Reading Music Again

 Music  No Responses »
May 102012
 

I’ve been brushing up on theory and re-learing how to read standard notation for a few weeks now, so I decided I should buy the music I want to learn  rather than rummage around the internet for chord progressions that are wrong as often as they are right and rarely show rhythms and melodies accurately.

Bought my first set of sheet music in ages last night.YAY! I’m SO GLAD I did.

To call my reading skills rusty would be an understatement, and being a sax player (way back in the day) that only had to read a melody on the treble cleft, reading notes/chords for both hands and on different clefts is challenging to say the least. I feel like I’m in beginner band all over again, but I’m loving music like I haven’t in a long time, and I’m learning faster than I ever have. I’m itching to use my new knowledge to write some new stuff that has more tonal movement, but right now I’m having too much fun learning.

 Posted by at 12:44 pm  Tagged with: ,

When The Universe Speaks

 Life, Music  No Responses »
Apr 232012
 

When the universe speaks, sometimes the appropriate response is to stick your fingers into your ears and yell “lalalalalalala” until it shuts up. The latest saga in my quest to once again have a functioning home music studio took an unexpected twist yesterday. But to really understand the absurdity of this latest twist, we have to go back…way back.

In 2007, I bought my first studio rig. It was a USB based Fast Track interface running into a Windows XP desktop. My software package of choice – Pro Tools 7. It was pretty basic, but it got the job done. And it worked.

A few months later, I bought a laptop that had Windows XP Media Center Edition. As it turns out, MCE isn’t compatible with Pro Tools. Headache #1. So, I learned about Windows registry hacks and tricked my laptop into thinking it was running a plain version of XP.

Eventually, I decided I needed more inputs, so I upgraded my hardware to a Firewire based M-Box 2 Pro, which came with a different flavor of Pro Tools.I didn’t know it at the time, but Windows boxes don’t come with Firewire…so I had to buy a PCMCIA card with Firewire inputs just to run my hardware. Headache #2. Around this time I decided to buy a copy of a different digital audio software package, Ableton Live. It’s equally adept in studio and live sound situations, and it looked fun, so I added it to my toolbox.

A while later, the hard drive on my laptop started to give up the ghost (Headache #3), but I managed to buy an external hard drive and save my tracks before it kaputted all over the place. Replaced the hard drive; started cranking out tracks again.

After seeing my frustration with Windows computers, my supremely awesome, beautiful, wonderful wife surprises me with a MacBook Pro with OSX Snow Leopard. You, anonymous reader, have no idea how much I wanted one, but she did know. She also knew that I’d never bring myself to spend that much money on a computer, so she did. Tragedy: my version of Pro Tools isn’t compatible. Headache #4.

Luckily, Ableton Live was compatible. Crisis averted. I used Live for a while until I had enough funds to upgrade Pro Tools.

Now, all of the events up to this are quite normal and understandable. There were a few missteps due to inexperience, but hey, that’s how you learn, right? And software packages have to be upgraded from time-to-time.

This is where it all gets ridiculous.

Our house was burglarized. Headache #5. In addition to other items irrelevant to this story, both my Windows laptop and my MacBook Pro were stolen. Fortunately, most of my song session files were on that external hard drive. It wasn’t stolen. I only lost two works in process, one of which I was practically finished and for which I had bounced a near-final mixdown saved elsewhere. The other song wasn’t good enough to keep anyway. But at this point, I’m completely computer-less. I purchased a cheap laptop with Windows 7. It has no Firewire and apparently the the PCMCIA format is dead.

Something I haven’t fully explained thus far is that my particular version of Pro Tools is LE, but LE comes in a couple of flavors. The type that is compatible with the Fast Track hardware is not compatible with the M-Box hardware that I own.

This caveat is very important because I now have Pro Tools Version 7: it’s incompatible with Windows 7, but works with the hardware that works with Windows 7. And I have Pro Tools 8. It is compatible with Windows 7, but because I can’t run the hardware, I can’t run the software. Headache #6.

I spent a LOT of money on two versions of Pro Tools, what I got is two incompatible versions of expensive software.

Well, my dad decided to upgrade his MacBook, so I bought his old one. All software is compatible. It all works I’m once again making music. All is right in the world…until…

My supremely awesome, beautiful, wonderful wife buys me a replacement MacBook Pro running OSX Lion. It’s incompatible with all of the software. Headache #7. Ableton has to be upgraded. Pro Tools has to be upgraded. However, both pieces of hardware are compatible.

