MUSINGS ON MUSIC AND LIFE


I've lived quite a life, sometimes charmed, sometimes burdened. I've known fame and accolades, obscurity and loneliness. I've been totally out there and I've also been stuck. Music, though, has always held things together for me. Now, after all this - and I say this with sincere humility - I have learned some things about life. I offer you these thoughts, which I'll add to now and then, as my gift to whomever comes along.

Michael Shrieve

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MUSIC AS VIRTUAL REALITY

I see music as a sort of virtual reality. Where else can you enter a place through an unseen door, where you can't see anything, you can't touch anything and you can't smell or taste anything.

Yet, in these invisible rooms you are completely transported to a place where every emotion awaits you, where a barrage of feelings erupt, from joy to sadness to transcendence.

These are rooms where you experience the recognition of your own unique self and the resonance of your own personal emotions, through an invisible architecture of notes and tones and rhythms.

Music - the real stuff, the kind with soul - can transform a person. It moves your heart, moves your mind and - let's face it, I'm a drummer - it moves your body. Sometimes this "virtual room" feels so unlike daily life that you wonder if it's just a passing thing, a place to visit.

But, stop and think about it. You are feeling. Feeling. Isn't that as real as it gets? In truth, this place is often more real than "normal" reality.

Music as virtual reality. We can't see it. We can't touch it. But somehow, when we step inside, we change. For me, this is a most amazing phenomenon, not to mention a responsibility that we musicians often forget. Let's face it - music changes people. This is its power.

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WE'RE ALIKE

We share more than we think or acknowledge. This is why I can love people, even though I joke about not liking some of them! It's because we share common struggles. No one can escape them. This is an important notion that I've found worth considering. The older and, hopefully, wiser we get and the more we go through vivid experiences with honesty, what results is empathy. We gain more understanding. We empathize because we ourselves have experienced as much. We are therefore less likely to judge.

In the midst of a judgment, I catch myself and ask, "Wait - how can I possibly judge them? I know how much pain they're in because I remember it so clearly." Then, my response changes to empathy.

This is the way we understand things greater than ourselves. How could it be otherwise?

We live in a time of fear and foreboding, and what the world really needs are people who are not operating from a fear-based place. I've been there, but I don't operate from there any more. I refuse to contribute to that collective panic. That's not the full picture. Where there is fear there also exists the possibility of open-heartedness.

WE'RE DIFFERENT

I have learned that our true beauty is in our individuality, and that our Sacred Expression of this individuality is what we have to offer. We don't just have it - we have to offer it. Meaning: share it, explore it, grow it. Whatever it may be.

It doesn't matter what it is. It really doesn't even matter what we do. What's important is the intention, and the force behind that intention. That will be what other people receive - the force of your intention to be your best possible self.

It has taken me a long time to accept that I am special, and to take seriously my different qualities. This is available to each and every one of us. I choose now to amplify my gifts, rather than compress them, which has been my tendency. I now know that it is our differences that make us all so beautiful.

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MY MUSIC

I've learned to recognize the music that comes from me naturally. When it's flowing, this is what it's like:

Real. Soulful. Joyful. Deep. Resonant. Honest. Authentic. Altogether, my music has a sound and feel that generate community. Part of it is sensual body music. Other stuff you want bare feet on dirt and torso toward the sky and head in the clouds so you get the full spectrum of connection with earth and heaven.

I'm a drummer, but I also enjoy writing lyrics. Lyrics are the recognition of common emotions that resonate with people. They give acknowledgement and dignity to what we go through in life.

I can talk about my music, and write about my music. But nothing replaces performing. The intensity and the pure fun of it bring me to life. It nourishes my soul, and I know it does the same for those who listen. I have to perform. This is where I'm at my best, and I've not been doing it enough. I am changing that. But all the other things I do - they give an added dimension to who and what I am, and make me a better performer.

I've always been curious and eclectic in my taste in music, stepping in to rock, jazz, electronic, DJ, world, and classical. I experiment. I go any place where the sounds are real. It's one of the gifts I've been given - I synthesize instead of specialize. I'd rather release all sorts of music with warts and all, and make my own complete world, rather that trying to force myself into becoming what I'm not.

I will rise to the situation I am given. I will make the music I am supposed to make. I realize now, there are no excuses.

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DRUMMERS

How is it that rhythms come up from the earth and we play them with our bodies and hearts and minds, and then the sounds move listeners to transcendence? It's a mystery. But it happens. As drummers, we serve this greater purpose.

As a drummer, I acknowledge the reality of being a "citizen of the world." Among musicians worldwide, and especially among drummers, there is an automatic feeling of community, and there is often an entree into other communities, whether musical or cultural. This has been one of the great joys of my life. The music we played with Santana crossed so many boundaries and borders and gave this entree - I have always really loved and appreciated that, and still do.

Being able to genre-jump, to cross into new territory - is a gift. It's a joy, really. A lot of musicians are so specific. I have great friends and collaborators in all musical genres. To have the respect of different players in different categories - the brotherhood of the drum, the brotherhood of music - that's real to me. I live for this.

It can be a tough path for a musician with things as commercial as they are now. But if you go back to the music, the music will never let you down.

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HAVING A HISTORY

I have a history, a past, that I have always kept under wraps, in order to insure myself that I didn't "live in the past." Just as important, it's to keep other people from doing that to me - keeping me stuck in their past. Well, it's time to shift my thinking about that.

Lately, I've been getting so much acknowledgment from all sides. It's almost like "This Is Your Life." So many people are expressing what I meant to them over the years. They say, "No one did what you did" (or, sometimes, what "we" did). They say, "I learned so much from watching you." I've had to accept that I mean much more to many more people than I ever thought. So, I have to face it and stop avoiding it.

I've been told that I'm an enigma in the music business. Why? I never had a falling out with anyone, and in this way I'm very different. I've always been supportive of others, and let people come up to me, even during the peak of my time with Santana. When I was younger, I played the self-aggrandizing game a bit until I learned something pretty quickly: that attitude can be a jail. Since I stopped playing that game, the world has been more available to me. No pedestals for me, thank you very much.

Since I do have a history, and when I create new music that is "real," then I can reach my generation as well as those following mine. I fancy myself as the older guy who does good work that doesn't necessarily fit any genre, but it's still relevant.

I'm like an experienced character actor who has a certain respect among the younger "in" set. I've done the work. I'm not catering to them. The soulful, searching ones - they get it. But when you're not "in," well, getting the music heard can be quite the challenge. I'm way past changing my music to fit some pre-supposed idea. I've always played to the vision and not to the marketplace.

I want what I create to be as much like me as possible. I want to be comfortable with my expression. This is why I prefer to think of myself as a craftsman - it keeps my head straight. Keeps things bottom line. Keeps me on higher ground.

Some musicians go behind closed doors, and in truth, I am guilty of that. But I don't want my experiences to be isolated experiences, apart from the world. I want to be IN the world. I want to share, I want to give and receive joy in my musical expressions. So, I'm coming out from behind the door.