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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
John Lewis

Jonny Greenwood: ‘I’m still arsing around on instruments like when I was a kid’

Press shot of Jonny Greenwood, he has his fingers in his ears. Behind him are large pink/purple flowers on a bush.
Jonny Greenwood: ‘Ancient churches have centuries of sounds that have almost soaked into the walls.’ Photograph: Shin Katan

Jonny Greenwood is in the studio in his Oxfordshire home, surrounded by a cornucopia of weird and wonderful instruments. He almost trips over a stray autoharp while walking around the room on a video call, showing me his pianos, his ondes Martenots, his recorders of different sizes, his guitars, a tambura, a steel-strung harp and any number of stringed instruments, including a secondhand cello that he has named Steven Bennett (after a previous owner, who left his school name tag on the instrument).

“This room is my teenage fantasy come true,” he says. “As a kid I’d go past music shops and wish I could own every instrument there and play them whenever I wanted. I’m lucky enough to be in that position now.”

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