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In praise of ordinary life
Two friends entered the mansion of a successful business associate.
Friend One turned to Friend Two and said: “Wow, this place is amazing! Look at all the stuff this guy has.”
To which Friend Two replied: “Yeah, but I have something he’ll never have.”
Friend One: “Really? What’s that?”
Friend Two: “Enough.”
I’m probably fairly typical as an American in that I am hard-wired to believe that success will lead to happiness – that to be happy, I have to work very hard and succeed in reaching my personal and professional goals.
What gives the lie to this is the realization that despite the many milestones I have reached, or been brought to (good health, loving and strong relationships, the completion of several records that I am proud of, a more or less stable income, a strong sense of community and a beautiful place to live), I scarcely if ever stop and feel appreciation for what I have achieved.
Because I want More.
It’s not greed, mind you. I’ve never been interested in money, and the adolescent dream of fame is well gotten rid of. No, the best way to put it is, a kind of dissatisfaction driven by ambition, competition, whatever.
I think it’s very important to know what vision you hold for your life (or your life holds for you). I pity people who don’t really know why they’re here… what gift they alone can give to a world aching for that very gift.
I’ve never had that problem. Remotely. So why is it so hard to be happy when I feel like I haven’t “gotten there yet”? I cheat myself of all the good things that are hiding in plain sight, staring me in the face. Struggling when I don’t need to tightens me up, makes me tense and unable to receive all these daily miracles.
But once in a blue moon (and it often IS literally a blue moon I’m gazing at) it’ll hit me.
I’m happy.
And that makes me inspired and energetic indeed to create more.
I’m not a star, and it’s very, very hard to get my music heard, and that makes me sometimes sad, or frustrated.
But you know what, So what? I’m doing my job! Giving my gift! Is there anything else that matters?
Here’s the real point of this blog post, the really cool thing I’ve realized: Success comes from happiness – not the other way around!
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Prayer Flags (9/11 healing song)
The day after the attack, my downtown New York City neighborhood was a locked-down war zone, smelling of molten metal, tears and devastation, and preternaturally quiet.
And, plastered on every available surface were handmade flyers announced those missing after the September 11 attack, posted overnight by desperate loved ones. Pizzeria windows, mailboxes, bus stops, delis—all had become instant shrines, lit from below by dozens of candles placed on the sidewalk.
Along with many of my neighbors, I spent long hours in silent and sympathetic contemplation of these heart-rending pieces of paper. Here were pictures of people just like me and my friends, cradling newborns or standing proudly on their wedding day.
Written on them were desperate, loving words penned in moments of almost unimaginable anguish by people whose husbands, wives, or parents had simply not come home—or, worse, perhaps, who had called and said they were getting out and coming home but never did.
The flyers reminded me of Tibetan prayer flags, flapping in the warm breeze. (Prayer flags—also called “wind horses” —are common in Tibetan Buddhism; their purpose is to purify the air with the prayerful words written on them.) It was almost too much to bear. And yet we, the neighbors and friends of these people, felt duty-bound to bear witness, to pay respect, to send love and light.
As I stood there, a simple and haunting melody was born in my head, and the words I was reading practically flew off these pages and rearranged themselves in stanzas in my mind.
The next day I took off from work, booked an afternoon in the studio, and recorded and mixed this song live.
Although “Prayer Flags” is obviously a very sad song, I prefer to think of it as a healing song, and one that is very respectful to the people who helped it come to be—and to whom it is dedicated.
Please, give it a listen, and share it.
Where does music come from?
It doesn’t come from anywhere. It’s already there.
Every song that has ever, is ever, and will ever be written exists already - there are only 12 notes, after all (at least in Western music).
I’ve always believed that all possible music - and for that matter poetry, literature, art - is already living and hovering “out there” (as well as “in here”)… just as all colors exist all the time in the spectrum. Factor in the fourth dimension – the space between the notes, and their progression – and it’s clear there’s an infinity of unborn songs out there, waiting for today’s creators, and tomorrow’s, to pull them in.
Every artist, or child, or anyone who aimlessly hums a melody, is simply tuning her or his radio to a certain, individual frequency. When I was 10 and living in England, I was obsessed with a portable multiband radio we had (short wave, medium wave, long wave, AM, FM) - dumbfounded as faraway music simply materialized as I moved the tall vertical tuning line left, and then right, and then left again.
This is how songs are born - fumbling through that dial, more or less alert to “what wants to happen.” Rehearsing a song I’ve already written, or just fooling around on the guitar or piano, I’ll stumble on a “wrong note” - something I didn’t expect to play. And that “wrong note” (or especially, wrong chord) will suddenly open a window I didn’t see before and shine a new light, a scary-good new feeling. A sudden hit of heaven.
It’s chemical. Something like falling in love. (And, like love, once you’ve tasted it, you have to work for it.)
So what is the spark that gives that “something” that’s always been there, lurking around our collective-private cosmos, the power to appear?
That, of course, is the mystery, the miracle - the divine game of creativity. It’s what we all seek. When you look for it, you can’t find it.
Fortunately, when you don’t look for it, sometimes it will find you.
That moment of pure grace when a highly limited earthling stumbles on something, and the first inkling of a new universe – one that’s always been there, hiding in plain sight – crashes through.
Leonard Cohen, as usual, said it best: “Everything has a crack in it. That’s how the light gets in.”
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What is the value of music?
Simple. It’s love.
I make music because I love it. Because I have to. (Though I have to be smart about what a project may cost, I just don’t — can’t — think about ROI. Art and net profit are forever uncoupled in my mind.)
The act of creation is complete. It is a choice — or rather, a decision.
So having produced my work (in this case, a wonderful new EP) what’s it “worth” in the marketplace? In a world of digital, (almost) frictionless distribution, where the incremental value of delivery is negligible, it’s not irrational to say that in ways both material and spiritual, a work’s “worth” — its value — can only determined by He Or She Who Listens. (Like the tree falling in the forest.)
Maybe that’s why it’s called a “release.”
It’s so abundantly, resoundingly, refreshingly clear that the music “business” is over. There is no “business” — as in an organized, semi-coherent, regulated product flow — anymore. Which means it’s the people left standing who will make the rules. That would be Us.
And rules created by volition are ever so much more exciting. Not to say rational. Not to say, abundant. Because, as with supply and demand, there IS an equilibrium point here. But unlike with supply and demand, that equilibrium is determined on an individual basis.
So I’ve made a decision to release ALL of my digital records on a completely open, you-decide-the-value basis. I happen to think that’s the economic model of the future. And I embrace it.
I welcome your thoughts. Are you a musician? A music lover who buys online? How do you feel about this way of approaching the “value” of music?
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