Mickey Hart is most readily recognized for his long-standing work with the Grateful Dead. However his musical efforts have not been exclusively defined by that group, as he has spanned the globe studying, performing and recording music. Over the past decade he has also published two books relating to his passion as a percussionist: Drumming at the Edge of Magic and Planet Drum. In addition, earlier this year Congress bestowed a great honor upon Mickey in appointing him to the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. Most recently he has written and compiled a third book (with Fredric Liberman), a collection of writings entitled Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Music which presents a number of quotations relating to music interspersed with Mickey's own commentary. The following conversation discussed the content of that book as well as Mickey's work with the Folklife Center. For more info on Mickey's many projects, as well as a listing of the dates on his booksigning tour, visit his website at http://www.mhart.com.

DB: That is quite a prestigious, important gig, serving on the board of the American Folklife Center. How much time have you spent working at the Library of Congress?

MH: Quite a bit. The library is the greatest repository of information we have in the world. It has the largest sound collection in the world and that's my interest. So preserving and giving access to these great sonic masterpieces has been a priority for me and I'm spending quite a bit of time in Washington because there is music dating from March 15, 1890, the first field recording ever made, up to the present. Everything that's even been published is in the library. It's a huge repository of music. I think of it as the Oz of libraries

DB: Are you focusing on any one sound or genre?

MH: Not really, I'm concentrating on the whole collection,. trying to get it digitized and preserved. It's fascinating work, great fun and the enormity of it is awesome, mindboggling really.

DB: Is the mission of the Center to preserve the sounds of this country or of the world?

MH: It's the American Folklife Center but we have music from all over the world. It's the world's music we're talking about because that's our greatest treasure. In the Center we have much that it is indigenous to this country: blues, Appalachian music, native American music but it also runs the gamut from Innuit music, Siberian music, Gypsy music, to you-name-it and it's there in the archives. What's happening is these great collections are starting to deteriorate so we're losing their voices and we're not able to digitize. It's a race against time.

DB: Is there anything the public can do?

MH: Not yet. But check out my web site, you'll be able to chart my progress and there will be a place that people can contribute and participate to help with the digitization. A fund will be established next year where people can donate to the effort.

DB: Let's talk about the book. When did you have that moment of epiphany which led you to realize that all these quotes could be published?

MH: I have been collecting them over the years, however my first two books were about percussion and these never really played into that. I just used them as personal inspiration. In my research, when I see a great quote I collect it. I put it away, sock it away in the Anaconda. When it got to be about five or six hundred quotes I decided I should share these with the world. I think the moment, if there was a moment, took place when I showed some of these quotes to Sammy Hagar and he just came unglued. I began faxing quotes to some of my musical friends in the morning. Well I faxed Sammy a few quotes and he just called me up and said "Oh my god these are wonderful, I just keep reading them over and over" So that was what gave me the idea that other people might be interested in them. Funny, but that is what triggered it.

DB: I'd like to read few to you and hear your thoughts. Here's one from Iggy Pop- "The best way to kill your music is to sit down every day and work at it. You got to sneak up on it and catch it when it's not looking."

MH: That's really what you have to do. Music is feeling. Once you start thinking about it then you overdevelop it. It should come from the heart, the soul, and the subconscious. It's a jam thing. Music is all about the moment, and if you think about it then you're already in the next moment. Good quote, good quote. Good quotes are hard to find, by the way.

DB: I'm curious about this- in the book you've also added some commentary as well. In one place you write that "the performer must listen to the quiet voice beneath the surface to connect to the music. The performer must listen to the hall, the audience, the instrument, and the other performers." I'm interested in how one listens to an audience.

MH: There are three ways of listening, with the ears, with the eyes and the heart. You can make visual contact and make sure that the audience is in rhythm with the music and that gives you a synch, a connection. What you do in music is look for connections, both to the audience and to yourself, deep inside. Then there's the aural connection- how the audience sounds. Are they festive, are they joyous, are they somber? Then there's the one from the heart, the spiritual connection, the compassion and love you feel that's being exchanged between the audience and the performer. These three things are the cornerstones and the building blocks of great performances both for the audience and the performer. The audience has the same connection the performer does, they're just looking at it from different sides of the stage.

DB: A bit later you talk about the Grateful Dead's sound and you say that over time, with the technology that evolved, the "silences were quieter." What do you think is the value of silence?

