Music is a two way street. Your literacy in an art form is the result of time and effort and experience. You can be given a gift and be good. But you’re not really literate at it until you do it a while.

You develop a vocabulary and the language part of it. To me music is very linguistic. Notes are like letters. Phrases like sentences. If you’re a soloist you’re like a public speaker. Your voice has to be clear and reach the end of the room. You must present your material to hold the listener’s attention.

To me it takes time, it takes life experience, to be really literate.

If you listen to artists over their lives when they’re further down the road, the music has much more subtlety and innuendo and suggestion. It’s not so black and white and clear. There is much more for the observer to decide for themselves. That comes with time.

I’ve traveled the road, but the road gives something back: It gives the ability to speak in the art form. Like right now, I feel I’m more musically literate. I can communicate with the listeners more than ever in my life.