*...Letting go.......Sometimes the best music ever played is heard by no one but the person playing, no audience, no cameras, not a soul. It's just an artist pouring out their heart. Whatever pain, or loss, worry, or fear, it all comes out with no need to perform or put on a show. No matter how much we practice or how much stage time we have, we are still there, and there is a different place. We long for those moments when we leave there and we come to here. To worship. But we are there when we start. Here, we are here. It's that moment where time bends, where everything comes out naked and bare, and falls at your feet and you are naked and bare. I've never played a big concert in person but so many times I'll sit in my practice room, and I can feel the size of a big concert hall, I can feel the space, I can feel the hush as people sit mesmerized, I can hear the way each note reverberates in the spaces. How it seems like each silent space is a breath, I can feel the glow of the lights, I can feel the stool beneath me, the way my feet lightly touch the black stage and drag back and forth ever so slightly. The way a bead of sweat traces it way down my face and playfully criss crosses my cheek. I can feel many become one, one heartbeat, one soul, one moment. There's been so many times, I've put on the best show of my life, from my little teaching room, sitting all alone, eyes closed, or looking out onto the distant street below. So many times I've moved a mountain, so many times I finally reached that elusive melody I always chase. So many times that perfect song has been played to an audience of none. It's so easy to get there from here and so hard to find from there. There have been times where I've been there but felt here, but never been fully here while being fully there. Every artist must feel that hunger, must go through the endless cycle of looking for something that you may never truly find. Surrender. There's so many distractions when you're there, the noise, the people, the lights, the problems that arise. I feel like forever I'll be trying to bring there to here, each time for longer and stronger. Forever trying to stay in here and making my way. It takes a lot to let go, but the hope is that every artist let's go so we as the audience, can let go too. So we can walk naked and bare to there. This video is not me playing that perfect melody or finding that perfect song, just a glimpse into that search, the walkway, the path that leads over a hill, just enough to see what lies beyond. To find the river when your thirsty, the sun when you're cold, the trees for shade and the moon for a night light. May we ever search for that place, for here, and may we always come back from there when we need to be here, cause here is now and here is love...*