Steve Marchena: The Man and His Music

How will you know the pitch of that great bell

Too large for you to stir?  Let but a flute

Play ‘neath the fine-mixed metal: listen close

Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill:

Then shall the huge bell tremble - then the mass

With myriad waves concurrent shall respond

In low soft unison.

-George Eliot, “Middlemarch”

Steve had just finished his first set at Paradise Cafe, Dedham, MA.  He is sitting in his chair.  His left leg is lifted as his left foot is rested on a stand.  His guitar is fitting just right and he begins to hold his guitar.  You imagine he is pondering the music he is going to be playing as he only has the song list to remind him of what he is doing.  The rest is all in his head; he likes to live in the music or does he like the music living in him?  Given how he played and what he chose to play in the first set, one can make the assumption Steve has been playing guitar since he was born or at least three years old.  Someone asks, “Steve, when did you start playing guitar?”  As if taken out if his present musical realm, Steve lifts his head slightly up and looks to the crowd.  Steve answers, “13 years old.  I was a late starter.”  He finishes speaking with his big smile and sits upright.  Someone asks, “How did you choose the guitar? How did you know that was the one?”  Steve comes across as a very “quick learn” (and he is) and he answers questions in quick step, but he ponders this one, not so much because he does not have an answer, but he does not have an answer that translates into one that would be satisfying for the questioner.  He seems to restart the answer formulation over and over again, but he needs to get to the next set, so he finally concludes, “I don’t know.  I just knew it was the one…for me.”  With a smile he moves into his second set.  

Now imagine you are driving in your car.  You turn the radio on and you set the dial to your favorite classical music station.  Let us just say, a beautiful piece of classical guitar begins to pour out of your car speakers, into your ear, and fills your soul.  You respond to it, positively.  You have no idea who is playing it, you have never met them and you don’t know of them.  You can say the music speaks for itself and you can enter into it and it into you.  You may wonder, who is making this wonderful music.  

Why is it important to know who plays the guitar, the music maker?  Is not the music enough?  As we are drawn to live performances of our favorite music, we are drawn to see and to know who is playing the music.  Steve Marchena is electrifying.  He is acoustic in his solo classical persona, but he has the ability to convey electricity, electrical intensity, and electrical joyous virtuosity that hits the audience and can only be experienced live.  Steve, himself, offers another avenue into the music, through his being and presence; he offers hints into his passion, what he sees the music to be, in and through him.  In this way, he offers a new level or offering for us to enter into the music that we commoners call: The Steve Marchena Solo Classical Experience.  We long to know the music maker as they add to the music and make it all the more relatable and the music becomes altogether different as it is now experienced in and through the knowledge we gained by knowing the maker.  This makes the music not just uplifting or pleasant, it can now grab you and pull you up right next to him and you feel that he is playing to you, for you and for music.  

Lets get to know Steve Marchena.  Originally, this writeup was going to be split into two parts: Steve Marchena the man and Steve Marchena the musician or the music.  It was concluded that to really know Steve Marchena, you have to understand him and his music at the same time.  If you separate one from the other, a truth of both realities is lost.  We proceed with what George Eliot starts her thirty-first chapter with:

How will you know the pitch of that great bell

Too large for you to stir?

When you meet artists, locally or internationally known, you often find something about them that is common among them all, but yet this commonality is nested in enough difference that their talent can only be considered uniquely their own.  One thing that is common is dedication to their craft, whatever that craft may be.  Dedication can be defined differently by different artists.  One artist of vast talent (unreal talent) can spend a few hours a day and be able to display grand artistry beyond normal measure.  While another artist is good, but transcends into a new level through numerous hours practicing with endless vigilance.  Steve Marchena may be both, but he would put himself into the good that becomes excellent through much practice.  “King of Practice” would be a term one could use, but that would be a mistake; it falls short of something.  At the heart of Steve’s identity is the performance guitarist.  Practice is essential, critical!  However, it is not what truly can be called “where its at.”   Performance is where its at.  All is for the performance art.  He lives for it.  He loves it.  It is hard to truly understand what brings a musician to love performance so much that it gains such gravitational force it seems to demand all of their being.  Maybe performing is what makes all the work worth it in the end: the moment to perform, allowing for the possibility to play beyond the music, but not to lose any of it.  One has to believe that a musician that has true love of performance also experiences what that love gives them in their preparations for that which they love most.  Steve Marchena gets that, knows that.  

