Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: The tremolo part is actually a very easy. A lot of people have a very hard time. Whenever I give lessons, it always seems to be one of the things that people want to know, is, how do you do that tremolo? It's just a minute action that just happens right at the joint of my wrist.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

I don't even feel my arm doing anything. It's just this little quiver that happens. And I've seen a lot of people do it in a lot of different ways. Some people use their entire arm. You can see their whole arm going.

And I just try to do whatever is the easiest. I'm very much into comfort-- comfort and just being laid back about it, which I think is, in playing any instrument, no matter what your instrument is, whether it's the clarinet or the violin or whatever, being relaxed is probably the most important thing about playing any musical instrument. If you're not relaxed, your body is fighting against you holding your particular instrument and getting sound out of it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 2: Let me ask you about "Puppy Belly Dance," talking about being relaxed. This has been inspired by a good meal, essentially, if I read the liner notes right.

SPEAKER 1: [LAUGHS] A lot of the music I write is inspired by good meals. Actually, that particular piece came from the play Gray's Anatomy. There was a scene where a bunch of the townsfolk in this mythical town called Gray. A doctor falls in their midst. And they've never had a doctor in their town.

And so these people are amazed and joyful that they found out that they have all these ailments that they didn't know that they had. And they start to celebrate.

And the director of the play wanted me to come up with a piece of music that was fun and dance. He said, just write a dance. Write some kind of dance. And that's where that tune came from. The title that I've given it, the "Puppy Belly Dance," actually, a friend of mine from North Carolina used that phrase. And I just fell in love with it. And it seemed to apropos for the two.

SPEAKER 2: There seems to be kind of a joy in it and almost an ecstasy. And there's a real sense of disappointment when it finishes. And I just wondering, what's it like when you start playing a piece like this? I mean, I would think as a musician, you just want to keep going and going and going and going and never really letting it wind down.

SPEAKER 1: It is difficult to sometimes to end a tune, especially when you're in the midst of it. And it feels-- I don't know. What do you equate it to? It's like making love. You know that it's right. And you're just trying to milk it for everything that it's worth. Sometimes, you can go too far with it. Sometimes, you want to make it stretch out longer than it needs to be because it does feel good.

Just thinking back in the recording studio, when we recorded "Puppy Belly Dance," part of the joy of it is that particular group of musicians who got together and played on it. I think we maybe ran through it one time and then recorded it. And there was only one take of it. That was it.

What was on the CD is what happened in the studio. It was just this surprise of what people were going to play and how it built and where it ended. And originally, I actually was going to have the piece fade out.

So we played it, oh, maybe about a minute or two longer than I was intentionally originally going to have it be. But after I listened to it, I liked the way it just kind of ebbed and flowed and kind of came up and down. And I still was going to-- actually, when we were mixing it, I was going to fade it out.

And Garrison Keillor came in. He was working late that night and came into the studio and sat and listened to it. And he said, no, don't fade it out. I like the way it resolves because it ends on a chord that a tune wouldn't ordinarily end on it.

So it kind of feels unresolved at the end of it. And after he said that, I kind of listened to it for a while. And that idea grew on me. So I kept it that way. And maybe that's part of the disappointment too, is that there is no resolve. It just ends at a place where you're thinking something else should still be there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]