About This CD

This album is one of a new form of self-collaborative artistic expression in electro-digital music. Armed with the sonic technology of the day, it becomes possible for modestly talented but persistent soloists to sculpt musical works of reasonable quality.  While most who work this way may never attain widespread recognition -- very likely lacking a requisite depth of talent or tenacity to achieve it -- they nevertheless will relentlessly produce recordings that are at least self-gratifying.  With the relative ease of preserving their art, they will leave indelible petroglyphs of learning and experience along their trails of life, discernible to as few as care to investigate.

I am a member of this reclusive musical community.  Driven to create and express, we find a bit of joy in finishing and preserving musical ideas.  For my part, laboring alone, I suffer through episodes when an arrangement is not working, or a sound is not quite right, or a brick wall springs up in the way of completing an idea.  But time always erases discouragement, and on I grind, eventually feeling again the euphoria of The Perfect Moment.  These are the moments warmed by the embrace of a fleeting instant of true beauty.  The object of my toil is to capture that moment, and to carve it into rock, so I can rediscover it later.  Eventually I might perfectly transcribe an exquisite idea from its most tender conception, directly into its most distinct embodiment through tone, harmony, and structured chaos.  But the end goal must always be elusive and forever unreachable.

Tools and Collaboration

Art begins with notions that are born invisibly and inaudibly in the soul, and are described using external, physical mediums.  Even though the artist may start by using a medium to search for and identify an inward notion, the thought still precedes the act.  As an idea takes visual or aural shape, others may then begin to equate it with their own feelings, and uncover the artist's initial idea.  Occasionally, I believe, this process can unlock delicate channels into feelings that predate mortality and transcend our corporeal sphere.

Art's mediums are manipulated by tools that include the voice, a pen or brush, a violin, a hand, or even a digital-to-analog converter.  My tool box houses an array of electro-musical tools, a few of which I have enjoyed the added pleasure of crafting myself.  As I write computer music software and develop digital audio signal processors, I imagine a violinist finding the sweetest tone on a fiddle of his own carving.

Perhaps many musicians find the greatest satisfaction in performing with other fine musicians, or in the presence of an appreciative audience.  But I feel more like a secluded painter who slowly and meticulously nurtures an idea to life with one texturing stroke at a time from a rich and carefully blended palette.  As with painting, my recordings are a growth of layered expressions placed with purpose in temporal and spectral space. And it might take a month to perform a minute of music.  The processes of composition, orchestration, sound design, arrangement, performance, recording, editing, mixing, and mastering all blur together.

Collaboration in the music industry is fueled by strong commercial forces.  Combining the efforts of an array of specialists is simply the most efficient means to produce a quality musical product.  Admittedly, I do envy that process.  In the presence of great musicians and other skilled and talented professionals in the industry, I am filled with feelings of awe and respect.  But then I go home and continue my labors with an unwieldy electronic orchestra, making far more mistakes than breakthroughs, and finding more pleasure in the process than in the product.

In the end, I am alone in my own audience.  If I don't like a piece, it stays on the shelf and waits there for future inspiration before it goes to disc.   It may have to age there for a very long time, perhaps forever.  So sits dozens if not a hundred unfinished ideas.  This album has spent more than a decade languishing in this process, but I am pleased with the form it has finally taken.

Quinn Jensen
Orem, Utah
July, 2000
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