Some interesting facts about me and my music:

1. I started playing piano at 5 years old and alto sax in middle school, and at one point did not even touch a musical instrument for a full decade.
2. My “studio” is about as basic as it gets: a desktop computer with monitor, a MIDI-compatible keyboard, PrintMusic (for notation), Reaper (for mixing), and virtual instruments.  Nothing fancy, no elaborate setup, no dedicated music room in my apartment.
3. While I have a collection of music loops (primarily percussion loops), I rarely ever use them.  I much prefer to create all my music “from scratch” within PrintMusic, both for greater control and most importantly because I try to do all composition within PrintMusic itself.
4. Although I have a guitar, I do not know how to play it… and due to needing to work for a living, I do not have enough time to really try to learn how to play it.
5. At a music convention in Paris in 1995, I was able to play several grand pianos in the space of a few hours, and it was the first time that I truly realized just how different one piano can be (in feel and sound) from another.
6. When I am composing, if I do not have a decent title for a project, I tend to use a random combination of numbers and letters as a working title.
7. A goddess oversees my music efforts!  I have a figurine of Belldandy on the counter just above my keyboard, and I am considering mounting my Belldandy poster on the wall behind the computer desk. (Belldandy is also the main inspiration behind The Goddess Project.)
8. I have actually been to Salzburg and to the place where much of The Sound of Music was filmed (in 1991).
9. In 2011, most of the music I have created was/is composed in a minor key.  This is not intentional – honest!
10. When composing, I try to introduce all instruments fairly early in a piece, so that it is not a complete surprise when some instruments are silent for a while and suddenly return much later in the piece.

I was looking around DeviantArt and happened upon this great photomanip piece by Doucesse.  Especially since I have an idea in my head at the moment for a violin-and-piano piece, this image appealed to me instantly.

At last, Tomorrow’s Deviants is here!

Tomorrow’s Deviants was inspired by Movie Dialogue Vol. 4, an offering from Loopmasters (www.loopmasters.com) in which audio from old public domain media has been cleaned up and packaged for royalty-free use in modern music and media production.  As I listened to the demo of Movie Dialogue Vol. 4, I knew that it would eventually be useful for something, although at the time, “something” was yet to be defined, yet I instantly bought it.  Several months later, as I was combing through the myriad sound files of this Loopmasters offering, everything finally clicked in my mind, and “Tomorrow’s Deviants” was quickly underway.

The core of “Tomorrow’s Deviants” revolves around audio of the 1965 anti-pornography propaganda film Perversion for Profit, which features the narration of news reporter George Putnam.  It is interesting that while the arguments Putnam presents in the film focus on pornography magazines, many of the same arguments could potentially be made in the early twenty-first century with the prominence of the Internet and other modern technologies, which in turn have made it much easier than ever for the average person to find pornography.

Admittedly, Tomorrow’s Deviants is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek recasting of Putnam’s own words from Perversion for Profit. In fact, several key words and phrases from the film are featured in the newspaper-style cover art.  Putnam’s narration naturally inspired the use of sound effects, which essentially perverts his arguments to convert his message into a comedy of sorts, especially when his words are heard more than forty years after they were initially spoken.

Once again, a big, big thanks is due to Ulrike Kleinert for the cover art.  It is truly amazing how she can take my odd descriptions and turn them into great artwork!

Tomorrow’s Deviants is available on Bandcamp now!

If all goes well, I will be in position to post a rather fun and interesting music project to Bandcamp in the next 48 hours – hopefully much sooner than that!

A quick teaser:

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