"I enjoy playing the band as the band. I 'be' the whole band and I'm playing the drums, I'm playing the guitar, I'm playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that"

Corea evokes the sensation of dissolving the boundary between individual player and entire ensemble, becoming simultaneously timekeeper, harmonist, and storyteller. To “play the band as the band” is to treat the piano as a vessel for the whole group’s consciousness: the left hand locks like a drummer’s kick and snare, the right hand rides like cymbals, voicings strum with a guitarist’s economy, and melodic lines breathe with a horn’s phrasing. He isn’t stacking parts; he’s inhabiting functions. That shift from playing to being turns technique into empathy.

When a musician “becomes” the drums, choices about touch, subdivision, and silence change; when one “becomes” the guitar, space, chord color, and decay gain weight; when one “becomes” the saxophone, articulation and air suggest contour. Internalizing these perspectives makes every note serve the conversation rather than the ego. The ensemble tightens because each member anticipates the needs of the others, and even in solo moments the music retains the feel of collective interplay.

The unfinished thought about the most wonderful aspect of music points toward this fullness: the freedom to hold multiple identities at once, to listen so completely that boundaries blur, and to feel ideas arise as if from a shared source. Joy comes from discovering that creation is not a solitary act but a living circuit, energy passing among roles, returning transformed. It is an ethic as much as a technique: learn the languages of your partners, honor their space, and let your instrument mirror their intentions.

To play the band is to accept both architecture and humility, shaping form while serving the whole. In that state, music stops being a sequence of notes and becomes a world you inhabit moment by moment. Such presence turns risk into invitation, making surprise feel inevitable and allowing beauty to appear before you know its name.