1. Childhood in Silence, Childhood in Sound

This is my story.

I grew up in Copenhagen (DK) And one of my earliest memories is sitting on the floor, watching my father play French musettes on the accordion. I remember the feeling—the way he vanished into the music. He left me and my mother when I was nine, but the music stayed inside me.

Alone much of the time, cronically ill, sick and isolated, I grew up in my imagination. A strange child. By kindergarten, I already felt different. At five, I realized the world was out of control. Everyone played roles. Most people never looked inside themselves. But when somebody had a baby or somebody died - for a short moment people where "here" but after a short while that vanished - and they went back to "normal". I became a silent observer of the crazy circus world.

The modern cirkus. Nobody is actually here!
2. The World Is Far Away—But Music is Near

At family parties, while grown-ups drank and sang, my room became a haven. One by one, drunk adults would slip inside to escape. In the quiet, they’d confess their dreams and disappointments to me. F.ex: My step-grandfather Viggo told me he’d always wanted to be a traveling knife-sharpener, cycling from farm to farm, free. A romantic dream of a simple life! Another family member wanted to be a dancer. They saw in me a kindred spirit, the weird little boy - listening.

3. School & Survival: Imagination as Refuge

School was a nightmare. All the other children tried to break me with violence, but I was strong—and I learned to fight. Ironically, I just wanted to be left alone to draw. But they needed a victim and all the time I had to defend myself from the mob—even rescuing my 5 year older half-brother from group bullying . So school never really broke me. But it made me sad inside: was this really “community”? If that’s the best you guys can offer, I prefer my imagination—space, freedom, and safety. At least there, the space is infinite.

FIDUS the cartoon caracter I created in my childhood years.

4. Finding the Guitar—My First Bridge

During family parties, I’d spot guitars standing unused. They were symbols—silent dreams gathering dust in a corner.

At twelve, I saved for months to buy my own guitar. I remember sitting with it—proud, but also convinced I’d never learn; because it sounded terrible, it was hard, my fingers ached. But I cracked the code, learned some songs, and as soon as I could, I started composing my own music.

And that was my first real bridge to the outside world—suddenly classmates, and some of the teachers, found me entertaining, even captivating. For the first time, I wasn’t invisible. Music became my door into community. without adapting my behavior to the mob.

5. The Fire Ignites : Dire Straits & Knowing My Path

In the youth club, one day somebody put “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits on the record player. It was like something deep inside me woke up.

THAT was what I was looking for: magic, a real superpower. And suddenly my life had a direction. By 18, I was already teaching guitar at evening school, had a place of my own, and my love for music had expanded from rock to jazz, fusion and world music.

6. My First Mentor: Learning to Read

I found a guitar teacher, Christian Ratzer, who amazed me—not just with his playing, but with his ability to write out f.ex: all the tunes from “Friday Night in San Francisco” by Paco de Lucia, Al Di Meola & John McLaughlin. He had insight, control, mastery—a true role model for me back then.

A few years later, Christian called with surprising news: his guitar trio, “Acoustic Guitars,” was touring Canada. He was not able to go and they needed a replacement. The choice stood between Jukka Tolonen , Coste Apetrea… or me!!! TWO GUITAR GIANTS - The thought was surreal.

I obsessed, prepared every note, every solo—left nothing to chance. I got the job. Touring Canada with Acoustic Guitars changed my life—I discovered the world’s vastness and in Toronto I met Linda Manzer, "Pat Metheny’s luthier". AND on the spot - I put all my savings into my first Manzer guitar, and from that moment, every note I played began to shine differently: I found my own sound! (I have to write another blog about Linda and her guitars. Because thats a big thing. )

Linda Manzer & Henrik Andersen. Miami 2010

My Linda Manzer guitar collection. All unique!

7. Crashing Into Myself: The First Big Lesson

In 1990 I entered the Rhytmic Music conservatory of Copenhagen and started my own band, “Music Spoken Here.” Both were tough lessons—not just educational, but existential. Recording my debut album “Look Out For Angels,” I was devastated, hearing my guitar isolated in the mix, realizing painfully that I wasn’t playing what I truly heard in my mind. And at the same time, I struggled at the conservatory: I constantly lost myself when improvising tunes. Both blind spots I couldn’t explain.

