Turn On Tune Out
I awoke this morning feeling a bit like Judge Cannon. Wow! What an Appeals Court upbraid. But the day’s early and I’m sure I’ll error, in coming days, way after ways, early and often, as I trice trip into my intended home office repositioning.
But this refashioning starts with a small victory. Small brag; semi-swagger. I nailed the true Apple Computer delivery date. When Cupertino ships, they under promise and over deliver. A little better than a week early.
Yet, yours truly, had all peripherals purchased and at the ready. From display, to digital audio converter, from wool-ish desk mat to near field monitors, to a Touch ID full sized numeric black keyboard and companion colored mouse… all present and accounted for.
Now let me stop you right there. This post ain’t about; look what I got. There is method in all this material.
It’s about changing times and running out of time. It’s about new interest and the intersection of marshaling now dwindling physical and cognitive abilities to better position tools and workflow in order, despite said personal limitations, to continue to explore creative possibilities and to learn new things in the hope of refining and retaining long ago acquired interest and attitudes.
(Politics having been poisoned. Poetry spayed and neutered… both disciplines made damn near lifeless-yet somehow blood sport-via social media.)
So sorta feeling unwilling to directly participate in all that, despite obvious interest in the subjects, I went looking for another on-line avenue to backdoor the above subjects. I hit/lit upon the tone-poem. Short pieces of digitally produced musical takes that might allow me to express, for lack of a more precise definition… my feelings/attitude/ angst of the day in a different way.
I posted about five or so of these so-called tone poems and received a bit of encouragement. Yet curiously, no one ask how I did it. No one enquired as to how I made them. At the time I was using a free Apple program called GarageBand.
And now the epiphany. Using that tool taught me more in a month about computer systems, than anything I’ve done in a decades. And it also changed my understanding concerning workflow, operating systems, the tempo of creativity and even ethics regarding artificial intelligence.
It was truly eye opening. I was bitten and smitten. And being of a certain age and generation I know how how to bar chord a guitar and semi-run a bass, yet know blush about music theory and electronic music is, in the main, keyboard driven, and at the ivories I’m a whole note slow.
But, if not a World Class autodidact, I gots some big city, if not regional cred, so just how hard can this shit be.
Besides, I’ve already got the computational power residing right there in that full fat M1 Mac-Mini.
But then I changed DAWs. I moved up to the LogicProX Digital Audio Workstation and was quick to realize that I would be better served, primarily because the of Mac-Mini’s limited I/O, to upgrade to a more powerful device.
Hence The Mac Studio Max. More ram, more cpu cores, faster throughput, and more onboard storage.
Done deal, but with a three week delay, due to custom order. O.K. And then.
Mini-Stroke number two in two years. Cancel it, I told SNZ. No way… she told me.
So there it stands. And on the dinning room table it all sits. And where in the hell, is it all gonna fit. From mini-midi-keyboard controller to that big ass black apple keyboard with number-pad…because that DAW has shortcuts embedded… yep, even there. Beware.
