Why I decided to become a musician.

[CaptainCrazy]

When I was a child, up until the age of maybe 11, I had no interest in playing a musical instrument at all.  Heck my dad would sometimes try to get me interested in playing keyboard because he played one himself.

 

I heard this song (at the bottom of this post) when I was about 7 years old, some 20+ years ago, and have loved it ever since but I never really gave much thought as to how it was even played or constructed.  I only knew that I loved the progression of it, how it goes from being all gentle and soothing and calm, into something full of power and ferocity.  Taking such a calm peaceful and warm melody and turning it into something explosive and powerful is just amazing and I guess that's why I like to make the same sort of songs.

 

When I was about 11 years old my parents got me this monotone keyboard for Christmas and I figured "well I may as well at least try to play the damn thing..."  I was thinking of a song in my head (which was The Ideal World at that moment) and I could just play it on this little keyboard after a few tries just by thinking of the song.

 

It went from there really and a few years later I discovered that this song, the song I had loved since I was young, was all played on synthesizer and it blew my mind.  It made me realize that anything is possible and it spawned a passion in me, a passion to make music.

 

Anyhoo this is the song that started it all

 

Loved it for 20+ years now and it still truly amazes me, the fact that this entire thing was made on a synthesizer in the 80's:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TmOpcBxYY

[Boothand]

It's a bit funny how Jan Hammer went from Mahavishnu to this (what you posted)  . But I guess many musicians changed in the 80s. In the early 1970's, he was part of one of my all-time favorite bands, Mahavishnu Orchestra.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDAJZHu1UDI

 

As for the reason I became a musician, it was because my mother taught me a few guitar chords at the age of 11. Since then, I've reborn into musicianship several (!) times, especially after hearing Mahavishnu.