In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.

Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

A dissection of music perception and creation that starts slowly and inexorably builds to a grand finish. I loved reading that listening to music coordinates more disparate parts of the brain than almost anything else--and playing music uses even more! Despite illuminating a lot of what goes on this book doesn't "spoil" enjoyment- it only deepens the beautiful mystery that is music.

The wage for most musicians is a modest amount, and that includes me some of the time.

I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?

...if photos can reproduce the world more perfectly than any painter, can capture an instant, a look, a gesture, then what makes a painting good anymore? Painting subverts this subversion of its traditional nature by redefining itself - art is idea, not simply skillful execution. So, a work can be crudely made, or even machine made - but it has to be practically and functionally useless.