Morning Flight

During my senior year of college (over 15 years ago) I spent spring break making a 4-song demo using nothing more than my keyboards (Ensoniq EPS and CasioCZ-1) an Atari 1040 ST computer, and a tape deck.  I wrote and recorded Morning Flight during that week.  I was really happy with the song and I knew that someday I would revisit and re-record it.  Thanks to Aaron Scott for the title.

Windswept

In early 2005 I wrote this song specifically for this album.  During a break between teaching students, I was flipping through some sounds on a keyboard and stumbled upon a flute sound from which came the melody.  This song was called Utage (the name of the keyboard sound) for the longest time as I had a hard time coming up with a title.  Sorry Curt that I didn't use Egatu.  This song also features my recording debut playing bongos. 

It Is Well

This song somewhat redefined the direction I wanted to take on this album.  I had just started attending a new church and was playing in the praise band there.  Asked to play special music, I began working on this arrangement of one of my favorite hymns.  After playing it one Sunday morning, 3 or 4 people came up to me and asked me where they could buy something like it.  I kept that in the back of my mind and knew this song had to be on the CD.  Thanks to Kelly Jones for the guitar work and Erika Thompson for the sax solo.

Desert Star

This song was purely accidental- or purely inspired.  I was working on an arrangement of a song for a friend’s choir late one night and after falling asleep in front of the computer decided to wrap it up for the night.  Just before turning off my keyboard I played a short little riff and it just hit me!  I fired up the computer and by 4:00AM I had pretty much written the entire song.

How Long

Summer 2004.  Glenn and Laryn Weaver, my wife's parents in her jewelry business, asked if I would play a song at an upcoming regional meeting.  I got to thinking about it, and had no clue what I would play.  They wanted something peppy, so I decided to write How Long as an encouragement to the jewelers to tell people about the wonderful business opportunity that they have, and also to ask How Long will it take for us to tell others what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has done for us.

Miracle

I wrote this song in October 2004.  It was a Saturday afternoon and I was home alone preparing music for church the following morning.  I was clueless what I was going to play for the offertory and this song sort of just happened.  I didn't have a title (often the hardest thing for me to come up with) and our music director Mona Canfield suggested that it was a gift.  Well immediately I thought of the gift of our daughter Alexia (who was 1 month old) and what a miracle her birth was.  The heartbeat and thunder sound effects are a reminder of her birth and that she went into cardiac for 7 minutes during labor, and a reminder of the terrible flooding that occurred in SW Pennsylvania during our stay in the hospital as a result of hurricane Ivan.

Mind Control

This is the only song where I had the title before I wrote the song.  One Sunday morning pastor Paul was preaching on Romans 8; talking about not allowing our minds to be controlled by the world, but instead being controlled by the Spirit.  He actually used the phrase mind control and right then I knew that was a song title.  I eventually wrote the music and I knew not only was it a good song title but also the album title.

November

One Wednesday in November 1997, I received a phone call from Sheri Scears asking if I would play special music Sunday.  I wrote this song and played it that Sunday as a piano solo, but I always envisioned it as something more.  This was the first song I worked on when I decided in the summer of 2004 to finally make this CD.

Not of This World (clip 1) (clip 2)

This is quite possibly my favorite song on this CD.  I had just purchased a new orchestral library for my computer and that evening I wrote the middle part of this song.  It sat for months with me not knowing what else to do with it.  Then I decided to try to do an interlude between November and this song, and the first section was born.  The 3rd part was the last music that was written for this CD.  Thank you again Kelly for the fantastic guitar work.

Doxology

As is often the case, late one Saturday night this past summer I was trying to find a song to play for the offertory the next morning.  I was playing a hymn in 6/8 and wanted it to flow smoothly into the doxology.  Well the hymn wasn't working out, but I started playing the doxology in 6/8. It had a really great feel to it, so I wrote the whole arrangement within an hour and played it the next morning.

Come On

Plucky

Both of these songs were created a few years ago on a different keyboard/computer combination and recorded to cassette tape.  They're not really finished per se, but they're as finished as they’re going to be. They were fun to create and I hope that you enjoy them.

On The Shores Of Time

This is the last song I wrote for the album.  The first part of the song is something I've wanted to write for years and had planned to put on the first album.  The second half just sort of happened.