One step closer to musical enlightenment

Since most of my musical activities draw their energy from inspiration, it was super awesomely great to meet one of my greatest inspirators of this time.

Eric Harland is an incredible and innovative drummer with a style totally his own. He's got unbelievable drive, groove, speed, can rock with a light touch to boot! He is just so incredibly musical. Years ago I saw him play with the McCoy Tyner Quintet, the Aaron Goldberg Quartet and the Charles Lloyd Quartet. This time I met him after his gig with the SFJazz Collective at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam.


I asked him how he managed to always be in-the-moment and freshly inspired at every gig. His answer came down to: "Don't give in to fear." He used more words to elaborate on this. This idea is an affirmation of what I've been trying to implement in my approach to music for a couple of years now.
There's a saying: "Check your ego at the door." It could be adjusted to: "Check your fear at the door.", but since fear comes from the ego, the first saying is even better.

This is a pretty interesting topic that applies to all layers of life and maybe I'll go deeper on this in a future post.

It's true, if you're not afraid anything positive can happen. Bad things can happen too, of course, but being fearless you will deal with them differently.

Here's to NO FEAR! (...imagine a glass of your favorite drink being held up high in the air...)