I’m not trying to clock scores in this lifetime, it’s just that things are better now than they were like five, ten years ago. Music has gotten a lot better. There’s a lot of people who are committed to - soulfully.

Garcia contrasts competitive, status-driven measures of success (“clock scores”) with a more intrinsic, communal yardstick: whether the music and the musicians’ intentions feel more alive and sincere. The remark suggests a late-20th-century perspective in which artistic progress is not linear technical advancement but a renewed commitment to “soul”—authentic feeling, craft, and purpose. He frames improvement as something observable in the broader musical ecosystem (“a lot of people…committed”), implying optimism about cultural currents rather than personal triumph. The trailing, conversational phrasing reinforces the idea that this is an off-the-cuff reflection, not a manifesto: a musician taking stock of the scene and valuing depth of engagement over winning or legacy-building.