Music, two ways

Perhaps nothing in my life has changed more or been more stable than my relationship to music: in the first case, as a performer; in the second, as a listener.

Until I moved to Portland in the late 70s, my guitar was practically an appendage. I took it everywhere - in SoCal, Eugene, the Eastern Shore. In Portland, a stranger now, I traded social playing for a more formal gig. I applied for and got a grant to develop a stage show about Woody Guthrie. I'd be performing this for the next 20 years. I stopped for a variety of reasons, perhaps summed up by "enough is enough." I put down the guitar but soon picked up the banjo, my main instrument in the army. I took clawhammer lessons. When I learned the style, I put down the banjo. I haven't played music in months. Hugh change.

What hasn't changed in 50 years is the music I listen to most of the time. West Coast jazz. It's even on the radio herr all the time. A curious constant among all the changes in my life.

Music, looked at two ways.