Dan DeChellis

My relationship with music…and its relationship with me.

As I write there is a running sequence and respelling of chords going on in my head—a function that never seems to stop unless I am asleep, listening to music or performing music. Some might say I was crazy or neurotic; I would simply say that I am consumed by music. Leonard Bernstein once said, “You don’t choose music, it chooses you.” I would have to agree with that, yet choosing to make music my life, as clichéd as that may sound, is what I have done. I am a pianist who not only performs on a regular basis but also teaches during the week, runs a record label and composes more than the average person.

My relationship to music is one that I cannot honestly separate from myself—it is what, perhaps, makes me who and what I am. I have been submerged in music for as long as I can remember and have never faltered from its course. I have become a fan of all types of music and have collected its recordings and scores for years. It is not a hobby or a passing interest; it is everything, occupying an equal chair next to family and friends and quite often surpassing them in importance.

I began by studying classical music like most young pianists—Beethoven, Bach, Mozart—yet, upon discovering jazz I began to love the rush I got from improvising. I am Italian and a notoriously sweaty person when I perform, but only when improvising. When performing written music or rock music, perspiration is at a relatively normal level, but when I am improvising, composing quickly, I sweat just thinking about it. I think it is this process of immediate creation, interaction, discovery and urgency that brings this about. I am fully consumed down to my toenails with what I am doing. I have seen videos of my performances and they truly scare me. It seems as though I transform myself into another person. I can recall a performance I did of a Rachmaninoff Prelude in college.             There was a moment in which I remember watching my hands thrash about by themselves, or at least that’s the way it seemed. I was no longer in control: they were, or something else was. I suppose one might call this an out-of-body experience. I told my teacher at the time, who was waiting for me after my performance. He said that was what happens when you truly know a piece of music: It begins to play itself.

Unfortunately for me, that was the only time this ever happened with written music, yet I knew that the feeling I had discovered was like nothing I had ever experienced, and I wanted it to happen again. Not only was it exciting, but the audience and my teacher were apparently very moved by my performance as well.

As I completed my Masters degree in classical piano, I began to realize that improvising was what I was meant to do. I can recall improvising in the practice rooms for hours and having fellow students and a few professors come in to ask the name of the piece I was working on, and when I would tell them I was improvising, they would be dumbfounded. I suppose one takes many roads and eventually figures out where one is supposed to be headed.

Since then I have immersed myself in performing and recording improvised music. That is not to say I am not involved in many other projects, from a rock band to my own jazz trio and ambient electronic music. I believe it all informs the others on some level. Another teacher of mine once indicated that he thought I needed to focus. I believe I have finally come to that realization as well, and I have decided to focus on music and all its definitions.