Dan Tan the Music Man

* Please see Myspace for recent updates and news...

The Six String Cafe has been closed since fall of 2005, so I'm not able to perform there anymore. However, it is reopening by fall of 2006 at the Helios Cafe in downtown Raleigh.

Most of these recordings are what I'd consider to be scratch recordings-- made primarily to preserve a song idea, or shortly after the inspiration. If you want a short sample, the most-requested song I have is "School of Life", followed by "The Jewelry Box".

If you want to contact me, please send me an email. If you don't hear from me (I'm usually very quick to respond), try again from another address in case the aggressive spam filter blocked your message, or better yet, contact me through MySpace.

Ain't much here yet, but more to come... Enjoy!

* Please see Myspace for recent updates/news/schedules...

Why Do I Sing [MP3 : 8 MB]
Recorded in my living room March 23, 2006, for the wedding thing. This song and "School of Life" are my favorite songs to perform. It's a straightforward song-- it explains why I bother to sing at all.
School of Life [MP3 : 3.6 MB]
Recorded live at the Six String Cafe. This was the first performance of the song, ever, and I'm improvising through parts of the song that I hadn't fleshed out yet, but in the end it's still one of the best performances of this song, mistakes and all. It was written while sitting outside immediately before my open mic performance. This lately has been a hands-down favorite of listeners.
The Jewelry Box [MP3 : 10 MB]
Wrote this song for a friend of mine who suffered through a broken engagement. It is the story of the engagement, and my response and my prayer for my friend. This song haunts me. For a long time I couldn't escape it-- the melody and the words were always present in my mind. I think it's a song that really wanted to be sung, so I've sung it quite a bit, and now that the story has been told more, the urgency is subsiding.
Also recorded on my Minidisc, shortly after I wrote the song. Another rough recording, preserved shortly after the song was inspired, recorded as I sat on the floor next to my couch trying to finalize the melody.
This one is now a trademark song, and I find it surprising that I continue to get so many requests to sing this. I have had more requests to sing this song than any other song I've written. I've know people who burst into tears after hearing the MP3, so if you're an emotional person, you've been warned. Well, most of my songs are emotional.
The Wind Song [MP3 : 2 MB]
Recorded live at the Six String Cafe (rough recording off of the mixing board, some light EQ and multi-band compression added by me). Written outside the Six String Cafe on a Tuesday night, on a very windy day. Wind inspires me. It's a metaphor for the presence of God, and it's also electrifying as an example of the awesome power of God's creation demonstrated in nature. There's nothing like the wind whipping through your hair as the sky roils and a storm rolls in, stirring up your surroundings with its impending display of breathtaking fury. Awesome.
Sweet Union [MP3 : 7 MB]
Recorded in my living room March 23, 2006. So I receive an email from a cousin very recently, asking me if she can use my songs as party favors for her wedding. I make it a point to avoid turning down requests from brides, especially when they're related to me. Unfortunately, most of my songs are about really gut-wrenching serious topics-- hardly wedding material. Can you imagine? "Have a wedding party favor, it's a CD with songs about an alcoholic husband, a suicidal person, and a broken engagement. Enjoy!"

