A Year of COVID - A Musical Retrospective

I wanted to share with you a video playlist of my musical collaborations from this turbulent COVID year: A COVID Music Retrospective.

But first - a little backstory.

My birthday is March 13, which coincidentally was the last day before lockdown in my town of Teaneck, NJ in 2020.

That day I had a small jam session at my house and by the time people were leaving, I was getting notice that my town was going into quarantine.

I was supposed to be playing a wedding gig in 2 days, but called the contractor and told him I couldn't do it.

A year later and I just celebrated my birthday in Puerto Rico while hiding out here for the winter.

This ordinarily wouldn't have been possible, but given that there are no gigs to play and everything is online, we decided we could at least go to a beautiful place where we could be outside.

When the pandemic started, I decided to offer some free workshops on improvisation using my new books, String Jams, to try boost some morale.

People signed up so fast I had to add more.

I was so happy that people were genuinely interested in the topic and that I had an outlet to focus on other than the doom and gloom of the virus.

Then my wife suggested that I collaborate with some of my Vietnamese musician friends (we lived in Vietnam from 2018 - 2019).

That spawned a number of collaborations with Vietnamese, Scottish, Puerto Rican, and American artists that I'm really proud of.

For me, the music has a wide variety of feelings and moods: joy, sorrow, contemplation, anger.

What do you hear?

Not to get all sappy, but music has always given me a sense of purpose, and boy did I need it after such a difficult year.

I hope these videos inspire you to write your own music and do your own collaborations.

COVID sucks, but it did help me create some cool music, so I guess that's looking at the bright side?

Let's hope things continue to get better.

FAMLAB Hoi An: Seaphony Blog 7

Yesterday was the culminating concert of the residency and to be honest I had mixed feelings about it. There were a lot of positives, though. First off, Ro Cham Ti, the master musical instrument maker got a traditional Jarai outfit sent down from the highlands of Vietnam just so I could wear it for the show. I got to show off my shoulder hair while being cool for once.

My wife, daughter, and mother and father in law came down for this concert and it was an absolute joy having my family there and especially seeing my daughter dancing and calling, “DADA!” I told everyone near me on stage, you’re going to hear my daughter and sure enough within about 30 seconds of the beginning of the show, you could hear her laughing and hollering with excitement. I proudly turned to my friends, “yep, that’s my daughter.”

The concert definitely had some great parts to it. We covered a lot of ground musically and showcased combinations of instruments that I’m sure have never been done before. Sometimes I felt like maybe there was actually too much. Maybe we tried to cram a bit too much musical material into one concert.

The sound on stage was not good, however. There were many times that microphones weren’t on and players couldn’t be heard and even when they were on, the mix was poor and it was difficult to hear one another. I wish there had been a more comprehensive sound check because when you are playing and can’t hear yourself (or others that you need to hear) it’s enormously frustrating.

People seemed to enjoy the concert, I even got an email shortly after the show from a guy who happened to be in Hoi An, heard the music, followed the sound, and came for the final number. He was bummed that he missed most of it but he really was excited by the music.

Sometimes when you’re performing it’s difficult to be objective about how it went. I think overall the concert was good and that the residency was worthwhile. I met a lot of really awesome musicians, who I hope to collaborate with in the future. I will say that I wish it was a bit better organized. Like I explained in previous blogs, there was a lot of downtime at rehearsals. So much downtime that I ended drawing a whole series of cartoon fruits with different fun expressions. I used to love drawing cartoons when I was younger, so it was nice to reconnect with that part of my brain.

I do wish I had learned some more traditional tunes from a lot of these musicians’ cultures. I feel like that element was lacking a bit. I know that organizing and coordinating something of this magnitude in creativity and scale is monumentally difficult. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to have taken part in this residency and I hope to do a lot more experimentation, creation, and cultural exchange in the future.

This was a really nice way to end my year here in Vietnam. I’m currently writing this on my phone from the train from Hoi An to Hanoi (a 15 hours ride). Now we have about 5 days to pack everything up and leave to go back to New Jersey. It’s been such an amazing year musically and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to cap it off.

FAMLAB Hoi An: Seaphony Blog 6

Last night I played a gig with a bunch of the residents from FAMLAB at this beachside restaurant in An Bang. I got there and was stunned at how beautiful the scenery was. The sun was setting over the ocean, the water was angelic, and air had a salty twang to it. There were 7 of us on total: Esther Swift on harp, Tom Bancroft on bodhran, David Shedden on tin whistles, LinhHafornow on vocals/electronics, Scobi Wan on electronics, and Escuri on electronics. I of course was playing cello, but I brought my đàn bầu as well.

The gig was incredible. It was one of those times playing music where you totally lose yourself in the moment. There’s nothing else besides just playing and creating.

Esther, Tom, and David played a bunch of traditional Scottish tunes from their home country and they absolutely killed it. Just amazing musicianship combined with some really cool music. It was a pleasure to watch them because I rarely get to hear that style and especially done so well.

I went on second with LinhHafornow. She is an amazing vocalist who combines her ethereal voice with looping and effects. I was quite excited to play with her because we have a similar musical aesthetic and I knew that our instruments would blend really nicely together. We had literally nothing planned, it was all going to be improvised. Honestly, I like that approach because it makes you really be in the moment. You’re responsible for creating every second, nothing is determined.

We started playing as the sun had just set and the music turned out so sublime. As I had expected, her lush vocals combined with my cello just created this sonic landscape that had me captivated. I’m a fan of doing ambient, slow, and melodic music and this hit the nail right on the head. I even jumped over to the đàn bầu for one song and messed around. People were actually surprised that I made it sound halfway decent. So was I. It’s nice to take risks on stage. I’ve been in situations before where I just felt like nothing was at stake when I was playing, no risk, no nervousness. That kind of feeling is kind of the death knell of creativity.

After a bit, we were joined by Escuri who added some sweet beats. It sounded fantastic and was so much fun to play over. Over the next couple hours we all did various configurations of the FAMLAB residents on stage. After sitting out for a bit, I hopped back on with Escuri and David on tin whistle and we created some Scottish folk techno cello madness. Unbelievable and awesome.

At the very end of the gig, we all got on stage and did an amazing slow meditation piece for the crowd. People were invited to lay down on the grass and look up at the stars as we lulled them into a different universe. It was truly beautiful.

Playing a gig like this really hit me deep. Not every gig is like this. Sometimes it’s a job, people don’t want to admit that, but it’s true. But this was different. This was why I love music and why I continue to do it everyday.

There’s just nothing like it.