I Play the Song That Made Me Start Playing Music

The first instrument I ever touched was not the guitar, but the piano. When I was three years old, I began playing beside my grandmother, who was a piano teacher. Around that time, I heard the Bill Evans Trio’s “Waltz for Debby.” The memory has stayed with me ever since. I had barely lived long enough to know anything about the world, and yet I remember feeling something like loneliness, something like sadness. I didn’t have words for it then. But the feeling was there. Looking back, that might have been the first moment I sensed the quiet, almost frightening power that music can hold. Maybe that’s why the idea of one person carrying an entire piece of music began to feel natural to me. Even now, when I play the guitar, that feeling is still there. My left hand holds the bass, while my right hand lets the melody breathe. In many ways, the way I play guitar is closer to the way I once touched the piano. Trying to hold both the structure of a piece and its emotions within a single pair of hands— I think that instinct still comes from those early moments at the piano.