Music For Healing

Musings on presence vs performance.

“To be what we are, and to become what we are becoming, is the only end in life.” Robert Louis Stevenson.

My earliest childhood memories about what I wanted to _become_ revolved around music. I spent countless hours curled up behind the heavy oak stereo cabinet in our living room, eyes closed wearing headphones much too big for my head listening to classical music. Worlds would open up inside my head, and I would travel over landscapes created by sound. Melodies painted landscapes and monuments on the horizon, the ground shifted as chord progressions moved, and birds would arrive in clouds of strings and woodwinds riding the waves of music.

By age 5, when anyone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always “Mozart”. I loved the complexity and geometric sound fractals of Mozart, unabashedly melodic and daring and fearless to explore boldly.

I was lucky to have a baby grand piano in the house and I spent my hours tinkering with it instead of playing sports or video games. It was obvious I had talent - or least a strong musical inclination - and classical lessons soon followed. I studied classical piano until my early teens, and loved learning the repertoire and playing the classics, but what I really wanted was to create my own sound worlds. I can distinctly remember showing up to a lesson with much pride, as I had not only learned the etude assigned but I had embellished it and created variations on the main theme. My teacher was visibly upset. He strongly admonished me for changing the material, and went on to mock my changes and let me know how childish and uninteresting they were. Message received, a career as a classical pianist is about performance not creating new worlds.

That was the end of my fascination with classical piano, and I drifted away from lessons and playing all together for a while. I was definitely not becoming Mozart, and the years and years of dedication to technique just to learn pre-written material did not appeal to me. It wasn’t until my early 20s that I rediscovered my love for the piano, though in a completely different form.

By that time my career in electronic music as a producer was already underway, and I was beginning to get gigs, release on compilations, and make a name for myself. I was invited to help curate a monthly ambient music event called Project Cathedral in San Diego. Over a period of many hours, a selection of musicians would create soundscapes while people laid down, enjoyed food and tea, and slowly walked the labyrinth at the center of the cathedral. There was no pre-composed music, and an adherence to strictly improvisational playing in collaboration with other musicians was the guiding methodology for these events.

Instead of music as performance, it was music as presence.

I’ve spent more than 25 years recording, producing, releasing music, and touring around the world in support of those projects. Somewhere along the way, the piano, and the simple act of improvising and creating sound in response to the moment, drifted into the background again. This isn’t a complaint about my career. It has been full of meaning, growth, and contrast, with real highs and real lows. What has become clear to me, especially in recent years, is that something essential was quietly slipping away.

Over time, I found myself moving more by momentum than by curiosity. I was creating inside an industry that naturally rewards output, consistency, and motion. My attention gradually shifted from imagining the worlds I wanted to create, and how it might feel for someone to inhabit them, toward making the kind of work that kept the cycle going. Release music, tour, pay bills, repeat. It worked on a practical level, but it slowly pulled me away from the sense of presence and intimacy with sound that first drew me to music in the first place.

As I approach 50, I feel a calm clarity about what I want moving forward. I understand and accept the relationship between music and commerce, as that comes with the territory. Still, I have been feeling the pull toward something deeper and more connected. A way of making music that feels meaningful in the moment it is created, and meaningful in the way it is received. I am deeply grateful for the letters and messages from listeners who tell me how much this music has meant to them. Those connections are real and humbling. And at the same time, I have been listening to an inner voice asking for a renewed sense of purpose. One rooted less in keeping pace, and more in presence, care, and creating spaces where sound can genuinely serve.

In late 2025, I decided to write some music for myself, specifically as a form of medicine to help with anxiety and stress. Not only was the process of writing incredibly rewarding, but lo and behold it actually worked. For the first time in a very long time, I found myself listening to my own music over and over, and finding solace and peace in the drifting ambient soundworlds. I made some videos, and put them out on my Bandcamp as I figured perhaps other people could find healing in them as well.

I begin thinking more and more about music for healing. What does that look like? How do I consciously step into a practice of creating music for something other than money, fame, success, social virality, gigs, ego and keeping the industry machine fed? It’s been a journey of discovery, lots of painful truths, and something that I’m still working out, but I feel that I have a sense of purpose and passion that I thought I had lost.

I came across a short documentary called Threshold: The Choir Who Sings to the Dying. You can and should watch it, as it’s pretty profound.

Not to wax poetic, but watching this was like a bolt of lighting right to the heart of who I am as a human and a musician. I remembered what it was like to be a child curled up behind the speakers and flying through beautiful musical worlds. I remembered what it was like to just be in presence and play piano in the moment as a response to the person or people who were around me. I remembered what it was like to be listening with my heart and feeling someone else’s energy and letting the music flow through me as an act of connection and service to something higher.

Most importantly, I remembered that the most profound experiences I have had as a musician have been explicitly around transition. It brings me to tears every time I think and talk about it, but I have been honored to share space with a few people who chose my music as their guide as they transitioned into the next life and from those who decided to bring their child into the world with my work as the soundtrack. This is so profoundly humbling and has had a massive impact on me. I didn’t feel worthy to be a part of such monumental life and death experiences, yet somehow I was the vehicle by which the proper medicine came to those who needed it.

It’s been a confluence of memories, rediscovery of purpose, and deep questioning of who I am and who I want to be in the world which has brought me to some huge changes. I’ve let go of not feeling worthy, and decided that I can be of service, I can live a life of purpose, and I can make music in a way that truly matters, which to me means turning in a different direction and diving headfirst into pursuing music for healing.

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.” - William Butler Yeats

I’ve chosen to get some training to become a better musician, a better listener, and a better instrument of healing to those who it is my honor to be able to touch. I am currently enrolled in the Music For Healing and Transition Program (https://www.mhtp.org/), which is a certification in providing bedside music for those in a hospital or hospice situation. It’s about training to become a musician in presence instead of performance, a practice of setting aside ego and recognition and choosing to show up in a way that can ease another’s comfort, often in their final stages of life. I will be playing piano and improvising to help facilitate healing.

This is my path. I see it clearly, and I feel it deeply. I am here to create sound worlds in which other beings can explore and find beauty and healing.

There are other trainings and healing modalities that I will pursue this year (Deep Listening Certification is next), but currently the MHTP certification is my core focus. I’ve been calling it boot camp for the soul, and it will change everything about my future as a musician. Will I stop making albums? Definitely not, and my sincere hope is that this deeper work will inform the music that I make and share with the world and come from a much more resonant place, as I tune in to my own truth and share that as a service to life, beauty, connection and healing.

I know that I can do this work in integrity, and I am excited for the journey ahead. I’ll be writing about my experiences and reflecting on the process and where it leads, so I welcome you to follow me if you are curious.

I do need financial support to be able to focus on this work completely, so I have set up a GoFundMe to cover the first few tuition modules and certifications and the cost of books. If this is something you feel drawn to support, you can find that here - https://gofund.me/e98ec6848

Buying music also helps, and you can find the first few healing focused works on m Bandcamp - https://bluetech.bandcamp.com/

May your 2026 be a year of renewal and new beginnings.

Big love from my heart to yours,
Evan