Outside the Mainstream

The year is 2001, I am now 47 years old. I married my true love Lorraine 27 years ago. We meet at a fund raiser for my best friend in a coma. My band performed and 30 years later we still hold hands. There are no kids but we still like the trying part. We have pets, a parrot that allows us to feed him for the past 15 years. He doesn't trust us yet but he screams when I play the piano so I know he's part of the pack. There is our loved dog Tailer, very much his own man, he uses five distinct facial expressions, his routines can be timed with a clock. He howls when I play the piano or guitar just like a wolf and like the wolf it means all is OK, the pack is together. He is our fourth German shepherd in the past 30 years. They watch the fort and express true love. When they pass our pain is deep, we lose our very good friends.

Like most people I spend my time on this planet divided, an existence formula. I build houses for a living, a master craftsman I’m told .We now go on vacations twice a year. We own a house on three acres, 700 ft off the road nestled in the woods. There is a pool, a pond with fish, lots of decks, work shop and my underground recording studio. The studio is an ingredient that separates me from crowd. It is part of my existence formula. The way I divided the time is where I am very  different from most people. It is my Music, how I create it and what it takes to make it. Making music is were the rest of my divided time is spent.

I believe it is my true calling, a gift that No Money Can Buy. When it comes I must capture it. This rare gift, like magic from within, must be treated special with care. A birth of sound, out from within your soul, from nowhere. This sounds serious, it is to me. It can only survive if you believe in it, you must act swiftly before it is lost. There might not be another sound quite like it ever again.

I have always felt that way, an urgency to record the magic at once. I have a stock pile of magic that I never yet played back. I keep a four track in my living room next to my baby grand. A state of the art 24 track analog and digital recording studio, a video production room and many pocket size recorders for when I out of reach. You think it’s too much,  no way. For me you need it all.  It’s like paper and pen to a writer.

At one time I thought it would be so easy if I could only write it down. My wife  played violin in school and knew how to read music, so she tried to teach me but it made no sense whatsoever. It was someone else's idea, not at all logical to me. I know nothing of schooled music or theories but I did learn how to record them, a choice that would transcend the way I create music. This would be an ingredient and the formula for me to become truly an artist of this time period. Recording my ideas was just a part of it. Learning from it, was my school. I now create full musical foundations for my electric guitar, all alone at any time.

Amazing to live in a time that one could do such a thing. I once was told that Mozart never had the chance to hear his great work fully. The assembling of so many musicians was too costly and time consuming. Yes he performed at times with full accompaniment but he never could kick back and just listen, it’s sad. We have come far, I play  my compositions  from a battery powered Walkman anywhere. What a time to be alive. So many great tools to work magic with. I awake with great expectations from a sound sleep. I am fully effected and surround by this electrifying power. I am at one with it.  (In The Spirit) I am in ( SYNCHRONY ) with my  music. A name I use as an artist. 

So you see the music is what makes me different. Therefore this governs my being, how I divide the time, what I need to do, what I love, what I believe in and how much money is needed for them to survive. It sounds so easy just reading these last few lines, but it was not and still is not. Telling this story will be good for me, a reminder. A story for others to know and understand  what it has taken and what I have given to bring  my music out from within. 

This is the first time I’m writing it down. I know little about writing. I quit school in the fifth grade and only read one book in my entire life, Jaws. But I can’t let that stop me. I also know nothing of schooled music and maybe there is a chance of an equation. I asked myself what is the formula of writing. The response.  Logically the criteria of writing is, to write about something, you must have something to write about. Wow that sounds good maybe I can do this, to think my fifth grade teacher would be so proud. Really so would all the others, they thought I was a waste of time. I understand them now, I was untrainable, therefore useless to their program. I really believe school is important to all living things. The keystone to life itself. We must learn to survive. Some by lesson’s,  some by example, others by instinct. But no one thing works for us all.