Here I am
On the road again

There I am
Up on the stage

Here I go
Playin’ star again

There I go
Turn the page

- Bob Seeger, Turn The Page

It is a perfect spring night outside the venue, slight cool breeze and the stars blazing like CGI. I pause to bask in the familiar, satisfied post-show serotonin dump of a successful concert, which in this case includes the debut performance of my preternaturally talented student.

Kennedi is almost 15 and a bit quiet before the set, her family seated front-and-center, cell phones poised to capture the moment. In the green room she is more focused than nervous. With a slight smile she tells me she is ready, then suddenly it is time to walk up the side stairs and take the stage.

She has only been studying with me for about a year but you wouldn’t know it to listen to her. She’s a natural and has a passion for the music that explodes from her with the excitement of a teenager and the precision of a seasoned pro. Some of the music she has chosen for her first-ever public performance is pretty challenging to play, so I accompany her on guitar.

I am only a few feet away from her as I check the sound in the monitors, and I glance at her to see how she reacts to the lasers and lights and fog machine and the front-stage lights in her eyes. She is smiling, holding the mic confidently and making eye contact with the audience from the front of the elevated stage. A nod and smile later, I play the first chords of the night.

The adrenaline of a live performance is a funny thing: Some people freeze up in a sweaty flight-or-fight response, forget lyrics, miss notes. Over the years I have seen it happen to people whose names you would instantly recognize. But the few who have it are energized, and the rush propels them to levels of performance far above what they achieve in rehearsal. Until that moment, when the first-ever chords of the first-ever song start, you can’t be sure which way it will go. I have brought many students to their first public performances and am ready for anything. But I have a feeling…

Kennedi leans into the mic and sings like the inspired lovechild of Chris Cornell and Janis Joplin: her pitch and timing and mic handling are spot-on, as always, but there is something beyond the technical perfection she displays; she has presence. She lives the music as it flows through her, and you can feel it in the way she moves and emotes, in the way she improvises (!) as though she has been doing this for decades.

She blows away all expectations that I had for her and everyone who speaks about her performance is similarly moved. Her big moment is a massive success and bodes well for her musical future. I am deeply grateful to be able to help bring her talent to the public.

But beyond that, her performance tonight is a reminder.

I think back to when I was 14. Music was my everything: I remember the smell of the music store where I had my first job, teaching guitar after school. I can still smell the hot tubes in the amps and hear the sound of my Stratocaster, my first “good” guitar. I played in the store and in a band and on people’s albums and couldn’t get enough.

School was an irritating interruption, except for the music classes, of course. I was in choir and jazz band and orchestra and played in the local musicals and directed church groups and any other music-related experience I could find. I played before school and at school and after school. When my friends and I got together, we talked about music. Once we were old enough to drive, we thought nothing of a six-hour round trip to see our favorite bands. That was half a century ago.

When life became more expensive, with kids and spouses and houses and cars, I had other careers that paid better, but they were just ways I could afford to keep playing and writing and recording. As is still the case, the life of a professional musician was lucrative only for a chosen few.

Then came a classical university education in music and teaching and recording in some of the world’s most famous studios and working with musicians I had only heard on recordings, once upon a time. And slowly, insidiously, something changed.

After a hundred-thousand hours of practice and hundreds of students and performances, after the degrees and certificates and venues, after the albums and band politics and worrying about chart positions and marketing, music became a business endeavor. I still loved it and was a regular and enthusiastic practitioner, but I realize now that the passion of music was a bit dulled by 50-plus years of the business of music.

Until tonight.

I always ask my students to perform in public; that isn’t anything new. But this student and this performance made me remember what it was all about in the first place. Sometimes mindfulness is spurred by unexpected events.

It’s funny; after all the stages, and studios in multiple countries, all the time teaching and learning about music, my passion was rekindled in the little town where it all began, just around the corner from where a music store once stood.

Where another 14 year-old once lived and breathed and dreamed music.

As I stand here in the quiet dark, replaying the circus of lights and sound of tonight’s concert, I realize that that’s the magic of music. It has the power to transcend time and space and life experiences. To circle around and bring happiness and awareness in unexpected ways. One impassioned musician can move the world.

And help someone turn the page, again, to joy.

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- JWW