MH: It is essential. When you take away that auditory signal, the ears perk up, The ears can only take in so much at one time, so the spaces in between the notes become the most important. In the Grateful Dead that certainly was the case. It's called dynamics but it's also called taste, you get a good taste. When you give something and then take it away, it becomes a conversation, because the ear is listening. It also gives you a moment to gather your thoughts and start a new musical idea. I think of it as a sentence with commas, exclamation points, periods, semicolons. All of these are the silences.

DB: How about this Miles quote "It took me twenty years of study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it." That doesn't seem like the ethos that you bring to a show.

MH: I can understand what Miles was saying, because sometimes you just can't understand music. It isn't necessarily supposed to be understood. This woman was looking for answers and music doesn't always give you the answers you want to hear. Music is a mystery, and that's what Miles is saying: this is mysterious even to me, how can you understand it in five minutes, it took me twenty years to get here and I don't even understand it. It's not supposed to be understood, it's supposed to be loved, appreciated and used as an energy to make the world a better place. It's not an analytical thing where every vowel and every consonant has to be accounted for.

DB: You quote Bill Kreutzmann the book who describes entering a state of 100% bliss through performance. How often does happen?

MH: It used to happen at least once a night, most of the time. There were moments when I would get into some kind of bliss state. We were able to find that bliss but it was fleeting, always fleeting. It never lasted all night.

DB: You include a Cecil Taylor quote in the book which describes music as "the magical lifting of one's spirits to a state of trance...It's not to do with 'energy' It has to do with religious forces." I would like to hear your comments on this.

MH: It's the sacredness of music. Music transcends reality. It heightens your awareness and brings you to an altered state. When you go into an altered state, you leave behind your pains and aches and the business of the day so that new priorities may appear. That's what some call the sacred dimension, and it is what you might call religion. It is the sacred within each of us, as you start thinking about the higher things in life: love, compassion, your children, your wife. There's a new heat in your body which is filled with the feelings that you usually have when you walk down the street. Music is that kind of energy that releases some kind of fluid or maybe it's adrenaline. We don't know what it is but science is about to find out.

DB: So you think there's a physiological component?

MH: Absolutely. It's vibration and it works on the brain. What part of the brain, what frequency, what rate, how is the brain different after a musical experience, all of this is being studied. Melody, harmony, rhythm. The big science is now looking at that. We know that rhythm has to do with trance, ecstasy and rapture, and the more interesting auditory driving studies have to do with rhythm.

DB: Here's a final one which ties in with the with the title of your book: "Music is not an escape from reality, it is an adventure into the reality of the world of the spirit." So let me ask you, how hard is it for someone to turn spirit into sound?

MH: It is easy. All you need to know is that it can happen. Once you realize that you are toying with a very powerful energy then you can use that. Once you realize it can be used in healing and that it has therapeutic qualities, then you can use this feeling to uplift and make a better would for yourself and others. You just have to realize that this is not a gift to be squandered. It is not a luxury, it is an necessity . It is one of the prime forces of the evolution of the brain and of us as a species. If you use it to practice trance and ecstasy, you will evolve and contribute to a better world. You just have to know what it is. Most people don't. Musicians know, and some great listeners and lovers of music might know. The general public isn't really aware of its power but I hope this book and other projects like to will focus them.

DB: To what extent do you think it matters if the music is live versus on tape?

MH: They both have their good points and bad points. Listening to well-recorded music at home on your $20,000 speakers in a beautiful environment is terrific. But it is also great to be sharing air with 20,000 people vibrating to a giant p.a. with a real live band in front of you, and participating in that ritual. They both have their ups and downs. You have to get in your car, drive, get searched, go into a cold coliseum, finally make it out, buck the traffic...At home you don't see other people enjoying the music and have that visual hit of the band, and the smell of the amplifiers. They both are different and they both are fulfilling.

DB: What role do you feel the internet can play or will play in terms of people's interaction with sound?

MH: It's the giant octopus which can relate everybody to everything. It is a gift from the gods I think. The internet will allow people to hear the most obscure music and fall in love with it, music that has no place in Tower Records. How much Pygmy music does Tower Records carry? The internet was made for indigenous music, the music of cultures from around the world, and I see it as a savior for the world's music. That goes back to the Library of Congress which will be available in a digital domain over the internet, eventually.