Patrick Coffey is a songwriter/musician in the Contemporary Christian genera. He is currently working on producing his 1st album, Come Back, and hopes to release it in mid to late 2010.  “The process of recording and releasing an album is very slow for me.” Patrick says, “because, since I own my own studio and don't have a band, I get to be the sound engineer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. It takes a lot of time”
    Patrick began to learn the piano when he was 6 years old. For a while, he really had a hard time grasping musical concepts and note reading, so as a side thing he began to learn songs by ear. He found that it was very easy for him and came very naturally. “Note reading is great, and every musician should know how to do it, but music goes way past that.”  Patrick explains, “If you can play by ear, you are no longer limited to the imagination of the music writer; you can add in your own emotion and feeling. You become the writer.”
At that point, Patrick didn't really think much of his ear abilities, and never even considered being able to mold it into anything useful. It never occurred to him that the musical ear God had given him could be useful for anything but playing around and learning fun songs, until he wrote his 1st song. (9 years old) Patrick says; “It was kind of like a spark that ignited. I didn't know what I was doing, and I still don't really, but God kept giving me songs to write, and I kept on writing them. I've always had a bit of a hard time in school; I'm one of those B students, except in Literature. I seem to be a lot better at literature than at any other subject, so naturally, since my strengths were in writing and music, I combined the two. I was pretty excited about playing around with this stuff, and began to exercise my skills by listening to other artists and copying them to the T, then I began to create my own style.”
    Patrick explored many aspects of both music and literature. He tried writing books, but since it didn't click, even though he enjoyed it. He also explored a wide genera of piano music. He played classical, gospel, rock, pop, jazz, hymns, and random chord combinations as practice to increase his list of finger moves and techniques.
As Patrick was so busy copying other artists and learning from them, he began to gain interest in how the big time records were made. As a side interest, he began to study equipment brands, types, and audio recording techniques. After some research, he crudely hooked the Coffey family's Yamaha Clavinova up to their family computer via USB. “It was really crude.” He says, “I used the software MIDI controller on the PC, and recorded WAV files of my performances using a free recording program. It worked OK, but it was certainly not professional, and my mixing skills were horrible. None the less, I gained hands-on experience with audio work, WAV files, performance recording, and simple mixing. It was a big step, because it got me off of the paper and out of the books, and into something hands-on.” Patrick's parents later bought him a Yamaha keyboard, which greatly increased his ability to mix, and produce good audio. It was a limited set up, but it worked well, and he gained experience with the mixing, editing, and tweaking that audio work takes. Then something happened that really rocked his work. One of his sisters accidentally blew the sound card in the family computer by blasting large amounts of audio into the input. It was a total accident, but it put a screeching halt to his serious hobby. A month later, while shopping in a thrift store, Patrick discovered and bought (for $20) an older Mac tower. It was in working condition, and Patrick's computer professional Dad helped him get it in operating condition (for a low price). Then Patrick began to make more serious recordings and much better quality sound. A few weeks later, he bought an audio interface off of Cragslist, and as a part of the bargain, he got a recording program. It was greatly superior to the free program he used previously, so he switched to it, and his audio took a professional turn.  Patrick was able to obtain the rest of the necessary equipment at God-given low prices, and began to record his audio with the intention of releasing an Album. He worked on a prototype of it, and learned how to use the complicated software. Another faith-tester arose when his Mac's HDD crashed. He was able to purchase another fairly new Mac for a good price, and this new computer has enabled him to do much more than the last. Currently, he is still learning how to be an amateur audio engineer, and is working on releasing his 1st album.  Patrick says; “I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm just trying to follow God lead. He's in control, I'm not. I'm simply taking the songs He's given me to write, and giving them to ya'll.”