As I reflect upon the music which makes up my second volume of solo work the themes of mood and voice come to mind; I see a commonality in those respects among all of the music that I produce individually. This is present in my ensemble work as well, but through a fundamentally different process when collaborating. Ensemble work has a higher sense of urgency, multiple people working together demands tangible progress in order to sustain the magic of the ensemble’s shared vision, to not break the spell which binds the musicians together. For me, solo creation inhabits a completely different plane, without urgency or expectation, created within moments of meditative mental reflection - momentarily detached, yet inspired by, the external world.

The mood of my work is difficult to define, but clearly a common thread. Both the previous and current volume of work inhabit the same mood; thus there has been well over a decade of time wherein my most inspired meditative musical thoughts connect to some common but not particularly understood mood. That’s not to say that this mood pervades my every musical thought; there is far more music that I have created and recorded than is contained in these published volumes. It’s that, upon review and reflection, there is some particular thing that draws my ear to a certain approach and mood and those are the pieces that I ultimately develop, refine, and publish rather than forget. Dark is often a word that I’ve heard used, but deep is a counter proposed descriptor. Certainly not happy, but not particularly sad, certainly calm but not particularly at-ease. I’m often personally characterized as optimistic, even happy-go-lucky, which creates a contradiction for those familiar with both myself and my creative output. The reason for this contradiction remains somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps the existence of this creative musical outlet allows these thoughts and perceptions a place for expression outside of conscious interpersonal relationships.

The voice of the work is easier to describe and understand. As primarily an upright bassist much of the work is realized on that instrument. Fender Rhodes, acoustic piano, Hammond organ and an ARP synthesizer have also been staples of my studio throughout the process of creating Volume 2. Those families of keyboard sounds were used extensively on my first volume of work, with the difference now that rather than chance opportunities to perform on such instruments I’ve been fortunate to have a set of instruments consistently available. As such, the voice of the pieces has acquired a bit more consistency in this work. One instrument used in Volume 1 and missing in Volume 2 was the harp, of which I only had access to for a short period of time. Searching for a similar sound I found a guzheng, featured on 26 in this volume.

As the recordings are self-created, the voice is realized beyond the instruments themselves into the method of recording and editing. I label my general process “composed improvisation”, in which pieces have a genesis in an improvisation and those improvisations which are sufficiently captivating undergo a process of composition. This process involves creative editing, sound manipulation, and subsequent overdubbing of additional layers, bringing the initial improvisation into an increasingly composed state as the process iterates. Of course, this isn’t a rule and there are at least a few pieces on both volumes of work that would be better considered pure live improvisation or pre-conceived composition.

Hesse writes that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek depth. It’s my hope that this music facilitates such ambition for the listener.