[Doug]: Welcome to episode 27 of Feeling Through Live. I have the distinct pleasure to be joined today by Danny Kean. He is an amazing musician who will be giving us a special live performance later in today's episode. But before we get there, we've got plenty to talk about. So, Danny, let's, let's just hop right into things, you know, I'm gonna throw you a fast ball to start off, but you know, one of the ways in which you were introduced to me, and this is not a word that people throw around lightly, but you are obviously now a very successful adult musician, but you started as a child prodigy. I, you know, again, I know that's not, maybe not, we don't necessarily like to call ourselves prodigies, but I know everyone else has called you a prodigy. Can you kind of walk me through the start of your relationship with music and how early that started in your life?
[Danny]: That's an easy one and a fun one. And I could talk about that all day. I played since I was two, my mom loved this family doctor, one of those old style family doctors, where they smoke in the room with you. This is the meaty stuff right here. And he, you know, she brought home a blind kid and brought him to the doctor and took a look at my hands and said that those are piano hand like these big square hands. And he goes, there are a lot of great blind piano players. So, my father's uncle was a very well known Catholic priest. He brought Martin Luther King to New York in the sixties, and it's a big deal in Brooklyn. And he bought me my first keyboard when I was little. And that's what I started playing when I was two years old and I could play anything I heard without too much of a problem. I was not a great student, at first, and then a couple of things happened when I was probably about 11. My sister started to get really big into music and we were really, really tight, you know, living next door rooms and going in and out of each other's places all the time. She would bring records home and we would play to them. We both learned them and she couldn't believe how quick I could figure things out. And that's where I started to really get into it. And it became very obvious that this was something I was meant to do to some degree. I didn't know how, or which way, and that would lead me down a lot of paths, but that's where it really started to take off from me. And that's where people started to notice, because when you start playing with records, you have to learn really fast, not only what you're hearing, but how to fit into it. So that made me, uh, a guy that everybody wanted to be in a band width, and that included people of all ages and really brought me out of myself in a big way. And so I was really thankful for that.
[Doug]: You know, I never, I know one thing I know is that I don't have piano hands because. Mine are like not very dextrous. And I can, a couple of times I've ever sat in front of a piano trying to reach the keys that I imagine you're supposed to be able to reach are not easy for me. So, I think, I definitely don't think I share the piano hands with you there, but you were, so how old were you when you, when you first like sat down and started playing?
[Danny]: Probably about two or three. There are pictures of me playing before I could walk.
[Doug]: Wow.
[Danny]: And, you know, it was just something that you take for granted because you're interested in everything. I liked science and math, and I found out that math skills are very tied to music later on that it's not a coincidence that that all goes hand in hand. To me, music is taught wrong. I think that you got to get kids interested in what they hear first, before what they play. I didn't get a lot of that growing up. I, you know, they teach you these classical pieces because they are very good for your hands to learn, how to coordinate, but they're not particularly interesting for a kid and you're not going to see the beauty in them until you really start hearing stuff that you want to play for me, that's just how it works. And maybe, you know, they do work together because when it's time to play the stuff I wanted to hear and want to be able to play, I already had some of the knowledge that you need to do that. So maybe it's not wrong, to me, if I had a kid in my life and I thought that really had an aptitude for music, I would try to find out what they're interested in first. That's all.
[Doug]: Yeah, no, that definitely makes sense. So did you get started in the traditional way then with like classical songs? Is that what you first started with?
[Danny]: Yeah. Yeah. I learned all of the Bach minuet, the inventions and all those things for your hands, and they're very important. But they're not the only way to learn and I was better at learning other things. I had perfect pitch. So if I hear it, I know exactly what the notes are. I just got to figure out how to make my hands do it.
[Doug]: You know, when we're talking about, when I think of like a prodigy, you know, my mind goes to, like, I'm thinking of when I've seen depictions of like Mozart as this like tiny, like tiny child playing these like intricate songs in front of the King is kind of like my association. But like when you're, you know, when you're someone who has perfect pitch and you start playing at two years old, is that something where like, how long is it before you're like playing like Bach or Mozart? Like what, how quickly does that happen when you have that kind of gift?
