An Album Revisited

A project I've been meaning to do for a few years is finally going to see light in 2010.

I am going to create a completely new version of my very first album, Concepts: The Black Sun. Written and recorded in 1996, this set of 10 tracks is plagued with inexperience, and as its subject matter is near and dear to me, I'd like to finally to it justice.

Back in 1996 I started my freshman year at the University of Cincinnati. At some point, though I don't remember exactly when, I moved my full-size, weighted key electric piano into the 4-man room. Using a program that recorded MIDI signals (the name of which I can no longer remember), I wrote and recorded a ten-track "concept" album that drew its inspiration from The Coldfire Trilogy, a set of books by author C.S. Friedman.

Sometimes I doubt the path I've chosen. Studying architecture for six years was plenty interesting, but it is clearly not my passion. I learned a lot about design, met interesting people, and developed general skills that have served me well for the last eight years, but nothing about what I did allowed me to create connections in the world of music. Whether we like to admit it, life is about who you know, and it would have been nice to know people involved in music, rather than in architecture.

HOWEVER, if I think back to the point that I was creating this old album, I couldn't have done it without the people I met as a result of being an architecture student. As most "Army Brats" can attest, being shunted around may dilute some of the connections you make in life (you typically don't end up having friends you've known since kindergarten when you move ever three years). Living a nomadic life might almost give the idea of Fate more credence in my mind. Unlike living in the same town and knowing the same people forever, the people you meet and befriend in these short spans of time seem to have more pivotal roles in one's development. For instance, I would not have acted in a high school musical had I not moved from West Point, where I had a secure place as "the piano player" in chorus, to Carlisle, PA, where the chorus already had a much better piano player.

I guess my point here is, would I have written and recorded The Black Sun if I had been a music major in college? Would I have been too bogged down in music education to use composition and recording as a release from drafting and model building? I don't know, but as much as I doubt whether or not I should have studied architecture, I have to admit that I produced a lot of music during college regardless of my field of study.

As I mentioned, The Black Sun is inspired by the books of C.S. Friedman. When I finished the album, I even sent her a copy. At the time, it was the best music I could produce, and I was proud to have sent it to the author that inspired the work.

Now, though, years later, I'm a tad embarrassed by the album. Technology has advanced, my skills at playing instruments and recording/mixing music have grown, and I have dedicated space in which to work on music. I can listen to The Black Sun and hear kernels of goodness, but as a whole it is not a very listenable album. Some songs have terrible mixing issues, most are fairly boring, and all of them lack any dynamic range. In fact, the album is so stiff and stilted that I am impressed that Ms. Friedman listened to it long enough to have something nice to say to me when she replied. I thank her for being merciful!

So, more than a decade has passed, and this is the only musical work I've done that I am truly unhappy with. Now that I have the means, it is time to get to the heart of these crumby songs. I plan on looking very critically at the album, picking apart the songs, finding the things that work and shining them up while discarding the stuff I don't like. It will be a different album, most definitely, but there will still be things in the new version that directly relate to the old.

When I first decided to do this, I thought that I might make it a collaborative effort and enlist the help of other musicians. I have decided against that for a number of reasons, the primary one being that this project is, in fact, rather personal. In the end, I think the output must be wholly my own.

So, that's something that I'm doing this year. Progress reports will occur when there is progress to speak of. Wish me luck!