I started thinking back to when I first heard music. I started listening and writing songs in my parents home where they created an other worldly awe of music. To them too it was more than music. They had seen and expected big things from music. They met in a protest against segregation. My parents taught us the protest songs that had helped galvanize movements and changed our society. They taught us songs full of history that transported us.
So music was change. It was a rocket ship for the soul - out to other places and times. That is what I love about the music I learned and the work I try to do today.
Musicians sometimes end up in a cul de sac of 'Look At Me' activities and after a while it gets tiring. I got tired of it and was less and less committed to working for the attention. But the donations of music at each stop of the recent tours felt more like a prayer than I felt like a player.
It actually happened quite slowly. It started with my mother singing. And working with Norma Blase in the East Bay at retirement communities. (A topic for a future blog ... How To Volunteer In A Field Where Your Friends Make A Living). In NYC with Dorothy Potter, Alex Forbes and John Beltzer writing songs for chronically and terminally ill children as part of SongsOfLove.org.
Playing for Resolve To Stop The Violence Project in the San Bruno jail in California and feeling a different kind of heart opening from people who like those in retirement communities and those struggling with disease maybe receive music in a deeper way.
I think maybe I still hope for a one on one exchange that changes peoples lives a little bit at a time. Music as prayer, music as transporter both to and from other places.
Stay tuned ...
On these tours we have met other singer songwriters, and heard about a cappella groups, string quartets and musicians of all sorts who have been working in this way. In my next entry I will shine a light and try to pay homage to all of the wonderful work others are doing in this area.
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