I have been composing music since I was in high school (unless you count, "How Would You Like To Go To Kandor?" which I wrote in 3rd grade) ("Kandor" was a city on the planet Krypton). The music courses I took in junior college under George Champion didn't deter me from a love of music. (I'm just kidding George—and please email me!!!)

In 1996-1997, I realized a life-long dream and recorded a full CD, The Man Who Isn't There. Half the songs were originals; half were covers, and I did all the voices and played all the instruments (via computer) except for tenor sax on one number (which one of my nephews performed at a remote recording studio!).

For the 2002 theatre season, I arranged and recorded the accompaniment for a professional revue performed by two local singers.

With the dawn of Artificial Intelligence, a new tool has become available to the savvy composer/musician. Sure, it allows people who don't know a thing about music to nevertheless create something they, themselves will enjoy, even if no one else does. The same can be said of the kazoo, the bagpipes, and, dare I say it, the accordion? If a purist wants to create music without tools—another word for "instrument"—they are limited to singing, whistling, beatboxing, or armpit farts. The rest of us choose to use instruments, whether it's a rock, a banjo, a synthesizer, or an A.I. music generator.

And if one does know what one is doing, especially in the realm of lyrics (it can be hard to convince an A.I. that "rain" doesn't rhyme with "again"), this is a tool that can save all the messy, manual labor so we can get right to the music!

Still, when I was the only vocalist, I had no problem crediting myself, by name, as the artist. But as a singer-songwriter making use of AI tools along with more conventional ones to make music, and especially with the (admittedly a little creepy) use of "vocalist" as just another musical instrument, as easily exchanged as a trumpet for a cornet, I feel more like a constructor of music than a performer. Hence, from now on, I'll be releasing new music under the artist name "The Paul S Cilwa Project".

1943

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 10/9/2026		Page Views: 210
Hashtags: #Music #1940s #USO #BigBand
Songs from an alternate Earth where I was alive in the 1940s, leading a big band on a USO tour.

Given today's dystopian political environment, I can hardly be blamed for looking back to a simpler time when America actually was, not only pretty great, but beloved across the world. (Well, except for Germany and Japan.) In terms of technique and content, this album's a bit of a departure. Instead of digging up old lyrics of my mom's and arranging them as pop tunes (well, okay, I did do one of those here), I invented an alternate Earth—one where I had been born in 1873, and was still alive in 1943, leading a big band on a USO tour instead of showing up decades later as a Boomer with a laptop.

1944

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 10/16/2026		Page Views: 332
Hashtags: #Music #1940s #USO #BigBand
More songs from the alternate Earth where I led a big band on a USO tour—a year later, with the tide finally turning.

This is the second dispatch from the alternate Earth I built for "1943"—the one where I was alive in the 1940s, leading a big band around USO stages instead of turning up decades later as a Boomer with a laptop. Same bandleader, same company of singers, one year on.

Music Only Dogs Can Hear

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 10/1/2026		Page Views: 9
Hashtags: #Music
Decades-old lyrics from the bottom of a memorabilia box, given brand-new AI-assisted recordings.

In this album I decided to include all the songs I wrote from before my first marriage to the end of my second marriage, a span of about 40 years. Some songs are serious; some are my silly observations of pop culture as manifested by the various eras through which I've lived. I tried to alternate the serious and the silly. I'm the songwriter, lyricist, and composer—same as always—but this time around I made use of modern AI tools to produce the recordings, the same way I once leaned on MIDI, Cakewalk, and a computer to record my 1997 first album.

That '50s Album

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 11/4/2026		Page Views: 70
Hashtags: #Music #1950s
The Fifties: The way you remember them, not the way they were!

It was about then that I discovered the music of the fifties: rambunctious, wide-ranging, even vocally experimental, a mélange that could combine rock'n'roll, folk, jazz, Jamaican, and schmaltz all on the same station! —And you'll find all of that here. Okay, not the original songs, and not by the actual '50s artists—but I've captured the feel of it, I hope. (This album is still in progress, so revisit to see what's been added!)

That '60s Album

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 10/23/2026 Updated: 10/25/2026		Page Views: 183
Hashtags: #Music #1960s
The Sixties songs as you remember them, not as they were!

I've gathered here songs by the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary; the Grateful Dead; Glen Campbell, Dionne Warwick and the Supremes that exemplify, if not the actual hits of those years, the memory of them. So the songs aren't by those artists; they're by the likes of them, so that you can re-live (or live for the first time) the teenage experience of hearing new music…from the Sixties…for the first time!

That '70s Album

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 11/1/2026		Page Views: 177
Hashtags: #Music
Pop songs and parodies, most of them written before 1976, with brand-new AI-assisted recordings.

During the 1970s I got my Associate in Arts degree, a wife, a stint in the Navy, four kids, part-time work singing professionally, and helped invent email. The seventies also had some hit songs. None of them are on this album. But in between everything else I composed songs that were generally my wry observations on pop culture and my place in it. And here they are!

The Concert Album

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 10/30/2026		Page Views: 198
Hashtags: #Music
Sixteen of my songs given full orchestral treatment—most of them instrumental, and several of them improved by losing the words.

Sixteen songs of mine given the full orchestral treatment. Most of them are instrumental, and a few of them, I've come to think, are better that way.

The Man Who Isn't There

	Occurred: 2/12/1997		Page Views: 6,280
Hashtags: #Songs #Music #MP3s
My first album, revisted. Play it for free!

In 1994, I met a guy named Steve and fell in love with him. 5½ months later, on the day he was to move in with me, instead he dumped me. I was devastated, but found solace in composing and singing songs that helped me process my own, unfamiliar feelings. The end result was this, my first album, about half original pieces and half covers.

The Man Who Still Isn't There

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 11/11/2026		Page Views: 96
Hashtags: #Music
My first album, revisited.

In 1997 I made my first album, "The Man Who Isn't There," out of a breakup I had not finished having. Nearly thirty years on I can do things I could not do then—better tools, better ears, and a great deal more patience—so this is that record made again.

Variations on 'Whippoorwill'

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 8/23/2026		Page Views: 582
Hashtags: #Music #Whippoorwill
One tune, sixteen eras. A whippoorwill's call is handed from a baroque court to a pop diva, each generation learning it from the last.

One tune, sixteen times. This album takes Whippoorwill and walks it forward through three hundred years of popular music, from a baroque court in the 1700s to a pop diva in the 2020s.

Cilwa's Xylophone Concertos

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 9/11/2026		Page Views: 194
Hashtags: #Music #Classical #Xylophone #Concerto
Four works for xylophone and orchestra, presented with rather more ceremony than the instrument is accustomed to.

I have loved classical music for about as long as I have been able to love anything. My father gave me a record player when I was small—a wind-up portable first, then an electric one—and took to hiding records under my bed for me to find. That is how Tchaikovsky reached me, and that is how Shostakovich reached me, both of them on 78s.