This is another oldie, dating back to late 80's and related to a fantasy trilogy I have never finished. It's a lonely song, portraying a character out-of-place on the ocean and among sailors.
The mixed, full version is available upon request, but I don't have a performance track for this one. Apologies!
Note: Performance tracks are NOT available for this song. Full mixed version is available for purchase.
This is a song written for the occasion of my eldest niece's wedding, dedicated to Megan and Jeremy, with great affection!
Some thoughts on the causes of wealth concentration and emergent oligarchy, and how they might be solved under a regulated market economy.
Performance Tracks available upon purchase.
Simple prayer (Christian). It's one of the public favorites from my first CD.
Performance Tracks available upon purchase.
This one is one of the darker ones, more about the struggle of living in a sinful world that chokes off hope and how desperately we need our Savior and one another.
With the COVID-19 pandemic winding down I had this idea for a parody of "Barrett's Privateers" by Stan Rogers. Enjoy!
Almost Enya-esque, this one is about humankind, a lament for the loss of Paradise.
Performance tracks available upon purchase.
This song was a first-fruits offering, the title of my first CD and is dedicated to the younger of my two favorite (only) nieces and her awesome husband (Katelyn & Davis) for their courageous faith.
I also took "EverFree" as the pseudonym under which I publish out of respect for and gratitude to Yahushua (Jesus), who spent his brief ministry freeing the faithful from the burdens of man-made religion so that they could return to faith with hope. He also healed (freeing from affliction) and atoned (freeing penitent sinners from a death penalty). He freely and fully gave himself to all this, while living within the laws laid out in Torah --laws intended to teach people how to have good relationships with our Creator, parents, and one another. Yahushua is ever free!
One of my oldest pieces, this was originally written around 1984 but not recorded until just before release of my 2014 CD "For Love or For Honor." Nice arrangement by my musical friends at Solo Creative Media.
A term paper giving an introductory survey of electron-based strain mapping techniques.
My life experiences have taught me that the battlefield for the human soul is often the human mind; this is no doubt the adversary's intention when he aided human intellect to so far outpace human understanding.
I had the privilege to serve alongside some men "wearing funny little green hats" in Afghanistan. I began to realize that --far from being war-mongers!-- these guys took responsibility for improving fellow humans to a degree rarely witnessed. While I'd sincerely hate to be the bad guy around these folk, I found that being near them was a great experience as I tended to check my own character on a minute-by-minute basis.
I asked one of them one afternoon whether he was a Christian and he answered "I believe in God...." I tend to respect the honest doubter; truth is ever-so-much more important than dogma. I pondered that evening where my own faith would stand had I not had an unusually close relationship to my Creator as a child. The result was a desire to tell the story of Yahushua (Jesus) as a ballad about an exceptional spiritual warrior executing a hearts-and-minds campaign.
Sincere thanks to Leon of SOLO Creative Media for insisting that I add the second soprano (middle) vocal; it gave the ballad a nice retro flavor. I hope you enjoy!
Performance Tracks available upon purchase.
This is the closest song that I've written to actually sounding like a traditional Christian hymn. It has a very regular meter and rhyming pattern that's easy for a group to sing.
The Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Lin in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture. You can play with it yourself here. You can harmonize on the fly, but you can also hack into the web app to upload programmed instructions following the steps included here. There was one issue of the blobs sustaining their last note. That can be solved by modifying the conversion code, which I did later on.
Bonus clip: speech synthesis from the game "Moon Base Alpha" (which is based on the DECTalk program) being used to sing my TTBB arrangement of Ghost Riders in the Sky.
I wrote this while on a retreat with the youth group from a Florida United Methodist church. It's about how we find our Savior while reaching out to one another.
For performance tracks, please purchase.
Composition for a high school music theory class (2013), SATB arrangement. The lyrics are based on the idea of inspiring morale for an army in the midst of a battle that carries on into the night. When the sun goes down and a wearying battle drags on, it is easy to lose the will to continue. But the morning will come!
Thumbnail art is by Darrell K. Sweet, cover artwork for the eighth book of the The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.
