Why I Made This Website

I was quietly playing piano in a park several years ago—the city places them around town every summer when the weather turns warm, and the rain takes a break. When I finished, a kid came running up to me, breathless with excitement. "Where can I hear you play again? When is your next concert?"

I laughed a little because I was amusedâ€"surprised by the attention—but also maybe deflecting the compliment. "Oh, I don't play concerts. I just like to play for myself."

The kid's face fell. He was crestfallen.

I tried to rescue the moment by mentioning that I post music on Instagram sometimes, and that he could follow me there, but the damage was done. He entered my info into his phone and then turned away, disappointed. I never saw him on Instagram.

That moment stuck with me. His visceral reaction revealed a gap in how I'd been thinking about my music. I'd been so focused on the act of playing and the art of creating—the process of sitting at the piano, in a flow state, letting the music move through me—that I'd failed to realize that there could be another side to the story. Then I had an epiphany: maybe art isn't finished when it's made. Maybe it's finished when it's witnessed.

How could this make a difference though? It makes me think of a phenomenon in quantum physics, known as the Heisenberg observer effect. Particles exist in a state of probability until they're observedâ€"only then do they collapse into a definite state. The larger principle is that the mere act of observation changes the state of the system. Maybe art works the same way. A piece of music played alone exists in potential, suspended in possibility, but becomes transformed by the interaction with an audience. Each listener will bring their own interpretation to the piece, and if enough people experience it, there may even emerge a shared understanding that gives the work a whole new meaningâ€"a whole new dimension. In a way, the piece doesn't really even belong to the artist, it belongs equally to the audience. Seen this way, there's almost a selfishness to not sharing a work of art.

I don't consume much music anymore. I love it, and always will, but these days I find it more of a distraction from my own internal process. Because of that, I often forget that others who don't create music have an entirely different relationship to it. They experience something I'll never fully understand because I make it myself. That kid needed to hear it again. I'd given him something and then told him it wasn't available. I took something from him.

I have an essential need to hole up in my cave and immerse myself in my creative process for its own sake. The act of creating without regard to what the outside world wants or needsâ€"that's what makes it authentic art. But it remains incomplete when it never leaves that cave.

After that moment with the kid in the park, I decided I would find a way to put myself out there. This website is the first step. Not a performance, yes. Not a concert hall (but maybe someday). Just a space to put my music, and an open invitation to listenâ€"where the music can find whoever needs to hear it.

There's another piece to this website though. It's not just music, it's also words. I don't think of myself as a writer—it doesn't come naturally to me. I do think a lot, though, deeply, about everything. I've been very productive creatively in the past few years, a huge contrast to when I was almost incapable of expressing myself. I also never thought of myself as an artist, or even a musician. It seemed almost arrogant to claim such things. But I've had a change of thinking on this—we're all artists. It's our God-given birthright to create, but not all of us have access to it. For many years I was an artist without an outlet, and it was deeply frustrating. When I deliberately tried to work on it, I focused on discipline and craft. That was important, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't until I accessed the inspiration side of creating art that I really started having any success.

The words on this site trace my process of transforming from essentially mute, artistically speaking, to free-flowing expression. They also explore some larger cultural trends that I believe are hampering our ability to create as a whole. I'm not claiming to be an authority on the underlying causes of anything, but I can tell you that these observations are rooted deeply in my own experience and wisdom accumulated over years of failure. The Romans had a phrase: ars longa, vita brevis-art is long, life is short. Art outlasts us. Our time here is brief, but what we create in that short window can continue resonating long after we're gone, touching lives we'll never meet, influencing people in ways we can't predict or control. That possibility—that what we make might inspire others to create, to find their own voice—is what makes sharing it worthwhile. And if nothing else, perhaps someone will learn from what I've been through and save themselves some pain and frustration.