Music by a Non-Musician

Unopened Gifts

It's not all my doing. I'll own some of the shit I'm in. Like where I chose to live. Freakin' Toms River, New Jersey. But how I got here—terminal heart disease—no. That's one of many "gifts" that landed at my doorstep and refused to leave.

So, I did what any self-respecting obsessive would to: I made lemonade.

I once swore I had so many interests that I'd never be bored. That has held true.

But I did not choose music because it was a heretofore undiscovered talent, of which I evidently have a few. Caricatures stands as one.

Music? The only thing I got going for me is that I'm not tone deaf. Or rhythm deaf. Beyond that, it sounds like a joke. I can't read music (oh, how I've tried), I can't play an instrument (other than a stereo), and I'm not wealthy enough to simply buy a band. My only bit of luck is having an exceptional—if aged, like me—computer, plus some semi-pro software that was part of a package I got for other reasons.

The final piece of the puzzle is my passion for music. If I'm not watching a film (my other passion), I'm listening to something.

Thus the stage was set. And thus we arrive at this point: a non-musician making music. It was something about which I'd dreamt most of my life, and only now was able to achieve, thanks to music-making software that doesn't have the prerequisite of knowing how to read music. Or understanding any of the conventions surrounding music composition. Oh, those options were there, but they were just that: options. I was not barred from making music simply because I did not understand the distinction between C sharp and D minor.

In truth, the application treated music like words in a word processor: cut and paste. I did everything by ear. Tedious? The very definition. Time-consuming? Does a bear shit in the woods? Did I have time and patience? I had both, in cards and spades.

The software that (literally) changed my life sat in an envelope unopened for years while I made a little side money producing semi-professional promotional videos using a different part of the bundle.

And then, some years back—let's call it a decade—I decided to crack that envelope open and see what was inside, just for shits and giggles (as our kin across the pond are frequent of saying). Lo and behold it contained a program I knew instantly how to use, because it featured the very same interface as did their video application. And within a couple of hours, I'd completed my first composition: "New To This."

The rest, as they say, began with the letter H.

Insert Fast-Forward Montage Here

One by one, age and various health conditions robbed me of my abilities to pursue many of my favorite pastimes. Eventually it was pared down to what I could do with a mouse and a ten-year-old (positively geriatric, in terms off such tech) tricked-out HP Z840 Workstation... in layman's terms, a gargantuan earthmover that could flawlessly manipulate fine china. Put another way, it's a significant investment I'd made in 2015 that, as hoped, has been the gift that keeps on giving. Indeed, it remains the WMD I bring to any knife-fight.

Music has been a lifelong passion of mine, yet creating it has stood fast as a significant challenge. I'm not a musician in any way, shape for form. I don't play an instrument. I can't read music. I don't understand traditional musical structure, and I possess a most tenuous and decidedly faulty—at best, useless—grasp of its nomenclature. Thus, as I've pointed out frequently, I'm quite literally "just messing around with sound."

But why let ignorance stand in the way of good old hands-on experimentation? And so, armed with an ancient but no less useful superhero robot and some equally geriatric, buggy as a forgotten casserole at the back of the 'fridge but no less useful software, I tucked my knees under my chin and dove into the pool of digital audio production.

Bear in mind, I present what is well and truly the tip of the iceberg in terms of digital music creation. Hundreds of software vendors, thousands if not tens of thousands of sound sources—a fair amount being free. It's well and truly an enormous pool into which I've dipped an arthritic toe.

The anonymity of the Internet has afforded me sufficient nerve to share some of my music online. Spared the sight of grimacing listeners, I can pretend they actually like (at least some) of it. But now that I've accumulated close to a hundred compositions, I've gained the confidence to produce and share more. Plus, I torture visitors to my home with some of my efforts, and the response has been encouraging, assuming they're not merely being polite to an old, dying man. And even if they were, so what? I'm enjoying myself.

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