A few years back, I started making original pieces of music for seminal events on the calendar. Fall Equinox. New Year’s. Anniversaires. Christmas. Summer Solstice. I’m not sure why, but I regularly found myself in front of a piano or guitar trying to put feelings to sound on these special days of the year. 

I imposed silly deadlines on myself in an attempt to better capture the feelings surrounding the moment at hand. The thing I started making on New Year’s Eve needed to be finished by New Year’s. I worked fast. I began learning the difference between something being finished and something being done. The deep scrutiny that permeated so much of my regular creative process didn’t play a prominent role. Musical decisions that often inspired a unique brand of neurosis were now made swiftly. I was buoyed by a certain degree of creative nihilism. I didn’t have any plans of releasing this music or sharing it with anyone, so it didn't really matter if the attack on the snare was just right. I didn’t have to lose sleep over the guitar part in the chorus being perfect because nobody was going to hear it anyways. 

The degree of presence and flow I felt during these sessions changed the way I approached making music. I found myself chasing down moments and feelings in lieu of precision and accuracy. Many of the assumptions and expectations that once bogged down the cogs of my creative process gently gave way to the freedom that comes with embracing the present.

I was really enjoying the music I was making during this period of newfound awareness, but I admittedly had trouble categorizing it. I wasn’t making traditional songs, and after all, so much of the creative magic in these sessions came from intentionally not thinking about what to do with this music. So I just kept on making things that I liked, amassing an island of misfit sounds that didn’t exactly have a place to call home. And they didn’t feel like they necessarily needed a place to call home. 

When this year’s Summer Solstice came around, I was inspired to sit down and create. Over the span of a few hours, I feel like I captured what was taking place in my heart. But instead of keeping to my rule that these types of creations are not to be heard by anyone’s ears but my own, I felt called to send this out to a few people who are very close to me. The response was frankly...overwhelming. The people I sent this piece of music to expressed that it helped them reach a place of loving awareness and presentness. Some chose to simply listen to it in the car, others listened before bed, and some even incorporated it into their meditation practices. 

This incredibly kind response provided me with an interesting dilemma. So much of the “magic” surrounding these recordings was contingent on the freedom stemming from the knowledge that what I was making would not be released to the general public. But after receiving so much feedback that I should share some of this music being created, I did feel a calling to take a risk and allow others to meaningfully interact with this art. 

In an effort to find some sort of balance in this binary, I decided to try making what I simply called “meditations” for some friends and family. I continued on as I normally would- setting up in my home and creating with a type of abandon that simply said “yes” to the present moment. The only difference was, I knew going in that I would send whatever was created in these moments to one specific person I loved. To my surprise, these new sessions were filled with the same degree of awareness and love as the sessions that initially inspired them. I found it to be such an intimate and liberating experience to send someone I loved a piece of music made just for them that they could choose to utilize however they saw fit. 

As I was brainstorming ways to fundraise for my debut full length album, I was disillusioned by more traditional online methods of funding that were heavily reliant on simple asks for capital. Although I don’t find any of these methods to be inherently less legitimate or valuable than alternative methods, I really want all of the fundraising taking place for my debut album to feel truly equitable in nature. I want to offer something that I feel has a great deal of value on an emotional, spiritual, and psychosomatic level. So I have decided to make a very limited number of personalized music meditations available for purchase. 

Our current world moves so fast, and it doesn’t do a great job of championing creative endeavors that are specifically curtailed for your needs, your heart, or your soul. My hope is that these music meditations disrupt this enterprise by offering you something made specifically with you in mind. In today’s landscape where everything is desperately vying for the attention of the masses, I believe it is a great act of resistance to create a piece of art that is meant to be consumed by one individual.

These music meditations ask nothing of you. They come without expectation or assumption. There is no right or wrong way to interact with or utilize them. My only hope is that they might bring you to a place of heightened awareness and love- that they would serve as soft, gentle reminders that you are seen, loved, and fully known. That you are without flaw or blemish. That you are never truly alone. That something always holds you. 

You may listen to the 2021 Summer Solstice Demo that inspired all of this below:

For more information about purchasing a personalized meditation, you may visit my online store here: