Derek Mortland

By Derek Mortland

Where have I come from? I’m not really a late starter to music. I destroyed my first drum set at around age 5 or 6. I played a variety of other toy instruments in my youth, including a guitar which eventually had 2 strings left on it.

By the time I was 11, I was starting to figure out a few songs. I think my parents heard me play “Another One Bites the Dust” one too many times, and decided it was time for lessons.

Lessons continued and my skills progressed. By the time I was in high school I had formed various bands with friends playing at churches, school dances, outdoor events, and eventually college bars. I was also playing in an instructional jazz group around that time.

After high school and through my twenties, I continued to play with different punk and heavy metal bands. I drove one drummer nuts by composing several pieces in varying time signatures, sometimes changing them three or four times in a song. I still like using 7/4 and 6/8 in my solo 12-string compositions.

I filled my need for speed and appetite for destruction by pursuing motorcycle roadracing in my twenties. After six years in the sport, my future of walking this earth came to a sudden halt when I crashed into an outside retaining wall, running part of a NASCAR oval at over 120 mph. I was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. That was thirteen years ago.

I thought that since I still had use of my upper body and arms, playing guitar would be a cinch. Not so. It took over a year before I could really say I was playing again. Hours of determination and dedication as well as hard work with a physical therapist put me in playing shape again.

My main adaptations were learning how to hold the instrument differently and using alternative tunings. Many of the pieces I now compose use DdAaDdGgaadd and CeGaDdGgaacc. These allow me to have several open drone strings. The position in which I hold the guitar makes it difficult to do a lot of fancy fretwork, holding down multiple strings at once.

A brief post-accident discussion at a guitar clinic with Richard Leo Johnson helped me to realize music is not always about technique and perfecting a technique, but feeling the music and concentrating on contrasts. More than one color makes a picture interesting. Thinking of music and composition as painting a picture is different than seeing something to technically master. It is said that a picture tells a thousand words. So if I can paint a beautiful picture rich in hues and contrasts with the music, what do I need to say? And what does the listener care about technical prowess? As Louis Armstrong said, “If it sounds good, it is good.”

It seems to be working so far. I’ve played in music festivals from Australia to Washington D.C., was nominated for two Native American Music Awards with Michael Joseph Ulery and SOTIW. We also won the Ohio Governor’s Arts Award in 2009, and I was awarded a teaching artist fellowship from VSA Arts for 2008-2009, all since my disability.

Currently, I teach guitar locally, do teaching artist residencies with local schools, perform, and am doing presentations at the VSA Arts International Arts Festival in Washington, D.C. this June, the Performing the World Conference in NYC this Fall, and playing with Michael at the International Native American Flute Association Conference this July.

I would like to credit God for the gifts I have received; VSA Arts and the Ohio Arts Council for their support and professional development opportunities, my parents for their love and support, my teachers and friends. It takes a village to raise a child and a musician with a disability. It sounds romantic and empowering to say I’ve done it all on my own. But the reality is I don’t have enough space to write about all the people I would like to credit.

June 4, 2010in Features by admin No Comments »