MAKING YOUR OWN MUSIC IN THE DIGITAL AGE

JACKSON -- In the old days, making your own music meant sitting around the parlor picking with your kinfolk on a Sunday afternoon. Matt Martin made his own music with some keyboards, a four-track recorder and a trip to Spin City.

The 1998 Jackson High School graduate taped his compositions on the recorder, which allows him to layer three other parts onto the basic track. Spin City owner John Hendricks then plugged the recorder into a computer with a digital audio editing program. The result, titled "Midnight Sessions," then was burned into CDs at the store.

The CD now is available from Martin and from Spin City in Jackson and CD Warehouse in Cape Girardeau.

Martin doesn't have visions of becoming a recording star. The two-time all-state and five-time all-district musician will start his freshman year at Southeast this fall with the intention of playing his trumpet well enough to earn a doctorate. He also plans to study composition.

But he likes to stay up late in his music room filling the recorder with New Ageish songs composed on keyboard synthesizers. "Midnight Sessions" consists of music that Martin has been playing for years.

The first tune, "My Thoughts of You," is "basically all ad lib," he says. "That's why I like it so well."

The all-instrumental CD includes other songs with titles like "Freedom," "Rain Dance" and "I'll See You Again."

Martin began taking piano lessons from his grandmother, Mary Beth Vogt, at age 5. He started composing his own music at 13.

In high school, Martin played in the school jazz band and also was a member of a rock band called 9-Ball. "But I was always true to classical and jazz," he says.

He performed last year for the Jackson Homecomers beauty pageant and this year for the Jackson Chamber of Commerce Installation Banquet.

The idea of making his own CD arose after Martin was asked to record background music for the high school's year-end pops concert. He plans to use the CD to promote himself as an entertainer for similar functions.

More than 50 of the CDs have been sold.

There are disadvantages to playing his music in public. With the four-track recorder, Martin can add a flute solo or other sounds that are missing when he plays live.

Like his doctorate, Martin also has a long-term dream for his compositions.

His idols are Alan Silvestri, composer of the "Forrest Gump" soundtrack, and James Horner, whose "Titanic" soundtrack has been heard by millions of ears in the past year.

"When I go to movies, that's what I listen to," he said.

"... That's my ultimate goal, to do a movie soundtrack."