On Moments of Clarity
The creation of Moments of Clarity is at once a story of decoupling and of merging; a decoupling of old narratives - narratives that were clung to but ultimately failed - from the self, which, being laid bare, began to craft a new narrative, one of an increasingly integrated self, where all of my experiences, inspirations, intentions, and notions of artistry gradually merge with the world.
The Decoupling
By March of 2019, I had been “Dr. Spencer Miller” for about three months, with my time as an Arizona Wildcat having come to a largely triumphant close the previous December. Upon returning to my native Minnesota with my fiancée, Teresa, I initially looked to find work at colleges in the area, including Augsburg University, my alma mater. I got the same story everywhere I went: “Resume looks great! I’ll be happy to put you on our adjunct waiting list and let you know!” “I appreciate it!”, I said, feeling the emptiness of their words.
I often felt angry and lost. I had just spent 10 years in college - most all of my twenties - and was a very hard-working and high-achieving student. As an undergraduate, I earned the top scholarship possible, twice. As a masters student, I was awarded a Graduate Teacher’s Assistantship (GTA), won a concerto competition, and was a resident artist for the Toledo opera. As a doctoral candidate, I was awarded a GTA on two separate occasions, and graduated with honors. I was doing what was asked, and often exceeding it. But, in March of 2019, I had 80k in student loan debt, and wasn’t even getting a second look from an institution that has twice hung my portrait on the wall. As the winter began to slowly fade into Spring, I was a substitute teacher at my old high school.
Many of my thoughts at this time were not helpful to me. I regularly took up a victim mentality. I felt that the narratives I had put stock into had not kept their promises. I was aware that a life in the arts would have its challenges, but even so, I believed, perhaps naively, that I had mitigated some of the struggle by doing what I had been told: get educated, work very hard, have a diverse skill set, etc. This victim mentality gripped more tightly when I applied at MacPhail to be a private teacher, and wasn’t told exactly why I wasn’t hired. The three points of feedback I received from the one in contact with me were: 1) they (the contact) liked me, 2) while my instruction worked for the particular student they provided me with, they weren’t sure it would work on all students, and 3) that one of the teachers was uncomfortable when I referred to the student’s “mind” while working with him. I was frustrated with the process of selling myself in this way. I have always felt that one of my strengths is a strong and persistent emotional investment into my work. I typically start slow in new situations but eventually come on strong. How do you demonstrate this in ten minutes?
Much of my life at this time, though, was truly wonderful. After living away from our families for almost six years, Teresa and I were able to reconnect with them. We were also engaged, and would be married that August (at, you guessed it, Augsburg University!). Additionally, I had been cultivating a meditative practice that had me deeply interested in the nature of the mind and being. In a profound stroke of good fortune, the WakingUp app was released in September 2018. Created by Sam Harris, this highly collaborative project has led to very fundamental transformations in my conscious experience, and helped me to finally author a spiritual path that I could truly connect with.
In these early months of 2019, I was meditating daily. The landscape of my inner experience was ever-expanding, and there was much to find in looking at the natures of myself and the universe. These discoveries seem to be felt more than intellectualized, and seem to resonate as true. This feeling of truth provides a kind of clarity, which is of much use even - or perhaps, especially - if the truth is difficult to accept.
One of these difficult yet clarifying discoveries for me is that I didn’t love classical piano music. I love certain pieces, and I really do like classical music, but it is the music I loved as a child that still makes my heart sing today: the Beatles, progressive rock, jam bands (which improvise much of their set), and various other kinds of popular music.
In making this discovery, I had to then ask: why have I then dedicated so much of my life to playing classical piano music? The full answer to this would require another blog post, but it has again to do with narratives that ultimately failed. The majority of recognition I received in my youth was for my musical ability, and classical music was what was assigned. Fundamentally, it came down to a yearning to be loved and accepted, and the unexamined belief that classical music was the way to garner that love and acceptance. I’m not saying I regret this path, or that I blame anyone for it. How could others know what I truly wanted when I didn’t know myself?
Though I see these early months of 2019 as a very precious gift today, accepting the failure of all of these narratives was very difficult. As I discarded them, I felt lost. Who was I then?
