The"Demos" series grew partly out of a realization that writing music with purely commercial intentions was, for me, a betrayal of the art of music itself. I had been a composer since 1961, and had written hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 70s, by the 1980s I began to focus on the nature of the artistic process itself, and how to tune in to what the artistic impulse, the"muse," dictated. It took me some time to develop an original improvisational style of music composition, so that I was able to create forms that were cohesive enough to stand up as finished compositions. I felt that I was inventing a new way of composing, stressing multitrack improvisation over the traditional"pencil and paper" type of worked out composition. I achieved a freshness, flow and unity of nuance that was impossible with the slow stop-start of the written score. The Demos series started in 1989 with an album of improvised Ragtime and Stride piano instrumentals, a suite which developed from 1989 to 1994. Throughout the 1990's I wrote instrumental music using recording techniques I'd been slowly developing since 1968. This produced three albums of solo piano music, and two albums of contemporary classical and electronic music. I called this series Demos of David Larstein part I:"Past as Prologue Vol. I through V." It represented the summation of my development in the styles of commercial and classical music I had learned in the 2oth century. Playing in bands during the 1970s helped me learn what audiences responded to, and producing records during the 1980s taught me the art of studio production. But by the turn of the century I got a Korg Triton multitrack keyboard. The sounds on this instrument were high enough quality so that I could write, arrange, perform and produce albums by myself without any input from any one. This was a complete reversal of the whole nature of music production I had learned in the 20th century, but it suited me better than anything I had ever done. The work I would produce would be completely personal, every note played by my own hands, and sung in my own voice, so that the listener hears the pure product of the imagination played through the body. From 2003 to 2013 the Demos series expanded to include pats II, III, and IV; altogether, an eleven volume song cycle, split into three parts. Part II is called"American Demos 1949-1963," a six volume homage to the Anthology of American Folk Music edited by Harry Smith, Folkways Records, 1952. Part III is called"Edges of the City, 1964-1967," a four album homage to the cultural revolution which started in the San Francisco Bay area during the mid-1950s and '60s. In 2013 I began the fourth part of my ever growing Demos series, called"Epilogues Vol. I: 1968." This is the first album in a projected three album series that references the years 1968 through '70. I believe that my responsibility as an artist, as a composer and songwriter is to leave a trace of my life on this planet, in the hope that my musical contribution will be of lasting value.