musicalman
Well-Known Member
Well... I don't think it would be hard for anyone to guess that I am a music geek of sorts, based on my name here. So was popping in to see if anyone shared similar interests with me. Maybe if I'm lucky, this post will connect me with more friends who share my interests, but I figured I'd just throw this out here to see what comes up. So here's a bit of an introduction to my interests, and in many aspects, my existence, or at least as I perceive it.
I am pretty proficient at playing keyboards because I had some piano lessons as a kid. I took them on and off. If I had to guess, I had taken 9 years of piano lessons by the time I graduated high school. About a third of that was jazz/rock/pop, and the rest was mostly classical. In college I took additional piano lessons, mostly classical but a bit of jazz too.
I'm in a band which a few friends and I formed while we were in college. Most of us have graduated now but we still play together and do gigs occasionally (maybe a few times a year). We mostly play jazz but go into genres like fusion, pop/rock etc. and we add our own flavor to stuff. I also play with other musicians in our area. When we play music, there is a chemistry that keeps us enjoying our time spent practicing together and doing gigs at local restaurants, bars etc. and occasionally playing with bigger name jazz musicians.
Outside of that life, I am a music technology geek. I distinctly remember during my adolescence when I discovered my interest in technology as well as music, and since I didn't have an outlet for it other than my own exploration, I sort of let it take over my private life. I taught myself most of the stuff I know about the field. I wouldn't say I'm an expert really, more of a fascinated dabbler who spends so much time working with it that I tend to figure stuff out pretty quickly. Doing that has sort of rekindled my interest in math too. I still have an intense phobia of it, but when working with some technical aspect of music, I can make it my friend for a while.
I enjoy trying to recreate the sounds I hear, whether they be purely electronic, or more acoustic. For instance I might hear a song and try to figure out how one sound was made, or I might get a pretty big kick out of trying to make a sort of realistic instrument sound with primitive synthesizers.
My interest in more primitive technology has led me into the world of chiptunes and music for old video game consoles, even though I am not old enough to have appreciated those consoles when they were current . Maybe my aspie logical mind is to blame for this, but working with the unique limitations of old sound chips makes me feel like I am doing one of those puzzles that have multiple solutions (I hate puzzles BTW), but the saving grace is that because there are multiple solutions and it's all a very subjective matter, I can freely choose the angle I approach a challenge and not worry so much about being right or wrong. If I'm wrong, I'll know simply because I won't like it and that will be the motivation for trying again, or rethinking things. Of course music is always like that, but under restraint, it's different. It feels more tactical. You don't have an unlimited stock to work with, you've got to make everything you do count.
The types of sound chips I like working with most are the ones that use short samples or recordings of sounds. Consoles that do this are the Snes and pretty much anything after the Playstation (though I generally stick to the older or more gritty side of that like PSX, N64, GBA and a few others). The Snes is probably my favorite right now because I actually have a tool to write Snes music natively so it could be played on real hardware if there was ever a reason to do so. The 8 bit and other related stuff is cool, but I feel more disconnected with it, probably because it's too primitive for my more acoustic upbringing. I don't dislike it, in fact I love working in that style, but I am far more able to do it if I'm actually thinking an 8 bit idea as opposed to trying to adapt something.
Every time I find a new tool to play with, whether it be a synthesizer that promises things I don't yet have, or a new tool for composing for a sound chip or whatever, it is literally as exciting for me, if not even more so, as getting the Christmas/birthday present I always wanted. At the end of the day though, this is really an obsession that sometimes completely takes over. I get myself into depressive fits because I set the bar impossibly high for myself. I've found it difficult to enjoy the music I once did, simply because I've torn it apart so much and have either succeeded or failed to figure it out, and now there's no thrill in it. Hopefully that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I could ramble on and on about more specifics but I have no clue if anyone will even understand me up to this point, so I'll close. Even if it's not exactly the things I've been talking about, does anyone relate to my experiences with their own interests, or perhaps share any of my interests? I'd be eager to hear from you either way!
I am pretty proficient at playing keyboards because I had some piano lessons as a kid. I took them on and off. If I had to guess, I had taken 9 years of piano lessons by the time I graduated high school. About a third of that was jazz/rock/pop, and the rest was mostly classical. In college I took additional piano lessons, mostly classical but a bit of jazz too.
I'm in a band which a few friends and I formed while we were in college. Most of us have graduated now but we still play together and do gigs occasionally (maybe a few times a year). We mostly play jazz but go into genres like fusion, pop/rock etc. and we add our own flavor to stuff. I also play with other musicians in our area. When we play music, there is a chemistry that keeps us enjoying our time spent practicing together and doing gigs at local restaurants, bars etc. and occasionally playing with bigger name jazz musicians.
Outside of that life, I am a music technology geek. I distinctly remember during my adolescence when I discovered my interest in technology as well as music, and since I didn't have an outlet for it other than my own exploration, I sort of let it take over my private life. I taught myself most of the stuff I know about the field. I wouldn't say I'm an expert really, more of a fascinated dabbler who spends so much time working with it that I tend to figure stuff out pretty quickly. Doing that has sort of rekindled my interest in math too. I still have an intense phobia of it, but when working with some technical aspect of music, I can make it my friend for a while.
I enjoy trying to recreate the sounds I hear, whether they be purely electronic, or more acoustic. For instance I might hear a song and try to figure out how one sound was made, or I might get a pretty big kick out of trying to make a sort of realistic instrument sound with primitive synthesizers.
My interest in more primitive technology has led me into the world of chiptunes and music for old video game consoles, even though I am not old enough to have appreciated those consoles when they were current . Maybe my aspie logical mind is to blame for this, but working with the unique limitations of old sound chips makes me feel like I am doing one of those puzzles that have multiple solutions (I hate puzzles BTW), but the saving grace is that because there are multiple solutions and it's all a very subjective matter, I can freely choose the angle I approach a challenge and not worry so much about being right or wrong. If I'm wrong, I'll know simply because I won't like it and that will be the motivation for trying again, or rethinking things. Of course music is always like that, but under restraint, it's different. It feels more tactical. You don't have an unlimited stock to work with, you've got to make everything you do count.
The types of sound chips I like working with most are the ones that use short samples or recordings of sounds. Consoles that do this are the Snes and pretty much anything after the Playstation (though I generally stick to the older or more gritty side of that like PSX, N64, GBA and a few others). The Snes is probably my favorite right now because I actually have a tool to write Snes music natively so it could be played on real hardware if there was ever a reason to do so. The 8 bit and other related stuff is cool, but I feel more disconnected with it, probably because it's too primitive for my more acoustic upbringing. I don't dislike it, in fact I love working in that style, but I am far more able to do it if I'm actually thinking an 8 bit idea as opposed to trying to adapt something.
Every time I find a new tool to play with, whether it be a synthesizer that promises things I don't yet have, or a new tool for composing for a sound chip or whatever, it is literally as exciting for me, if not even more so, as getting the Christmas/birthday present I always wanted. At the end of the day though, this is really an obsession that sometimes completely takes over. I get myself into depressive fits because I set the bar impossibly high for myself. I've found it difficult to enjoy the music I once did, simply because I've torn it apart so much and have either succeeded or failed to figure it out, and now there's no thrill in it. Hopefully that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I could ramble on and on about more specifics but I have no clue if anyone will even understand me up to this point, so I'll close. Even if it's not exactly the things I've been talking about, does anyone relate to my experiences with their own interests, or perhaps share any of my interests? I'd be eager to hear from you either way!