I was born in 1962. Am I getting old? I don’t feel old, not yet anyway, but I have been around for awhile. Among my earliest memories was in the Summer of 1967. It was then, now called “The Summer of Love”, that I began listening intently to the songs on the radio. It was fun to classify the songs as part of the “old”, or “new”...or the posers that were trying to be new, but hadn’t quite made it to an acid test. Of course, I didn’t know why the music had changed or anything about acid tests, but change it was...clear and unmistakable...even for a five year old.

I got a guitar when I was twelve. My first songbooks were Neil Young’s “Harvest” and Cat Stevens’ “Tea for the Tillerman”. I got both those albums too and learned every song. I still love those songs! But it was the Moody Blues that really moved me emotionally and spiritually. I listened to “Thinking is the Best Way to Travel” with headphones, at night, in the backyard, under the stars and imagined myself deep in space. “In Search of the Lost Chord” is among my all time favorite albums, for sure.

During high school I backtracked and explored musical icons, like The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Lynryd Skynyrd and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. But there were others like Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells that I really dug. I remember taking mental note of Brian Eno. I can’t recall why, but his name seemed to pop up unexpectedly in intriguing places. Much like Zoroaster. I feel a palpable, yet somewhat irrational, connection to both of them.

Entry January 19, 2010

My guitar strings got rusty through high school. I didn't even pack my guitar when I went to college, but my roommate had one and I started playing again. Shortly thereafter I was asked by the folks at Quattelbaum music if I could teach guitar lessons. I learned more than my students including a fair amount of music theory. It's actually pretty philosophical when you realize that instruments are designed for humans to snatch sounds/frequencies/vibrations out of the realm of unlimited possibilities.

Music theory is a kind of elegant language using relational mathematical patterns that opened my mind to what felt like a "meta-organization" not really dependent on what it is organizing per se. What I mean is the PATTERN is more instructive than the specific key or chord, etc. There is potentially alot to talk about here, but I'm going to move on for now.

I credit my college roommate for introducing me to The Grateful Dead. I was only dimly aware of the Dead, having heard Truckin', Casey Jones and probably at least, Sugar Magnolia, but the volume of music was a real revelation. It struck a chord with me that had begun back in The Summer of Love. Their improvisational style punctuated by songs played with varying energies was very engaging.

Brother Brian