[Danny]: I was probably in first or second grade, by the time I learned those. I certainly wasn't, as prodigious a talent as those people you're mentioning at those ages because classical music was in at that time. And what people wanted to hear was super intricate and the peer pressure to learn. It had to be different when I was a kid, you know, R.E.M. And Nirvana and Guns and Roses and all these things from the R&B side. You had Jodeci, and you had these things that you could learn and that's what I started to grab onto. And that would bring me to all sorts of things, including a love of radio. And that's how I got really deep into all kinds of music. So I wasn't a great student and I think that's, cause I wasn't exposed to things that really interested me. At those ages I could play, it just didn't interest me that much. It just didn't mean more when I would hear something and my brothers and sisters would flip out that I could do that. And, and the attention of your friends and teachers and school mates and all that stuff, those things are really important when you're little and music definitely got me in that way. And, after I started learning things that are interested in me more, it wasn't so much practice. It was fun. And I look up and I was in junior high and I would sit down at the piano and I look up and it was hours later and I'm still digging on this thing I'm figuring out. And, and that's really how I think music has to be taught, but I could be completely wrong.
[Doug]: Well, we have our first question from Barbara. She says that she really loves the lilt and rhythm of your speech. And she's just wondering where you're from.
[Danny]: I get that a lot. I am from Long Island, New York. And I was for a long time as a teenager and early twenties, I was groomed to be a Baptist preacher. And I played for church and, backed up a lot of the greatest gospel talents in the world at those years, mostly as a guitarist actually. And, so that's really where my speech took an interesting turn. I always had a bit of that, whatever that is. And it was always sort of there, but it got more severe and I haven't lost it yet. So I get that a lot.
[Doug]: So you said that that was something early on for you. Was that, when was that something that you like transitioned out of? I imagine you're positing in a way where that's not the case anymore, but like for what period of time was that, um, your musicical life?
[Danny]: Probably 19 or 21 I started doing that and probably about 22 or 23 when I stopped. And, yeah, that was an interesting period and I learned a lot and, I take it with me wherever I go, some of the skills I learned.
[Doug]: So I want to walk back a little bit here. You know, we obviously have established your prodigious skills from a very young age here, but, you know, I want to talk about, you know, obviously there's a long lineage of really amazingly talented blind musicians and you're someone who was born blind. And obviously that's only a part of the story there, but I'm curious kind of what your journey was and how, like how your blindness intersected with your musical life and also just kind of your life as a child growing up. So, I mean kind of going back to kind of just, can you walk us through like the beginning of that and your kind of like earliest memories around that?
[Danny]: Well, as far as being a kid goes, I didn't really know why I was different. Someone had tell me, and that was a really traumatic thing. But I don't think there was a playbook. People who are totally blind, like I am, are so few and far between in the world that there really isn't enough of a community. For my parents, I mean, they talk to other parents of blind kids and this is the best they could come up with and they did the best they could with what they had and they were incredible. But there really wasn't a playbook for how to tell someone what their deal is and what makes them different than somebody else. And that was a traumatic thing. And there's nothing, you know, hindsight is always much clearer, and there were things that I'd love for, you know, to be different about that. But that's one of my earliest memories, just finding that out.
[Doug]: You know, what's interesting, sorry to cut you off there. It's interesting, you know, you mentioned, you know, I think something that comes up a lot on this platform, certainly something that I've learned a lot about over the last few years, is, you know, I'll first use the example of the deafblind community, but, you know, I think a lot of people who say, know nothing about the deafblind community assume that everyone who is deafblind is completely blind and completely deaf in that there's no, they don't understand kind of the spectrum of the manifestation of that. Similar to blindness, you know, you're describing the difference between someone who's born blind versus someone who maybe loses their vision over time, or maybe has partial vision. And how that kind of, there there's different, I guess you could say kind of like subsets within the overarching category of blindness, but you were just saying that there aren't a lot of people who are born completely blind and that kind of makes you feel like you're in a different category than other people in the community. Is that a fair thing to say?
