Since the 1970s I’ve written and recorded more than 500 melodies, hooks, riffs, and fully produced songs.
Click the link below to see and choose from a playlist of my most popular compositions on YouTube, or click the video below to play them here.
Playlist of my Most Popular Compositions
A Few of my Personal Favorites
Princess Di (Smooth Mix)
Wrote this one while staying in my pajamas for three days during her funeral. Slept little, compelled to work it through in composition, arranging, and recording.
On the Street (Hopped Up Mix)
Another of my psychedelic experiments from the 1980s.
Daybreak
This a recent re-recording of a melody I originally wrote and recorded on cassette in the early 1970s with piano only. I always intended to go back and properly produce the more than 500 entries in my Composer’s Sketchbook, yet this is the first one I’ve attempted, and time is running nigh!
Straight as an Arrow
A message song about going through life with blinders on and not getting involved.
Mountain Storm
Written in the 2000s, I was trying to capture the feeling of a mountain storm surrounding you out in the open – both majestic and a little bit terrifying or at least overwhelming – something I’ve experienced for myself several times when section hiking on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra.
The Beat
An experiment in arranging something with fuller orchestration.
The Company Song
Pulverized by the daily grind.
Murkey (Horrid Mix)
This is an experiment to have the muddy background imperceptibly rise in volume until it completely obscures the melody line by the end of the piece. Alas, I started the string melody too low to begin with, so the effect was lost and the whole thing just sounds poorly mixed.
All You Love Is Need
I wrote this one in the 1980s as a spin on the theme of the similar song title by the Beatles which got me thinking about how so many people in the world crave need – either to be needed by others or to be needy so they can be fulfilled.
Melsong (Bubbly Mix)
One of the first multi-track recordings of mine when I switched from reel to reel 4-track to digital on the computer, back in the 1990s.
Rose’s House
This one’s filled with veiled personal references as I pondered some major life decisions.
Almost Home
Back in the 1980s I got myself a spiffy new CZ-101 digital synthesizer from Casio – the first consumer synth available. And I also got a spanking new TEAC 3340sx reel to reel tape recorder – one of the first consumer multi-track overdub machines. I had become dangerous! This is one of the first songs I created with those wonderful machines – the early-tech equivalents of AI back in the day that enabled my Muse to run free!
Morning Gold
I wrote this one in the 1980s while beginning to seriously consider a major lifestyle change. Lot’s of hidden messages and Easter eggs in the lyrics.
Old Russian Movie
The title says it all.
Guyana Dreamin’
Toxic faith.
Not Quite
I dedicated this one to my daughter’s father-in-law, who lost a long painful battle with cancer many years ago.
Empty Vee (MTV)
I wrote this in the 1980s to satirize the vacant minds of those who spent all day staring at MTV music videos when the channel first premiered. I’m rather pleased with the lyrics on this one.
Maynard G. Krebs
A theme in honor of the Beatnik character portrayed by Bob Denver before he found fame as Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island.
The Family Jail
Escape is the answer.
Galactic Carousel
Only Ashes
A cautionary song about getting caught in the past. And here I am posting songs I wrote forty years ago, like this one…
Melsong (Uh Uh Mix)
Last half is significantly different than the earlier version.
Harmony Blue
You have synesthesia? I see what you’re saying.
Drizzle
Just a pleasant little piano piece I tooled together around 1999.
Evensong
When I was first setting up my new studio, I didn’t have the electronics in yet, but was still enjoying just sitting there at the keyboard and playing again for the first time in a long time. One session, I came up with this melody and liked it enough to get my laptop and just record it over the air with piano and voice. Liked that enough to add a couple other instruments and vocal harmonies. A bit rough still, but here it is.
E J
I wrote this one somewhere in 2005-2010 when we were living up in Salem, Oregon. It was a brand new apartment complex right next to farmland and I’d never lived out of state before. Then, wonderfully, I found my Muse waking up for the first time in years and making music far more complex than I had previous produced.
Heart Corps
Our feelings are legion.
Anticipation
This one is from the 1980s. I gave it the name “Anticipation” because it is a very slow build. I wanted to write something that gradually layered up in an almost subliminal way.
Island of Sadness
In a sea of emotion.
Bop (Drum Mix)
I’m not a drummer but wanted some percussion back in the 1980s when I wrote and recorded this tune. Then I discovered that in Midi, track 16 is drums, and you can copy the melody midi right into that channel and voila – instant weird percussion.
Candy Loop
When loops first came out online in the 2000s I thought I’d give it a try. So, I laid down piece of a song of mind called Jessica Candy as a test. Added loops for piano, guitar, and drums, then used a voice changer to record each of the two vocals and this is the result.
Blue Gas
I was tooling around with our guitar just after the turn of the millennium and stumbled across this little melody that reminded me a bit of Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas” but in a bluegrass style, so I called it “Blue Gas.” I’m a rather horrible guitarist, but I managed to grind out one okay take.
Boogie Brothers
When I first wrote this rather derivative piece, it reminded me of the Blue Brothers, and it was modeled after the boogie rhythms my step-dad played on the piano, which is where I learned them. So, Boogie Brothers it is.
Shining
Another synth piece from the 1980s.
Boogie Brothers 9
So after I recorded the original Boogie Brothers, I started wondering what it might sound like if it started out slow and then picked up pace. This is the result – Boogie Brothers 9. Why 9? Because it sound like the Beatles, “Revolution 9.” But the slow Revolution was Revolution 1 and 9 was the crazy one, but no one would make that connection if I named it Boogie Brothers 1, so I misnamed it.
Chaotica
In the 1990s I was experimenting with multi-tracking on a computer, rather than on tape. With my first set up, I put together this piece by laying down a metronome track, then playing all the parts individually without listening to the others while I did it. The result was “Chaotica.”
Midtown
A little bumper that could be used to go from one scene to another in a movie or as a commercial jingle.