family

Older Than The Planets

Dad, The Bringer of Age

I’ve had this idea in my head for a few years now, and my father’s 80th birthday seemed to be the right occasion to try and make it happen. My original plan was to do a complete a cappella recreation of the original score, but that turned out to be far beyond my vocal talents, technical ability, and available time. The approach to my initial idea was to load in one of my favorite performances of Mars, tempo map it, then record all of my own parts. The tempo map was key because it would allow me to do some … Continue reading

Let’s Shoot the Moon

In stark contrast to the chaos swirling around me the previous day, this song was written in one of the most devastating silences imaginable: an empty house that’s empty because of a death. If you’ve had the sad occasion to be involved in the immediate aftermath of the death of a loved one, you know that it’s filled, perhaps mercifully, with an amazing amount of work to be done. Funeral arrangements, obituaries, family decisions and the diplomacy that has to accompany them, the phone ringing non-stop, telling the same story to a million friends and strangers, all with raw emotions … Continue reading