[Danny]: Well, definitely. You know, when you're a kid, you dream of being all sorts of things, firemen and police officer, an army man, and an oceanographer and all those things that kids go through. And there comes a moment when you realize that that's not, what's going to be your destiny and that's not open to you, and that's hard on a kid. And you can't talk to your parents about that because they'll be bummed and they don't have any experience with that. So all you're doing is making their life darker. So you keep that to yourself. And I don't really have, you know, I knew blind kids, but they were different than I was. They were much more scholastic than I was. I was a wild kid. I was a lot of fun and a big personality. And so I didn't see myself in them. So not only did I not hang with them, probably as much as I should have or could have, but I've definitely didn't talk to them about the bigger things. Because I didn't see myself in them as peers. I felt like they were both ahead of me and behind me in certain ways and whether that's right or wrong, that's how I felt. And so I was very much all alone with these things, but I knew that there were way more sighted people than there were blind people like myself and that if I wanted to live in their world, I had to hang out with them. And I had to figure out how to get along with them and how they could get along with me. And my parents made sure that I had those experiences that I went to regular school. I was the first kid in New York state to go to public schools. There was a huge court case about it and that wasn't a fun way to start school, but these things needed to happen. And because these things happen to my generation, it won't happen to other people. And it wasn't easy. I went through a lot of discrimination in school by teachers, people that just, you know, when they went to college, you know, whatever community college they went to, these people did not have teaching the blind on their list of things they wanted to do. And it was really hard to deal with that. But I had a wicked sense of humor and as much as they embarrassed me and treated me badly, I could embarrass them and treat them badly. And I had the upper hand cause I was a kid and a kid can embarrass somebody way better than an adult. And it was tough. It was a really tough existence, but my home life made up for it. I had great friends, great family, my sister and I were super tight and it gave me access to a lot more people than things that I would have in a different situation. And it made up for how rough, a lot of the situations I was in had to be.
[Doug]: You know, there's so much in there that you were, that you just shared, but I'm just curious, you were talking about being the first in Long Island in a court case. Can you just expound upon that a little bit? Because I mean, what I'm gathering from that is that you're saying you were the first kid who was blind to go to a public school in Long Island?
[Danny]: New York. New York state had never had a blind person in public school prior to 1989. And I was the first and there were a lot of reasons about that. Teachers had objections to it because they felt it would be distraction and inclusion was the new word of the time. And it's still a word that gets thrown around a lot, but that's what it meant, the opposite of exclusion. And it was something I had to go through so that other people didn't.
[Doug]: So, you know, obviously in certain ways, you know, I'm sure a lot has changed since that time. And in other ways, I'm sure there's a lot of kids still dealing with a lot of the same things, but I can only imagine being quite literally the first in New York state comes with its own particular challenges. You talked about it being not just challenging with the kids, but, but also the teachers, but maybe can you go into a little bit more about, you know, you talked about early on not knowing that, you know, not really having this awareness that you were like blind in the sense of different from other people until a certain point. Can you talk about how that understanding of yourself was molded particularly, you know, among your classmates and what that experience was like as a child?
[Danny]: It really didn't present itself as much of a thing. Kids are pretty amazing. They have to learn very, very well what different is. They know you're different, but they're different too. And they're so busy worried about themselves that they're not really casting dispersions on each other. That's why it really isn't a thing until someone tells you it's a thing or until something comes along, that makes it a thing. And what first, uh, made it a big thing in my experience was sports. I was a very popular kid in elementary school and around the same time the music really grabbed a hold of me, sports were grabbing a hold of a lot of guys and girls, and that became the new hierarchy, who was good in sports. And then there were the music guys and we were nuts and I became one of the guys and that's where it really became being blind was different in a way that separated me from everybody else. Other than that, people were very good to me. A lot of people, you know, took being my friend as something of a challenge until they found out that I was fine. And then it wasn't so much a challenge as, you know, look at the neat guy we brought into our thing. So kids were amazing. They really were looking back. I didn't really get made fun of a lot, really ever by kids. Once sports became a thing and you know, all that stuff really, you know, takes whole in junior high and high school, I wasn't so much made fun of at all. It was just, you know, I was acknowledged for other things, but not as much as other people were and that's part of life. And that makes you focus on those things you're strong at.
[Doug]: We have a question from Hillary who's watching and she asks, being the first blind student in your school system, did you have challenges accessing materials and did you get everything you needed in braille or was it a battle? What was that like?
