some thoughts on music

I started to notice…

…that I could easily recreate a negative feeling or emotion from my past. Only within seconds, by recalling something stupid I said…or something stressful, I could instantly transport myself and feel almost the same intensity of feeling.

So I started thinking: I must be able to do the same with positive emotions(?) I imagined a beach day, with hyper specifics of sounds and smells and the amount of sunlight, and I was able to feel something, small at first, but then it grew. Don’t get me wrong; I am able to feel positive emotions all the time, but I wanted to be able to control them more, especially when linked to memories.

So that started happening, and getting better, and growing, until I could, without overdoing it of course, think of a moment and instantly embody that emotion…feel it like I was there again. The rooftop jazz concert in Tribeca NYC, or the onstage Bocelli tour in Dallas…or something non-music related.

Then, and stay with me on this…I started allowing the music to let me feel whatever I would feel. No gatekeeping, no throttling, NO THINKING. Of course later and periodically, I return to consider performance practice, tradition, style and composers intentions, etc. But what did it make me feel? And really, I found I could NOT think my way into this; it had to be completely devoid of thought. Just purely feeling, and really…something bodily at that, something from the gut, something pure, something physical!

Then I started pairing those memories and personal feelings that matched whatever the music was pulling out of me. So maybe something obvious like a classical piece in a happy G Major: pulling out a feeling of the joy when I bought my first remote control truck as a kid, with my own money. It isn’t always literal or programmatic, but it is always personal.

And that’s when the ship left the port! I felt like I was sailing again! I say again because I had done this as a CHILD, but all the other stuff had gotten in the way. Really it felt like I was an empty vessel, initially letting the music flow through me, and then allowing my life experience and personality to mix with the music, like a tea bag dipped into hot water.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense. But I wanted to share it, because it has transformed my playing. and the craziest part!? it truly has removed almost all nerves during a performance. I just did the Bocelli concert I mentioned earlier. Of course, I wasn’t the center focus, but i was mic’d and blasted out to 20,000 people. And as long as I opened my heart and felt everything, I was pulled instantly away from thoughts of mistakes or squeaks, or how will it come out, it was just pure expression. AGAIN, I have to return to pitch and ensemble and balance, blah blah blah. But the core of my playing returned to when i was a kid, in my unfinished basement (my parents house in Louisville, Kentucky, on Iola Rd.); I can remember everything. And there was no judgement, no need for career distinction, no fear, no thought really, just feeling…

…and music.

-Danny