The Merging
Lucky for me, something I have always been sure about is that I am the son of a loving father! I was talking with my dad a lot these days, as always, and he was exemplifying a supportive role model, as always. When trying to pick someone up, one must say things that the person can believe in, and Glenn Miller III has always been able to do this for me. As I was considering many different avenues, these conversations with dad helped inspire me to choose to make an album.
The idea of making an album had always interested me. Looking back, I think I believed I always would eventually, but in graduate school I felt I didn’t have the time and that finishing the programs was a higher priority. Now while contemplating my next move, I found that the project of making an album filled me with more fire than anything else, and fortunately, I followed that inspiration. So, I was committed. But where to start? What was to be my actual process of making the album?
I had been improvising and composing here and there my whole life, and I started with listening to anything I had previously made and recorded. There was a smattering of ideas in my Google Drive folder, from tiny fragments to full form songs. I did end up using some of this material, including a riff I wrote in 2015 which would become a substantial part of Violet: Growing Pains, a song that was originally planned for the album but ultimately left off of it. There were fragments that made it into Far Star, and other material that I’m holding on to for future albums. Along with this, I started playing the piano more. My relationship with the piano had been strained going back to my time at the University of Arizona, and I hadn’t been playing much at all since returning to Minnesota. When I did play, I wasn’t very into it most of the time. Now though, I was enjoying just messing around at the keys and saving what I liked most. This has become my new relationship with the keyboard: just messing around and recording what I like. I have dozens of ideas saved now, more than I’ll ever be able to materialize! I started to play much more guitar as well, something I did all of the time in high school but rarely did while in college.
As I started to embrace existence in the singer/songwriter realm, I found that most of my ideas came in waves. I’d have short, fruitful weeks or weekends, and then would have dry spells. In July of 2019 I went up to Teresa’s family cabin and had a very fruitful week, writing the first drafts of what became Sandcastle, Final Conversation, and What It Is Like to Be an Artist. I wrote the lyrics for Sandcastle then as well, while the lyrics for the other songs would take a while. As the year progressed, I was making more and more time to work on these songs over Garageband at my house.
I was also focusing more and more on the messages I wanted for the songs. I had written words in the past, but not out of a sincere desire to communicate, rather, to follow the practice of songwriting. Now though, the conceptual nature of the album was exciting to me. I was beginning to feel that I had “missed the point”, so to speak, and it hit me as a revelation that I could merge my inner contemplative life and my artistry, and communicate insights that might be of value to people. The lyrics for Sandcastle, for instance, came out of very fruitful reflections on my commitment to Teresa, whom I would be reciting my vows to in less than a month.
Speaking of Teresa, as I was meditating on lyrical themes myself, I read some of her poems. She writes beautifully from a heart that knows much that mine does not. I decided to take three of her poems and use them for the songs Final Conversation, Violet, and Culture is Sick, tweaking the words here and there to match with the rhythmic and formal structure of the music. For Final Conversation and Violet, I was matching these texts to songs I had already begun, but for Culture is Sick, I wrote the music after reading the poem.
The lyrical themes of the album ended up being quite diverse: commentaries on our cultures complicated relationship with mortality, commitments to relationships, fatherhood, the artist experience, and celebration of the spirit of exploration. All of these themes are foundational for me, and reflecting on them brought much needed clarity at a time when I often felt deeply lost and uncertain. Hence, Moments of Clarity!
Little by little, the album was coming together. Early in 2020, I met Steve Kaul at Wild Sound Studios for pre-production meetings. I showed him my latest drafts (or, demos) of six songs, and he was impressed with them. I remember being at least equally impressed with him; he gave me great feedback, had a tremendous musical ear, and clearly had a ton of experience living in the musical universe. We set the dates of the first tracking sessions for the first couple weeks of March, and when those dates arrived, Wes, Matt, and I went into the studio and layed down drum tracks for all of the songs. It wasn’t a week later that the Coronavirus pandemic saw most public places close. Covid was a very difficult time for all, and I am very fortunate to have been in a place of high inspiration when it hit. I spent much of 2020 working on my album when I could, which was a much needed respite from constant teaching of piano lessons over Zoom, which I grew to dislike very much.
