You Knew Them When – Sustaining Our Humanity

Maybe you already knew this: I’m experimenting. And with lots of different things. Let me tell you what I mean.

Knew What?

You already knew about the sustain pedal. I even gave you some hints of the sounds on my upcoming album. But there’s lots more that’s “new”. Let me give a few examples.

• I plan to release this album under the name Stanley G (instead of Stan Stewart). You can see the first hints of this on my revised SoundCloud page. More about this in a moment.
• Because of my broken ankle, I have an office chair now. Until this happened, my office desks were all designed for standing.
• I have a “new piano”. What I mean by that is a fresh piano VI (virtual instrument). It’s made by Boz Digital Labs using the sounds of a Steinway model L. So far, I really like it.
• I’m using a new Celeste sound library named Thalassa from Triple Spiral Audio. Highly recommended to other musicians (who already use UVI Falcon).

Knew When

Those external things are all fine and dandy. What’s more important to me is the internal stuff. Right now, that stuff is telling me that things are out of whack. I knew the world was upside-down particularly in 2016 and again in 2020. But variations on those disconcerting headlines keep repeating.

If you and I want to shift from the inhumanity we continually see, we must bring our humanity to the front. Hug the ones you love. But be kind to the ones you never knew and especially those you do not understand.

The Whole Story

OK. I’m stepping down from my soapbox for a moment. However, I will not step away (intentionally) from my humanity.

Yes, I admit my humanity. But out in the world, I have decided to separate the shadowy side of me (this album) from the side that wants to illuminate. In “You Knew Them When”, I am exploring the shadows that live in me. The same ones I sometimes don’t want to admit live there.

I’m going back to the point of this post now. Here’s one of the secrets of this album: the first initial at the beginning of each track name spells out “HUMAN BEING”.

You know your own humanity now. And as for all those other folk, “you knew them when”.