Mike Stern – HuffPost 7.23.12

Mike Ragogna: Mike, what is your advice for new artists?

Mike Stern: I would say play your heart out. It doesn’t matter what you play — rock, country, classical, all of the above. Music is a universal language of the heart. You can say things that touch people’s emotions better than any other language. That’s what’s amazing. You have to learn the vocabulary first. You can’t play your heart out when you’re learning a new language. Like any language, you can’t speak when you’re just trying to order breakfast. At first, you’re going to learn words; it’s a good comparison. After a while, you have a fluency and you can play gigs. Make sure your heart is engaged in whatever the song calls for. That energy, music vitality, is the most important thing, eventually.