Like many people, Christopher Watts began piano lessons at age 8 – but he grew up in a house where children were not allowed to quit piano. At age 14, he formed a garage band with two friends, Ryan and Eric. Today Chris and Ryan are both professors of music at small private universities, and Eric is a rock star who has written and produced multiple gold records. But they were not a particularly good band.

Watts majored in music theory at Furman University, where he was drawn into the world of experimental music in the classical tradition. After earning his Bachelor of Music degree, he went on to complete a Master of Music in composition at LSU and a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition at the University of Cincinnati. He has been teaching music full time for more than two decades.

Soon after completing his education, Watts became dissatisfied with experimental music, feeling that it was too inaccessible for most audiences. Instead of building a career as an academic composer, he focused his energy on teaching while searching for a creative outlet that might be a better fit with his artistic goals.

Many years later, he ended up in more or less the same place where he started at age 14: songwriting. For the last several years, Watts has been learning the recording and production techniques that he didn’t get in school, and helping his students do the same.

If music-making is a chain of events – writing, performing, recording, mixing, mastering, promoting – Watts likes to say that he starts strong and gets progressively worse with each step.

Whether that is true or not, you can hear some of the results below.