I listen to music to open up. I listen to music to forget. I listen to music to explore the edges of my mind. I listen to music to be better. I like the way music makes me feel. I’m constantly thinking about new musical ideas and I see inspiration for new songs, sounds and compositions everywhere. Recently, I was riding in an elevator listening to the hum of the motor and as I toned with the vibration I started to sing a melody. Fortunately, nobody caught me as they would have been sure that I had lost my mind, singing loudly on the elevator on a particularly gray Monday morning. But there I was. I couldn’t help myself. Music and ideas for music are everywhere.

For reasons that still haven’t become totally clear to me I find my inspiration leads me towards ambient music. Sometimes these are drones, sometimes these are washed out guitars, or as my friend Jeff Towne called spacey piano textures: “vaporous piano”. There’s something really appealing about the nuance of ambient music. It doesn’t put it all out there, it holds something back for you to experience, an essence of sorts that you just can’t grab onto, such as you can the melody of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht Musik or the Beatles Yesterday. A strong melodic presence, that’s super-defined, i.e. much of today’s popular music somehow leaves me, as a listener feeling as if I’ve been clobbered over the head. There’s no mystery, there’s no essence, there’s no allusion, its all just right there – BAM!

What is ambient music? What does it mean to make ambient music? Some might not even believe that ambient music is not a music at all. At one point, I tried to define ambient music and posted it on my Ambient Soundbath Podcast site; overall, I think that this definition still fits, but like anything, definitions are rigid and need some tweaking over time. At the very least this definition fits my needs for when I’m talking about ambient music, but I’m starting to get off track.

Looking back at where I started I think about listening to ambient music to open up, to rejuvenate myself, to relax and to just be. I start each morning by listening to Soma.FM’s Drone Zone. It’s a good way for me to get going. My coffee and Drone Zone. It’s nice. It’s calming.

People have written me letters and told me in person all of the different things that they’ve felt listening to my music. I appreciate that. That makes me feel like the the music I’ve created matters. I don’t know if people wake up to my music the way I do with others, but I like knowing that folks are out there in the universe listening to it.

I’m starting to lose the point I was initially trying to capture.

Actually, I’ve fully lost it now. I guess this is probably where I should wrap it up…