A musical sweeps you along, like you're on a magic carpet ride of sorts. But you have to keep up.
The musical training taught me to focus my mind, before playing in an orchestra taught me how to truly concentrate. If you miss your moment in an orchestra, there is no forgiving.
Sometimes it's a huge amble, where you're just on top, on the lid, and it's not going anywhere, and sometimes you walk on the stage and from the first note, the afterburner kicks in and you can't stop it.
Lord, when the song wants to pick up and go a little faster towards the end, it's hard for me to resist.
That gets me upset- you're jamming along, checking out the crowd and having a good time, and then your equipment goes down. You can't just stop the show and say, 'Oh, Jeff's got a guitar problem.'
I wanted to write songs that would play themselves on stage, songs that sweep you through their current.
There has to be an interaction of musicians on stage. Otherwise I feel too alone up there. When performing is really good, when it really works, maybe once every 15 shows, it's very special, and you realize that's why you do it.
Music has to be written while people are still excited about a particular melodic or rhythmic sequence. The idea doesn't come out the same if we're not really excited about it.
A cantor, when he starts singing, it's like rain - once it starts, it's hard to stop.
If you listen to the first, second, and third chorus of a song, they don't sound the same. It's the same melody and all that, but what really happens is that the energy changes. It's all about getting the listener to keep his or her concentration.
