Songwriting
Origin Story
Five years old: I made up some stupid song about clouds and sang it to myself. My dad recorded me singing it, played it back and, embarrassed, I vowed to never sing again.
Senior year of high school: Someone dared me to sing in a drama club office. I sang. And people were surprised. Heck, my drama teacher hit me on the shoulder, chiding me that if she would’ve known, she would’ve put me in all the musical competition categories.
Karaoke, karaoke, karaoke - and then, grad school.
A strange admission: I’m no musical theatre guy. But much of my graduate work involving experimenting with and devising new musicals and plays with music - some of which will probably never see the light of day. Still, you can’t keep a wannabe pop-star-playwright in the pound.
During the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, I performed in an open mic where I fused solo storytelling with an original song - naturally, right before the conference’s karaoke evening. Something about the performance compelled the other writers in the room, something to which Ken Weitzman, playwright extraordinaire, commented that I needed to pursue it.
In Chicago, I was tired of hearing from institutions that they didn’t “get” my work or how my plays could possibly be performed. And so I resolved to prove them wrong on my own in Jellyfish Queer - some songs of which you’ll hear on this page. I composed it myself, but I understood that there were limits to my own composition knowledge. And GarageBand took too long.
I enrolled in the Old Town School of Folk Music - I cannot recommend this place highly enough to learn everything from instruments to advanced play styles and songwriting - and learned guitar. (My finger-picking is still pretty crummy, so forgive me.) But paired with an instrument, I could finally compose freely and fundamentally along with the lyrics I wanted to write.
Some of the songs you hear on this page may be connected to a performance piece; others may be standalone. (Also forgive me for the quality of some of these tracks. Some were made in GarageBand as an amateur; others were accompanied by guitar in…less than ideal pandemic circumstances.)