On Thomas Rhett

My June 4, 2019 provides some details of my music career, bands I have recorded and toured, and have been affiliated with.  I have dabbled in songwriting for years, have a meager professional music background, but only recently started really paying attention to the skills and mechanics of my songwriting craft. What I would now like to convey is some of the recent moves to promote my first and forement passion “songwriting” and how one particular artist has had and continues to have an influence on me as a songwriter.

I am an African-American male who writes R&B, Pop, and Jazz, but believe it or not one of my most favorite and the most influential artist of my current songwriting is country artist, “Thomas Rhett.” I have never met him, but his pedigree in the country genre is well-known and speaks for itself. Learning and reading about his upbringing, trials and tribulations, career, and his own inspirations and influences is amazing, and I love his songwriting style. I attribute his writing style to helping me understand storytelling.

I recently listened to an interview of him on Songville on Siris XM and it was great. One big take away from the interview was the importance and influence of collaboration in songwriting.  While I tend to study my craft and write alone, I will definitely consider his advice, utilize, and consider this social element of the songwriting process. Thank you TR!!

On Supervised Learning: My Perspective

I am not an artificial intelligence (AI) (NLP, Machine Learning, Deep Learning) expert, but I am a Cognitive Psychologist with a keen interest involved in developing a deeper knowledge and skillset in these areas.  As a researcher with knowledge of human factors (human abilities and limitations related to human sensory systems), I asked the question, “Do artificial intelligence strategies, approaches, algorithms, and applications, fully and appropriately utilize human factors in their development and modelling of human-like tasks?” It is my opinion that at least the classic and cited examples of supervised learning does not. Continue reading “On Supervised Learning: My Perspective”

Free Your Mind

My semi-professional music career started with a Dayton, Ohio group named “Record Player.” Record Player was founded in the Summer of 1975.

During this period, Record Player was one of many popular Dayton dance bands, such as the Ohio Players, Faze-O, Slave, Roger and the Human Body (aka Zapp featuring Roger), the Gap Band, and the Honey Bees. All of these bands featured the sounds of Pop, Funk, and Jazz.

In 1976, Record Player recorded the 45RPM Single and Regional Hit, “Free Your Mind” on the Gem City Records Label. Free Your Mind was written by Michael C. Jennings, and arranged by Charles “Cedell” Carter of the group, “Slave.” Listen to an audio sample of “Free Your Mind” in the music section of the MiJen Publishing web site.