“How will you know the pitch…” is the question.  Steve knows of that great bell that is too large for him to stir.  Steve’s passion for guitar is multifaceted and each facet is equally weighted in depth and breath.  This passion has been validated within himself in such a way that he is aware of the great bell George Eliot is talking about.  In this case, the great bell is that guitarist Steve wants to be.  Steve is well aware of what the bell could be for him.  He has the ability, perhaps the time, and, more importantly, he has the love that will make it all possible.

Depth and breath in any one discipline is all demanding for most.  Steve started out as a rock-and-roll star want to be, Steve had dreams of being Eddie Van Halen. Oh, that was my dream maybe not Steve’s.  He did want to play rock guitar like the best of them and then maybe even better.  He lived for that moment and gave the fuel (the practice) needed to produce such live ability.  You can imagine that becoming, lets say, Eddie Van Halen or even a “better” version of him, would be enough for someone who wished to be a rock and roll guitarist.  Steve was not satisfied.  Surely, he was happy when he was able to play and thrash like the professionals of his teenage era.  It was not his ability he was not satisfied with.  He knew there was more.  It is like opening a door to a new room, one that is not lit.  You light a candle and you begin to understand there is so much more to explore, so much more to be.  In short, the guitar called for him.  Guitar itself does not know different types of guitar.  Steve’s good friend, Penny Larson (a drummer) states, first be a drummer.  In essence, being a guitarist includes all forms of guitar.  To make the argument that, for Steve Marchena, the great bell that is too large to stir, is being a guitarist, not a rock guitarist alone, is more than reasonable.  

You can imagine what joy one can feel as you discover the opportunities in knowing you can grow into all forms of the guitar.  If you are filled with joy playing only one form, think of what is possible with all forms guitar.  Steve Marchena has seen the great bell, he is well aware of its existence for himself.  The question is, has he become a guitarist?  How will Steve know?  According to George Eliot the great bell will produce a pitch unique to itself once it is able to be rung (actualized).  Steve is actively, tirelessly, reaching for that actualization.  

Steve Marchena is a great guitarist.  What we are talking about here is from Steve Marchena’s knowledge of himself and the guitar.  He is the only one who can say, “I am now a guitarist.” Steve is looking from within for the evidence, he is approaching that great bell and he is waiting for it to ring.  

“Family is so important, Home is so important; it is the stage where so many things are set.”  

- Mary Howe (New York Poet Laureate)

Steve Marchena’s mom was a musician.  She played violin, guitar, and harmonica.  His grandmother and grandfather are musicians.  His grandmother plays piano and organ.  Both his grandparents met at the New England Conservatory.  As Steve’s guitar interests are all intertwined, so are his family dynamics.  You can imagine how enabling it was to see so many people playing music at various levels in practice and performance.  To learn from those closest to you what is important to them regarding training and performing: what it is to be a musician.  Steve’s foundation is home, but he has travelled far on his own.  Like his music, he desires to go beyond them, but does not lose any of them.

Steve’s mother died at nineteen years old.  In the wake of this loss his grandmother and grandfather moved in and adopted Steve.  When Steve choose music as a way of life at thirteen years old, Steve began to keep his mother alive in and through the music he was playing.  This may have been implicit, but now it is explicit.  He has stated as much himself.  You can see the fire within him was ignited by his home and continues to burn brightly in bringing his own musicality to all new territories and levels, but also to keep the loves of his life alive and flourishing.  In some ways, it is a tribute to his mom and his way of keeping her alive.  To bring what his grandparents are for him forward as well.  The fuel of his musical fire is of the right kind: the most vital, loving, and meaningful relationships of his life.  When he plays live, you can feel, at times, he is transcendent; beyond himself and the music he is playing and not losing any of it as he goes forward with it.  People can feel this, see this; hence the Steve Marchena experience.  You can imagine he is with everyone and not alone up there.  Even music itself is with him.  

