playing notes is the basic idea of music. but it’s an impression, and just a shallow one. it’s not enough to play the notes.
what I really have to do as a musician is everything that is not in the notation (which by the way I can’t read anyway).
the same way I need time with my instruments to piece together notes, I need time with people to understand and interpret them.
it’s the people and their lives I notice when I’m not with my guitar or at the piano that I find so interesting and want to explore through the soundboard, the strings, bridges, keys and pedals.
this is what it means to me to make music. it’s observing and listening to the human heart as it encounters, accepts, and learns to live from whatever rubs up against it. this is what I’m trying to give voice to.
second comes the relief and the joy of putting my fingers on the fretboard, playing in an afternoon when I have no one to talk to, or care to, but me, the musician. it’s being alone in my room but not lonely, surrounded by demons, angels and truths, searching for a song in a quiet, haunted place.
cookie nieves 
Leave a reply to Michele Lee Cancel reply