The Empty Orchestras

The Empty Orchestras

For over 10 years, I’ve written and recorded music with friends of mine although I’ve mainly worked on my own and performed my work as folk songs (hence the name). I started seriously learning to record, mix, and master on my own music in 2016 and have since produced and published my music on my own.

Bio

Purpose

Because I’m more of a writer than a musician, I consider myself more of a songwriter than a performer. I have an inexhaustible urge to tell stories. As a younger person, I wanted to tell stories by writing novels and short stories.I soon realized that songs can tell stories too. That was in 2002.

I have since learned nothing worth doing is easy. I started out writing as many songs as I could as fast I could in the first 10 or so years of writing and in retrospect understood the truth illustrated well by the Jarmusch diagram:

Anything you can get fast and cheap can’t be good (In the beginning, I wrote as fast as I could just to have originals songs and if I let you listen, you could tell. Wherever you go, there you are.)

What you can get good and fast can’t be cheap (Hiring an established ghostwriter or producer to work with me may have sped up the process of getting “good” songs.)

And finally, anything good and cheap can’t be obtained quickly. (My process now is good for me, doesn’t cost much, and it takes a while.)

Songwriting to tell stories is the most fun for me. I can’t write and perform all the time because I sustain a lifestyle unsuitable for a life on the road. So it goes. I write mainly because I want to. I make stuff I enjoy making and when I share, I share the best I’ve made thus far.

Challenges: Motivation and Timing

Motivation: I’m often motivated to write and it’s often not for healthy reasons. It’s hard to avoid the temptation to think “I should write to [“prove I’m a good songwriter,” “prove I deserve accolades,” and/or “sell out shows and make money.” That’s domestication/capitalism/western society for you. Fuck if I know how to fix any of that.

What I do know is 1) I enjoy working and usually write when I have that thought, and 2) I try to listen to the voice in my head that tells me, à la Thumper from South Park: “if you’re just writing to earn external validation, you’re gonna have a bad time.”

I still write down things people say. I still try to play melodies on guitar that sound like something I can’t immediately express or place - Donkey Kong music slowed down, a color in the air I saw as a screaming child threw something at another child, music for a movie on mute etc. I still start things. What’s key is if my mind is quiet and I feel lighter as I am working, then I keep doing it. If not, I don’t. It’s a creative choice that makes my timing unconventional but healthy for me.

Timing: The rhythm of my creative life depends on the season I am in. Balancing teaching and music means I spend summers doing deep work and socializing and going to live music events and during the school year, I’m more often editing in focused bursts and sharing at the occasional performances. It took me 14 years to write 13 well-written indie folk songs. I have improved at performing these songs but that is icing on the cake - I’m proudest that I wrote them. Getting quality recordings of them, though, is a whole other can of worms.

All this to say, my rhythm is a far cry from the studio-touring-studio-touring cycle of a working-class musician. I respect musicians who manage to live that way, but it doesn’t work for me.

Process

What I enjoy most is bringing an idea to life through writing and recording, even if only for a moment. When I compose, I do so to feel present and connected to something in the present moment. I’m most interested in moments like these when feeling and sound align. Sometimes that sound includes words. Whenever I edit music, I decide what the ideas mean to me and how best to honor them. Whenever I share with others, I do so to give the songs away so the ideas have other places to go and so I can make other things. Performing is a special joy I’m grateful I can experience when I’m willing and able.

Inspirations & Goals

I started out writing rock songs inspired by Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Mars Volta. Over time, I discovered folk—Iron & Wine, Andrew Bird, Gilberto Gil and Ry Cooder’s work in the 1990s–2000s with Buena Vista Social Club and Ali Farka Toure—and shifted to introspective, acoustic storytelling. Right now, I’m excited to share some music and connect with people who value intimate, meaningful shows. My favorite shows are small and sincere—in backyards, bookstores, or community spaces where connection feels close and honest. That’s where I hope to bring these songs next.

Music

Forever is Nothing, Healing Spirals Up

Written between May 2007 and June 2023.
Rewritten, recorded and mixed in San Antonio, TX between January and June 2023.
Released June 30, 2023.

2021 Demos

Written between March 2013 and July 2021.
Recorded and mixed in San Antonio, TX between April and July 2021.
Released July 25, 2021.

Laredo by Nightfall [EP]

Written between June 2018 and June 2020.
Recorded, mixed and mastered in Schertz, TX between April and June 2020.
Released June 5, 2020.

Short Storms and Long Rides in the Night [LP]

Written between February 2016 and August 2018.
Recorded, mixed and mastered in Boerne, TX between February and August 2018.
Released August 18, 2018.

For Times Past, For New Life EP

Written between June and August 2017.
Recorded and mixed in Boerne, TX between August and November 2017.
Released November 25, 2017.