LarsMortensen.com Bio/Blog

I wanted to give some thoughts on what music is to me, how I look at and create it.  These ideas are intrinsically connected with my views on life itself.   I could have easily chased the perfect explanation forever and never posted anything.  Here’s my first attempt…

We all access music in our own ways, and this is the school that I come from.

Music is many things.   It is all around; from your mother’s heartbeat in the womb to the elevator in a hotel.  Music will always be the light at the end of my tunnel.  For me, it is a window to the true essence and connection of all things.  Everything has infinite sides to be perceived, and music is a perfect example of that.  People, objects, situations, anything can become something else, simply from a change in perspective.  Every single day we live, if we pay attention, this idea is proven over and over.  As I say in the liner notes of Periscope for the song Long Way Home, “…this of course is common knowledge… but is rarely lived by for a lifetime.” Like so many important things in this world, I feel like it’s taboo to say, believe, and live by this, but whatever.

Nothing is static.  Everything is alive through the lense of ourselves.  When I am playing/creating music I see it as this same ever-morphing thing.  Not to be owned or boxed, but to be experienced, interacted and engaged with.  Essentially, music is proof to me, if it was needed, that all things are relative.  Everything, from physical matter to emotions and intellect are defined, or given definition and therefore meaning, by their relationship to everything else.

Music is a part of nature. It existed before man.  We just harnessed it and manipulate it (just as it does to us).  Somewhere in a box I have an album a guy gave to me a long while ago of two musicians who went into a a national park or something, and set up shop near a rock formation with interesting acoustics.  They proceeded to jam and their music led to huge amounts of animals slowly coming into the vicinity and essentially jamming with them.  Seriously.  Birds singing licks like they were guitar or sax players.  Other mammals calling in their own way to sing along.  There clearly develops a sense of conversation and interaction between the players and the animals.  Super awesome and totally real.  (Note to self: Dig up that record.)

My relationship with music is informed by my deep respect for it, and from knowing that I may turn on music, but it will never turn on me. I might stop playing, I might get tired of it, but it will never be music’s fault.  Music is a well that can never go dry.  It’s forms and powers are so bottomless that it simply takes a different view to unlock a whole new dialect.  If I get bored, feeling like I’ve seen it all, that’s simply my vision being closed.  Which would be fine if I chose it, but one can never say they have seen all there is to see musically.  The deeper/truer your understanding, the more the oneness and complexity of it opens room to explore.

SONG AND THE ACT OF MAKING MUSIC…
I see all music as being part of one song.  This song is three dimensional, like a sphere rather than a line.  It has no beginning and no end.  Songs we hear are a combination of ingredients taken from this one big mass.  Past, present, and future coming together for that song at that moment.  All music.  One song.

These ideas inform my perspective on making music whether it’s writing or performing.  Some people like to hear and play music exactly the same every time if they can.  To them, a song’s perfect form can be found and then it should be recreated that way forever.  When going to a show, if the band doesn’t sound just like the record it’s a bummer for them.  That’s fine.  As you may well know, I am recording a new record with the band right now and of course we are locking into final versions/arrangements of songs.  You have to do that to make a record. However, when it comes to making music live, I like to look at it from more of a jazz mentality if you will. I want to explore a song forever.  I’m not saying I completely change every song every time.  Not even close.  However, I let my state of mind, body, and soul inform my performance.  In a band context, you try to stay in tune with each other so that the music can grow in the moment, and you can move as one collective mind.  I embrace the fact that the song literally comes through the performers, as well as their instruments, before it reaches your ears.  In many ways I can’t control this element of my music making.  The truth of my feelings at any moment while performing tend to make themselves known.  Many a sensitive fan has told me they appreciate the sincerity this brings to my performance.  I appreciate them for loving and accepting me through my music.

I could go on for days and days, and these sorts of ideas are shared by many.  To those who are on the same page, this whole posting is just stating the obvious.  I am glad to have the chance to share these ideas with all of you.  Welcome further into my world.  I look forward to seeing you down the road.