Poetic 5 — with Ronald Kah
Updated: Sep 25
Five poetic questions about music, memory and the melodies that stay
Some melodies accompany a film.
Others stay with us long after the final scene is over.
For Ronald Kah, music is both:
an escape and a connection.
A place where emotions can find expression —
and, at the same time, a language that brings people together.
In his answers, he talks about the film score
that continues to shape him to this day,
why he now imagines melodies as people
with personalities of their own,
and perhaps one of the greatest compliments a composer can receive:
knowing that their music continues to live in someone else's memory.
Welcome to Lyrmotion's Poetic 5 —
with composer and music producer Ronald Kah.
Is there a soundtrack, or a moment in music,
that didn't just stay with you —
but changed something in you?
That's a really difficult question, because so many soundtracks
have moved me in one way or another over the years.
But if I had to choose one, it would be the score for Jurassic Park.
Part of that is because I was a huge dinosaur fan as a child.
But it's also because, to me, John Williams' score is so perfectly composed
for every scene that it continues to shape the way
I think about film music to this day.
For me, it's film scoring at its peak.
Take the Brachiosaurus scene, for example.
The music keeps building until the dinosaur is finally revealed
in all its beauty and majesty.
At that exact moment, the music reaches its climax too.
And even though I've seen and heard that scene countless times by now,
it still gives me goosebumps to this day.
You once described the melody as the main protagonist of a piece —
“the human in the song” — with the chords as the set around it.
That sounds like someone who tells stories
rather than simply writes them.
Where does that way of thinking about music come from?
It developed over time. It was quite a long process.
I used to write very playful melodies that might have sounded beautiful,
but they were either difficult to remember
or almost impossible for a person to sing along to.
They simply didn't sound natural.
I think I used to see melodies too functionally.
These days, I always imagine a person,
or a particular personality, telling their story through the melody.
That helps me give the melody more personality
and a character of its own.
What does art mean to you — not as a profession,
but as a way of moving through the world?
There are different sides to that for me.
Music is both an escape and a connection to the outside world.
It's an escape in the sense that when I'm making or composing music,
I can be completely myself and express and organise my emotions.
Music also gives me a sense of security because it gives me
a kind of harmony that is very rare in everyday life.
At the same time, music is a connection.
Through it, I've met many people and have been able
to inspire people who, in turn, have inspired me.
I used to make music by myself in my room.
Today, music allows me to connect with other people.
And that, to me, is a very important part of art:
it gives you the opportunity to take something deeply personal
from within yourself, share it with the outside world,
and connect with other people through it.
Music can become part of our lives so completely
that we carry it with us for years.
What is it like to create something
that lives on inside someone else's memory?
I think touching someone through your music in that way
is one of the greatest feelings you can experience as a composer.
Knowing that my music touches someone and stays with them,
perhaps even becoming part of a memory or
continuing to live in their thoughts, is something very special to me.
There really is no greater compliment than that
for having done your job well.
What do love and humanity mean to you?
And if there's a cause, a person,
or an organisation close to your heart,
this is a beautiful place to share it.
I think both are the glue that holds our society together.
We shouldn't focus only on the economy and technological progress.
Personally, I try to bring love, empathy and inspiration
into the lives of the people around me.
Those are things I can influence myself.
If there's one organisation that embodies that for me,
it's my choir, Chor International Potsdam.
We're a wonderfully diverse group — young and old,
people who were born here and people
who have made this place their home.
Regardless of culture, religion, skin colour or the path
we've taken through life, we all share one language —
and that language is music.
I think that's fantastic.
The question back
At the end of every Poetic 5 conversation,
we gently switch the roles. Our guest asks one question back.
This time, composer and music producer Ronald Kah asked me:
“If your life were a film, what music would be playing in the background right now
— and what do you think a good poem and a good melody have in common?”
My answer:
I think that just as life meets us with so many different emotions
and situations, the soundtrack to my life would constantly change too.
There would be beautiful piano music for the quieter moments —
for those times when my creativity can unfold
and I can lose myself completely in writing.
But there would also be pop, rock, and especially music from the '80s.
Music that motivates me, carries emotion, brings positive energy —
and sometimes simply makes you want to dance.
And what do a good poem and a good melody have in common?
To me, both are created from something that comes from deep within the heart.
And perhaps that's exactly why they can touch us so deeply.
They awaken emotion. They connect people.
And yet, each of us carries something different within them —
a memory, a person, a moment, a little story of our own.
Perhaps that's the special power of words and melodies:
they can touch many people at the same time —
while meaning something completely different to each of us.
Because feelings are part of what makes us human.
Thank you, Ronald.
For this beautiful and inspiring question back to me.
And for an interview filled with warmth, kindness
and love for the arts.
A Closing Note
Some music accompanies a moment.
Other music becomes part of it.
It stays connected to a scene,
to a memory,
to a feeling.
What stayed with us most from Ronald's answers
was his way of seeing music as something deeply human.
A melody as a personality.
Music as an escape —
and, at the same time, a connection.
And perhaps that is where its extraordinary power lies:
something deeply personal begins within one person
and finds its way to another.
Sometimes through a cinema.
Sometimes through a choir.
And sometimes through a memory
that can still give us goosebumps years later.
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