[Danny]: It was a lot of work. I had an incredible itinerant teacher that I'm still very, very close with to this day from third grade all the way through senior high school. And she made sure that she got everything that couldn't be in braille, like textbooks and stuff like that. Those things of course could be in braille, but she got, you know, any assignments or worksheets she would braille those out so I could read them. And, so, the answer is yes, I got what I, both through state services and through this itinerant teacher who really made sure that I did well and wouldn't let me slide. And, a lot of people would just, so it wasn't their problem and she never let me slide on anything.
[Doug]: You know what I find an interesting, it makes sense now in hearing it from you, but I find it just interesting that, you know, the way in which you were talking about how kind of kids are kind of dealing with their own stuff at that time that they were, they were less of the problem than maybe some of the teachers. I guess like that that's not where my mind would go immediately, but the way in which you explained, it actually makes a lot of sense. And I've certainly heard some other parents with kids with disabilities who've mentioned similar things. So now that's kind of coming up for me as well, but I'm curious if you kind of, you're talking about just so back to the music here, you were talking about how, you know, initially you have this gift right away, but you're not really that serious about it. You're not really working at that much. And then at a certain point you really, you know, fell into it and really had a passion for it. Can you tell us a little bit about that transition from, you know, this kid who's, you know, sat in front of a piano at two, had perfect pitch, picked it up really quickly, but wasn't necessarily that inspired to work that hard at it to a kid who, you know, really becomes, it starts to become like the main thing in your life?
[Danny]: Well, yeah, that's, that was a magic time. For me, I didn't really have ambitions to be anything because like I said, there becomes a time where you realize when you're disabled, that not everything is open to you. There hasn't been a disabled president, police, chief, all these things that, and I'm not saying that these things couldn't happen, but they're probably not that likely for a kid of my generation. And I was smart enough to realize that. And I think that, I realized that this is something I really cared about, and I didn't think there was any, you don't know when you're 11 or 12, why something means so much to you. It just does. And learning these things really meant something to me and it felt good. And I started to really get into the story of what this was and forget it. When radio became a thing in my life, there is so much to this day, there's so much great radio out there for free. You don't have to go to a store or buy anything because the kid has no money. If you knew where to tune in and knew how to mess with an antenna - and boy, did I become good at that - you could hear the most incredible music from all over the world at night. I mean, I used to get in trouble for that, but that was a big thing for me, was radio and hearing this music and how it all connected and how it all, the most modern thing you heard you could, what if you really wanted to, you could trace it back to the beginning of recorded music and then try to figure out where that came from before that, and it became this big, a mystery that I wanted to solve. And I still feel like that to this day. Like I get crazy talking about records and artists, and it's really a passion that has brought me through some really rough things that would keep anybody away from it had they experienced the love and the passion always brings me back.
[Doug]: We mentioned this right off the top, but you know, now you're talking about when these influences that really started to come in for you and really finding that passion, you know, certainly there's quite the long lineage of blind musicians, you know, dating way back. And certainly throughout time, I'm wondering how much, how much those musicians were an influence on you, how important it was to know that there were blind musicians that were, you know, considered right up there as the greats along everyone else. And, also just who were other influences of yours, whether they obviously be blind or sighted or, you know, what were other musical influences?
[Danny]: That's a great question. I didn't think about it until later, but so many blind musicians were influences of mine and I didn't, it didn't dawn on me how serious that was until I started to work as a professional musician. As a teenager, the expectation of greatness that people put on you is so heavy that you really work hard to live up to that. Now I'm still trying to move up too, so of course the Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, there's a great pianist named Marcus Roberts that's blind. He's probably around today. He's a great teacher, mostly. George Shearing is a great blind pianist. Jose Feliciano, great, you know, flamenco guitarist, and singer. There are so many, forget it in the blues world. There was an incredible amount of, of talented folks. I could talk a month of Sundays about that. But a lot of my early influences were guitarists, just because that was a big thing around here. And once I figured out there was a pitch wheel, these wheels on a keyboard and you could, you know, yeah, you do country on it, all these kind of moves like that. I, that really drew me in it and I didn't get more traditional. Like I was really good at those things, a jazz guy that was really into that was Chick Corea. I was really into that style. It wasn't till you start, I had to start working that I got more traditional in my playing and I'm really learned what this instrument and other instruments meant. I play a lot of instruments, but you know, it all leads back to the piano and it always starts there and it always ends there.
