Exploring feelings of abandonment and isolation....In 1985, while still thinking of myself as songwriter, a mentor presented me with the challenge of setting three Psalms to music.  But the catch was that these settings would have to be solo piano pieces: Songs Without Words.

"How Long Will You Forget Me?" (Psalm 13) was the first composition to come out of that challenge and my first notated instrumental piece. "Out of the Depths" (Psalm 130) was the second. (I still have yet to compose the third one.)

I've written and discarded more pieces than I can count, but this  simple little piece has stuck with me.  I can see sparks in it of works that were to come later.  Simple and naive as it is, it still sounds like my own voice.