John Michael Mi Para Ti

Over the years, song ideas that came to me while jogging or doodling around on the guitar found their way onto a mini-cassette recorder. Finally, when the opportunity came and I could place making a CD as a priority, my first intention was to take the song ideas from the mini-cassette and create music for a blues/funk genre, using a computer. However, during my initial attempts, using common, inexpensive sound cards and sound modules (synthesizers), I could not create an acceptable accompaniment for my electric guitar. Consequently, I began to develop the 'other' songs I've written--songs that came to me while playing my classical guitar, songs that came out of my experiences with playing Latin-jazz. I've always had an affinity for the open sounds of the augmented 5th, the 11th (suspended) or the 6th + 7th chords, and while playing around with them, the songs on this CD dropped out of the sky. The momentum began and over the next several months the majority of my time off (from working a regular 40-hour week schedule at Agilent Technologies) was spent creating accompaniment for these classical guitar songs. I included better-quality sound cards so I could capture the sounds of the authentic instruments, but there is still an occasional trumpet blast that sounds too much like a synthesizer. Nevertheless, the results are satisfying and faithful to the original inspiration.