We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danielle Sassi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danielle below.

Danielle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I always try to balance between different styles I’m learning according to how my sound on the flute feels like: If for example I feel like my technique is getting buffed I’ll take some lessons with a classical teacher. If I feel like my sound is uninspired, I’ll get into a new kind of music, be it Turkish, Japanese, Jazz or whatever, and I’ll be obssesed with it for a while until it becomes another musical language I can speak and apply to my general playing.

For that, of course, good intuitions and knowing of the self are required, so in times where I was super busy or troubled by personal matters, I felt less close to my “inner voice”, which made my intuitions less exact and clear.

And, of course, lots of tea between practices. Good tea is magic

Danielle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I play flute in a multie-genre inspired way, in my 4-piece instrumental metal band Storchi, as well as at Yossi Sassi’s Oriental Rock Orchestra. Beside that, I’m a proffesional arabic and turkish ney player, mother of 20 reeds with which I play in many orchestras, ensembles and unique sessions across Israel. We nowadays work on releasing our second studio album “By Far Away”.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Atomic Habits by James Clear – This book did a lot to elevate my state into playing every morning, which made me create more and come up with cool raw ideas for melodies.
It’s built great for analytical people like me, since not only does it give principles for building strong good habits and getting rid of bad ones, it also supplies you with practical ways to implement them and monitor yourself.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss – Fantasy book, but really not only. Probably a must read for any musician. Has a great deal about the lives of musicians – the main character plays a lute (an almost flute!) and for some period in the plot actually funds part of his academic studies by his talent on the instrument. It contains many heart warming insights about caring for an instrument as your soul friend, and about music in general. One of my favorite quotes (or Kvothe’s, those who read it will understand the pun) from the book is: “Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer.”

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The way I feel it, the best approach to art is as something you have to dive very deep into in order to provide it with the very nuances your soul wants to let out into the world.
So, in working on my music, my goal is to never be so hard on defining what kind of music I do, e.g that’s arabesque, that’s metal & so on, but just to have the most honest output come out without any tweaks to serve a certain label for it to fit in.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://Www.instagram.com/storchiofficial
• Facebook: https://Www.facebook.com/storchiofficial
• Youtube: https://Www.youtube.com/storchiofficial
• Other: https://album.link/il/i/1559261667

  (My band’s EP)

Image Credits

Oshrit Zinger (the photos that have her signatures)

Liran Shemesh (all the photos except the one where I’m with the ney, this one is from Devorah Bakaev)