[Doug]: I'm going to just take a quick pause here. We're gonna do an interpreter switch. And all right. We're all set there. So it's hard not to feel that when you start, you know, I love, I love jazz and I love, you know, like, you know, when you're, when you were just showing your examples there, it's hard to not like, you know, feel that like, and really, really vibe out to that for sure. So I can definitely relate to that. So, you know, so you've kind of painted this picture, just kind of walking through the chronology here. You know, if again, now we're at this space where you've really kind of like found your passion for music and you're really kind of more invested in it once you really kind of find your place in it. What can you kind of walk us through that and to kind of a little bit more to like where you are now is, you know, again, going from this child, like child musician to someone who's does it professionally, day in and day out now.
[Danny]: Oh, that took a lot of work. Uh, it takes a lifetime of dedication. It's one of those, even though I'm not a great formal student, I work harder than, uh, I don't, you know, I guess maybe doctors, you know, put crazy work into their study throughout their life. But most people don't, most people, you know, you can go to college, so they give people a piece of paper, so they could do something. And, you know, they do that for 40 hours. This is a thing that you wake up thinking about how to do it better and how to do it different and how to put yourself into it. And you go to sleep, trying to do that. And there are points in between, but that's always on my mind. And so as a kid, you know, people tell you that you need something to fall back on and that just made me want to do it more. And you know, you tell me I can't do something now I have to do it. And, so there really was such a social thing in the music, and once people find out you can do something valuable to them that is hard to find, you will find the right friends and the right situations for you. And I continue to find those. And it really has made a way for me to travel. And, so that it really started as a teenager just going to things and meeting people and introducing myself and having cool people, introduce me to cool people and learning from them and learning what to do and what not to do. And it's a constant study, but I really cared about it so much. I want it to be a part of it so much that it was fun in a way that most people would find difficult. I found it really fun. And, my advice to anybody is say as long as you're not hurting yourself or somebody else or say a lot of yes, when you're young, if someone asks you, if he knows something, say yes, and then learn it, if you don't know it already, because the opportunities that yes creates for you are unbelievable and you might even surprise yourself. I know I always surprise myself by saying yes to how much I can learn and how much I can expand what I know and what I do. I hope that answers the question.
[Doug]: No, absolutely. And that's such a great message too. You know, I think of, I think of this, you know, in musicians and athletes, you can be, you can be born with great talent, but if you don't, if you don't say yes to things, if you don't lean into that, that talent can only take you so far. Right. So like, it needs to be a marriage between your, in your case, like really deep, you know, God given talent, but combined with, I'm sure it didn't really take off for you until you started to say yes, until you started to lean into it in a way that actually it's the combination of those two things that really creates you as an artist I would imagine.
[Danny]: Absolutely. And I think that as much as I know, people without as much, you know, given aptitude for it, I think that having it either could make you lazy and think that you could just lean back on it and you're probably right to some degree, but there will be the next person that has it and worked with it. So in other words, I feel like I'm always trying to catch up to how strong at this I was supposed to be, and I never live up to it. And I don't, I don't know if I ever will, because every time I think I know what I want level-wise I maybe get past that. And there's a new thing that comes along. So I think that it's a marriage. If you don't have the aptitude for something, keep doing it if you really love it, but be patient with yourself. If you have the opposite attitude for something you owe it to the universe. So whoever you believe in, God or genetics, however you want to look at it, you owe it to that thing to be the best you can be at it. And I really believe that, and it's pushed me through so many things that most people you probably would have stopped because of, and I keep going and I keep learning.
[Doug]: We have a question from Rubi. She asks, can you copy, like, I guess she's saying, can you copy any music? Just like BB King. So I guess she's asking, can you just like hear something and just play it?
[Danny]: Oh, yeah. You know, some things I have to put, my mind always can hear what it is. The trick is in memorizing it and then making my fingers do what I've memorized. So, you know, I can read music in braille, but if you want to show me like that, you need to give it to me a couple of weeks in advance because it's a very slow form of reading. It's divided into different hands. So you learn the left hand part and then to learn the right hand part and try to put them together. And that's great. And I'm glad that there's a way of notating that I'm just not great at it. So I prefer to hear it and then put it together and work through it like that. So yeah, I have a really strong skill for that and a good memory if I, especially, if I like something, if I like something it's done, I got it.
