Music as Meditation

In a few minutes, I will head to Christ Church in North Conway for a Music as Meditation event. This is the fifth one of these events. I don't expect, despite that number, that it will be anything like the others.

At this one I'm planning to play all solo piece, some written down, others improvised. I will try to use the whole space. I seem to have chosen, without really planning to, several pieces in the same key or at least in the same tonal family. 

I've been thinking a lot about influences, and perhaps that will be the theme of today's event. How another person's musical language affects my own is obvious to me. I enjoy improvising after playing a piece by someone else--it always changes how I improvise. But my voice is still the same despite the influences. 

It is often easy to tell the musical era a composer comes from just from listening, even if you don't know the music. We humans tend to have a huge impact on each other.
Perhaps this has implications for life, too. I will ask a question about influences at the beginning of today's event. I do hope people tell me what they think, here or in person, about this deeply human phenomenon. 

In case you are reading this after the fact and want to attend, don't despair. There are more musical meditations planned.