Edition #20 – Jorge Mejia answers 7 questions

by | Jun 23, 2022

1. Why are you a musician?

Something I like to say to the artists and songwriters I work with is that you don’t really choose music, music chooses you. Most musicians agree with this because it states something that perhaps many of us feel: there is simply no way that we wouldn’t be doing music, in some capacity or another. As to the why of that, it’s because it chose us.

2. Who are your musical inspirations?

These days: Chopin. Bach. Wagner. Sigur Ros. Muse. Ricardo Arjona. My mom (who was a singer/songwriter). Residente. Camilo. Bad Bunny. Really hard to come up with one or another. There is always something to learn from all music, and inspiration hides in every corner. So the names above are for today, tomorrow there is a whole new list of names to be found.

3. What is your practice routine?

Unless physically impossible (traveling or otherwise not near a piano), I try to play the piano every day. When I have the most time I will start with scales, do sight reading, play a little Bach (working on his beautiful piano Partitas these days) and then focus on whichever one of my pieces I’m working on. If These Walls Could Talk is a demanding 3 movement piano piece, so I’ve been playing it every day, slowly. Play slowly so you can play fast 🙂

4. Why did you make this album?

If These Walls Could Talk
By Jorge Mejia

I wrote If These Walls Could Talk during pandemic. It was a time when we were spending a lot of time indoors and it made me think of one apartment I once lived in, in the heart of South Beach, Miami. That apartment was in a building originally constructed in 1926, and while there I used to think what if the walls could talk, what if this apartment could tell the stories of all the people who lived within its walls during the Great Recession, World War II (when Miami Beach was used as an army barracks), the Marielito influx (Cuban immigration to the US), the drug era in Miami (1980’s) and so on. And out of those stories music happened, and that music is the album.

5. What were the biggest obstacles in making this song? 

The main obstacle has been finding the time to practice enough in order to play the piece the way I know it should be played. Little by little I am getting closer but the goal is elusive.

6. Who is featured on the album?

Composer and pianist: Jorge Mejia

Producer, engineer, recording, mixing and mastering engineer: Adam Abeshouse

Steinway Spirio Piano Model D

7. Where may we find you online?

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