I was born on a small farm in Ohio, but my family moved to New Mexico where I grew up. After graduation, I enlisted in the Army and spent a tour of duty in Germany. This was fortunate, as I was able to pursue my piano studies in Munich.
My interests in expanding the musical arts grew after returning to the states. I went to Pasadena, California and wrote hundreds of music reviews for the Pasadena Star, a local newspaper. I also produced a classical music radio program.
The Star sent me to review several concerts of avant-garde music. Consequently I became particularly challenged to develop criteria for finding the best. I began a ten year study of how composers inwardly gestate music, hearing it in their minds before giving it physical form. This Inner Music occurs sometimes spontaneously and, at other times, by a deliberate attempt at hearing it.
As the personal computer industry developed, many composers and musicians adapted them as tools to aid traditional processes. But I noticed computers provided us with new possibilities to simulate this process from the gestation of Inner Music, before we give it acoustic form as a performance or printed form as a music score. I am truly excited by the applications of computers to more strongly connect the mind's ear to musical compositions.
I guess that the best (and fastest) way to really get to know me is by some anecdotes about my life as a musician and critic. So here goes!
I had first noticed inner music when I was four or five years old and became fascinated with an inner ringing that I listened to. Then at age 12, following my sister's death, I found out I could make up melodies in my head. So the idea of inner music was not new to me when I started my Army career.
After return to the States, a colleague was gracious enough to provide a letter of introduction to the director of the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, an artist's colony in Taos, New Mexico. I visited the foundation and discussed an idea for a project on Inner Music. The director was interested and suggested applying for residence. This was granted, and I wrote a first draft of a monograph on imaginary music: music which just seems to come into your mind, unbidden.
About two years after finishing this work, I applied for another residence at Villa Montalvo, a similar foundation in Saratoga, California. There I wrote the second draft on the Inner Music monograph. Neither of these drafts were published as a whole.
I later further researched the part visionary music played in the minds of composers. Literature shows evidence of Inner Music in the creative processes of historical figures like Beethoven, Wagner, Tschaikovsky, and many others. But what part did it play in different cultural settings? How has Inner Music affected contrasting groups such as today's avant-garde composers and even traditional American Indians, in the creation of their "songs of power"?
The Indians seem to hear imaginary music (chanting) in their Vision Quests, which become their Power Songs. It is much more difficult to trace Inner Music in the creations of an avant-gardist such as John Cage. I wrote to Cage, asking, "Do you ever hear music in your dreams?", and whether it was ever compositions he had previously heard. He wrote back, "Yes, music sometimes runs through my head without my willing it. This is one of the things that annoys me about music."
Meeting John Cage
The formal publication I wrote on the subject of Inner Music was an article published in Dreamworks. This article alluded to four theoretical types of Inner Music:
Fortune stayed with me: a few years after completing the Dreamworks article, a friend submitted my name to the International Imagery Association, and I submitted an idea for inclusion at their second conference, held in San Francisco. My submission was successful, so I prepared a lecture and slide show on "The Theory of Types of Imagined Music" in support of the seminar.
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