My friend, Zoe Trischka just sent me her fifth grade class project, ‘Modern Women in Progressive Acoustic Music.’ She ended up choosing two subjects, myself and Aoife O’Donovan. When she sent me her list of questions I was overwhelmed… they were such simple questions and yet required intense introspection and careful articulation. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the task but tried my best.
I was inspired personally by Zoe’s project. Her questions helped me understand why I play music clearer than ever. I thought I’d make it available to you all in case you might find her inquiries and results inspiring as well. Below you’ll find the full-length interview between Zoe and me.
Zoe Trischka was born in Fairlawn, NJ to mother Assunta Trischka, 7th grade teacher at local public school, and father Tony Trischka, contemporary hero of progressive banjo music. Zoe is getting ready to enter 6th grade. She loves to dance and spends a lot of her daydreaming hours thinking about interior design.
I’d like to thank Zoe for including me in her project…. I’m glad to know the future is in the hands of beautiful young women like her!
1. Why do you play music?
I play music because it makes me feel more fully alive, and it gives me a way to express outwardly what my feeling of being alive is like. Everyday is a new opportunity to express this array of emotion and experience of being human. Music gives me a deeply creative ability to express how I feel things and see things as I go through my days.
Take a sad moment for instance...When I see something sad my mind and body deliver me tons of information about my experience of that sad moment. i usually feel a heat in my belly that turns cold and leads me to feel afraid and lonely... i can see a deep blue color, deep like the place in the ocean where the light on the surface starts to fade... this feeling and color leads my intellect to search for way to express this to the people around me that might help me feel better. Often i just express myself with words and emotion... but the most meaningful way i have ever expressed the feeling of sadness is to sing... to cultivate a sound that releases the heat and coldness, the darkening color. And when I sing I can share this experience of sadness with others in a way that unites us in a moment of attention to sound and, ultimately, gratitude for what it means to be alive. I've seen over and over again that singing heals and inspires. i can see no greater purpose in life.
2. Who were your influences or inspirations (musical or otherwise)?
My biggest influences musically are my friends, family, teachers and all the personalities and artists that made me think and feel the way I do. My favorite piece of music from when i was a small child until now is Martin Luther King's I have a Dream speech. They say he was speaking but I think he was singing. Not only did MLK have something so important for the American people to hear but he presented it with such gorgeous syntax, vocal lilt and chest voice conviction. It is the most beautiful song of hope I've ever heard, and it makes me want to sing for freedom and love.
Other huge influences are Gandhi, my teacher in China Lao Wang, the great old time singers Hazel and Alice, the old recordings of George Washington Phillips, the amazing gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, the old time banjo playing of Riley Baugus and Dirk Powell, the great African singer Oumou Sangare, the folk music-oriented classical music of Bela Bartok, Chinese Folk music, Woodie Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and the list goes on.
All of the other musicians I get to share time with on the road, and see perform have a heavy influence on my music as well.
3. How do you think your music differs from the women who came before you (in Bluegrass & Old Time music)?
None of the women of old time music in the US that I know of had spent a lot of time in china, and sing in chinese. I suppose it is because of the modern age of travel and easy access to personal experience in other cultures that has made me a different kind of folk singer. I'm a product of my times to a certain extent. And I can see that people are becoming more and more of a global race.. I am probably just one of many early signs of this. Women of old time music in the early twentieth century were playing the folk music of their times. The generation prior to mine, folk revival of the 60s and 70s were obsessed with preserving and copying the sounds of the folk music. I am the newest generation and I am obsessed with incorporating my experience of a transforming geopolitical reality into my folk music.
4. Did you mean to have your music sound so progressive, or did it just happen?
It just happened. I lived in China, came back, bought a banjo, started writing songs in both of the languages I speak, and before you know it people thought of me as different and expressive... and I've embraced the role! the most authentic progressive concepts seem to be those that organically emerge from a world in need of a next step of evolution. i believe that this can not be conjured but must be an expression of a concept with an already intense inertia.
I was inspired personally by Zoe’s project. Her questions helped me understand why I play music clearer than ever. I thought I’d make it available to you all in case you might find her inquiries and results inspiring as well. Below you’ll find the full-length interview between Zoe and me.
Zoe Trischka was born in Fairlawn, NJ to mother Assunta Trischka, 7th grade teacher at local public school, and father Tony Trischka, contemporary hero of progressive banjo music. Zoe is getting ready to enter 6th grade. She loves to dance and spends a lot of her daydreaming hours thinking about interior design.
I’d like to thank Zoe for including me in her project…. I’m glad to know the future is in the hands of beautiful young women like her!
1. Why do you play music?
I play music because it makes me feel more fully alive, and it gives me a way to express outwardly what my feeling of being alive is like. Everyday is a new opportunity to express this array of emotion and experience of being human. Music gives me a deeply creative ability to express how I feel things and see things as I go through my days.