So, I had to record some songs that are happier in their tone :). This is another rough recording, like all the others. I'm rushing the recording of a few songs because they must be online now in order for the party favors to be ready for her wedding. I spent the evening recording "live" in my living room. This song is dedicated to the wonderful couple, and was written March 20, 2006, in about half-an-hour's worth of time. A surprise song (not planned, it just happened). It's an upbeat song, I hope you enjoy it.
Simple Phrase [MP3 : 5 MB]
Recorded in my living room March 23, 2006, for the wedding thing. One of the first songs I wrote for performance at the Six String. It's a love song-- can you guess the "simple phrase?"
Shopping Mom [MP3 : 5 MB]
Written 11/14/03. Recorded with my MiniDisc's built-in mics, on the couch in the living room. I was inspired by the Kyler England and Vienna Teng joint concert that I attended on Thursday at the Six String Cafe. New music has been running through my head for the past day, and a I've logged a ton of new musical phrases into my MiniDisc. Well, I was learning the chords off of Kyler's song, "Something So Beautiful" (drop-D tuning), and figured I should try to write a song with the drop-D chord voicings I learned by watching her play. A simple chord progression popped into my head, and almost immediately the first verse appeared in my mind. "If I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it. You were all alone right there. You were barely just a child, bubblegum stuck in your hair..." I spent the next half-hour writing the rest of the song, and recorded it into the MiniDisc, did a quick post-production on the audio, and uploaded the MP3. It's gotten good response from listeners.
Fragile [MP3 : 5 MB]
Written at the end of January, 2004. Recorded live at the Six String Cafe courtesy of the Six String Cafe (raw recording off of the mixing board). Written as a message of hope and survival. A soul-baring, intense song for me to sing. Like many of my songs, originally written outside the Six String Cafe on a Tuesday night, January 15th 2004. This is the first official public performance, and its a pretty raw performance.
Just For You [MP3 : 5 MB]
Written back in 1998, I think. This song literally came to me in a span of a half-hour (that's unusually fast for me). First the guitar part came, then immediately thereafter the entire lyrics. It was late at night, and I recorded the song immediately after writing it so I wouldn't forget it. This is the original scratch recording, recorded the night I wrote the song, whispering into the microphone so my neighbors wouldn't hear me. I overlaid some quick guitar parts that night also. Written for a close friend who needed some encouragement.
To Life [MP3 : 6 MB]
This was written in 1999 for two friends, a brother and a sister, whose mother passed away of sclerdoma after a long battle.
I remember distinctly the moment of passing, because I received an urgent cell phone call that the doctors were saying she was critical. I was at church on a Sunday, and I stepped outside to pray on a picnic bench for the family. For about half-an-hour, I prayed and pleaded and wept. A deep sense of sadness and mourning weighed on my spirit. Abruptly and suddenly, at 4:30pm the sadness left me, like unconsciousness fleeing a sleeping person who is shocked awake. I opened my eyes, the tears stopped immediately, and I knew that there was no more need to pray. I wasn't sure why, though. Part of me hoped that she had made it through the critical moment, and would be with us a little longer.
It was almost 24 hours before I got an update through another friend. I learned that at that moment on Sunday afternoon, she had passed away with her family gathered around her bed. A phrase began to nag me incessantly in the back of my mind... "passed from death to life." I didn't know where it came from, but it wouldn't go away. Surprisingly, it showed up in a bible reading shortly thereafter, and I realized it was a quote from the book of John.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. - John 5:24 (New King James)
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. - John 5:24 (New International Version)
I sent that verse to one of my friends in a short encouraging email, and she used it when she got up to speak at the memorial service.
The week before the memorial service, I sat down at the keyboard and wrote the melody and most of the song. The song just came pouring out on the piano keys. I tried to write a bridge to complete the song, but just couldn't do it. For some reason, it felt very... incomplete. Or just... not ready.
For four years, it frustrated me. Periodically I'd pull this song out and try to write that elusive bridge. I was never satisfied with the alternate bridges I wrote. And since it was incomplete, I never mentioned it even to my friends whom I had written it for. In retrospect, I think that its time hadn't come, and it was simply not ready to be sung.
The summer of 2003, I started to perform at the Open Mike Nights at the Six String Cafe. The second week I ever played at the Six String Cafe, some crazy events started to happen that had a major impact on my life, mainly involving a friend I met at the Six String (see archived posts on my web log). As part of this, I got in touch with an old high school friend who was in Nashville, and found her in the middle of struggling with the sudden death of a dear friend.
If there was ever a time for this song to emerge from its exile, that was the time. It weighed on me such that when I woke up the next morning, I sat down at the keyboard, recorded a quick take of the piano and vocals, burned them to a CD, and sent it via overnight mail to Nashville on my way in to work. It was recorded as-is, without a bridge, in its original wording and structure. After listening to the demo recording, the revelation came that it did not need a bridge after all, and that the song was already complete.
Within the next day or two, I showed up at the doorstep of one of my old friends, and delivered a copy of the CD along with the lyrics. "I wrote this song for your mom several years ago, but I never told you about it because for four years I've been trying to write the final piece..."
A rough recording like the rest on the site, but it captures the meaning and the inspiration.
The Cry [MP3 : 6 MB]
The chorus and chord progression was written on October 1, 2004. I didn't complete it, had an idea of some chords and verses, but it didn't feel right to complete it at the time. I'd originally written it for me, but it felt like it would be too selfish to write this song for myself. Like I was supposed to keep the song idea around for another time. I completed the song April 3, 2005, and this song is dedicated to Erika Hsu, and her sister Christina, and her mother, Doris, and anyone else touched by Doris' passing away on April 13, 2005.
I recorded this immediately after finishing the song. My voice wavers, I start coughing partway through the song, I can't hit all my high notes, allergies are acting up, and I'm recovering from the flu and a respiratory infection. But I hope you can hear the heart of the song through the raw recording.

The lyrics are up on my blog if you want to read them...

Someone asked me why my site says "House of Blues". Well, in part because I like the blues, and then mainly because blue happens to be my favorite color :-) .