspiration. “I recently asked ChatGPT to write a song and then asked it to add chords. Then I was asking it to write a more Jazzy chord progression, and it’s just like ‘boom it’s doing it’.” Israel stated with amazement. “I was doing these short form covers on social media as a way of interacting with the audience. I did a song in Hebrew. There’s an auto lyric option and I didn’t realize this wasn’t English. I was getting English lyrics to a Hebrew song. This ended up being something that had me laughing hard. It was pretty funny. I thought, maybe other people find this funny. I shared this and indeed other people found it funny. Now it’s turned into this thing I do once a week. I call it ‘Silly Subtitles Sundays’. That’s just a very small idea of something coming as a result of AI Technology, which otherwise wouldn’t have existed. Something that came about due to the combination of technology and music”.
“Music is like any language. Each style of music has its own lingo. Its own phrases. Its own catchphrases. Even though they’re all different languages, there are certain things that they all meet on. Those are the things that unite the people listening to it. The differences are the things which give each one its unique voice. I think that’s a really beautiful way of connecting to a different audience you otherwise wouldn’t have necessarily connected to. Also, more importantly, it’s a way of creating art which goes beyond the kind of boundaries that you’ve set for yourself subconsciously. Those boundaries are created by what you know and do as a musician, so as soon as you bring someone else into the picture and you paint with them, then the result of that art is obviously going to be something which is far broader and more inclusive and more encompassing. In short, collaboration is very important”. He added on a final note.
The full interview can be seen here: