My name is Amos. I am a 33 year old man of Italian descent living in the Northeastern US who is lucky enough to have a job performing and teaching music. Specifically, I perform and teach folk and classical music from the Turkish, Arabic, and Northern and Southern Indian traditions. There are two main reasons I am writing this blog (which is certainly something I never expected to do): I often am asked how I came to be involved in these traditions and the work that comes with the intense travel and study of Indian and Middle Eastern music, and writing this blog will help me to answer that question both to myself and friends, students etc. who may be insterested; and secondly, I'm writing this simply as a way to tell my own story of musical discovery to myself so that I don't forget it. I am particularly interested in sharing stories of the amazing teachers I have had around the world who have not only given generously to me musically, but who have, through their remarkable examples, shaped my world view and helped me decide what kind of person I want to be.
I also want to share my experiences studying and performing music from cultures outside of that into which I was born; it is a unique experience and has brought me to places both geographically and artistically that I would never have imagined finding myself...Music has compelled me to go on journey after journey, from teacher to teacher, from stage to stage, always with the same goal: to serve the tradition. As a traditional musician, this is the best I can hope for; that my continuing study and practice of traditional music accurately recreates a cultural phenomenon and delivers it to the audience in a way that allows them to experience the tradition in the way in which it was intended to be received in its own context. This takes a great deal of work, and working toward this takes a lifetime. My Guruji in India (about whom there is much to be said later) said to me once, "Our music is an ocean, and to drink it in this life we are given only a small spoon." I am always aware of the enormity of the task of learning and performing traditional music from anywhere in the world; there are only so many spoonfuls we can drink in a lifetime and the ocean certainly does not get any smaller. It just stares back at us, challenging us to continue the task for its own sake.
This will be a story of curiosity and travel, frustration and practice, performance and failure, success and embarassment. But mostly I want it to be a story about hard work and the simply awe inspiring masters with whom I have been fortunate to live, learn, and perform with around the world and here in the US. I will tell you about the traditions and places that have given my very ordinary life meaning and passion. It's difficult to know where to begin; but I think I will start in Jonesboro, Tennessee, USA, in the early 1980's, watching my father play the guitar with his friends.
