On Live Vs. Recorded Music

My introduction to playing live music went something like this: hop on a bus with your bandmates, some of them lugging along upright basses or amps, and show up at the restaurant. Set up, warm up, acclimate to the background noise, sit down at the piano and listen to the conversation between the instruments as you add in a word or phrase, sometimes going off on your own soliloquy while your bandmates murmur in the background, making room for your solo, then tapering off again and blending in with the whole effort, all the while complimenting and enhancing the sound of an amorphous, living entity that lives only in the moment.

Playing live music, like listening to it, is a whole-body experience. I’ve loved playing and performing live music as part of a group. Duos and trios are great, too. Harmonizing with someone else’s vocals, complimenting their guitar with a mandolin, layering harmonies upon harmonies, and communicating in the moment with other musicians - shaping and bringing to life what had been merely a skeleton, a structure to work with, breathing life into a composition and sharing it with a live audience. What magic — and most importantly, a song played live is never the same twice. Every performance has its own nuances, what is felt and communicated is unique every time. Even the audience colors the effort and makes each performance a singular phenomenon. Participating in or witnessing live music is an event that cannot be paralleled through an analog or digital recording, and it is integral to developing musicianship.