A Songwriting Workshop with Brian Eno

I had the honor and pleasure of participating in a month long songwriting workshop with Brian Eno this past January. Held in 3 sessions per week over Zoom, we had weekly lectures, Q&A sessions with Brian and also listening and feedback sessions. Each week the workshop attendees were given an assignment by Eno. Here we have the very first class assignment, that we were given 20 minutes to compose during a break in our first lecture. His creative prompt was to chose one of several silent short videos and write something for it.

Title- Passing Into A Recent Past.

Lyrics/ Poem to accompany the music:

Thru the window, so close yet passing into a recent past, I see the work of hands and machine.

Organized and left to ponder, the harvest and the seasons before.

All lies still beneath the ever changing sky, keeping watch.

So close yet passing into a recent past.

The journey continues.

If interested, you can listen to all my assignments from the Eno workshop here.

https://handsonsound.bandcamp.com/album/brian-eno-workshop-2025

There's A Strange Noise Coming Thru The Speaker

After having pursued the concept of air and wind for sound design/experimental and ambient sprojects for several years, in 2024 I became interested in the transmission of sound thru electricity and light. What we have here is a composition of mine that is…well… an experimental electronic music composition using field recordings made with a Photon Smasher LED microphone, a LOM Elektrousi EMF microphone, software synthesizer instruments and NASA sonification recordings. On Vimeo, you will hear a 5.1 version of the Dolby Atmos mix. The concept for this piece came to me after reading about some strange sounds that were being heard by astronauts on the International Space Station in August of 2024.

George Croft- Better To Be Tough

A brilliant young singer/ songwriter, George Croft, played down a sets of tracks for me in the Spring of 2024 at Sound Union in Redwood City that yielded his solo album “Better To Be Tough- Songs of Love Hope & Redemption”. Mixed at Hands on sound and mastered at Wildwood House on Salt Spring Island in BC. Check it out on apple Music Spotify etc and look for George’s extremely entertaining and informative Instagram account. George Croft Music

When a Podcast Becomes a Book

Capping off a very successful 4 year run of producing and editing the “Lost or Found” podcast, host Dr Michelle Choi took on the task of writing a book abut her life and then go it published. Entitled, “Untangling- Liberating Myself From an Enmeshed Family and Impossible Medical Career”. It was my honor to work with Michelle on the audiobook version, with her doing all the voiceover recordings here at Hands on Sound and me editing the final product. The book and audio book are available on Amazon and a Barnes and Noble. The podcast is on all the usual platforms and can also be found on Michelle’s website. Dr Michelle Choi MD

A Year Of Working Remotely

This tidbit of a post has been sitting around and collecting dust for several years…making it go live just a memory of the COID era. I just realized that the Blog here hasn’t had any entries in almost a year. While the page has been quiet, Hands on Sound has been keeping busy.

Like so many, I have been working remotely for much of 2020 and 2021, serving my clients from a distance for most of the year. With the exception of a handful of location sound gigs, it’s been all Post Production editing and mixing, Podcast production and Music Production.