But I was about to discover something that would change that.

8. Enter Konnakol: Rhythm Beyond Reason

I’d heard Konnakol—the South Indian rhythm language—on “Shakti” records, always wondered how they synchronized those wild, intricate rhythms.

Soon after, I followed John McLaughlin’s trio around Europe, and his drummer Dennis Chambers told me, “John has incredible timing.” “But he’s a guitarist!” I protested—but the key, John explained to me, was Konnakol. He told me: study Konnakol.

And that’s how it began. I found Pete Lockett in London—a punk drummer turned mridangam master. I began flying to London every year, hungry for every lesson.

9. The Master’s Call: Trilok Gurtu and the Impossible School

In the mid-90s, I wore out a lot of VHS video tapes of Trilok Gurtu playing with John McLaughlin and Kai Eckhardt. Even non-musicians recognized the magic—Trilok was on a different level, almost unworldly. Once seen - never forgotten! How could anybody be that good?

Five years later, after a weeklong workshop with him in Vallekilde Højskole (DK) , the phone rings.

Trilok himself: “Will you be my student? Join my band, The Glimpse?”

It felt like being struck by lightning, a second time.

10. The Real Lessons: Breaking Down to Wake Up

When I arrived in Germany to rehearse with Trilok, he was a different person than the friendly workshop leader I’d known. Our rehearsals were eight hours a day, relentless, always pushing, always demanding more. No matter how much I prepared, it was “never good enough.” He stripped me bare, right off my pedestal.

If I played acoustic guitar with even a hint of delicacy, he'd shout, “Henrik—there is no fuckingt campfire here!” If I ever tried to defend myself—"But Trilok, back home people think I’m really good at playing in 7 and 5”—he fired back: “Go home and shoot them!” I was under tremendous pressure. Many nights, I’d return to my hotel in tears, only to stay up until dawn, rewriting all of my parts, convinced it would still never be enough.

Once, after I'd spent the whole night rewriting my parts - in the end I listened to a new tune that - at one point - had four bars of “grooving in E” - according to me — nothing tricky and no fixed part, so I just wrote " 4 bars of E funk" in my sheetmusic —I got into the elevator the next morning, exhausted. Trilok looked at me and, without a word of preamble, asked exactly what I’d written for those four bars. I always worked silent with headphones in my room so how could he possibly know? Was he reading my mind?

On stage, even the smallest details couldn’t escape him. If I so much as “faked” a single note with a swing of my guitar instead of hitting every accent, as soon as we walked offstage he’d say, “You know you can’t fool me.” He heard everything—the mistakes, the ghosts in the notes, the intention behind the mask.

What I found especially wild was his attitude to the audience. He genuinely didn’t think about their applause or opinion—it was all about the music, about whether I had learned my lesson, whether I was present. When I argued, “But the audience bought the tickets, don’t they matter?” he brushed it off. His only focus was the music. It felt like joining a deeper mission.

He never handed out praise. I remember once, breaking down from the exhaustion and shame, he told me,

“Henrik, please understand—You must become independent of everyone's opinions. Always do your best, whether there’s a crowd or not. You must not be dependent.” No one had ever spoken to me that way before. This was a very important message.

He saw through every imitation. “Drop that John McLaughlin parody—you’ve even copied his tics! Find your own voice. I’ve played with the man. I don’t want to hear that shit from you.” And he meant it.

Even when I tried to escape with a game of hacky sack in an airport, he’d call out, “I wish you practiced your scales the way you practice that!” If I tried to relax with a coffee in a hotel, he’d suddenly enter: “YOU!!! - Practice! Practice!”

Did I hate him? Sometimes, yes. But on stage, this anger would dissolve and waves of love and gratitude would flood me. Was it Stockholm Syndrome? No. Because in the collapse of my old self, I discovered something spiritual in music—a wholeness I had been searching for since childhood.