Over 2020 and 2021 I was learning how to fill out a song. I had the skeletons of the songs by this point: the forms, progressions, words, melodies, etc, but I found this to be only the beginning. Whether it was looking for a synth layer in this chorus, or a different guitar layer in this verse, I tried to find the right balance of repetition and variety. It was fun to explore sound in a completely new space, and I felt a new kind of artistic freedom. On the flip side, making a song work in a way that satisfied me took a lot of problem solving, mostly hundreds of small details, but also some larger ongoing challenges. In meeting these challenges consistently, I experienced extreme highs as well as lingering frustrations and confrontations with my insecurities. This process is what I actually sing about in the song, What It Is Like to Be an Artist.
One of the primary challenges of this album were my vocal performances. Initially, I was unsure as to whether or not I’d be satisfied with my vocals in the end. Later in 2020, once I resumed studio sessions with Steve, we laid down some vocals, and I was thrilled to hear what I sounded like through high quality equipment, professional EQing, and production. Even after this, however, I still felt that I didn't carry the melodies I wrote for the songs Types of Tears and Violet very well. I kept trying, and you will read more about Types of Tears later, but ultimately, I decided to take voice lessons. Steve set me up with Diana Grasselli, who was incredibly helpful! My vocals on Types of Tears ended up being one of the aspects of the album of which I am the most proud. I also noticed improvements on Violet, though I ultimately cut that song from the album because I didn’t think it came together in the end. I hope to complete it and release it eventually, however, because I do believe in its potential.
I had my final tracking session a week before the birth of my son, Quincy (Thanksgiving, 2021). After he arrived, it was harder to focus on what remained left to do. Luckily, most of this work was on Steve’s end. He would create mixes of the tunes, and then I would listen and give feedback. Ultimately, this process took about a year, largely because I was focused on baby Q! I remember being anxious to finish and share the album. I had listened to each of the songs, it seemed, several hundred times, and it often struck me that many of the closest people in my life hadn’t heard any of them!
The mixing and mastering came to an end on December 22nd, 2023. By this time, I had so much future material and was thrilled to be finished with Moments of Clarity. I waited until February 27th, my dad’s birthday, to release the album. It is dedicated to him, because I am sure the album would not exist without his effort and dedication to it. I’m now writing the next chapter of the story: what to do with the album! I am very much figuring this out as I go.
Reflecting on the album as a whole, all of the songs are tremendously special to me. They are, in fact, a part of me, and I am very proud of them. I have found that I really do hope people will like the songs, and that positive feedback means the world to me. It seems to me that most careers don’t entail this kind of personal display. This album is precisely how I have been spending my time over the past 3+ years, yet it only takes about an hour to listen through. Ultimately, however, I don’t think a lack of validation would stop me from being immensely proud of this effort. I’m very happy with the personal transformation that creating this album required. I believe I have found a path I can walk for the foreseeable future.
There were several people who helped in creating the album directly, whether it was writing, playing, arranging, editing, mixing, mastering, conversing, thinking, etc, and I’d like to acknowledge their work:
Steve Kaul, who served as producer of the album. So much of what the album became is owed to his expertise! My time interacting with Steve made me such a better musician. Steve is also a wonderful person.
Wesley Miller, who played all of the percussion and had many great ideas and edits to the songs (such as the three part harmony for the third verse in Far Star, pt 1)
Matthew Zyla, who played the bass for the album. I’d like to highlight the excellent work he did on Types of Tears, in particular.
Troy Wyman, who played the guitar lead on Sandcastle, Final Conversation, and much of Far Star, and also mixed and edited much of the album as Steve’s assistant
Sam Slotsky, who played the saxophone on Types of Tears.
Diana Grasselli, my voice teacher who helped me improve the vocals on the album, particularly Types of Tears.
Teresa Miller, who wrote poems that became Final Conversation and Culture is Sick, and also provided me with so much loving support and encouragement.
Nathaniel Gillen, a fantastic guitarist who rehearsed some of the songs with Wes, Matt, and me. His abilities helped convince me that the end of Sandcastle should have a guitar solo.
