My acceptance letter to NYU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s music technology graduate program was one of the most exciting letters I have ever opened. It was a unique program. There were brilliant opportunities for anyone who wanted to get involved and hustle. I was 22 and had never been to New York City. In fact, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never lived outside of Ohio. I was in the very small pond that was the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music. I wrote in a journal at the time that I knew I was going to be testing myself. Looking back on it now, I had no idea what I was talking about.<\/p>\n
I got on a train in Cleveland and got off at Penn Station. I had a guitar, a duffel bag, and a suitcase. Somehow, I got a cab and made it to my student apartment on E. 26th St. My apartment was on the 22nd floor where my bedroom, such as it was, looked out on the twin towers.<\/p>\n
In a single day my mind was completely blown.<\/p>\n
The classes were brilliant. My teachers were all accomplished musicians, scholars, and creators. I was surrounded by art and music. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turn my head without seeing something that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never seen before. It was a complete and total sensory overload. Within a week of arriving I had scheduled my classes, started school, and found two jobs. Not bad for four days work. Of the memories that come flooding back there is one that stands out above the rest:<\/p>\n
I completely lost my ability to write music.<\/p>\n
In the comparative safety of my dorm room in the bedroom community outside of Cleveland, I could do almost anything. Sitting down at a baby grand piano in a practice room and pounding out page after page was almost effortless. Even if what came out was garbage, sitting down to start it was easy. Somewhere I had the confidence to know that 90% of what is done is crap and finding the 10% is where the genius of a composer lies. In short, there was no risk involved. But in the center of the world where even homeless guys playing in subways had better chops than I did, the intimidation factor killed any level of confidence I might have had.<\/p>\n
There is a powerful energy in New York. Anyone who has spent time there can feel it. It vibrates at the frequency of the soul. Every action comes alive and there is a sense of urgency to even the simplest of tasks. The darker side of that energy is the anxiety. Making rent. Eating more than one meal a day. Being in the right place at the right time. Recognizing opportunities. Not slipping into the realm of prey (on many levels). I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready for that – not that there is a way to prepare for it.<\/p>\n
All of this was put into relief the first time I visited home after being in the city. I tried to sleep on the couch at my mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house but I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. At about 2 AM it dawned on me that it was too quiet. Too. Quiet. To. Sleep. I was hooked on that city buzz and hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet learned to manage it.<\/p>\n
For a year I wrote little to nothing. It felt like so much was completely lost. But in that time, there were so many new things to cram into my head. I wrote software. I learned to create things for the web – the 1995 web. Ya know, before The Web. I met people and listened to music I had never heard before. I read voraciously. After all, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cheaper than the library? I lived my life on the streets wandering from gallery to shop to museum to library to concert and back again. I played the part of the tourist on some days and the hardened city dweller on others. I was too poor for the subway so I saw everything on foot. My mind expanded and my world got so much larger.<\/p>\n
If I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gone to NYU I certainly wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be sitting where I am today. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no path to my wife and kids that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pass through the city. And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I could have gone to the city at that time without a reason like school to support the effort. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the courage for that. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible to measure what I gained by spending those years there. My work was influenced by people like Robert Rowe and Mark Coniglio in profound ways. Thinking about it excites whatever creative gland in my brain isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t completely sleep deprived in these early new baby days.<\/p>\n
New York City changes a person in a fundamental way. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how it works when one is older, but at the age of 22 it was like tossing whatever vision I had of myself into a blender and walking away a very different person. I think about my buddy Kevlar who has done essentially the same thing but without the motivation of school and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m alternately extremely proud and mildly jealous. Experiences like that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be recaptured and the effect on one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work is profound.<\/p>\n
Sadly, I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been back since I left in my buddy Chip\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s purple truck heading west to Ohio and then on to Minnesota. I was fried when we emerged on the other side of the tunnel. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live there anymore, but a good part of me never really left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My acceptance letter to NYU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s music technology graduate program was one of the most exciting letters I have ever opened. It was a unique program. There were brilliant opportunities for anyone who wanted to get involved and hustle. I was …<\/p>\n