Artist's Statement

How deeply can I understand music? Is it meant to be understood? There is a spiraling effect. You begin trying to understand the music, but then you see that if you don't understand yourself, that impedes the music. So you try to understand yourself, but eventually you get way off track from what you started out doing - music - and you try to go back to it. But things have changed since the beginning, so you're disoriented. But you hope that the changes you made are for the better. You try to assume that any change is a good change.

Essentially, music cannot be understood in a vacuum. I heard great artists talk about this all my life, but I never knew what they meant. Music is an accumulation of many things. Milking life of its beauty and diversity has an enriching effect on music-making. That is a lot more vague and haphazard than just sitting and practicing for hours a day, but sometimes results come better from elusive means. It is kind of like when people say music is what happens between the notes. Musicianship is what you do between practicing or performing. Also mentally/spiritually, it's the same thing. You ought to spend a certain amount of time reflecting on what a given piece is trying to communicate. But the clearest form of expression often comes as a result of letting go of your accumulated thoughts and feelings and just being a vehicle for the music. That kind of trust is difficult to evoke in yourself. It feels like you're walking a tightrope, and any little misstep will knock you off your wire of non-intrusion.

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