How It Feels to Play

Now I remember the only reason I ever started playing with bands, or at all. It was purely an effort to release something that I have never been able to release, or express. It comes and goes, that unquantifiable thing. I guess it is some sort of inner scream wanting to affirm existence. Crazy.

Most likely that is one scream that will never be heard.

When it doesn't matter, it seems to go away rather than burn.

I used to feel like I'd just explode into bloody bits if I couldn't let that scream out.

Playing was usually a physical thing, tied more to how it felt than how it sounded, although if I am not in the right key or those I'm playing with are out of tune, even one string, I can't do it.

Given that I was never able to spontaneously combust, there were moments when it was almost like an out of body experience in which I was hearing what I played as if I was standing or floating outside of myself. The playing would just happen as I rode some wave completely independent of the mechanics of making the sounds. That hasn't happened in awhile. I know the missing ingredient which seems to enable floating through the air on the melody but it is not something you can buy.

Either it comes to you or not.

That state of being I described is always what is being chased, and the hope of experiencing it, and hopefully with an audience of millions, is the main reason I bother. I honestly do not understand it, but that's how it feels.

I think I'll shut up for awhile.