In my last post, I mentioned the author C.S. Lewis. In his autobiographical work Surprised by Joy he talks about an experience he had several times throughou...

When I was growing up there were a couple of movies that would air on TV about once every year. One was The Sound of Music and the other was The Wizard of Oz...

There are nearly as many ways to compose as there are composers. Sometimes I write by just noodling around the piano until something sticks, but other times ...

I remember wading through a sea of people in Namba train station still dazed from the ridiculously long flight across the Pacific. I met a Japanese friend at...

With a new year coming up soon I figured I would get a head start on my resolutions. These are ideas that I have either benefited from myself or plan to try ...

This week in the US we will celebrate Thanksgiving, so I thought it would be appropriate to express my gratitude to the indie/modern classical music communit...

One of the most popular tourist spots in Kyoto, Japan is Arashiyama. It means "storm mountain" in Japanese, but whenever I've gone there it has always been a...

If you've ever started a new venture, if you've ever moved to the big city, if you've ever begun a new life you'll understand how I felt. I was young and in ...

I sometimes wonder if I will ever get to the point where I can do music full time? If I only ever made money on Spotify the answer is... probably not. Spotif...

You've probably seen the hashtags or reddit threads where people post their "shower thoughts." Many of them are quite funny, but there are also a large numbe...

When it comes to most-listened-to musical genres pop music is still king. But the music we now refer to as "classical" was actually sort of the pop music of ...

Several years ago, I had a very humorous boss who used to always ask us the same few questions. This would come at times when you were trying to pitch a new ...

In the fall of 2001, just a month after the attacks of 9/11, I boarded a plane bound for Osaka, Japan. It would be the first of many trips across the Pacific...

It's almost officially summer and I'd like to begin it with a review of a wonderfully appropriate piece by Ben Crosland called "First Rain o

Modern classical music has become a respected genre in the last ten years or so thanks to the likes of Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds. The magic of this music...

Many composers and artists speak of the ideas or experiences that inspire them to create. But often when I sit down to the piano I find no inspiration or no ...