Lichen

So whom am I writing for? Myself? That has to be involved. Anyone who might be vaguely interested? So it seems. It is for fellow travelers, I guess. I could write about musical issues. Would that be directed more towards other musicians? Possibly. They might be the ones who would understand the jargon.

Am I writing to gain notoriety? No, I don’t believe so. Or to further my career? No. Those would not be the reasons. If something like that were to happen, I would figure out how to deal with it as it came. Is writing linked to playing? I think it might be. They are both activities derived from somewhere inside the murky place where the heart lives. They seem to make good bedfellows. There are a number of other categories which stem from that place.

Maybe I write a blog and have a website because I cannot play a concert alone. It is the next best thing. Really it is a different and separate thing to performing music, but in a way it fills a related void. Perhaps it is expressing philosophically versus the direct emotionality of music-making. Or maybe it is about the direct, real-time connection to an audience versus the gap between writer and reader. Of course there are times when writing is raw and in-your-face and music is intellectual or awash.

I don’t mind being either the same as others or totally different (so I think). It is really a combination. If I am true to myself, I’ll see that I have both elements. And so anything that I create would have some commonality and some uniqueness.

originally published on 4/23/11

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