Lynn Ragan

My mother was always singing or playing records of different kinds of music while I was growing up. The I started playing guitar in the third grade - I took lessons from my sister's best friend. Almost 40 years later and I'm still playing. But I discovered that I always had tunes running through my head. And then one day I realized they were my own tunes and not something I was remembering. Sometimes these tunes in my head were so strong that I forgot where I was, or what I was doing. I'm used to it now, and I always have a melody or harmonic structure, some kind of riff rattling around in the back of my mind just looking for the right medium.

My music is about my soul. Every time I try to put it into a box and define it, or limit my music to one kind of form/genre, I get writer's block. So every tune, piece, riff, whatever is different from everything else I've committed to paper. And I do mean paper, I end up sketching a lot of my stuff out on standard staff paper before going stepping in front of a microphone. It's coming from me, from my life, from my questions, from my soul.

This is a hard question for me since it is very rare that I get to interact with other musicians is a collaborative situation. Being isolated means I have to try to hear more than what I can play in my own hands. I would just depend on what kind of music my current thought was tending towards.

My challenge has always been not allowing myself to be type-cast into a certain type of musician or composer. I didn't get involved with the PowWow circuit, and sing with all those fantastic singers, because of the New Age movement. I did it because these people were my friends, and I respected their intuitive musicianship - their ability to render a song in a live situation and interpret the mood of 500+ dancers on the fly. I played flute for them because they shared melodies and stories with me. In return, they asked my to play songs and interpret the tune to make it fresh. I write blues when I feel blues, I write Gospel when my faith takes me some place new. I write fun party songs, when my family inspires me to chill out and remember my fun side. It is all one to me.

I hope to take stillness and set it into motion. I hope to take the colors of my soul and create a texture that is vibrant in the air, attractive to the heart and soul of people around me. I want my music to connect with the souls of people around me.