Lesson Learned: Always Be Open To Collaboration

As I've been exploring different forms of creativity over the last year, I've been learning the true value of spontaneous collaboration, and thought I'd share an anecdote from personal experience.

A friend of mine (and world-renowned santoor player) Kunal Gunjal came over last year and just happened to bring his instrument. For those of you who don't know, a santoor is like a persian/indian hammered dulcimer, rooted in eastern classical tuning and tradition. Though this has absolutely nothing in common with the music I have been influenced by (and compose), we spontaneously decided to see how my piano would sound with the instrument.

What started as an off-the-cuff jam ended up becoming one of the most musically fulfilling projects of my life. As soon as we started playing together, with Kunal riffing on Indian classical "Raga's" and myself adding Western classical chords and inflections, melodies started pouring out. It was interesting to see just how complementary two unlikely instruments ended up being, and what's more, how they could be used to create a sound that's slightly different and fresh.

We immediately booked a recording studio date, and recorded 6 instrumental pieces, and are now in the process of getting a string section together and orchestrating them to complete the album. This would have NEVER happened unless we both surrendered to the musical moment, with no preconceived notions or senses of limitations. I'm very excited to share with you the results of this unlikely collaboration, but what's more important, the lesson I learned through it all:

Say YES to the things that make you uncomfortable -- you never know what interesting roads it may lead you on.