George Eliot moves on to a flute:   

          …Let but a flute

Play ‘neath the fine-mixed metal: listen close

Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill…

This fits in nicely with the present day.  We left Steve Marchena in his internal understanding of who he wants to be and a guitarist is it.  He is well on his way to making that bell ring something awesome and the world will hear it!  However, Steve has evolved in his understanding on how one can achieve the highest actualization of one’s dreams.  This understanding came at a price as all good knowledge is surrendered.  Steve almost died.  The nature of the health issue is not really important, what is important was Steve was facing his end and he realized he is not who we wants to be yet and wanted the chance to become more.  Lucky for all of us and himself, Steve lives.  Part of the verification of his calling in life is from this experience.  More importantly, Steve brought a “Flute” into his life. Terry started out playing clarinet, but always dreamed of playing the flute.  She too is actualizing this dream.  Steve and Terry have a way of empowering dreams to reality.  Interesting that a flautist has come into Steve’s life. Perhaps Terry has read George Eliot’s work.  

The metaphor of the flute goes beyond the flute, but does not lose it.  The instrument by which the right note(s) flow forth to resonate the big bell that is too big to stir comes from life experience, from friends, family, lovers, and from within.  Steve came from a musical family.  Maybe he inherited all those musical genes of the ages, he has a biological musical mom that kindles a musical purpose for him, he has grandparents that provided real life musical images of reference, he has great friends, he has Terry, and most importantly Steve has brought them all within, and he has become present as a musician himself.  Steve Marchena has all of that and we all support him, come together with him, and know that a moment will come when he not only senses the low soft unison of that great bell, but sustains it.  The arrival of Steve Marchena happened a long time ago with his biological mom, but who Steve Marchena wants to be will be and will remain. 

A buddhist monk once said that the Buddha reached enlightenment and wrote down 88,000 insights before he too died.  It was asked, “Did the Buddha have a bad day after achieving enlightenment?”  The monk said she did not understand.  It was stated, “Once in enlightenment did he stay there all the time, never coming down?  I mean, 88,000 insights implies He was flying high for a very long time.”  The monk smiled upon realizing the question, “Once enlightened always enlightened.  Enlightenment means a state that is always and being enlightened means always enlightened.”  In her way she said that once you achieve enlightenment you are enlightened, that is it.  Once Steve Marchena’s great bell starts to resonate with low soft unison, it will change Steve and the world.  Steve Marchena will be a guitarist and once he gets there, he will always be there.  He is in a state of transcendence when he plays.  At moments in the playing, time seems to slip, the music becomes constant, but not static; we move beyond the moment and time surrenders to the truth of what Steve knows can be made present in and through being a guitarists.  One just hopes, when it happens, they are in the audience.  

If you are not in the audience, you will settle for just hearing those waves concurrent from afar.  Once you know Steve has made it, the smile that was mostly on Steve’s face when he plays will become yours too.  

When Steve plays he is most happy and you can see that on his face.  The music itself brings him home and brings about the greatest joy of his life.  He loves to share it with everyone through performance.  We are lucky to be alive with Steve Marchena.  Usually, you only read about what people like Steve have done and all you have is their writings and music.  We get to witness the arrival of Steve Marchena, the guitarist, live and in living color.

Then shall the huge bell tremble - then the mass

With myriad waves concurrent shall respond

In low soft unison.

I don’t know about you, but I hear a smile!

I hear a bell starting to resonate

Myriad waves, Myriad waves, 

concurrent

low

soft 

unison…