This project was made from the last real piece of who I am. I woke up one day in a life that I had manufactured according to the criteria that my lies told me would engineer the peace and wholeness I had always wanted. I had been in college for 7 years and at the time the initial ideas of Ghost Notes started forming, I was enrolled in 16 credits in two different states; driving from Maryland to Philly every weekend for class. I was a counselor for Federal criminals that were trying to integrate into society. I was married to a girl that would take my breath every time I looked at her.

 

I built this life on the heels of decades of failure, disappointment, heroin addiction, sex abuse, lies, betrayal, and empty promises. I used the ashes of every bridge I had ever burned and the dust of the bones from all the people I had hurt and broken to form an existence that would show them that I wasn’t the virus they remembered. It worked. I healed a lot of damage and became wildly successful in the areas that mattered to me.

 

Except this one...

 

Despite all the things I had achieved, the possessions that owned me, the popularity, the professional success—I wanted to put a bullet in my brain. In that moment right before being awake and falling asleep, I would get a flash of an image of a gun going off right next to my temple.

 

I had been turning away from my true nature my whole life. I had always seen colors in music. I was afraid that actually doing the work meant that I would be forced to release something to the world that would give the internal voices of doubt and self-hatred all the proof they needed to bury me. On November 11th, I was more afraid of being successful in who I wasn’t than being a failure in who I am.

 

I left. All of it. I moved into a shitty warehouse in West Baltimore with all of the music equipment I had amassed and began listening to whatever had been calling after me.

 

It wasn’t courage, it was terror.

If you find this and you are in pain,

 

There is an infinite Universe waiting to meet you. It will match every investment you make in yourself. It will meet you in the middle of every war you fight in. It will rise to look you dead in your eyes and give you the strength to steel yourself against the floods and fires.

 

You just have to do your part.

 

Ghost Notes is mine.

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I want to thank my Mom, my sister Jenny, my daughter Ramona, 
her mother Donna, James Carle, Brion Aiota, Chris Fincham, 
Jeff & The Klein family, Bill Collins, Daoud, Cyd, & The Baptiste family,
Richie Cool, Sam Crossed, Sam “Go To Africa” Woldemichael,
Isaiah Billington, Rock, Phoebe, Athena and Tim at PopRiot, Courtney,
Mike McMullin, Mike Schiff, Taige Jensen, Steven Pressfield, 
the Battle Rap community, all of you living the Diamond Life, 
all of the GoFundMe supporters, the incredible fans, friends, 
my enormous God, and my undying Resistance.

 

 

Ghost Notes
 
Written, Produced, 
and Performed by
Steven Hall
 
Assistant PRODUCER - Brion Aiota
E.P. - Jeff Klein
Recording Assistant - Chris Fincham
Mixed by Drew Mazurek
Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner
Visual Support - Phoebe McFarb & Tim Szczesniak
Marketing & Management - Athena Hiotis
Live Drums - Ben Zamzow
Additional Vocals - Koves