Glenn Miller, to whom the album is dedicated, for unwavering support and enthusiasm in helping me start, continue, and finish the project.
There are also so many people that indirectly helped shape the album, whether it was teachers, parents, role models, friends, etc. In addition to being immensely grateful to these people, I’m grateful for the cultivation and preservation of traditions and ideas, the love of music, the necessity of creation and authorship, and the cultural and political environments that value music and make it possible to create an album in the first place. Given how much good fortune I needed to make this album, I very much think of Moments of Clarity as an expression of the universe.
With that, I’d like to speak to each individual song a bit:
Breaking Out
This song has quite an interesting story. Its original conception was to be an “experiment” song for the studio. I used somewhat of a trope for the lyrical content (overcoming low self-love through a commitment to a loved one), and wrote very simple chords. I resolved to take every suggestion I got from Steve, Wes, Matt, etc. The result was the piece I thought would be a great track #1! Even though the origins of the song are somewhat flippant, I came to love this song.
The form and progressions are simple. To start the chorus, I used my favorite “chorus-starter” chord. There was originally a middle section, which also served as an outro. We cut the outro, and then made the middle section somewhat of an ethereal pause. My favorite part of the song are the strings at the beginning of the third verse.
Sandcastle
I started writing this at my wife’s family cabin, a month before my wedding. I was reflecting on that commitment, and ultimately wrote the song from the point of view of a partner who has made a significant mistake and is remorseful. I had been listening to William B. Irvine’s series on stoicism in the WakingUp app, and the lyrics to this piece riff on a technique the stoics used called “negative visualization.”
Musically, I was very excited about this song the whole way. Unlike a few of the other songs, I never really doubted that this one would come together in the end. I had the form very early on, and I love the chords. It seemed that every time I worked on it at home or in the studio, something new and exciting was discovered: the setting of the beach at the beginning, the slide guitars in verse 3, the playing with the overtones of the hammond chords, the synthesizer in the second prechorus and chorus, the falling BGVs, etc. The biggest challenge for me was relearning a mostly improvised solo. I first recorded the keyboard solo on my own keyboard because the Wurlizer was out of order that day, and then months later I decided I wanted it with the Wurlizer, and I had to relearn my own solo.
I recently went back and listened to my first draft of this, and then listened to the final draft. It made for a special moment, as you don’t necessarily see how much work you have put in until these comparisons across large gaps in time.
Types of Tears
I originally wrote the lyrics of this track about my relationship with Teresa. After making a couple of mixes of it, I felt that the melody wasn’t very interesting. It seemed to be too low, so I tried to raise the key from D major to F major, but I didn’t like the music then. I decided to rewrite the melody, but had a very difficult time doing that with pre-existing words that had been matched with the old melody, so I ultimately rewrote the lyrics of the verses. We were expecting Quincy at this time, and my mind was full of inspiration about becoming a dad - something I dreamed of even as a teenager. Thus, this song is about Quincy in the end. I feel it to be about both he and Teresa, which makes it the most personally meaningful song on the album.
Even after I wrote the new melody, I wasn’t happy with my vocal performance. I really liked the new melody - especially the belting in verse three - and I wanted badly to be satisfied with this song. So, I took voice lessons with Diana Grasselli. I had always been vocally active, but these lessons really got this song where it needed to go, and I am very thankful for her! I’m absolutely thrilled with the lead and background vocals in this track.
Final Conversation
The lyrics of this piece were taken from one of Teresa’s poems, with a couple small adjustments such that they fit into the song form. Teresa spent years working as a music therapist in a hospice in Tucson, Arizona. Many couples move to warm cities such as Tucson to retire, and oftentimes, their family members live too far away to be physically present for them as they go through the dying process.
Teresa observed that many couples are unprepared when one of them is passing on, and are often unable to say what they mean even in the end. This composition reflects this. The first half of the piece is what both the dying person and the living partner wish to say to one another. The second half is what they often will say in reality. They will make small talk, and keep what they wished to say unsaid. I tried to portray this musically, with a very raw and heavy beginning, and then somewhat of a musically bland and uninteresting second half, which then portrays death at the end of the piece.
