Musically, He Lives for the Moment : Pop music: Guitarist Ottmar Liebert believes in the power of improvisation. He brings his flamenco-flavored sounds to the Coach House this evening.

Flamenco-influenced, multi-style guitarist Ottmar Liebert has always been drawn to the elusive nature of music.

“There was a fascination with something that couldn’t be controlled, certainly nothing that you could logically think through,” says Liebert, 32, interviewed by phone from a tour stop in Denver this week. “As a kid, I was logical and good at math, and I discovered that music was a place for me to hide from that, to develop another side. Because of music, I became a more well-rounded person.”

Now, as a headliner at medium-to-large venues around the world, the artist, who plays the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano tonight, explores that unpredictable nature of music via a series of listenable, sometimes fervid compositions that mix flamenco, pop, jazz, rock, funk and Gypsy-based music.

Some of these pieces stay the same from night to night, but most contain lengthy passages where the outcome can’t be predetermined: the instrumental solos.

“It’s only through improvising that you can hit that other place where you’re actually creating something in that moment, in the presence of that audience,” says Liebert, who appears at the Coach House with his band, Luna Negra. “I feel that if you’re playing the same piece exactly the same way and with the same solo, you’d almost be like a trained dog at the circus. While some tunes are similar each night, others are very open where there are whole sections where we don’t know what happens next.”

In addition to Liebert on guitar and lute, Luna Negra features Calvin Hazen on guitar, John Gagan on bass, Domenico Camardella on piano and Mark Clark on drums.

Liebert’s type of performance offers scant vocals--his 1993 Epic Records album, “The Hours Between Day + Night,” contains a Spanish-language version of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy, Mercy Me.” He says this style of presentation places responsibility not only on the musicians, to give the notes life, but also on the audience, which must pay attention.

“Instrumental music is like a book; it needs active listening,” says the man who these days dubs his offerings “ambient flamenco groove.” “It gets the imagination going in order to make a connection. Speech is tentative at best in relaying an experience. Music can do things that no words can do.”

Instrumental music, Liebert feels, takes both player and listener to a realm rarely found in everyday existence.

“For most people, music is the most mystical experience they ever have,” he asserts. “Music is still a place where people begin listening to a song, then start drifting, then come back at end of the song. All around, that’s about discovery for myself, and through myself, for others.”

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Liebert, like most musicians, plays first for himself.

“I do make music that I want to hear,” he says. “If I worried about what the audience wanted to hear, I’d be like a politician.

“I can’t make everybody happy. . . . Sometimes the music is darker, sometimes it’s more happy. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s honest. There’s nothing wrong with something that’s depressing, that doesn’t make you happy. At the same time, there seem to be a lot of people who have a problem with anything that’s happy. They tend to think it’s not an honest emotion.”

Liebert’s smooth and sometimes lyrical melodies, assertive rhythms and resilient-to-biting guitar sound has become considerably popular in five years. His debut album, 1989’s “Nouveau Flamenco” (Higher Octave Music), which has sold almost a million copies, has been on Billboard’s New Age charts for 211 weeks (it’s currently No. 15). “The Hours Between Day + Night” is No. 5 and “has gone gold in New Zealand,” says the guitarist, laughing. He tours consistently.

Liebert was born in Germany, started playing guitar at 11 and had studied both classical and flamenco styles by the time he arrived in Boston more than a decade ago. There, he played in rock and R&B; bands before deciding to move to Los Angeles. On the way out, he stopped in Sante Fe, N.M., to see a friend, and stayed. He makes his home there today.

After performing his brew of flamenco-mixed-with-whatever music in Sante Fe restaurants, Liebert was asked to make an album to be produced by a local artist, Frank Howell. Originally called “Marita: Shadows and Storms,” the album was sold by Howell to Higher Octave and became “Nouveau Flamenco.”

Making his debut wasn’t the easiest of experiences, says Liebert.

“The engineer kept saying, ‘This isn’t going to work,’ and I told him, ‘Hey, what have you got to lose? You’re getting paid.’ I didn’t get paid, but my luck was that the album paid off.”

* Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra play tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 7 and 9:30 p.m. $26.50. (714) 496-8930.