the Silence Between the Notes

                          The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. 
                                                        Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I speak the language of music. I listen to, enjoy, and attempt to play the music of many cultures and many diverse genres. Do-Re-Me. I attempt to keep some kind of music always in my head because music distracts the mind, and when the mind is not in the way I'm not always thinking about things. So, music turns off all the mind noise and allows me to just interact with the world through sound, without analysis and judgment of images and words. Sure, music is just a dream, like anything else, but at least it allows me to take a break from thinking. Some of the music that runs through my head has been there for fifty and more years, but for some music it is only now coming to the forefront of my appreciation. For some music I think you have to have lived a certain amount of life to "get it". You cannot possibly understand certain compositions until you have the heavy experience to interpret the genre and the composer's message.

I don't know how to read or write music, having never had a lesson. I'm not a trained academic musician. The way I learn is by playing or by listening or by being close to someone who has mastered a style to learn from. The thing that appeals to me most is that music encompasses the scope of human experience - laughter, joy, pain, heartbreak, and loss - all those things can be better expressed by music that with words. And I like to use silence and space in music more and more in what I do. I love that moment where you are suspended. It is not the silence that occurs at the end of the music, but the silence that occurs between two notes. I play my guitars from time to time, when the spirit moves me, and let the notes take me from one place to another. For me, it is easier to play a lot of notes; that's easier to achieve; you just practice a lot. Not playing so much, that's a little bit more difficult, but more expressive.