More about Smitty…

Remember that moment when you heard a song or band or piece of music that stopped you in your tracks? You leaned in wanting to hear more, it captured you, it stirred you. You were inspired! You felt the power of music draw you to a new place of curiosity, and it drove you to hear more, know more, do more. You found yourself with renewed passion and discipline to play and study your instrument like never before. That’s the power of music, passion and discipline coming together. 

That life-changing musical moment for me happened at age 13, the first time I heard The Beatles on the radio. I had always loved music, took piano lessons from age 7, grew up in a musical family where my parents played and sang at church. But, Wow! When I heard The Beatles for the first time, my musical world exploded! I started trying to play what The Beatles and other rock groups were playing. My ear started to discover a sense of melody, rhythm and chords. I could hear how they all seemed to work together. It was a lot of fun. I started to play a game where I would  listen to music and try to “see it” on a music staff  or “picture it” being played on the piano. I didn’t realize at the time that this “game” was really developing my ear and helping me acquire a good sense of relative pitch.

While my music interests, ideas and passions expanded, my training and experience continued with piano lessons and playing for funerals and weddings. In my teens, I played at church, in bands, held hours-long jam sessions at my parents’ house, and gave music lessons at my mom’s music studio. 

My music education continued at Azusa Pacific College, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in music. While at college I was invited into the Hollywood recording scene by one of my professors, who owned a recording studio. It was there that I was inspired and challenged to a new level of musicianship. Sessions in this studio featured talented and incredible musicians. I watched them sight-read a piece of music “nailing” their parts within minutes with great feel, timing and impeccable performance. It was another life-changing moment for me. This was what I really wanted to do! 

In my professor’s studio, I was introduced to another aspect of the music world—music recording engineer. Again I found myself intrigued, drawn in and wanting to learn everything I could about how to record music. I asked my professor to mentor and teach me to be a recording engineer. He agreed, and I learned what goes on “on the other side of the glass.” This proved to be invaluable for my entire career. I understand music production and recording as a musician/player and the art and science of music engineering. I am so grateful to my professor for his belief in me and his mentorship.

While learning to be a recording engineer I still was just as interested as I had ever been in the goal of being a professional musician, able to play on recordings just like those players I had witnessed at the earlier session. My teacher/mentor eventually brought in two partners to his studio; they were both involved in producing records and soundtracks for movies and TV.  I started working on their projects as an engineer and along the way they realized I was a keyboardist too.  They invited me to play on one of their recordings and pretty soon I was playing keys on everything they did. I wore two hats—musician/player and engineer/recorder. I would sit behind the glass and record/engineer what was being played in the studio, and then I would go out in the studio and play my keyboard parts while one of the partners captured it on tape.  The new partners proved to also be invaluable mentors to me. All three of these men were incredibly kind and gracious to me, and I am eternally grateful to them!

This team of people continued doing record projects and soundtracks and they started allowing me to compose, arrange and orchestrate for projects they were hired to do. One of the highlights was when I got to go to England and be a part of the recording process for a Film  score with the London Royal Philharmonic in the same studio that the score for the original Star Wars was recorded in. What an experience…!

In this same time period I was a member of a Christian rock band called One Truth.  We recorded four albums and toured several times a year. I made life-long friends with these guys. People came to know the Lord and I think we pulled off some pretty cool music along the way!

The producer of the One Truth albums was based in Nashville and he invited me to Nashville to play keys on other projects he was working on.  I had developed a knowledge of using synthesizers and he had me do a lot of overdubs with synths along with piano and Rhodes tracks.

I started doing more sessions as a keyboardist and little by little my work shifted to arranging and playing keys and less work as a recording engineer. I was getting to do what I had seen those musicians do when I was in college!

After five or six years of full-time work in TV & film I had another major career shift by working on a lot more Christian projects. This made me realize that I really wanted to devote my career to music that had an eternal purpose!

I started doing keyboard overdubs for several Maranatha! Music projects. This led to doing arrangements for them and eventually led me into a new area of producing projects.  I produced, arranged and played on several projects for Maranatha and many others. I am thrilled to have spent decades doing this work.  When I was very young I wished to do something for a living that I would love to do as a hobby and God allowed me to live my dream!

While doing projects at Maranatha Music I was given the opportunity to become a Music Director for the Worship Team that they were putting together to do the Promise Keeper events in stadiums across the U.S. I got to do these events for 12 years and once again, made friends for life with all the guys that I worked with in the various worship teams.

When that season came to an end I was given the opportunity to become the Music Director for Hillside Community Church.  Where I had previously been one of the people producing music for use in the church, now I had the privilege to use the music that others were creating and prepare it for use in the local church!

I was the Music Director at Hillside for almost 18 years and I was able to use the skills I had acquired over the years as a sound engineer, keyboardist, arranger, orchestrator, producer and music director in my position. I got to work with amazing people in putting together worship gatherings every week.

For the last few years at Hillside I began mentoring a group of young worship leaders and future music directors.  This group nicknamed what we were doing as “SmittyU.” We had a blast and learned a lot!  I really enjoyed learning from them too! We started with basic music theory and progressed through things like; melodic, rhythmic and chordal dictation, scales, chords, the Nashville numbering system for chords, understanding vocal ranges, picking correct keys for vocalists, arranging for band & vocals (arranging 3 part vocals), doing split-tracks, band demos for drums, guitar, bass and working with Pro Tools, Logic and Ableton to name a few. 

This “SmittyU” experience has inspired me to put together a website & YouTube channel where I can offer this learning experience to a wider audience. My desire is to show you how to attain a higher level of success in your capabilities as a musician and worshipper!