Moving the world

In the early 70s, the rock band 'Golden Earring' became known with the classic song 'Back home' and subsequently 'See me Feel me' by 'The Who' (being number one for weeks), was regularly shown live on TV. This changed JGJ's music taste in no time.

He then received his first guitar with Christmas. During a summer holiday, he learned the so-called 'circle of fifths' from a holiday friend, as well as the chords of some typical guitar songs. In the meantime, he had founded the duo 'Firefly' with a childhood friend, who had also received a guitar. However, they never got much further than their own neighborhood.

With the few sentences of English and three simple chords he knew, JGJ wrote his first song 'Fly Fly' in the early 1970s. After every English lesson and hard practice on the guitar, the songs became a little bit more professional, but still not good enough to be played again.

Around the age of 16, JGJ wrote his first ballad. This time not in English, but in the local dialect. About thirty years later, he completely re-recorded this song 'Allein staon', and it can be heard via his portfolio page, elsewhere on this website.

In the early 80's, JGJ made a small trip towards schlager and party music, as a joke. To his own surprise, his biggest hit 'Zoe is ut laeve' (also known by the opening line 'Mooder Bloom...') sold several tens of thousands of records in his own region at the time.

Due to its success, this trip took a little longer than planned and he ultimately wrote more than 50 songs in this genre. However, after about 5 years it was enough and he wanted to return to his roots.

In the mid-80s JGJ also started writing Dutch lyrics. For the accompaniment he often used music from synthesizers, electronic keyboards and drum computers, which were beginning to emerge at that time.

The great thing was that thanks to the larger and faster personal computers, he also created his own studio and could arrange and produce his songs completely himself. Something that has now become very normal, but was a unique experience at the time.

As JGJ devoted more and more time to his work and family, his musical activities gradually diminished. At the beginning of this century, he picked up the thread again and began recording songs he had previously written using Emagic's 'Logic' music program on a PC.

Besides writing all the arrangements and playing all the parts himself, he also tried to sing them himself. However, his singing talents weren't very strong, so he had to re-record each line ten to twenty times. Afterward, he had to piece together words from different recordings to ensure that the final lines at least sounded in tune.

After recording few songs this way, the company Emagic was acquired by Apple, which discontinued the PC version. As a result, the program no longer worked on newer PCs running modern versions of Windows. Then the music fell silent, and music seemed to be nothing more than a hobby from his past.

After having hardly played any music for about 15 years, the urge returned. He bought himself a trumpet and learned to play it, with the intention of making music with others again.

Unfortunately, COVID came and threw a wrench in the works, and playing together became less and less possible. It wasn't until several years later that he was able to resume playing, and he now regularly plays in an orchestra for socializing.

In the mid-20s, JGJ reached retirement, allowing him to resume recording his own music. This time, he used the music program 'Cubase Pro' on his PC.

Once again, he wrote all the musical parts and played them all himself again (mainly with keyboard instruments). In addition, the Cubase Pro program makes recording vocals much easier because technology has also made progress. Wrong notes and such could now be easily and quickly corrected, making a perfect vocal part achievable even for less gifted singers.