作譜

If my original MIDI workstation were not stolen back in 1998, I would probably still have all that equipment.

If I still had that equipment, I probably would have been disinclined to write any new music. I had already reached the realization I could never produce the kind of music in my head because my tools were insufficient.

If I did not write any new music, I probably would have forged ahead in a career as a web developer, and I probably could have eventually forgotten what it’s like to write music.

If I forgot what it was like to write music, I don’t know how would have ended up.

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I haven’t been posting much anywhere because I’m indulging in a fantasy of mine — designing album cover art.

I won’t recount the stories of my high school days when pretend bands made pretend albums with pretend cover art. Rather, I’ve been working with Acoustica to improve the tentative cover art for Eponymous 4 albums.

I didn’t make my cover art too complex because the software I used before, SureThing, was limited in what you could do. The straw that broke the poor camel’s back was an inability to support Asian fonts. So I switched to Acoustica. It has its own problems, but I think I’ve managed to improve on what I’d done before.

I’m no graphic designer in the first place, so I don’t think my cover art is all that great. But it does suit the kind of music I make.

Perhaps it would be easier to compare and contrast. The "after" images link to full-size images. The "before" images don’t really have full-size versions.

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This past Thanksgiving weekend, I …

• … went to see … And You Will Know by the Trail of Dead at Emo’s on Wednesday night.
• … spent most of Thanksgiving Day watching The Closer and Eureka, attempting to recover from the late night at the concert.
• … wrote five lyrics for A Ghost in My Shadow.
• … cleaned up the Eponymous 4 web site.
• … went to Phoenicia Bakery for the first time and had a gyro.
• … was outbid on a Kawai K4 on eBay.
• … bought a music stand for my violin and sheet protectors to store print-outs (or prints-out?) of said lyrics.
• … picked up dinner from Korea House, and the kim chee is stinking up my fridge.
• … battled with my old computer over a scanner installation, only to end up installing it on the newer computer.
• … spilled water on a bunch of papers in the middle of that battle.
• … caught up on most of the TV I’ve been missing because I was busy with NaSoAlMo.
• … cooked for myself. Mostly.
• … am about to cut the commercials out of a bunch of shows I recorded on TiVo.

I’ve been equally neglectful of all my websites in the past few weeks because I’ve been plugging away at my NaSoAlMo album. I’m pleased to report I now have only two more minutes worth of music left to finish. Updated files forthcoming.

[UPDATE, 11/19/2006, 11:11 AM] Scratch that — I’m fucking done!

I made my left wrist hurt mighty good on Sunday.

I’d been working all weekend on my NaSoAlMo album, and I was really struggling with NaSoPiAlMo No. 2.

It’s a piece that employs a very active left hand, which I haven’t developed very well. I also use the left hand to CTRL-X, CTRL-C and CTRL-V when I’m working in Cakewalk SONAR. An entire weekend of that left my wrist in a very raw state. That’s what years of being a tech professional does to a person.

I’ve so far recorded 20 of the 29 minutes required for my NaSoAlMo album. Tonight, I wrote and recorded "NaSoPiAlMo No. 6", a 5’30" song that quotes Sigur Rós at the end. I think this song has a vocal version in its future.

So far, I like what I’ve done, even if a few tracks bear too much of a resemblance to their source material. I get downright minimalistic on "NaSoPiAlMo No. 2" and "NaSoPiAlMo No. 5". Too much Michael Nyman.

Sunday: After cleaning up my studio of all the cord spaghetti, I discover the Kawai K4 synthesizer I bought from eBay more than a year ago produces nothing but static. I embark on a search for a software emulation of the keyboard.

Monday: A blackout caused by all the rain resets the DHCP server of Windows, thereby reassigning all the home network IP addresses. As a result, my internal web site configurations get messed up because the domains aren’t resolving correctly.

Tuesday: I find a Kawai K4 virtual synthesizer, which requires a SoundBlaster card. I also find some Kawai K4 soundfonts. Neither really helps me. I attempt to fool the Windows DHCP server to assign the same IP addresses before the blackout, but I fail. As a result, I must reconfigure my firewall. I also have a bad case allergies, which makes me leave work midday.

Wednesday: I take my Kawai K4 down to Strait Music Co. for repair on the hottest day of the week. I’m dehydrated and exhausted after having spent the day running around preparing for a conference at work.

Just take a look at this mess, will you? How can a person live with all those cables snaking about the floor?

Let’s take a closer look.

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Now I get to be the annoying neighbor.

Last night, I tried to eek out some sound on my newly acquired violin. I was marginally successful because I didn’t know how much rosin to put on the bow.

I ran into my future violin teacher — she’s a coworker, and we start lessons in two weeks — and I told her I tried to play it. I asked her about the rosin. She told me the first time I play it, I’ll need to apply a lot of rosin on it, till the yellow hairs turn white. If the rosin is smooth, I would need to score it to get the powder to stick to the bow. My rosin cake was indeed smooth.

So I did what she advised, and tonight, I got some sound out of the violin. And man, is that thing loud! And since I don’t have any bowing technique, I wasn’t making the prettiest of sounds.

My next-door neighbors have loud conversations on the terrace, while my downstairs neighbor does obnoxious things in the early morning. Now I get to return the favor of their asshattery and play violin badly in the evenings. What comes around …

The Brook Mays music store around the corner from my apartment is closing, and this week, it was advertising up to 70 percent off everything in the store.

"What would it hurt just to look?" I asked myself. Perhaps I can get a pair of monitor speakers I’ve been meaning to acquire.

The only monitor speaker I found was a Roland model I had passed over back in December. Instead, I found a copy of Finale sitting next to the speaker. I asked a sales clerk about it, and he asked his supervisor. It turned out to be 40 percent off $179, which totalled $110 with tax. So I got it.

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I really hated this past week. I knew technology would be my bane the moment the ATM ate my card, and I’ve run on little sleep every night. But it wasn’t all bad. Some of it was quite nice.

Monday: During class, my instructor offers up a really good Michael Caine quote: "You may hate the movie, but you’ll love the house I bought it with." My instructor is co-writing with a hitmaking songwriter on a project, and they’re doing something geared for radio. When some of my classmates teased him for selling out, his response was, "Eat me."

Tuesday: I stop by Waterloo to compare prices on the Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 DVD set. At first, I decide to get it from Best Buy when I bought my new hard drive, but then I got to talking with the classical expert about Shostakovich’s string quartets. I end up getting the Fitzwilliam Quartet cycle, and I figure since I’m spending that much, I’ll just throw in Battlestar Galactica with it. Season 3 starts Oct. 6!

Wednesday: I go to the Blogger meet-up, my first in a long time.

Thursday: I worry about my performance review at work because I blew off this research project I was supposed to be doing, but as it turned out, the head of the department has cooled off on the project itself. So I dodge that bullet. Aside from that, everyone loves me.

Friday: I discover Acronis True Image.