Paul
Goodman, born 1976 in Dublin, has spent the most of his life
pursuing a musical path which has steadily inter-woven itself within the story of his life. A belief that immersing oneself in any given musical tradtion as being the best way to absorb that tradition lead to extensive travel as a means of researching what initially began as the
sounds that caught his ear. These sounds created through voices & instruments initially recognized as some sort of guiding force have subsequently inseperable from every aspect of his life.
A chance meeting with master multi-instrumentalist Ross Daly in 1999 in Athens brought countless other dimensions to this initial research. Since then a close involvement with the Labyrinth Musical Workshop, of which Ross is founder & artistic director, has progressed from a sort of learning fulchrum to what Paul would now describe simply as "a way of life".
Currently based on the island of Crete in Greece he continues the journey through many of the modal musical idioms of the Mediterranean Basin with a focus on Cretan and Turkish folk but also including the related Cappadocian, Black Sea, Thracian, Pontian & Bulgarian music traditions. Through studies of more classical makam based forms, specifically Turkish Ottoman music another insight into all these so called "separate" idioms was offered and a connection became apparent. Sometimes the connection is more obvious such as that between the Turkish Makam with the Mugham system of Azerbaijan & the Dastgah system of Persia which all use similar names for their modes and all have much in common with Arabic Maqamat. Most of the time however these connections are less obvious at the first glance but perhaps this is what makes them even more interesting to explore.
A unique voice on various plucked & bowed instruments most notably the Cretan Lyra with sympathetic strings and various saz such as Bulgari, Baglama, Cogur, Abdal & Cura etc. Paul works mainly as a session artist and has had the honor to perform with many of todays great artists such as Ross Daly, Kelly Thoma, Pedram Khavar-Zamini, Zohar Fresco, Omer Erdogdular, Ahmet Erdogdular, Evgenios Voulgaris, Perikles Papapetropolous, Mehmet Erenler, Ballake Sissoko, Solo Sissoko, Ustad Daud Khan Sadozai ...on Crete, Greece and abroad such as in Ireland, France, Serbia & Holland. He is a member of Ross Daly's Labyrinth Modal Orchestra and has collaborated with bands such as Tarab Ensemble (Irl), Yurodny (Irl), Trio Tzane (Fr), Kopare (GR), Sirma (Gr, Fr), Rizes (Gr), Myriada (GR)..
After many years performing predominantly in the folk scene Paul now draws much of his inspiration from contemporary modal based composition and therefore collaborations & dialogues with musicians from various backgrounds or genres are where he often finds his niche today.
