I released my first CD, "Inspirations By Ronin"
on September 16, 1994. It had been recorded in my home studio
throughout May and June earlier that year but the work actually
began long before that.
Why did I want to record something in the first place? I guess
it started when my mother bought me a little toy piano for my
third birthday. I was curious to make up my own sounds and thought
that would be an interesting thing to do when I got bigger. Later,
(much later), after numerous unsuccessful attempts to make myself
happy in other careers, I returned to the original dream.
In October, 1991, while vacationing at a quiet woodland resort,
I finally decided that I wasn't getting any younger and it was
time to convert the dream into reality. At this time, all I had
going for me was ten years of parentally-funded gruelingly boring
piano lessons (apologies to my teacher) and a brief two month
stint playing piano in a second-rate restaurant. I also had an
endless supply of excruciatingly unfulfilling but well-paying
corporate contract work (I'll spare you the details).
I love rock music. Ever since I heard Joe Walsh's guitar playing
on "Hotel California," I've been hooked. I wanted to
record a rock album. I wanted to play the electric guitar and
sing. At the time though, I could only be considered a decent
amateur at either one of these (perhaps not even decent on the
guitar). I knew I had a lot of work to do!
I made a plan. I decided to work like hell on my contract work
for a year and then quit. With my savings, I would buy the necessary
equipment and fund the recording budget. I would also have the
time to fully devote myself to music and the music business. My
wife Marianne was keen on the idea. So keen that she decided to
become my partner. We were both vague about how we were going
to make things pay off. But, we were both desperate to escape
the corporate grind (alas, she too had a well-paying utterly unfulfilling
job).
The first part of the plan worked well. Both Marianne and I had
much more work than we anticipated and by June, 1992, we had enough
money for me to quit. Marianne bravely continued to fund our day-to-day
expenses while I ventured into the unknown world of the music
business. First step, we both took expensive singing lessons to
bring our voices up to professional quality. As well, I researched
like crazy trying to learn as much as possible about the business.
I read many poor books and got much bad advice but somehow, the
recording project eked forward.
However, my recent heavy workload took its toll. I developed severe
tendinitis in both hands (it hurt to
use kitchen utensils) and gave up on my dream of becoming a great
guitar player. Marianne would have to play the guitar. I would
sing and write songs. I took it easy that fall and in time, my
hands could once function again normally but I still couldn't
play any instrument (piano or guitar) for more than a few minutes
without pain.
In November, 1992, after weighing various options for a few months,
we purchased equipment for a home studio. At the time, this equipment
was mostly for educational purposes and for preproduction work.
We still intended to go to an expensive recording studio to actually
make our recording.
At the core of the studio was a KORG O1/W Pro X workstation. It
was an all-in-one. It had a full size piano keyboard with a touch
rivaling that of a baby grand piano, hundreds of realistic and
unrealistic instrumental sounds, and the capability to record
and playback 16 different tracks of music. We had our own orchestra/band
in a box! We just needed to add guitar and vocals. To practice
recording these, we added a microphone and various effects units
to the studio.
Having praised the workstation to the point of sounding like a
commercial, I must tell you the downside. It is the most user
unfriendly unit I have ever seen (and I've taken two years of
computer programming at university). It took a year and a half
of brainstrain to figure out how to operate the unit. The manual
was so confusing that it ended up primarily being used as a coffee
coaster.
Throughout the spring and summer of 1993, I was very depressed.
My hands were still problematic from time to time. Despite long
hours of work, I didn't seem to be making any progress in understanding
the workstation and the rest of our studio equipment. And, I felt
increasingly guilty that Marianne was working long hours at a
hated job to support our dream - the dream that I was supposed
to be living.
To escape from these problems, I indulged heavily in role-playing
games like Dungeons and Dragons®. I became so engrossed with
them that I started submitting articles to various role-playing
magazines hoping to make some money as a freelance writer. This
culminated in July when I got a contract to write a roleplaying
adventure for Shadowrun®, a science fiction/ fantasy game.
I had a month and a half to write 35,000 words. At the same time,
I was hired to play the main bad guy in a Chinese low-budget feature
film. I ended up working day and night throughout July and August
with the end result that I completely burned out and suffered
multiple nervous breakdowns.
In the meantime, Marianne was feeling the same sense of frustration
I was. Our rock record seemed light years away but Marianne was
determined to do something with the skills we had already acquired.
To combat stress, Marianne and I had both turned to listening
to relaxing music. There were many fantastic relaxation music
recordings but there were also many pathetic recordings. Most
of these recordings, good or bad, consisted of classically-influenced
keyboard music with a pop sound. For years, I had been improvising
in this style just for my own enjoyment. Marianne thought it would
be a good idea for us to put out a relaxation music recording
first to get our feet wet in the industry. It was something realistically
within our reach and we had the workstation which was capable
of recording it. I thought it was a good idea and agreed to get
started on it right away.
However, my nervous breakdown required therapy and rest. From
Oct, 1993 to mid-March, 1994, I was not fully functional. I could
work, at best one to two days a week before being overcome with
depression. I became acquainted with many self-help ideas including
the 12-step program for recovery from addictions. I realized that
while it wasn't the main cause of my problems (again, I'll spare
you the details), I did have strong addictive behaviors involving,
at various times, drugs, alcohol, and working myself to death.
I thought it would be a great idea to take each of the steps in
the 12-step program and compose a piece of music which tried to
evoke that step. I consulted with Marianne and she thought it
was a good idea. We decided to call it "Inspirations."
In February, 1994, Marianne finally quit her job and began to
work with me full time. We formed a company, Gopher Productions
Inc., and got started. In April, 1994, I finally started to work
on composing the pieces for "Inspirations."
