The drive of a musician is hard to explain. Everyone knows what it’s like to have a song or tune stuck in your head but imagine having it stuck in you soul. I mean deep. Not just a song, either; more like every note ever played and every progression or melody ever composed. It can swell up, too. I sometimes physically ache to play or listen to music. Sometimes, I HAVE to lay in bed, get my best headphones, close my eyes, and just…listen…The world melts away and I feel like I AM the notes coming from Hilary Han’s violin or Edgar Meyer’s bass or whoever is playing. Life, for me, stands still and it’s not unusual for me to cry.
I wake up to music (in my head) and when I have trouble sleeping, it’s because of the music in my head. Everything I do is to a rhythm, groove, or melody. It is difficult for people to understand us. After all, the only thing they can equate it to is, say, the need to be successful in a business, or be looked up to by peers, or whatever…It is waaaayyyy deeper than that and there are few outside of music and art that can relate. A musician is not worried about financial success (It’s nice, of course), or peers, or anything else! We just want…NEED the music. Life, for me, would be a thousand times simpler if I didn’t have this in me. I have a great day job and a wonderful wife and son. My family is awesome and life is great. I have a lot of gigs and make good money playing bass but it’s not enough. It should be, but it’s not. I can’t stop the feeling of sinking slowly into the quicksands of death and missing so much music. I want to wake up and play, write, andteach music! That’s it! I want to be in a position where ALL I do is music. Then my soul will be happy.
Think jazz meets Radiohead(In fact, the last time an album slapped me in the face like this was In Rainbows) only, they go further than that. A few of the tracks actually remind me of some of the music I studied in world music classes in college with rhythms reminiscent of Ghanese and other African musics.