A battle chant of the Aiel warriors from the Wheel of Time series. I hadn't found many musical interpretations of this chant so I made one. Ideally this would be sung by hundreds instead of a handful of the same voice.
My TTBB a cappella arrangement of the 1948 western song "Ghost Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend" by Stan Jones. This arrangement is most closely inspired by the 1959 cover by Sons of the Pioneers.
This piece is a duet (mostly), where a "mother" and "father" pray for a child. It also deals with life, death, and hope.
Note: The performance track available upon purchase is for a female vocalist; the two males parts are already part of the performance tracks.
Performance tracks available upon purchase.
This is another prayer that sings like a lullabye; it's one of my favorite vocal performances and quite mellow. I joke that it is great for putting children and old folk to sleep.
This song was written after I attended the field memorial service of a young captain who was killed in a river crossing in Afghanistan in 2005. It is dedicated to all service members, especially those serving in our special forces, who have risen to higher standards of character and service in their campaign against human oppression worldwide. Many of us have known someone who has given life and/or freedom in what I consider the "greater" war, the war to preserve free choice, hope, and human kindness in a sometimes cruel world.
Inset into this song is a recording of the Special Forces Prayer, recorded by an SF chaplain. It is a moving reminder of how greatly we all rely upon our Creator in any good endeavor. I invite you to visit http://www.sfahq.org/the-origin-of-the-special-forces-prayer/ to read the origin of this prayer in detail. Briefly, I want to cite that the prayer was written by Army chaplain John Stevey in 1961 for the Green Berets about to ship out to Viet Nam. It has long been an inspiration to me, personally.
I hope you enjoy this reflection; it is what I witnessed and felt at the field memorial service --as much as can be captured in words, anyway. There's a kindred spirit that unites service members, particularly in times of loss. It can't truly be articulated, but it can give us the strength to live and give beyond ourselves for the sake of our brothers and sisters in service.
God bless the warriors who serve for hope of a better world!
Performance tracks (music without primary vocal) available on purchase.
This one was inspired during my travel to Afghanistan, but also reflects my personal observation that a great many individual human experiences are profound and --in my belief-- not random. They change our character and shape our identity. I believe the spiritual universe, the unseen one, is behind many of these; for which purpose, when I have a solo experience that helps me grow or simply brings me joy (like rescuing that little bird yesterday, having the opportunity to hold it gently in my hands and take it to safety), I try to thank God for that event.
Lyrics to "La Storia di un Soldalto" (The Story of a Soldier) from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).
Hers the doom, ours the mirth
when she came home from work
Time to cook a tasty meal
What will lid reveal?
Note: Many of my uploads contain the Performance Tracks. This one does not at the time of initial publishing (2020). This was a rough recording which we intend to re-perform at a later time. We're posting it in the interim because the song is a nice one for Christmas and some of you are quite talented enough to perform a capella. Enjoy!
This song is vaguely Enya-esque, written with the intent of being sung at my own wedding in 1989, but we were unable to get a flute player & I was too great a coward to sing outdoors a capella.... At any rate, I'm still as fond of the fellow I married as I was then...well, maybe a little moreso now....
This is another for which the mixed version is available for purchase, but the performance tracks are not. Apologies! However, it's an easy tune to pick up without the music.
Mix and performance tracks available upon purchase.
This song is written for all mothers separated from their children by any cause at any age. It's a lament for togetherness lost.
Written on the occasion of our 25th Anniversary, this song was originally published as "Heart Behind Your Eyes" in my 2014 CD "For Love or For Honor."
(Performance tracks unavailable for this one. Full mix is available via purchase.)
This is another old one, dating back to 1980's, finally published in 2014 on the "For Love or For Honor" CD, although I don't believe it really fit in that collection. This one sounds vaguely Alan Parsons, as I was listening to a lot of his music back in that era. The song depicts Destruction as a living entity.
With prayers offered by the young believers from St. Mary's Catholic School in Greenville, SC. This piece summarizes three miraculous true stories, few of many I have experienced or witness in my life; our Creator truly answers prayers!