About me

My music has given wings to my soul - it started in 2018 that emotions wanted to be expressed in harmonies and melodies, touching heart and soul

How it all started …. and is

moving on …

End of 2017 I visited a friend, and out of chance found myself sitting in front of a piano. What I also found myself with was that I had pretty much forgotten, delearned how to play the piano … my life had become so busy in the years before with other things that time for playing was never appropriate to take. Years before I used to play some gentle music and often improvised harmonies for the kids at bedtime, to give them nice dreams, and a nice falling asleep. But there I was - could roughly play the tunes, the fingers did no longer know what to do, and no melodies in my head, no mental transcript of pieces I loved to play. But it was no longer because of lack of time, I just had gotten de- used to playing… So I decided that this has to change. And gave the piano at least a bit more priority. Re-learned some of the songs I used to play, and also some new ones. And the interest in experimenting with harmonies gradually came back. Early 2018 something changed - all over sudden my fingers created melodies out of the harmonies, and my mind started to anticipate what to play next to make it sound nice. A few events formed themes of music in my head, and I needed some time to figure out how to play what my mind wanted me to play - the skills weren‘t there, or the harmonies not known to me, not practiced, the fingers did not always succeed in making happen what my heart wanted me to express. So I started to record pretty harmonies with the speech memo functionality of my iPhone, to capture the ideas, and to not forget them, to be able to replay them when I had a bit more time to develop the first ideas further. And it happened that I realized that with the help of one Gin Tonic I could play full pieces of self-composed music. For longer evening sessions two would also be supportive to free up the mind, and unblock my mind. But not more …. that turned out counter-productive. So I left it usually with one. Some evenings I composed and recorded four pieces out of experimenting with tunes, each of them with a nice melody, different to the one before. Still recorded them with the speech memo app, but now no longer short pieces of harmonies and melodies, but complete songs. Often with mistakes - either in search for an even better harmony, in search for a counter-passage, some also due to technical deficits or lack of concentration. I started to enjoy doing this - and also started to enjoy listening to what I had created. Often I liked it better the next morning, with a bit of distance to the experiments of the evening. Some pieces got deleted, others stayed in the background, some started to become regularly listened to. When I played these favorite recordings to friends, they also liked them, and encouraged me to do something with it. Some weeks later, during a motorbike ride, I realized that I was playing nice songs bu not perfect, and that the audio quality varied quite a lot - and the idea framed in my head to create a CD out of the best songs, and to call it „ImPerfect“ - a wonderful word play, as it refers to not being perfect, but also to something which is in the past, and the current and the future will be different but builds on this past. And due to the pure audio style I came up with „Unplugged“; no technology involved but just bare from the soul, bare from the source. With the help of an audio trimming software I succeeded to cut out some mistakes, others remained - resulting in 25 songs forming the material for my first CD. Then I learned that a CD has a limited run time length, and my songs were at times a bit lengthy … so it turned into a double CD of pure audio tracks, all „unplugged“, enthusiastic, passionate music with some mistakes in the playing. But I was proud of the result as it reflected a skill I never had thought or dreamt of having. And it was a lot of fun creating a music CD of self composed, self-played instrumental music. Not for commercial reasons, but just to share among interested friends and family. When I asked a friend about possibiliities to turn an audio track into something with a better audio quality, he asked me whether my piano has a recording capability. „I don‘t know“ was my response, „but I can find out - what does it look like?“. So he explained the concept of recording music into the memory of the piano while playing it, and that this would create MIDI files. And these special data files can then be processed, and also be used to create „clean“ songs, with proper audio quality. And I went back and discovered that my piano can do that. What I also discovered is that my children had discovered that capability long time before - recording pieces they had to practice for their piano lessons. For replaying them afterwards, making their parents believe they are practicing. And sometimes I was already wondering why they always to the same mistake again and again …. clever kids. So I started to learn how to record my experiments and compositions. Advantage was now that I could easily stop if getting astray, and decide to keep or delete that passage. And increasingly I managed to play complete pieces of music into the memory. At that stage, they were mostly „practiced improvisations“; without formally writing the keys down, but more enjoying a certain melody and its harmonies, practicing the sequences and combinations, and then playing a whole composition out of my soul and feel. Sometimes I woke up in the morning with a melody in my head, and had to sit down at the piano to figure out how to play it. At other times I went after work to the piano, and out of a starting harmony a full piece emerged. Soon these recordings filled the memory, and I realized that I can create a second CD with proper audio songs - and I called it „Present“. Again, a word play - it describes the here and now, but also is like a gift. And it presents the music I like to an audience. „Present“ was also my choice for the title as I realized that my skills as well as the compositions get more advanced, and I came up with the idea to also make some kind of „Future“ …. which then became the album „Moving On“. All three happened to see the light of the world in 2018, so good timing to pass them around as personal christmas presents. For a start, I have no formal background in making music. I learned to play the piano in my teens, but did not have a chance to play it later on. I started playinig acoustic guitar in my twens, and enjoyed playing with a friend on university related events, just for the fun of entertaining ourselves as well as our audience with popular songs. I can‘t sing, but my friend took that part very well. That again faded away with the professional workload of challenging jobs as a management consultant. As I was always keen on listening to various music styles, filling tapes with recordings, I migrated with technology towards CD‘s, and making music myself got replaced by purchasing a wide variety of albums creating a wide collection of CDs. But this was only consumption of music. Now, with the experiences of the last 2 years, I must say that I really enjoy creating and playing my own music. And I listen very different to music of others … trying to understand how they do it, why their harmonies sound so particular, and often very nice. Or, for other artists, admiring their perfectionism in playing their instruments. Early 2019 I was asked whether I want to participate in an public event of playing music, a „singer-songwriter contest“. I happily accepted the invitation - but also got quite anxious what it will feel like sitting in front of a large audience. So started to think about which pieces to play, practiced quite a few ones to find out which one I am most comfortable with. And it happened that on a business trip I stayed at a hotel which has a grand piano, in a secluded large ball room, and I spend quite a lot of time on it in early mornings and late evenings (skipping sport exercises and dinners to make the time available). This was a real breakthrough experience, as I learned to get comfortable in playing such a big instrument - and I started to enjoy the particular sound of it. It also inspired me for three new songs based on the way the tunes unfold. As a result, I also decided to upgrade my old e-Piano to a newer model, with better balanced keys, and much better, grand-piano-like sound. And various situations, and influencing events, gave stimuli for further works - resulting into the album „Next Level“, and later „In the Moods“. Each of the albums is very different from the ones before, reflecting an increasing skill in playing and composing, but also preferences in expressions and styles. And so, in this continuous flow of creating new pieces of music, in the production process of a CD it was always easy to identify which songs mark the end of one CD, and which already belong to a next phase, to a next album. But it is not a linear process; it depends on moods, emotions, and reasons to create a new composition. And also special ideas for a particular melody, and how to unfold an accord, or a set of accords, into a proper, well-balanced melody and arrangement. So I am looking forward to continue on this journey, not knowing where it will take me to, but knowing that I enjoy every single step on the route!