[Doug]: Can you, you know, I, I've never thought about reading music in braille. You know, I don't know braille myself. I have like a basic understanding of say, like reading a book in braille, but can you, can you talk a little bit more, I mean, about what that's like, how it differs, maybe reading music and what it's like reading music in braille?
[Danny]: Reading music in braille is very important if you want the exact timings and notations for stuff. And that can be very enlightening. It taught me much more about writing music than it did about reading it and playing it. But for, it's a very archaic way. If people didn't have recordings, they learned like this. And what they did was you write down the right hand part with certain signs that denote it from the left hand part, and then underneath it, the left hand part is written. And then you have to memorize those both cause you can't. I mean, even if you can learn and play while you're reading with the right hand, you're going to have to switch and that's hard. And then you're going to have to put them together, which means you can't be reading at the same time. So it's all, it all boils down to memorization anyway. So, it might not make me a great fit for music programs that exist in the world, but for my money, I get it done a lot quicker just by hearing it and having the...music is funny. One of the things that's amazing about music is that it's very predictable. There's a mathematical code to why things work. And you can guess if you know your music well enough, your theory and why things work and where they go. You could show me something I've never heard and I could play along with it and guess where it's going next. And I'll probably be right. And so it makes you have confidence that you will figure it out. Because there's only so many ways it could go.
[Doug]: It kinda sounds like, I mean, again, this is coming from someone in myself who is musically ignorant as far as, really I'm an appreciator, but not a musician myself, but it sounds like you're kind of, you're describing jazz kind of in its purest form in the sense of, and particularly like kind of the riffing element of like a live jazz piece where you have this kind of understanding of it in what you're describing is like in a mathematical sense as well. I'm sure also just a really intuitive sense. And is that what kind of like allows you to riff in a situation like that, that you're like hooked into the DNA of it in a way that you can kind of like know where it's going without having known it before?
[Danny]: That's definitely the idea. There are certain kinds of jazz, especially that their goal is to not lead you where you think it goes, and then you have to do the math on that. And that can be, uh, feel a little more like homework, but I can do that if I have to. I'm not the greatest at it, but it's not foreign to me.
[Doug]: So, you know, I think why don't we, why don't we get set up for your song here. You know, as we'd mentioned earlier, Danny is going to be playing live for us right now. So Danny, why don't you take a moment to get that set up for that? Let me know when you're ready and, for all of you who are watching right now, now would be a good time to share this stream with other people so they can join him for our special life performance here. I know I got a sneak peek and, you're certainly not going to want to miss it. Danny is a tremendous talent and we all know that during these times where live music is not something we're getting enough of, certainly to get any form of that is really important. So as we're getting set up here, feel free to share that stream. If you're on Facebook, just hit the share button. If you're watching on YouTube, feel free to copy and paste and send that link to anyone you think might enjoy. And, we're gonna get, we're gonna get into in just, just moments here. So Danny, why don't you let me know when you're set on your end and then we'll hop into it, but take your time.
[Danny]: Right. Great. We should be ready.
[Doug]: Cool. All right. So, um, why don't we, if you could just tilt the camera up just a little bit more there, because we're, yeah, that's, yeah. Maybe even just a touch more. Perfect. That's perfect. So, yeah, Danny, why don't you just, let us know what your playing and then just go right into it.
[Danny]: This is a tune of mine that I wrote about all the things that I've missed out as a blind person, and yet how I can see people for who they are and care about them as strong as anybody else. And that's really what counts in this world. And, it's off of the first album I put out of my own and, it's called I See You. Not like the hospital room. sung I can't see the forest and I can't see the trees. I can't be no tourise, there's no sites for me to see. I can't even see my family growing up so fast, or look back on my memories from a not so distant past. I see you, you're all I want to see. I can't see the scaring, that has formed around my heart. So I have to say I'm sorry, cause sometimes I fall apart. I can't see my reflection, no. no. With your love and affection, there's no need for vanity. I see you. I see you. Because there's no other vision that matters to me. I see you.
[Doug]: I'm applauding you right now, Danny. That was beautiful. Really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that today. We're really, really fortunate for you to lend your musical talents to all of us today. That was really beautiful. You know, you'd started to set up, tell us a little bit about that, but, you know, now that we've got a chance to experience and hear the lyrics, can you just tell us a little bit more about like where that song comes from for you and what it means to you?
