Welcome

 

Thanks for being a vital part of my musical journey! In this very first of my weekly newsletters, I'd like to share my latest update to the recording of "Mission to Mars." The original track was written and recorded (on cassette) back in 1988, during my time at Berklee. In those early years I was using a FOSTEX B16-D (analog tape) to multitrack (which was lost a few years ago). I ran across this mixdown a few months ago, when I was going through my collection of old cassette tapes of early works. Many of these were school projects, or ideas that came to me between class projects. This one was originally titled "MS120-Midterm Project (10/21/88)."

 

The last few weeks I've been working on a high-gain lead guitar solo to finish out the middle, driving section, which never had a melody. I came up with the new title from the dreamy, ethereal, traveling-through-space character of the opening section. The hard-driving middle section represents the imagined excitement and wonder of visiting an alien world. Mars is the closest to us, so I started there. Ironically, within days of publishing this title, it was announce that we had received our first soundfiles (audible recorded transmissions) from Mars. The closing section returns to the ethereal strings-and-things, representing the journey through space back home, or to the next world, if you prefer. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I have...

 

This next week I'll be resurrecting another of my early works and adding a new addition to it. It will be called, "Dark is the Night Sky," and also combines an intro from 30yrs ago ("Dark is the Sea," another renamed sketch/idea that never had a proper name) with a guitar composition idea I sketched out during late summer ("Night Sky"). Neither have ever been published. I only realized a few months back that they were made for each other! Spooky...

 

As always, thanks for listening!

-Shawn