• I play the piano 3-5 hours a day, sometimes more. This is something that I have done since childhood. The music I play is literally stream of consciousness. Just whatever comes into my mind. Sometimes I find a chord progression I really like, or a cool rhythm. Sometimes an entire song will come through.
  
  
• I develop the song based on the elements that I found while playing.
  
  
• The tape recorder or MIDI recorder must be running, or I won't remember what I played. I lived overseas for 21 years, and all of my recordings and masters from 1981–2003 were destroyed while in storage. This is why I have been 'remaking' the songs from the few digital copies that I had made. The conceptual piano demos below are from 2015–2023.
  
  
• I then go over the recordings, refine the composition further, and record it again (and again, and again...).
  
  
• This process may go through many iterations until I can play it without errors (ha!). It is then recorded live into MIDI. I hate the robotic feel of quantization. Live performances!
  
  
• Adding lyrics to a song can completely change the song structure. Melodies from an instrumental piece don't always align with the lyric phrasing or flow as they did as an instrumental. This adds a whole new dimension to composing. It is a real challenge to balance both the music and lyrics. Lots of rewriting! The song Forever Friends is a good example of this. The original instrumental composition had many different changes that could not be completely worked in with the lyrics. The lyrics that I write come from my own life experiences and observations.
  
  
• Then comes the orchestration. I use many methods for this: MIDI keyboards and modules, sampled instruments, AI instruments and voices, other tools and technology. 
  
  
• If I need to, I can generate a lead sheet with chords or a complete score from the MIDI files so that other musicians can play a part.
  
  
• All of the finishing work, edits, post-production, and mastering is done in Pro Tools.
  
  
• Software used for finalizing the song files (MP3 and WAV) for distribution: Mac: Pro Tools, Amadeus Pro, Apple Compressor, Tag Editor 2
  
  
• The song artwork is done in Grok Imagine. To generate the artwork for Forever Friends (the Spotify canvas animation to the right on this page), I fed Grok the song lyrics and said to make the graphic based on those. I did not give any other prompts. Grok understood the context of the lyrics very well. What an incredible tool. 
  
  
• Software used for making the song graphics, social media and website elements, and animations: Grok Imagine, Mac: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, CapCut, Batch Image Resizer Pro, AVIF Converter
  
  

Questions & Answers

Q: Do you ever play other people's music?
A: No, never have.
I only played sheet music when I was in music ensembles or jazz band.

Q: Do you also do the album graphics?
A: Yes. I have been a digital graphic artist since 1990.
I taught a "Traditional Art to Digital Art" class specifically for trained fine artists at Disney who were trying to get their head around the computer thing and how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkExpress, Aldus PageMaker, etc. In the late 1990s, I owned and ran an ad agency in Los Angeles, Big Hula Productions & Entertainment.

Q: Who is your Music Distributor?
A: Click Here >> DistroKid.com <<. Highly recommended.
Great support. Very quick uploads to major music networks, like Apple Music and Spotify. They can also handle and distribute high-resolution audio files like WAV and Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC). These make your music sound the best it can be. MP3 is DEATH to music...

Q: Who handles your Music Publishing, royalties, and rights?
A: I opened my own Music Publishing company, Dr Ziw Music.
My PRO (Performing Rights Organization) is ASCAP. I spend quite a bit of time making sure all of my songs are registered and updated with ASCAP, The MLC (Mechanical Licensing Collective), SoundExchange Direct, and others. If you want to get paid for your songs being streamed or used by others for their TikTok and YouTube videos, then you need to do the work to ensure payment. My first 'royalty' payment was $1.52! (WooHoo! Ha ha haha!) Keep on it!

Trying to get your music on Commercials, TV, or in Films is a whole other kettle of fish. Your Music Publishing and rights need to be rock solid (and you also need to own 100% of your music masters).

Copyright law rights are simple: USE IT or LOSE IT. I started out at The Walt Disney Company working for the top copyright and rights lawyer in the company. This is serious business, and it is well worth the effort.