Composer. Musician. Author.
January 27, 2015
In which I permanently heighten my senses and improve my music by drinking coffee.
“Ollie saw me, recognized me and advised me to have a different coffee variety than the time before. He actually knew which one that had been. After nine months and just one encounter…”
January 23, 2015
This song is a long story, cut short. I wrote it over the course of several years in different places until I finally rewrote the lyrics from scrap and changed the intro music. Finally, it worked. I am still not Read more…
January 9, 2015
After almost 20 years of struggling with being unable to sing, finding fellow musicians and getting any music published, I suddenly knocked out a finished song, complete with vocals and all. I enjoyed it so much that I made an Read more…
November 26, 2014
I am currently in Cape Town, South Africa, working on a few projects and also finishing writing songs for my next album. My next release will be focussed on acoustic guitar and voice with only a few additions of drum or piano here and there. I am very excited about this project as it is mainly the fruit of my vocal lessons with the wonderful Angelika Norwidat during the past two years. “The Ballad of Timothy Mann” is dedicated to my dear friend Tim. He lives and works in Alaska. I met him on a trip through New Zealand, he is a lovely person and a singer/songwriter himself. Enjoy and let me know how you like it.
May 23, 2014
When it comes to the feminine beauty ideal the world seems to be changing its view and is even beginning to stigmatize superficial views. However, in music most of the world still clings to an ideal, a very restrcitive set of rules that describe what a song has to be like in order to be considered good. Is this ever going to change?
May 9, 2014
It happens again and again: No matter how much I prepare and practice and study, no matter how hard I try, working on new songs sometimes feels like talking with a sore throat. I often ask myself how I could possibly come with any good song in the past. In hindsight I can’t hep but wonder where I took the creativity from. How can you beat the Creative Doldrums?
May 6, 2014
Meet Violet, the beautiful girl. I wrote this song in the summer of 2013, inspired by Tim Hammel whom I met in New Zealand earlier that year.
May 2, 2014
The Art of Practicing is a guide to making music from the heart. If you have lost the joy for practicing (or never experienced it), if you keep asking yourself why and how you could ever enjoy music as much as you did and want to know where the joy and pleasure (might) have gone. This book is for you.
April 25, 2014
Playing the guitar requires a completely different mindset than pushing a mouse around to precisely move a cursor on the screen and hitting buttons – at least for me. Whenever I sit down at my computer to record or arrange songs, this changing between mindsets is what frustrates me the most and steals my energy.
April 11, 2014
Meet my project board. This is a board on my studio wall which has post-its on it for every song that I finished writing and that needs recording. This way my next releases seem much more in reach than they would if they were just a stack of paper or a bunch of ideas somewhere in my head. These post-its visualize my work – or at least a part of it. They remind me of what I am up to and to focus. Because sometimes you just don’t know what to do next. Organizing your thoughts is very helpful for creative people despite the cliché of art arising from chaos. But how does it work?