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Paris — Music Capital of France.
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Recording Masters with Oliver Morya. My best friend Oliver — melody
master, guitarist, keyboardist, arranger, programmer, sound engineer, producer,
and multi-talented music whiz!
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Oliver Bringing His Incredible Talent to One of My Songs. Here, Oliver is
suggesting improvements to some of the guitar parts and optimizing an arrangement
at my home studio in Paris.
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Songwriting. What started as a few notes — a melody captured on a little tape
recorder — is about to start its long journey towards becoming a song. Various stages
will follow — numerous rewrites, harmonizing, arranging, scoring, programming, and
ultimately, recording and mixing. Not the easiest of jobs! This may take months
of hard work and require intelligent collaboration with the right musicians ...
but what an incredibly exciting and intimate journey for the soul!
Home studio: This is the same home studio where I recorded over sixty
of my hour-long guitar classes on tape. I really loved doing these. The discipline
of preparing them made me become a better teacher, and it was professionally very
gratifying, since the tapes became a big success in the Paris guitar community.
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Oliver and Me at My Birthday Party. At one time or another in his life, a
musician may be lucky enough to meet another musician who is a perfect fit —
someone with whom everything clicks both musically and personally, allowing the
music inside to become a reality. This is what happened with Oliver and me.
We have both so much in common — in music and beyond — while at the
same time having much of our own individual richness to share with each other.
What followed has been a fantastically fulfilling musical collaboration and
friendship that remains very much alive to this day. He and I are real soul
brothers for life!
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Double Happiness. A Japanese ideograph summing up my perfect musical
partnership and friendship with Oliver.
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Live in Paris with my Buddy Oliver. Here, I am playing live with Oliver
to support a CD release of his "Coeur de Soleil" project.
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Live in Paris for the "Coeur de Soleil" Project. The chord changes in this
series were challenging but beautifully musical!
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Live in Paris for "Coeur de Soleil." As always, a guitar solo is only as
melodic as the chord progression it is played over. That was never an issue playing
with these guys. Everything was in place for Oliver and me to trade truly majestic
solos — the ones you know are going to be huge before you even start playing. I
guess it's kind of like surfers hitting a monster wave...
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Two French Vocalist Friends at an After Party. On the left is French-pop
singer Geronimo, who I had just done a series of live shows with. On the right is
my favorite male vocalist in Paris — multi-talented keyboardist, songwriter,
arranger, programmer, vocalist, and my very good friend Pierre Emberger. Pierre and
I co-wrote and arranged songs for various artists, including platinum-selling
French-pop singer Jean-Patrick Capdevielle. Pierre was unquestionably the male
vocalist of choice for all of my demos in Paris. A killer voice and a great guy to
work with!
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Happy Campers. From left to right: Me, lyricist Wendy, vocal recording
artist Lisa Marine, and Oliver after a day of work in the studio. Oliver and I
co-wrote and arranged songs for Lisa, whose talent and ebullient personality made
her our favorite female vocalist to write for.
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Mixing a Song at Home with Oliver. With Oliver, I learned some of the
most important skills I rely on as a musician to reach that special zone where
music becomes incredibly fulfilling. It was the perfect time in my life for delving
into these deeper layers of knowledge — I was ready to assimilate it, and
Oliver was the ideal guide. Merci, mon pote !
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Spirit. Life is Paris was good, but I found myself missing the fabulous
American spirit of adventure, freedom, and optimism I had been exposed to in
California as well as the intensity of American music itself. I was ready for the
personal growth that would be possible in new, fertile soil, so I said goodbye to
Paris and hello to Seattle, Washington, USA.
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