This is going to be a bit of long quote, but it articulates why I do music so well, that I have to share.

It’s a portion of a welcome address given to the parents of incoming freshman class at Boston Conservatory, by its head of music division, Karl Paulnack.

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

And here’s another from the portion where he addresses the incoming students themselves:

If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet.

–

The truth is that while I am a musician, a rock musician even, but I don’t see myself as an entertainer.  I do what I do mainly because I can’t live the thought of not doing it, but also because I see it as an act of healing.

Yes, I am aware that when art takes on the grandiose notion of being more than itself, it can quickly get heavy-handed, preachy, and, well, Not-Entertaining.  And I do my share of checking in with the reality — it’s just another song to someone, and there are millions and millions of songs out there.

But music is healing to me, and if it’s healing to me, I bet that it will be healing to someone else out there.  I make violent music, sad music, yearning music and conflicted music, because I believe music is the healthiest way to process some of those emotions that tend to get bottled up inside.  Rage and sorrow are both very legitimate feelings, as are frustrations and despair.  Once they enter your system, we need a wholesome way to process them.  My music, I make with the intention of being an agent that contributes to that process.