In order to conserve space, these songs are presented in their ScreamTracker module format.
They can be played using ModPlug Player, Unreal Player, or a WinAmp plugin.

Roughly in best-first order:

I am a...

Non-musical interests include film, theatre, ethnic food, science, and getting outdoors.

Organizer of Calgary Electronic Composers SIG (aka Calgary Electronic Music Meetup)
Hanger-on of Electronic Music Calgary
Founding member of a Calgary progressive music fan group (interested? contact me).

Ever since I started in the MOD world, I have intended to produce music that strayed from the over-worn norms. I have also often strived to explore and assimilate diverse sounds and forms. This may sound pretentious and over-reaching, but growing up with progressive rock has put this in my blood.

Though incorporating techniques that others have developed, I do not try to duplicate established idioms. The commonalities that surface in these tracks are the inherent idiom of my own process. I wish to consciously extend this process, not to lose my own identity, but to increase my range of expression.

The melodies, chords, and beats you will hear in my music are my own. On the odd occasion that I have lifted a passage, it has been formed to become my own expression.
Artists who form music from pre-existing material can add substantial creative value in the process, and I enjoy some of this music. But I prefer to retain control and produce something more entirely mine. This may change.

Born in the '70s, the music my parents exposed me to was ABBA and Boney M. A child of the '80s, some years I would listen to the radio, but I didn't find music very engaging.

The first music that really absorbed me was from "demo" software for the Commodore 64, and then games for the Amiga.
Then I came upon creative rock, starting with Midnight Oil, later King's X, Rheostatics, Tool, Faith No More, Radiohead.
Through some odd twists of fate, I fell in love with Progressive Rock, from classics of the '70s (Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd) to more adventurous bands (Gentle Giant, Magma, Henry Cow, Univers Zero) to more recent music (Anekdoten, 5UU's, After Crying, Volapuk, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum).

Despite early computer music and exposure to '90s dance/house, I didn't get into "electronica" until pretty recently. My favorites include some work by Amon Tobin, Cinematic Orchestra, DJ Shadow, Plaid, Squarepusher, Delerium, and Skinny Puppy. I also enjoy "related" outfits like Tortoise, Medeski Martin & Wood, Rage Against The Machine, Bullfrog, and King Cobb Steelie.

My meagre training includes:

I do now wish I had the keyboard prowess to capture ideas quickly or perform live, but I would have to give up writing time to practice, and that will probably never happen.

As for theory, I was long leery of being told what constituted music and how it should be written. I may yet learn and use some concepts of harmony as one way to stretch myself, but every time I approach theory I realize that I would rather work intuitively.

I came up with my first little tune as a kid practicing piano. I can stil play it, but haven't seen a need to record it. Years later, a simple $10 synth program for the Commodore 64 provided the impetus for two noisy tracks. I have tried to no avail to unearth these tunes!

Years further (Grade 12), I came across a PC program (ScreamTracker 2) to create Amiga-style (sample-based) "MOD" music, which I'd been listening to. When I began writing, I resolved not to create any typical techno/dance tracks, as the MOD world was already drowning in them. Having no soundcard and little money, I built a "resistor-ladder DAC" that connected to a parallel (printer) port.

This was very gratifying, but eventually, a limit of four simultaneous sounds became frustrating, so I went to the extreme of polyphony -- General MIDI. For a while I moused notes into staff notation with Cakewalk Pro (before and rather unlike Sonar). Generally I composed at an acoustic piano, wrote down the notes, and then went to the computer to enter them.

To ease that pain, and allow a less rigid sound, I spent all my money on a MIDI keyboard. Faced with the choice between a realistic instrument set and a keyboard that would let me generate my own sounds, I went with realism, as I had been making mostly acoustic tracks recently. The keyboard allowed me to record some almost-live improvs (not sure how I managed) that stand out among my favorites.

Great fun, but after a while I got tired of the few instruments on my keyboard (Yamaha PSR-620) that sounded good in my music. Also feeling I was in a rut of writing the same short, dead-end pieces with the same instruments, and getting very socially involved, my output ground to a halt.

After a 2-3 year hiatus, the emergence of PC-based synthesis lured me back in. I was very interested in playing with analog sounds, and also ready to get back into sampling -- with a wider set of instruments. Armed only with the free sequencer from Computer Music Magazine and a few free virtual instruments from the net [and my good old keyboard], my output and enthusiasm soon exploded. I completed an hour of new tunes each year (a goal I had set) for over two years in a row, pushing myself gradually to experiment with synthesis parameters and effects plugins.

I love these tunes, probably too much, but I feel that my semi-conscious, unexamined writing process still limits and formulizes my work. There are many sonic techniques and ideas I want to explore, but above all I want to become more deliberate in composition, pushing myself in terms of structure, detail, and atmosphere.

Later, I have increased the amount of improvised content, chords, and progression over time. As well, I "graduated" to an out-of-date copy of Cubase that, while sporting better editing and audio support, likes to crash on modern systems.

Finally, I caved and converted to FL Studio, which is rock solid, sounds great, and is a pleasure to use. So far, it has tightened up my rhythms, but I have yet to produce anything very expansive in it.