Seriously.

Welp. As of last week, I have Ableton Live 8. I’m making music again. Still no Pro Tools, but I’ll take what I can get. Plus, since my access to Pro Tools has been…ahem…sporadic over the last couple of years, most of my newer tracks are in Live.

Anyway, as soon as I installed Live, I plugged in my external hard drive to start working on some tracks I had previously started. Much to my surprise, the disk wouldn’t spin. The external hard drive that worked perfectly well two weeks ago and holds all of my session files going back to 2007 is dead.

Headache #8.

Well played, Universe. Well played.

 Posted by at 8:50 am  Tagged with: , , , ,

Always A Student But Officially Once Again

 Life  No Responses »
Apr 152012
 

On January 3, 2012, NPR ran an article about an online program that helps working adults earn a college degree. “Nothing special there,” I thought. The article mentioned a “competency-based approach,” which on the face of it seems unique, but really isn’t a new concept. Many online programs utilize a competency-based approach. But as the article continued, I quickly realized that Western Governors University is different.

The WGU model has many points working in its favor. Instead of being a typical private, extremely expensive online program that’s light on success stories and heavy on student loan debt (I’m looking at you, Ellis College), WGU is a non-profit, public university “founded by 19 governors concerned about providing affordable education for students.” The tuition rates are the most affordable I’ve seen for an online program. Most importantly for me, baked into WGU’s competency-based approach are industry certifications. For the Bachelor of Science in IT Software, completing the program also means completing the following certifications:

  • Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 6 Programmer
  • CIW Perl Specialist
  • CIW Web Foundations Associate
  • CIW Web Design Specialist
  • CIW JavaScript Specialist
  • CIW Database Design Specialist
  • CIW Web Development Professional
  • CompTIA A+
  • CompTIA Project+
  • CompTIA Security+
  • CompTIA Network+
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Windows OS Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Windows Server Admin Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Networking Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Security Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Web Development Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Software Development Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) Database Administration Fundamentals

Because I have a Bachelors degree, many more doors are already open for me than the average person. However, a degree in Philosophy only goes so far in preparing a person for the job market. To find work in a specialized career field, you need specialized training. So for me, the opportunity to consolidate a regimen of professional certifications into a degree plan is huge. Another bonus: since WGU is an accredited university, I can use my Chapter 33 GI Bill to pay for it. And now that the Chapter 33 pays a housing allowance for online programs, I’ll get a small stipend to offset living expenses while in school. It’s a win-win-win situation for me. Affordable school. Professional certifications. Housing allowance.

I start on June 1. I can’t wait!

Relevant Links:

NPR: Online School Helps Grown-Ups Finish College

Western Governors University

 Posted by at 11:17 am  Tagged with: , , ,

I Have A Recurring Dream

 Life  No Responses »
Apr 052012
 

Over my lifetime, I’ve actually had a few recurring dreams. When I was a child I had a recurring dream in which I could fly. The details of the dream would be different, but if I happened to find myself running as fast as I could, eventually my body would slowly start ascending as if I were climbing an invisible staircase. Once I achieved a certain height, I could stay aloft by periodically performing a well-timed, one-legged jumping motion (imagine a football player jumping mid-stride to catch a pass. That’s what I remember it feeling like.)

These dreams were extremely vivid, so vivid that although while awake I consciously knew that I couldn’t fly, the dreams did cause a little bit of subconscious confusion.

I enjoyed running, and I was the fastest runner in my class throughout my youth. My hunch is that that led to the initial dream of flight and that the subconscious confusion it created reinforced the dreams and led to the recurrence.

I awoke last might in the middle of a whimper of a scream, just loud enough to wake my wife but not loud enough for her to place the sound. In my dream, I was at a nameless grocery store in some anonymous neighborhood. There was a guy with a gun in the parking lot. We (me and a group of nobodies) were trying to find him. I turned a corner and there he was, 20 to 30 yards away, with his gun pointed directly at me.

I have a recurring dream, or more accurately a recurring theme in some dreams, in which I struggle to make a sound with my voice – attempts at everything from a soft spoken word to full-throated yell result in a frustrated, choked off creak. It’s as if no amount of effort can get air though my vocal chords . As best I can remember, the sound I physically made is how it sounds in my dream. Thing is, I wasn’t scared in the dream. It wasn’t a nightmare. I think I was trying so hard to make a sound that my dream took over my body.

Bizarre.

 Posted by at 1:01 pm  Tagged with:
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