Everyone is familiar with the idea of music as a universal language, and musicians have talked so much about peace and understanding through music that it sounds like a cliche. Yet, especially in a time of such division and divisiveness, it bears repeating.
Today, as ever, music leads the way in creating bridges between people and cultures.
I’ve been blessed to live among musicians most of my life and it’s always been a place of comfort for me.
As a child I grew up around western music and musicians. I remember sitting on the stairs for hours during my dad’s band rehearsals, listening to the music, the jams, the jokes and the laughter. As I got older I was allowed to go out and help with moving, setting up and tearing down equipment for gigs. At these events I met other musicians from other bands and I noticed the same sense of cameraderie. There are many reasons I love music, but among the most profound has always been the sense of community and connection that seems to surround the creation of music.
As a musician myself, I’ve been fortunate enough to have met, played with, and been inspired by musicians from all over the world. My experience has been that music has taught us to be guided by our ears, and our inspiration, not our preconceptions and prejudices. There are few experiences more satisfying than having a jam session with musicians you just met, sometimes from a culture you know little about and making a deep, profound, connection through music. With music the barriers that separate so many people from one another, cultural, socio-economic, racial, and political, tend to disolve or transform into opportunities for creative development.
The entire history of music is a demonstration of this evolution. Every note that you hear in any type of music anywhere emerged from or was propagated by a relationship.
The Resonance Project is, among other things, another manifestation of this fundamental aspect of music as a unifying force. In our music, the threads are woven across centuries and around the globe to manifest something that we hope is both universal and deeply personal. We are inspired to share this music with anyone who, like us, seeks the fundamental truths of our uniquely human musical experience in the hopes that they too, will be inspired to create bridges instead of walls.
— Julian Douglas, October 2016