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Telling The Truth About Things

How does one go about this ‘thing’ that is talking about your-Self? “People just want to know a little about you”, I’m told, “make it simple because nobody really cares anyway”… I laugh. The truth is that I don’t really care either so why not tell the truth and get on with it. At least that would be more interesting than another musicians cover story that is really only a mask to try and sell you something.

This is a website about my music, the perspectives that I have on what music is to me, how I shape music for myself and the context for the instruments that I play. I would like to believe that the reader or explorer of this site will find it interesting and insightful. I hope you will find perspectives on music that are at least uncommon if not novel and unexpected.

Once a guest asked me and innocent question “why do you have so many instruments?” Not an uncommon question for a multi-instrumentalist I suppose, except that she was a professor of psychology with a PHD. Hardly innocuous considering her pedigree and I answered with the safe and sincere; “because I love them”. That was that, but the question stuck with me, it actually gnawed at my gut slightly as though there was a better reason than “love” or at least a reason that might need to be more filled in, at least in my own mind…

Some time later I visited my friend the professor. Her house was neat as a pin, almost an office that also functioned as a living space with a few cats on the chairs to keep the hearth warm. I noticed many shelves filled with books. I asked right then and there “why so many books?”. Her answer was perfect, perfectly guarded,slightly suspicious and a question in itself; “well, because I read them”(?). “Yes, exactly” I said.

The answer to the question ‘why do you a have so many instruments?’ is not really interesting if the answer is simply ‘because I play them’. The answer from my professor however, about her library is far more interesting, even mysterious, if applied to musical instruments. “Because I read them”. Not reading music notation but reading from the instruments themselves as though the instrument is a book…
I believe that it becomes obvious that musical instruments can be described as condensed or perhaps compressed information if the complexity of the design is pointed out. The mathematics involved
in the design of the fretboard for example and the required precision of the placement of the frets to achieve accurate tone is amazing. But different than other precision instruments, the best way
to describe the information inside of the musical instrument is a song.