[Danny]: I think that, personally I've always felt, that I might appear inadequate to others. I think that, we are animals first and foremost, and although intelligent animals with smartphones and all that, we are capable of extreme judgments on one another and on ourselves. And I wrote that song because the only thing I've ever been good at as a human being is to make people feel good and to be a good friend. And most of being an entertainer is being a friend that someone hasn't made yet. That's why we get so invested in the lives of celebrities is because we feel like we know them and we see ourselves in them. And I wrote that song because I really care for people. And when I care for people, I feel like that's the only way I'm ever on equal footing with people. And that is the honest truth of where that comes from. And, I hope it means a lot to people because it, it means a lot to me every time I get to perform it. And it's a really special song.
[Doug]: Well, you know, beautiful song and certainly, you know, your extrapolation of what it means to you, where it comes from makes it all the more beautiful and certainly something, you know, some of the themes that you were just talking about there is something that's certainly near and dear to us here at Feeling Through. You know, a lot of, kind of what Feeling Through and then subsequently Feeling Through Live, and this whole platform was born out of is really forming connections with others and from the deepest parts of our humanity, regardless of whatever differences we might have. And I think that's something that you're certainly communicating in that song and also just what music and art has the ability to do. So I think that's such a, you know, what you're sharing there is such an amazing example of that. And it's kind of like most fundamental and beautiful form there. So thank you for sharing that. Well, we still, we still have like about 10 minutes left here, so I'd love to touch on a few more things here. You know, I'm just curious, you know, certainly, this is a very unique time for everyone, but certainly musicians. You know, it's something where any sort of live performance is something that is not really easy to come by in this time. And certainly, you know, gathering together in any sort of crowd for a concert is something that who knows when we're going to be able to do that again safely. I'm just wondering, can you tell us a little bit more about as a musician and one who I understand, you know, plays live very often, what this time has been like for you during the pandemic?
[Danny]: It's been a time of great reflection. I haven't really worked in the traditional sense in about six months and I was really looking forward to doing the things that were on my schedule and didn't happen. And we don't really know what kind of business we're going to come back to. Is remote concerts the wave of the future? Is that where we're going? Are there going to be places for us? Are people going to be scared to come back, even when you know, things have changed either through vaccines or therapeutics? I don't really know what's ahead. So what I'm doing is working on myself in a big way. I had some health difficulties a few years ago and the middle of those health difficulties I found out that I had been born with a birth defect where my tongue was kind of tied like with the little cord in the front of the mouth. And I got surgery to alleviate that, but I've had to learn how to talk and sing completely, absolutely different. And I've used that time to practice like a crazy person and really work on my thing and work on what it means to really love this thing and to commit to it in a different way, when you don't have a gig, some people would allow themselves to falter until there is. And I'm like, you know, what if I really want to come out of this better then let me put the time into it. So I've used it for good things for myself. And what I've been doing is Friday nights, I do a Facebook live show for free. A lot of people have, you know, had to use virtual tip jars and PayPal and all that stuff. And the universe has lined up so I don't have to do that for the time being. And so I don't. And so I take whatever I've been practicing that day. And I do it for people and people all over the world. A lot of well known musicians and people I've known my whole life and people I've never met and never will meet watch. And then Saturdays, I do a Twitter live. So, and people watch all over the world for that. And that's really a lot of fun. And that's been on a whole new skill set. I'm such a crowd...you wouldn't think a blind guy would care if there's people around or not. But the energy of live music is really funny, especially the kind of things that I do. I do about it, rhythm and blues and so rock stuff, and some jazz stuff, old soul music, and it's all about having fun with people. And I love to joke around and, and to learn how to do that without anybody around it has been really hard and a valuable skill that I think is gonna help me in recordings and live taping was and all these different things. So I don't believe there's ever anything that we learn that makes us worse at something, whatever we learn about our craft about ourselves. If we choose to use it for our betterment, we can learn something. We don't always know how, but it will come out later how it was valuable and purposeful for us to learn that. So I'm using this time to really get better at these things. That's a really figuring out what I want to do next, whatever that is.
