Sensations of all sorts are new in everyone’s adolescence, no matter where or with whom you lived at the time, and the geologic pressure of successive years piling up fossilizes memory. Intense moments of sensual, visceral pleasure become reinforced with subsequent mental recollection, which is why we can conjure our teenage years in sparkling detail and cannot recall what we made for breakfast this morning.
Read MoreTHE ALLURE OF SURFACES
How far away do creative people fall when they eschew anything but perfected surfaces? What happens when we no longer appreciate the smear of real paint?
Read MoreTHE AMATEUR MOVE
The amateur move is to abandon a project when it’s hard to know how to complete it well. The amateur move is to say you don’t know how to find a conclusion, how to find more energy to finish a long simmering project, how to cut out parts that you know, deep down, simply gotta go.
Read MoreINTERSTITIAL IS A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE
Musicians are making music because music needs to be made. Music between news stories may be interstitial elements for many people, but for those who play to keep the world turning, those music bumpers are the main reason for the show.
Read MoreTRUE BELIEVERS
Folk music espouses a world that fundamental believes in peaceful coexistence. It regards an innate nobility and value in people—all people.
Read MoreLONG PLAYING RECORD
But when everything is available all the time, each item in particular matters less and less. It’s the law of supply and demand, the dilemma of tasty food served at an already heavily laden table, the cool drink of water offered in the middle of 40 days of rain.
Read MoreTHE MINOR FALL, THE MAJOR LIFT
Alas, nothing lasts. Nothing lasts, but we try anyway. We try and we persevere and some of us wouldn’t have it any other way.
Read MoreTHE MUSICIAN WHO STOPS TIME
At its most successful, music suspends time. That means music can even manage to suspend your endless to-do list.
Read MoreTHE MARGINALIZATION OF ORIGINS
In an era with seemingly endless, ubiquitous invention and creation, how could we ever have time for all of the books we told ourselves we ought to read, all of the old black and white movies we thought might enjoy late at night on the couch, all nine of Gustav Mahler’s superb, challenging symphonies?
Read MoreROCKING MY INNER MENDELSSOHN
Music colors many experiences when we’re young, and as a soundtrack of our great potential it always reminds us about what we were hoping to become
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