Ben, a webmaster of this pretty little site, has been friends with me for some time now. He watched my videos on YouTube (I was a mildly successful vlogger back in the day, I don’t do it anymore for many reasons), and then we just kind of connected that way. Anyways, he just asked me to write about the music I make.

I’ve been playing piano since I was 7. I had this really awesome mentor of a piano teacher, Angela, who got me on my songwriting feet. I would come in to her studio once a week, and I would just show her one or two new songs that I had written. She liked them all, she always provided positive energy and good feedback. Not to say that she wouldn’t also provide the occasional harsh criticism, or that she didn’t give suggestions for improvement, because she did both of these as well. She was my whole audience; not even my parents would hear what I wrote. A couple years ago, she moved to Georgia and I don’t think I’ve ever been the same since.

I’ve been recording under the name ‘videosforpictures’ since I was a freshman in high school. I’m a senior now.

My first album, “Very Three”, was put out my sophomore year. How I did that CD, was I sat down at the old piano in my musty basement, turned on my video camera, and hit record. Usually, the songs were done in one take. I would then convert the video file to an audio file, adjust it a little so my voice could be slightly better heard, and then let that be that. Sometimes I multi-tracked so I could get another vocal track in, but usually I just kept it the way it was: me shouting over the roar of the piano. Low. Quality. But I guess people liked it enough, and I had some relative success with it.

(Click to download Very Three:)

I wanted to do a follow-up almost immediately. I stepped it up after Very Three, and got an 8-track recording console, and I’ve been using that ever since. Using that, I recorded a few songs but didn’t know how to organize it. See, throughout the time I’ve been recording, I’ve been having these massive creative meltdowns where I just can’t tell what to do with what songs, and it piles up and I just quit on certain things. For example, I had an EP ready at one point, it was to be called the Dryas EP and I had all the songs recorded and everything. Just had to set a release date. And then I listened over the tracks, determined I hated it, and disposed of it. Clean slate. A big word of advice that I have for any musicians out there is don’t give up on your work. Make it work, and the payoff will be much greater than giving up. I hate myself to this day for giving up on the Dryas EP.

By December 2009, I had more than album’s worth of songs compiled, but no idea what to do with them. They sat there, gathered some dust. I was convinced that I wasn’t going to release anything again. Then someone from school asked me for some songs, so I threw together my favorite 16 songs, and gave it to her. And then I turned around and gave it to the Internet. Being that it was a compilation of things I had recorded dating back to the Very Three sessions, I called it Endo Fanera (which is “End Of An Era”, but not.)

(Click to download Endo Fanera:)

At the moment, I’m working on a follow-up to that. In fact, it’s one song away from being completely done. It’s called Deficit, loose concept album about a guy who suffers from dreaming all the time and has no perception of reality. Should be released in October-ish.

So that’s my life story, sorry for telling you it. One more word of advice before I go. You see all those concerts to the right of this post? Go to some of them. Something I’ve always regretted is not going to enough shows, because it’s the best way to support musicians. Not only are you helping them, you’re helping yourself. You’re experiencing the music in a whole new way, it’s like a massive enlightenment if you look at it that way. Don’t hesitate for a second, concerts are truly a great thing, they’re the (profound metaphor) of music.

Were you at the watermelon festival on Sunday, August 8, 2010?

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