[Doug]: Yeah. You know, certainly can relate to you in the sense of, you know, a lot of what we do on this platform is, you know, sharing, you know, the film experience, The Feeling Through Experience that we do. And we were, we were having the great privilege to take that around the country and do it, you know, as these in-person, really diverse events that certainly we've had to pivot as well. And like you were talking about some of the silver lining of that is in doing it, you know, as a livestream, you get to connect with people around the world that you might not have gotten to connect with otherwise. So there is something really interesting about that. Certainly it's a time to like, learn new skills, like you said. And I'm wondering what, you know, as far as if people want to check out your regular shows that you do, can you tell people where they can find that?
[Danny]: Well, my Facebook is DannyKean12 or Danny Kean and Friend's Band. Those are my Facebook pages. And it's on both of those. And my Twitter profile is at Danny Kean music and Kean is spelled K-E-A-N. That's a little different, but, if you Google me, all of these things will come up and my albums are available on all the streaming platforms and Amazon and all that stuff. And so, I'm easy to find hard to lose, and I hope you'll find me.
[Doug]: Well I know I'll be tuning into some of those. And I hope everyone who's watching is. So with the final couple of minutes we have here. I'm just wondering, you know, we've gotten a chance to talk through a lot of stuff, but certainly there's, I'm sure an endless amount if we have more time, but is there anything kind of anything that we haven't talked about or any kind of like parting thoughts that you want to share?
[Danny]: One thing I think it's important to realize for anybody that's going through something that makes you stand out, you know, a way that's different and, uh, uh, might make you the target of curiosity is that you represent something more than just yourself. When I pre pandemic, we go to the city and take trains and, and meet people. This was the most likely the first time they've met a blind person. Uh, and so how they feel about our experience meeting each other, represents so many more people. Uh, and I wanted it to be a really positive one and somewhat might say that that's not incumbent upon us, but it is because we are, uh, people who judge one another and we judge each other by the experiences that we have with one another. And so when people meet me, I try to make sure that they have a good representation of what blindness can mean and what being a person can mean and it's not the end of the world. And it can be the start of a different world. And I hope that I've done that. And I continue to learn how to do that and I think it's important for us to be kind to one another whether or not we understand each other. I think that these are times of great division and those tactics have been used throughout history to conquer great swaths of people at the time and we can choose not to be part of that by loving people with whom we don't have a lot in common. And when we do that we might find that we do have a lot in common. So I try to make my life about that. And if I can do it for somebody and you can do it for somebody we can change the world. And that's all we can do as human beings. We can decorate the small corners of our world in the best ways we can, and hope that the ripples from our good behaviors and deeds and treament of others can make it easier for the next person to feel more connected with them. And I hope that makes sense, and I hope I'm not talking crazy. But that's how I feel and something that's important to me.
[Doug]: I know I'll be tuning into some of those. And I hope everyone who's watching is. So with kind of the final couple of minutes we have here, I'm just wondering, you know, we've gotten a chance to talk through a lot of stuff, but certainly there's, I'm sure an endless amount if we have more time, but is there anything kind of anything that we haven't talked about or any kind of like parting thoughts that you want to share?
[Danny]: One thing I think it's important to realize for anybody that's going through something that makes you stand out, you know, a way that's different and, might make you the target of curiosity is that you represent something more than just yourself. Pre-pandemic, we go to the city and take trains and, and meet people. This was the most likely the first time they've met a blind person. And so how they feel about our experience meeting each other, represents so many more people. And I wanted it to be a really positive one and somewhat might say that that's not incumbent upon us, but it is because we are people who judge one another and we judge each other by the experiences that we have with one another. And so when people meet me, I try to make sure that they have a good representation of what blindness can mean and what being a person
[Doug]: are able to articulate that so, so poignantly and certainly a great way to wrap up this episode, a great sentiment. And so happy to be able to have you on today, and certainly hope that we can connect again in the future. And, you know, maybe you'll be able to come back on and play some more music for us at some point. We'd certainly love to have you.
[Danny]: I would certainly love that. Thank you all so much for watching and thank you very much, Doug.
[Doug]: Well, it was an absolute pleasure. And again, thank you all for tuning in. This has been another episode of Feeling Through Live. You can find this every Friday, same time, same place, and, until then have a great weekend and a great week ahead. Bye everyone.