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A Musical Life: Sterling Gray

Nadya Faulx / KMUW

I was born to play music that heals and soothes people. Took me a while to come to that irrevocable conclusion but I’m really blessed.

An instrument, like everything else, is a reflection of your consciousness. It’s just a mirror because people keep their internal thoughts and feeling hidden. If you want to know about a person, watch what they do. I can tell pretty much everything about a guy or a girl by the way they play. I can tell if they’re impatient. I can tell if they get angry easily. I can tell if they’re peaceful people. I can tell if they’re meat eaters or vegetarian. There’s so much you can tell because everything you do: Walk, talk, scratch yourself, is a reflection of what’s going on inside. Music is a total reflection.

The guitar proved to me to be a mental and physical and spiritual economic lifesaver. Because I got to experience happiness between the suffering and most people just suffer and all they have is money and material purchases. I’m not marginalizing that but I realized that very people get to experience happiness and happiness comes through serving others and alleviating the suffering of others. People come in to hear you and they’re stressed out and tired from working. You get to help take their minds off it for a few hours and make them leave happy.

Jedd Beaudoin is host/producer of the nationally syndicated program Strange Currency. He created and host the podcast Into Music, which examines musical mentorship and creative approaches to the composition, recording and performance of songs. As a music journalist, his work has appeared in PopMatters, Vox, No Depression and Keyboard Magazine.