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When I was growing up there were the good guys and the bad guys. It was always in the movies too. The good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black. Life seemed to be that easy back then….good or bad. As I have grown up I have found that it is not that black and white anymore. Mostly because I think the good/bad and the right/wrong dualities set up an illusion within our culture of shame and blame. I think we live more in the gray, knowing we have both sides in u

My mother used to have a lot of sayings. One of the sayings that she loved was that you can’t talk and listen at the same time. That always made sense to me…….so I mostly chose to talk. For most of the people who know me, spent time with me, and have worked with me know that I can be a talker. I love to talk and especially engage in interesting topics. I just don’t talk for talking sake, I usually have something that I think is important to say. If you ask those same peo

Some things just call for a celebration…..and one of them is my daughter Kelsey’s graduation from TCU this past Saturday. Kelsey (class of 2012), her sister Madison (class of 2009), and I (class of 1975) are all graduates of TCU. It was not planned that way and I surely am not the overbearing alumni type…in fact, until my girls went back to TCU, I had not been back to Ft. Worth. Both of my daughters did considerably better at TCU than I did. I think we all embraced having

There is always a first for everything and today I experienced a first……..I recorded a song with my daughter Kelsey. This is the first time she has ever sang to be recorded. We laid down the drums, guitars, and vocals and are coming back to add some more vocals and lead. We are covering Kelsey’s favorite singer, Grace Potter doing one of our favorite songs….Big White Gate. Interestingly enough, I experienced Grace Potter a few years ago when she was opening for Govt Mule an

I have always loved language and the power and connection of words. This week the title to my blog has a few different meanings in my life…..each one different, each one important…..and most importantly they are coming together to create the next phase of my life. When I first think of record time, I think of making great time, as if in a race or some event where time is a deciding factor. “John Smith has the record time in the 100 yard dash.” So how does this apply to me.

The first time I heard the expression found sound, it was in a story told my one of my drumming teachers, Arthur Hull. He is the most famous hand drum facilitator in America. He has taken the work of Babatunde Olatunji and built upon it to use drum circles as a metaphor for our lives and the rhythm we have in our lives. Arthur tells the story of how he was to facilitate a drum circle for a major corporation for over 800 people. He is sponsored by Remo Drums, so they ship d

In the recording studio, when the red light goes on it is time to record. It is time to do what you came for……it is game time. I had one of those moments this week. I started a 16 week intensive course on Studio Engineering and Pro Tools. I have been looking for a structured program on learning to record and use Pro Tools and nothing was matching up with what I was looking for. I was not looking to become a 4 year degreed Studio Engineer and I was looking for more than ju

(Dad & I when I was born/Me with Madison & Kelsey when they both were at TCU) Sunday was Father’s Day and it was one of the hardest ones I have had since I became a father. I have been blessed with two beautiful daughters that are now both adults. My oldest daughter got married in December of last year and my youngest just graduated college. It seems as if every stage of fatherhood is the hardest…….and it is when I am going through it. I remember how hard it was when they

Jitter is a controversial and widely misunderstood phenomenon. In fact, agreeing on a definition has been a challenge to the author of my Modern Recording Techniques textbook. So what is jitter? Jitter is a time-based error that is caused by having time delays in the circuit path of the components in a recording studio setup. In simpler terms, jitter is when two components get out of synch that can be caused by different situations. Why is this important to me in my life?

I can remember when I was young and I wrote my first song. I must have been around 10 years old or so. I had been listening to my records on my record player and knew at that age that I could write music just like the bands I was listening to. What I didn’t count on was what came next. I was so proud that I shared with my friends the lyrics to the song that I wrote and they just broke out in laughter. Somewhere in the lyrics was “blow your mind” and they thought that was