“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus
Working on a recording project with the Aces reminds me of this lesson in three ways.
- The group might be named the Aces, but it’s never the same singers, and it’s not the same repertoire. They aren’t the people who recorded our first album in 2011, and they aren’t singing that music.
- If I recorded the same group next week on the same music, it would still be different, because they would feel different, interpret differently, interact differently.
- I always have new ideas, new approaches to try to get us to our ideal performance of a piece. What I tried in the studio tonight is something I never would have thought of five years ago.
These are all good things. We want the music to have life, to breathe and change. We want our students to bring their whole selves to their work. We want our own approaches to grow, develop, and deepen with time.
It’s not the same river and we’re not the same people, but the spirit in which we venture out into it makes all the difference.