Thank you for visiting my personal website. I hope you find some useful info here and perhaps leave some as you exit. This website is simply a small slice of my life and cannot possibly tell you the whole story. But because a web presence seems to be much in vogue these days, I thought it would be a good idea to have one.
I am a musician – been one, am one, and will be one in some capacity till the game’s over. I started as a child on piano, classical lessons; went pretty far with and was considered a candidate for Performance Piano in college. As flattering as that was, my true passion was composition and arranging, chord voicings and such. The magic of music, I believe, lies in these aspects. The harmonic content within a piece of music is what holds the listener and makes the journey through the song kaleidoscopic. So, anyway, there are people – predecessors in this discipline who have proved themselves quite capable of this skill: Brahms, Liszt, Schumann, Maurice White, Quincy Jones, Henry Mancini, Isaac Albeniz, there are more. You may know a few yourself.The idea is fairly simple – it is the concept of unfolding – of peeling back layer upon layer of beauty and interest. By beauty, I do not necessarily mean a musical stasis. There is beauty in violence, chaos, and tension as well as peace, order, and stability, so beauty is really subjective in so many ways. But then, music is a perfect medium for self expression and interpretation of beauty.
I grew up on a lot of soul and funk music mixed in with classical and easy listening. I don’t know what kind of soup that will finally culminate in, but I don’t need to know the end, I just need to enjoy the process.
The recording studio is still one of my favorite places to be. It is a laboratory of sorts that produces everything from miracles to monsters and all things in between. But it is a wondrous place to work – from either side of the glass. Creativity and camaraderie meet in this environment and there is none richer for having been a partaker of these two elements than me.
You’ll find some samples of things I enjoy doing musically here. They represent the tip of the iceberg. I never play my best hand in trivial places and in case you don’t know this yet, the internet is pretty trivial – they don’t call it virtual reality for nothing. It is real life with all its foibles that should be the table at which our best hands are played. My naivete does not extend to believing that virtual precedes real. It never has and never will. Just like acoustic will always precede electronic, as wonderfully amazing as electronic is.
So, there is a little of my philosophy of music. It is probably a little too verbos, but that’s ok with me and since it is my website, well…..
My other field is social science – the great bill payer. I have studied to be a teacher of history, geography, and economics. Went for certification in the public schools. It’s a good day job and interesting to boot, which is sort of what you want when you are looking for the “have to” part of your life. Social studies should never be discounted as trivial or some “B” rated discipline. If our social expertise as a race declines, then you can safely predict another Dark Ages or worse. Social expertise is what facilitates the survival of the species, because without it, no progress is possible or effectual. The story of the human race is one of adaption and perseverance and the social sciences examine this in depth.
Finally, I have personal aspects to my life – family, faith, tastes and preferences. I’ll let you in on a little of it, but only glimpses and tidbits. My personal existence is just that – personal. One of the most disconcerting things about this present day society is that NOTHING is personal. Everyone seems to be airing ALL their dirty laundry and society is losing something in the process. I need say no more.
Look around and see what you can find. I hope you can use something or get something fresh from this website. Be welcome and at home.
Paz sea contigo.
