Content area
Full Text
There was a reason Jason Mraz of Local 325 (San Diego, CA) waited until he was 18 before taking his first serious plucks on the strings of a guitar.
"I didn't see anything out there in the world that excited me about it; I didn't see any singer/songwriters that impressed me--at the time anyway," he recalls, adding that a prior exploration of music took the form of piano lessons. But as soon as he was shown a couple of chords on the guitar, he became addicted. "It was a magical experience and I got hooked on it."
Having found the perfect outlet for creativity, Mraz knew what he'd need to do with those six strings if he wanted to stand out. "I made a vow to myself that I didn't want to do anything that's predictable."
Mraz thought a lot of music he was hearing sounded just like a lot of music he'd already heard. "I felt like before a song was over, I could sing along. I knew how the song went. So I wanted to do something unpredictable, and that's still kind of my philosophy."
When he sits down to write a song Mraz says he tries to challenge himself to go in directions that surprise him, and that affect him and make him feel something. "I make the song difficult to sing, and the words difficult to pronounce sometimes, or make the songs have eight different meanings."
...