I’m a lifelong student of the art, but I began a more serious experience with music in three distinct periods of my life.

 

As a young teen in the late 1980s, I began guitar lessons to be in a band. It wasn’t long before I found myself gravitating toward the day’s guitar idols, most notably Eddie Van Halen.

 

I first listened to his and the others’ songs to learn their licks and be able to play along. Then I began to study their recordings. Like in the Introduction of David N. Howard’s Sonic Alchemy, I discovered panning, song structures in the productions, and other songwriting and production techniques. My band’s days were numbered, and the void of the members for jam sessions opened the next phase of my education.

 

Finding myself increasingly without other musicians to combine and create music with, I discovered multitrack recording.

 

With a Yamaha 4-track tape deck, I was able to lay down a drum track, a synth bass track, and a keyboard track, and I no longer needed people to jam along with. As my ideas became more complex, I discovered track bouncing and other workarounds to squeeze more production into stereo cassette tapes. I eventually graduated to a multitrack sequencer, which afforded me even greater track counts and more mixing experience. It was during those days that I began to assimilate into my Philadelphia area’s club culture. Freestyle music, techno, and house had permeated both the local scene and my productions. I eventually met DJ Shawn Phillips, whose mentorship brought me to a deeper knowledge of dance music, its culture, and roots, and we began a collaborative partnership spanning sixteen years. We cemented our first project with a deal on Tommy Boy Records and a #28 spot on the Billboard Hot Dance Music Club Play chart. Here's the song:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Alright" propelled [title artist] DJ Richard "Humpty" Vission to a Grammy nomination that year. This minor triumph sparked my desire to seek formal education in production, engineering, and theory to supplement all that I had discovered over the preceding twenty-five years. Full Sail University was the third phase of my education, awarding me a Music Production BS. 

 

 

-DA