Hope was influenced by my personal life, but the music itself was also influenced by other musicians. After I put out my first album, I still wanted to get better at the rock genre which I love listening to. Most of my songs come to me being rock. I was able to learn at college more about the arrangement and sound effects in the rock songs I learned so, I tried implementing some of those techniques into my songs.
I also decided to continue doing more with a few of the instrumental pieces that I still had lying around from when I was a teenager. At college I learned more about midi and how to record a piano so, in the instrumental songs there is a real piano playing the song.
Also, in regards to instruments and midi. I learned more about the drums; how to play them, write some of their parts, etc. I was not able to have an actual drum set in the songs on Hope (although I had ordered one…) so, I did the drum parts on midi.
While writing the album I discovered some Asian music which helped me discover more about the rhythm of my songs. Between this and learning more at college about vocals, I decided to try out a few things with the vocals and see if I could start with the vocals after which I would build up with the instruments from there.
