How I Create My Music and Videos
Elsewhere on this site, I have shared the longer story of how music has been part of my life since childhood. This page simply explains how I now turn that history into finished songs and videos.
I write all of my own songs. Many of the lyrics began in childhood diaries, old notebooks, personal records, and books I later wrote as an adult. Some of these stories have been waiting decades to become music.
During my 38-year forensic career, there was simply never enough time to give this work the attention it deserved. After retiring in December 2025, I was finally able to begin turning those memories and written fragments into songs.
For each song, I begin with the story and the words, then shape the music around what the story needs. Piano is the foundation of most of my work. I determine the mood, pacing, vocal character, instrumentation, and emotional direction, revising until the music communicates what I intend the story to say.
I sometimes sing my own songs at karaoke, which gives people an opportunity to hear my natural live voice outside the studio. A performance in a crowded room will naturally sound different from a completed studio recording.
Although a public release may be new, I sometimes use personal a cappella recordings made years ago and build new music around them today. Some of those songs and stories were too personal for me to share publicly at the time. I am now at a place in my life where I am willing to tell them without fear of repercussion.
I have been recording music in the studio since 2007, and many of those recordings have been sitting quietly in my files ever since. I now have the time to bring them to life, revisiting and updating them as I see fit.
Because the original vocals were recorded during different periods of my life, my voice may vary from one recording to another. Age, maturity, vocal training, recording conditions, and the needs of each song have all influenced the way I sound. Hypothyroidism has also affected my voice at different times, sometimes unpredictably changing both my natural vocal range and its texture. As a result, recordings made during different periods may genuinely sound quite different from one another.
Each release is then produced, mixed, and mastered in a studio setting to achieve the clarity, balance, and emotional intent I want for the song. A finished studio recording is therefore not necessarily meant to sound identical to a casual live performance.
My music videos contain my own photographs, including family and personal images dating back to before the 1970s. Many were taken decades before cell phones, camera phones, digital cameras, and consumer camcorders became part of everyday family life. Moments were preserved in a limited number of printed photographs rather than continuously captured on video.
I use AI-assisted tools to carefully add movement to some of these still images, then construct each video scene by scene around the meaning, atmosphere, and emotional direction of the song. AI does not supply my memories, write my lyrics, create my history, choose my photographs, or decide what the finished work should say. It is simply a modern tool that helps me bring parts of that history to life.
The tools are modern, but the source material is not. The memories, lyrics, photographs, source recordings, musical ideas, voice, and creative direction are entirely my own.
I do not create or release music in pursuit of fame. I think of this body of work as a memoir in music—a way to preserve parts of my life that might otherwise disappear and to leave something meaningful for the generations who are here now and those who will come after I am gone.
As my son once said, “It's soul-crushing to know that after you die, I will no longer be able to hear your voice.”
Now he can.
I also make the music publicly available because a song rooted in my experience may still help someone else. Listeners may recognize their own grief, hope, anger, resilience, or memories within it.
My albums and singles are available for purchase through this website. Income from those sales helps cover additional studio production, video creation, and future releases. Selling the music helps the project continue, but it is not the reason the project exists.
🎵 Explore the Singles 🎵
