I know a dynamite fiddle player who both reads and plays by ear. I don't know which came first with Chris, but I do know he loves Irish music--reels, songs, melodic pieces (I don't know all the names for the various styles of the music). His playing can get an audience mesmerized; his work is captivating.

Anyway, I was doing an album (33 1/3) in 1980 and for one of the songs needed to have a violin player. That's when I didn't meet him for the first time. He ended up overdubbing two violin parts. Years later, in 2008 I met him at a music festival. So, in 2011 when I was doing a CD I asked if he'd do a few cuts. He did, and I was a happy camper when he did.

I must mention that the music I play is some sort of bastard cross between what songwriters do and folkish music of the 1960s and 1970s with a bit of rock tossed in).

Chris matched the violin to the songs he was on, and he sounded exactly as I'd hoped he would. He can also play well with Celtic music, square dance players, those quartets made up of fiddles, viola-type things, jug band stuff and every-day old rock and roll. He likes some bluegrass, country--in fact I don't recall him mentioning any musics he didn't like.

I don't know quite where I wanted to go with this except maybe to say that people who really love music--your mileage will vary greatly according to your likes and experience/knowledge/inclination, as it should--see that there is a commonality all good musicians share: they love, care for and think about music in one form or other at least more times a minute than people do about sex. Rivers, winds, sky-colours: hell, even the rocks have sounds and songs of their own.

In terms of music itself, what's to say? I hear many good songs, and by that I mean melodies that work well with their lyrics. I hear many poor ones too. But every now and then, along comes Jones. I have written about three beautiful songs in my life, fifty or so better than yer average work-a-day, and seven hundred or so that I threw away because they sucked. I'm working on number four now, but then I'm always working on number four and will be until I nail it. Then I'll work on number five.

I admire the skill of some musicians who can lift music to the heavens, make it take you with it. We wouldn't have those wonderful composers and writers unless we also had the most of us who try hard but miss it by t h a t m u c h.

I will listen to unaccompanied music if ya hold a gun to my head. Yet, there are some singers/groups who blow my mind. I could say the same about Gregorian chants, doo wop, chorus, opera, choir or speech, and I shall: along came Jones.

I understand why so many people who do love music in its variant guises argue so fervently. It's important. And at the end of the day it is what defines such a big part of ourselves. Boil it all down, and that's a good thing.