What it is Like to Be an Artist
This song also dates back to the Niebur cabin. I was experimenting with different tunings, and came up with this riff that explores the blending of major and minor. I explored this polarity as the piece kept evolving, and brought the idea of polarity into my lyrics as well in writing about the artist’s experience.
The title is, I grant, presumptuous, but I didn’t want to call it “What it is Like to Be Me” or “My Artistic Experience”, and figured that the words to the song would resonate with plenty of artists. As with much of this album, there aren’t hidden messages in this, I wanted to keep it straightforward. Being an artist in 21st century America is difficult. Our cultural orientation to music is that it is in the background of something - or accompanies something - more important. The lows of an artist can be very low, and they are of many varieties: guilt that you are choosing a profession where the income is usually low, which burdens your family; feeling out of inspiration and originality; having too many inspirations and not enough time, etc. For me, these are ultimately outweighed by all of the virtue, enrichment, and meaning that have come out of being an artist, and that’s my message at the end of the song.
Unlike Sandcastle and Far Star, I had long periods of uncertainty with this song. Ultimately, it came together better than I expected. I love all of the layers of guitar, and the improvisation of the synthesizer started as somewhat of a joke in the studio that we liked in the end.
Culture is Sick
These lyrics are taken from another one of Teresa’s poems, and the music was written specifically to match them. Like Final Conversation, the lyrics are inspired by her time working in a hospice setting. This piece is very much a commentary on American consumerism, and the way our cultural habits and messaging are at odds with finding spiritual depth.
Musically, this piece taps into my classical background more than the others. The piano part starts with a machine-like texture, evolves into a Romantic-style classical piece, and then arrives at a passacaglia wherein the bass continues stepping down the scale indefinitely. I added strings in three voices to the passacaglia, which are written in an imitative style, and the vocal overlay has some operatic singing in the background. I also emphasized machine-like sounds to further emphasize the message of the song.
Far Star
“Even so…I must search. Even if the endless powdering of stars in the Galaxy makes the quest seem hopeless, and even if I must do it alone.”
These words are uttered by the character Golan Trevize in Isaac Asimov’s book, Foundation and Earth, and they inspired the final track on the album, Far Star. Trevize’s insistence of searching for humanity’s long lost planet of origin despite not knowing anything about it, and impossible odds of finding it, directed my spirituality in a profound way. It is the very commitment to the quest and the acceptance of all moments of uncertainty, fear, anger, doubt, frustration, dread, and danger that are sure to arise. His willingness to meet these in the name of exploration inspires me to forge a spiritual path that is original. With the piece, I honor the true inspiration that Asimov has given me, and surely has given many others, through his work.
With this work I also mean to honor progressive rock, one of my favorite genres of music. Far Star has a form very similar to Rush’s 2112, and Yes’s Close to the Edge. These are all rock songs of extraordinary length, which tell epic tales as they unfold. I felt that this genre was perfect for honoring originality, and exploration for its exploration’s sake. As such, the process of making this song was very experimental, and I feel that this is the most biographical project I’ve ever completed. This song is “me” in so many ways, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of my artistic output.
I think of the piece in five sections, and parts are quite different from one another, they are unified using a technique I learned in a graduate seminar on Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Very often in classical music (especially Baroque and Classical) forms, the main themes are introduced in their entirety at the beginning, and then played with thereafter. Composers will transpose their themes, put them through sequences, make permutations of fragments of a theme, juxtapose them, etc. What Sibelius was known for doing, however, was flipping this process on its head. Instead of the full theme right away, it is placed at the end, and it is built up to through several sections which contain fragments - or hints, or suggestions - of it. This was called “thematic crystalization” in my class, and it was very fitting for this piece. The certainty comes at the end of all of the exploration. If you listen enough to this piece, you may be able to catch the fragments of the triumphant theme at the end through the course of the song.
Steve’s work on this piece was absolutely amazing. The launch and landing sequences of the musical spaceship are thanks to his expertise, and his idea to use the space-probe-like sounds right before the climactic arrival of that main theme was brilliant. There are too many micro adjustments that he added to the piece to remember, but he was vital in making this song one that I am very proud of!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you have enjoyed, or will enjoy, Moments of Clarity.