from the crib, through the fetters of time unto now, i have immersed myself in a perpetual soundtrack. a vocation of which i have often attempted to shed its benign vestments. i learned the recorder as soon as i could walk in order to replicate the sounds of eighties rock & roll which sounded from my bedside boombox. later, i transposed my affinity to the trumpet and played along to jazz and classical music for a decade. through the fugues of youth, i gathered every instrument i could afford while maintaining a healthy addiction to the records of musicians that could sing from within the city of their souls. it is in this time that i picked up the bass, the guitar, the drums, the harmonica, and the piano in order to hear music in its many spectres. i studied unendingly. and, somehow, no light was shed upon the shape and the form, the color, the beaming brilliance, brimming the cup of my education. so i left the institution in which i had placed all my faith to find a gleaming inside myself. i started writing and performing music under the name letters & numbers. the sounds of my beating heart became the music. and the supplication of time for all of this became my reason for being. why? because i held in my hand the artifice for eddying the telling heart. from the cataracts of time i found myself aghast upon the shore. the illuminating light pouring from the sky showed me my own drowning heart. i jumped in to save it. because when we sink, we may find ourselves lifted by the edification of our souls. because when you hear the crashing folds of waves under the whooshing fog or storm, you know what you will sing about. i sing because we're all gonna die.