The

Allan Parsons Project

I Robot

Gabriel Faure

Requiem

Stan Rogers

This, something interesting

That,

little known facts

And The

Yet to be determined

Other

The ins and outs of doorways.

My music page

I wrote my first song in High School. I was not, as some musicians are known to be, a natural. I wasn’t one of those kids that wrote their first sonata before they could say “daddy” or a symphony before entering grade three. For me, writing is a process. While it’s not necessarily an arduous task it certainly is something of an effort. That’s one of the reasons I don’t write many songs. The other reason is that I want to create something unique with each effort. No two songs I have penned sound alike. I try to avoid a set style for myself; instead I listen to the inner tunes that pop into my head from time to time and then work at them methodically until the can stand and sing on their own. Melodies almost always precede lyrics. Occasionally a line will come to me or I’ll hear something that makes me think, and I will work a tune around it. For the most part, however, I hear a brief tune, or an idea of a tune, and then try to put it down on paper or a midi track. Sometimes they’re just snippets, thoughts that sound like they want to be something more, so they are duly noted and allowed to stew in the back corners of my mind; at other times they come out fairly complete and get the “full treatment” immediately. The odd time I realize I’m just repeating something someone else has written and just credit it as one of those “great minds think alike” moments.

I recently appeared in a play with a local theatre group. My character was “Steve Tanner”, the straight-man feeding lines to the comic genius, Allen Feldman.

The duo were featured in a fictional resort in Atlantic city, and they needed a theme song. I decided to try an write one, based on some of the music from programs like “The Johnny Carson Show”. I wanted something jazzy, with a little punch, and this is the result.

There are two versions of the tune, however; when the duo break up and Allen Feldman gets his own one-man show, he bought the rights to the song from his manager and then had it slightly re-orchestrated and scored.