My mission is to provide a spiritual and transcendent musical experience for the listener. The encounter with the sound of the instruments, the notes, the ideas and the message all combine to the end of creating a heightened awareness and intensity of experience. I strive to make my playing always serve the message or theme of the song.
When playing in a praise and worship band, the point is to provide accompaniment to the congregation and their worship experience. When playing to entertain, the point is presenting the idea in as salient a way as possible. When teaching, the focus is on creativity and helping the student form a lasting relationship with their instrument.
I believe that everyone has at least one great song in them and my goal is to write a truly memorable and world changing melody within the next five years (by 2015).
Details:
Neil Young recently said that music had lost the power to change the world. I believe that this phenomenon is not so much that music has lost any power it had but instead, that it has been co-opted by advertising and corporations to serve one central message--you are not complete.
The battle is to compete for bandwidth against organizations with far more resources. The work of the artist is to have as deep an encounter with his materials as possible. The end result is a performance or recording. In this way, the arts are process oriented, not goal oriented. The output is simply a by-product of something else going on. The advantage that any individual has is that this process cannot be manufactured. An authentic encounter must be free from constraints and affiliations which might otherwise try to manipulate it to some end.
The home recording movement has created a glut which while at first seems like it would offer a challenge to large organizations, but instead, simply serves to exhaust listeners with mediocrity. It essentially undermines a grass roots movement that could exist. Vanity art and self serving playing are the enemy of creativity and expression.
Besides allowing men and women to aspire to new ways of thinking and feeling, art is also the last line of defense against totalitarianism. When possibilities are eliminated, hopelessness takes their place. At that point, people seek out anyone claiming to have an answer or security. Often, this becomes a form of grotesque control.
What artists such as Neil Young and Dylan prove is that with very limited facility, you can create something that evokes change, takes people into a sublime realm, and connects at a deep level. Essentially, it's all here at your finger tips at any moment.
When playing in a praise and worship band, the point is to provide accompaniment to the congregation and their worship experience. When playing to entertain, the point is presenting the idea in as salient a way as possible. When teaching, the focus is on creativity and helping the student form a lasting relationship with their instrument.
I believe that everyone has at least one great song in them and my goal is to write a truly memorable and world changing melody within the next five years (by 2015).
Details:
Neil Young recently said that music had lost the power to change the world. I believe that this phenomenon is not so much that music has lost any power it had but instead, that it has been co-opted by advertising and corporations to serve one central message--you are not complete.
The battle is to compete for bandwidth against organizations with far more resources. The work of the artist is to have as deep an encounter with his materials as possible. The end result is a performance or recording. In this way, the arts are process oriented, not goal oriented. The output is simply a by-product of something else going on. The advantage that any individual has is that this process cannot be manufactured. An authentic encounter must be free from constraints and affiliations which might otherwise try to manipulate it to some end.
The home recording movement has created a glut which while at first seems like it would offer a challenge to large organizations, but instead, simply serves to exhaust listeners with mediocrity. It essentially undermines a grass roots movement that could exist. Vanity art and self serving playing are the enemy of creativity and expression.
Besides allowing men and women to aspire to new ways of thinking and feeling, art is also the last line of defense against totalitarianism. When possibilities are eliminated, hopelessness takes their place. At that point, people seek out anyone claiming to have an answer or security. Often, this becomes a form of grotesque control.
What artists such as Neil Young and Dylan prove is that with very limited facility, you can create something that evokes change, takes people into a sublime realm, and connects at a deep level. Essentially, it's all here at your finger tips at any moment.