I have been thinking quite a bit about this because I recently wrote some liner notes for my I Hope CD, which I plan to record this month. In the liners, I wanted to talk about all the deep meaning that this music had for me, all the emotional and spiritual layers that the simple statement "I hope" represented. I even thought about writing a poem. Thankfully, I came to my senses! My most basic premise as a musician is that I say things through my music that cannot be expressed in words. Instrumental music allows each listener to receive it personally and individually. If I try to define my music with words, I will then be dictating to my listeners what to hear, robbing them of the freedom to experience the music more purely. If I attempt to verbalize what I have played on my guitar, all I can possibly do is dilute the message, cheapen its value, and narrow its scope. 

But I can talk about my process. I can talk about how I got from here to there, what experiences have shaped me, what my struggles are and how I deal with them. I can talk about what I value, what I like and don¹t like, and how my tastes have changed. I can talk about work habits, discipline, time management. I can talk about technique, chord progressions, scales, modulation, time signatures. I can talk about every mechanical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual aspect of  music, but I there is nothing I can say about my music that the music won¹t say better! 

I suppose I am not completely consistent in my conviction that words shouldn¹t interfere with instrumental music.  After all, I don¹t use titles like Allegro in Bb minor, opus 47.  My new CD has tunes titled I Hope and Grace and The Powers that Be.  My last CD, Songs from the Bay, had a tune called Dog Dance (Sitka and Clyde), and in the liners I told quite a lengthy story about my two dogs and how they play together.  So my music is about something. I often begin to compose a piece without knowing what the subject is.  Only later, as the music unfolds, do the images emerge and reveal to me the picture I am painting. Other times I begin with a specific story in mind, and I write music to tell that story.  I then give the tune a title which simply suggests the theme, giving the listener a hint of a direction, but still allowing for a broad range of individual interpretation. 

I love to hear other artists talk about their process. I am fascinated to hear Leonard Bernstein talk eloquently about composing, or to read about Van Gogh and his struggles, or to hear my friend Scotty talk about his masterful woodworking. I get more insight into their art and my own.  I identify with every artist to a greater or lesser degree, and in hearing their stories, I am able to sort out which aspects of the artistic process are universal, which parts I share with many and which are uniquely my own. I can only hope that if it is useful to me, then it also may be useful to other artists to hear some of the things that I think about as I am attempting to create something new.