To make one or more significant contributions to American music; to both live with and accurately portray my convictions through my work, with the use of only enough familiar elements that they may serve as a gateway to remote territories in the work on behalf of the common listener and musician alike; that it might expand their palate and mind, as well as give permission to and create new avenues for all honest creative endeavors; that the world and our race of human beings may better represent ourselves and our vast emotional spectrum and capabilities as productive individuals to one another, new life that will come to discover the work and it's purpose (as well as their own purpose) long after my own death, and finally, to whatever life in the universe that we have yet to discover expressing a hunger of the soul and an interest in the human race.