Take a sad moment for instance...When I see something sad my mind and body deliver me tons of information about my experience of that sad moment. i usually feel a heat in my belly that turns cold and leads me to feel afraid and lonely... i can see a deep blue color, deep like the place in the ocean where the light on the surface starts to fade... this feeling and color leads my intellect to search for way to express this to the people around me that might help me feel better. Often i just express myself with words and emotion... but the most meaningful way i have ever expressed the feeling of sadness is to sing... to cultivate a sound that releases the heat and coldness, the darkening color. And when I sing I can share this experience of sadness with others in a way that unites us in a moment of attention to sound and, ultimately, gratitude for what it means to be alive. I've seen over and over again that singing heals and inspires. i can see no greater purpose in life.
2. Who were your influences or inspirations (musical or otherwise)?
My biggest influences musically are my friends, family, teachers and all the personalities and artists that made me think and feel the way I do. My favorite piece of music from when i was a small child until now is Martin Luther King's I have a Dream speech. They say he was speaking but I think he was singing. Not only did MLK have something so important for the American people to hear but he presented it with such gorgeous syntax, vocal lilt and chest voice conviction. It is the most beautiful song of hope I've ever heard, and it makes me want to sing for freedom and love.
Other huge influences are Gandhi, my teacher in China Lao Wang, the great old time singers Hazel and Alice, the old recordings of George Washington Phillips, the amazing gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, the old time banjo playing of Riley Baugus and Dirk Powell, the great African singer Oumou Sangare, the folk music-oriented classical music of Bela Bartok, Chinese Folk music, Woodie Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and the list goes on.
All of the other musicians I get to share time with on the road, and see perform have a heavy influence on my music as well.
3. How do you think your music differs from the women who came before you (in Bluegrass & Old Time music)?
None of the women of old time music in the US that I know of had spent a lot of time in china, and sing in chinese. I suppose it is because of the modern age of travel and easy access to personal experience in other cultures that has made me a different kind of folk singer. I'm a product of my times to a certain extent. And I can see that people are becoming more and more of a global race.. I am probably just one of many early signs of this. Women of old time music in the early twentieth century were playing the folk music of their times. The generation prior to mine, folk revival of the 60s and 70s were obsessed with preserving and copying the sounds of the folk music. I am the newest generation and I am obsessed with incorporating my experience of a transforming geopolitical reality into my folk music.
4. Did you mean to have your music sound so progressive, or did it just happen?
It just happened. I lived in China, came back, bought a banjo, started writing songs in both of the languages I speak, and before you know it people thought of me as different and expressive... and I've embraced the role! the most authentic progressive concepts seem to be those that organically emerge from a world in need of a next step of evolution. i believe that this can not be conjured but must be an expression of a concept with an already intense inertia.
5. What is your biggest or most significant contribution to Bluegrass or Old Time music?
Probably the Chinese... or the global sense of being a folk musician. I am not acting a part, I am internally all the things I express in my music... this is not necessarily a contribution but a necessity of our changing times.
6. Do you wish to have other women follow in your footsteps?
I love nothing more than seeing women feel full of the ability to share music. I wish that every woman in the world felt she had a voice to sing the struggle and joys of life. I also love seeing women playing instruments. The stronger women's voice become in music, the more the beauty of femininity will add to the power of music.
7. Do your band members contribute to your musical success and/or progress?
Band members are a huge part of the sound and experience myself and the audience experience during a show or on a recording. I've been very picky about the people I want to work with and I get pickier everyday. I don't mean that I'm picky about the musical hang... I love folk music because it's not elitist, it's about everyone making music... ilove being a part of this community. When it comes to the small group of musicians that I take the time to make recordings and performances with, I become very picky. i need to work with people that share a common mission to move the audience in a similar way. It's like a sports team with a goal of winning... you create rules and strategies for success... and if every member is not on the same page, the important stuff falls thru the cracks, and it becomes hard to "win". I need to work with people that feel like they’re on a team. I need total empathic and virtuosic commitment to a common sound. I have high ideals!
8. What are your thoughts about the future of progressive acoustic music?
Well, I think the future of progressive acoustic music should help influence the way we as humans morph further and further into a global species. I want my contribution to music to change the way people think about the term world music. I would like to see music help dissolve the barriers between people... the barriers of nationhood, race, gender, class. I would like to see us calling ourselves global citizens... keepers of the earth, keepers of a world civilization full of miraculous diversity that gives us richness of experience rather that reason to find fault.
9. Can you comment on Alison Krauss and Aiofe?
In my eyes both Aoife and Alison are phenomenal and talented women. They are so strong and beautiful and uncompromising of this in the presentation of their music. They are both magnetic creatures. I look to both of them as cohorts in the music world... i watch them to see how to change and grow my music. I watch them to see how they navigate the music industry and I take notes on their successes. I can feel that the greater their success the greater mine as well. I would like all of us to be on stage together some day singing.
10. Is there anything you’d like to add, especially about your music?
i think i've said enough crazy stuff!
go banjo!!
zoe rocks!!!!
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