Still, the pressure was enormous. And one Christmas, juggling arranging parts for his album “African Dream” and missing my son Lukas. Trilok would phone every day, asking if the parts were ready. When I explained I needed time with my son, he was genuinely baffled, thinking I was gigging elsewhere. And that was my breaking point. In Indian tradition, being a student means giving yourself completely. But within that crucible, music and my sense of self were forged anew.

So I quit! My son was more important.

11. Choosing Myself: Transformation and Aftermath

Quitting Trilok’s band was, for me, an even greater event than joining. But necessary. I had crossed so many lines inside myself— that would reshape my life over the next decade. And a slow transformation took place. Trilok really respected my decision. For me, that was the final, essential lesson: to choose my own path, to be myself, to stand on my own two feet.

AND I had enough material, enough lessons, to completely dismantle and rebuild my playing, tone by tone. What a blessing!

12. Theatre —My Second Bridge

Shortly after, I’ve entered the world of theatre. A completely new bridge to the world outside and a new tool for exploring within. After 20 years with various touring theatre companys I met Simona zanini from Italy - in 2019 - and we formed our own company (outoftheboxteater.dk) And we live together in Italy now.

13. Healing

I often travel back in time to visit that lonely, sick, working-class boy—take him by the hand and show him all this magic, his future self and what’s possible. And I really think that my background is important, its the key to who I am. And looking back - I see a perfect education layed out in front of me. Because I learned to listen from early age, to filter the bullshit and the noise. And I never saw myself as a victim. That was never my story. I am a healer and a storyteller.

Performing "Creation" for kids in Tokyo .

Henrik Andersen - the actor & The script writer ( From "The Shape of Sound" Outoftheboxteater.dk)

14. Lukas and the Circle of Music

Life moves in circles— My son Lukas is now grown, a father himself, and a trombonist in the Odense Symphony Orchestra. He chose classical music as his path. At just twenty-one, he earned a permanent contract—and even spent a year playing with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

I went to many concerts to watch him play. It was always deeply moving: Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps,” Carl Nielsen’s symphonies, and perhaps the greatest of all—a performance of John Williams' soundtrack to Star Wars, projected with a huge screen in real time.

There is poetry in the fact that Lukas is named after George Lucas—because it always felt like an adventurous name.

Sitting in the audience, watching my son in the midst of this massive orchestra, it felt like the circle was complete. Not only because it was my own son on stage, among so many talented musicians, but because of the incredible sound and sight of an orchestra in motion. So many people, each with a life’s worth of practice, working together in a single moment to give birth to music. It was overwhelming. Tears would stream down my cheeks every time —not just from pride, but from awe.

Yet, looking around, I saw that most of the audience seemed there for the “fine culture” prestige, while others intellectualized in the intermission, analyzing every detail, likely musicians or self-proclaimed experts. That was never my experience. I simply saw people working together—sometimes transcending all effort and merging into pure unity. There are moments when the music plays them, not the other way around.

I can’t imagine anything else quite like it—so many listening, striving, focused together in the present. It’s a demonstration of pure consciousness in action.

Lukas in Danish National Television.

15. Full Circle: The Quiet Magic

Last year, I met Trilok Gurtu again. We just stood and hugged for a long time —no words needed. He told me he follows my work and has learned from me too. Student, teacher—those words fade away.

Now, I have to stop writing this BLOG and go practise my music, my scales and the konnakol - just to be in the zone. A final word:

Music, theatre and art aren’t just intertainment. They’re not just distractions. They are the keys to the universe itself. Our world is a theatre; and the matrix of the universe is coded in music. Few are on stage for real. Most are in the audience, and that is perfectly as it should be—utterly out of our control.

Cymantics - the shape of sound. Why is this not teached in our schools?

May you find your own Trilok Gurtu in life —someone to show you backstage, to reveal the magic spells and the real Hogwarts in our world.


Want to learn more or dive deeper into rhythm and konnakol?