Revisiting A Past Life
Well, I’d hoped this wouldn’t happen, but at the same time, I knew it would…
My sister-in-law and her husband got me an electronic keyboard for Christmas — which is super-cool, trust me. I’m really thankful for it; I’d actually asked for one, and didn’t expect anyone to shell out the cash for it. It hooks up to the computer via USB, and it (literally) is just plug-and-play — no configuration, no drivers, nothing. Plug it in and it’s ready to go.
So, today, I hooked it up and started going through a lot of my old music. I mean, music I’d written, and a few pieces I’d transcribed so I could mess around with them.
Oh yeah: if you didn’t already know, I used to be a bit of a musician. Way back before this whole writing thing came to play, and even before I was a software developer. Some people used to say I was halfway decent; I’ll leave that up to you though, if you ever get to hear anything I wrote.
Anyways…
So I hooked it up, started playing some of the stuff I’d written, and man did it hit me hard. All the energy I’d put in to it, all the time I’d spent, all the hopes and dreams I’d had of getting my stuff performed (or even just heard). Damn near put me In the Fight.
I know, it probably sounds stupid: why would that depress me? Shouldn’t those be good memories? Shouldn’t it be pleasing to hear something that you’d spent so much time and energy on?
Not really. See, some things went awry with all that, and I closed the door on that part of my life. I tried really, really hard — harder than anyone would ever think made any sense at all — to put musical creativity out of my life.
Why? Because I always wanted more from it. I didn’t want to just plink around at home on a keyboard, or write stuff on the computer and listen to it later. I wanted to be a composer, in much the same way I want to be a novelist. Not a hobbyist composer, like I don’t care too much for the idea of writing as a hobby. I wanted the same thing everyone else wants: I wanted to quit my day job, or at least get something set up to get it performed publicly. And, like everything else you do on your own, I had no clue what to do to get that ball rolling.
Seriously, if you think it’s hard work trying to get a novel read by an agent, try getting an orchestral piece performed.
Maybe I just looked in the wrong places, but I had absolutely no luck in getting anything performed. There was other stuff involved too — like trying to get involved with a band a friend of mine had with absolutely no success. It just seemed that every door I tried was locked solidly. Maybe I tried the wrong doors, and I’m sure I gave up too easily, but it’s really disheartening to make no progress, no matter how hard you try.
So I gave up, and I tried like a son of a bitch to put it out of my life. And it worked. Kinda. I’ve been really bitter about it since I gave up, but I’d succeeded in finding other avenues to pursue — like writing.
Why am I posting this? Not just to whine, although I’m sure it probably seems like it 
Now that I have a means to get the music out, I’m hoping there might be a little bit of an audience here on the inter-tubes. As soon as I figure out some logistical problems (i.e. recording and mixing a MIDI file to MP3), I’m going to start posting my music here, as I do with my writing. For free, of course, and there should be a fair mix of “classical” music and some rock/industrial instrumental tracks. Trust me, you do not want to hear me sing (besides, I’ve got a little experience with home recording, and getting a good vocal track is a bitch and a half).
In the meantime, you can check out one of my pieces, Evolution. There’s no story behind the name; it just seemed to fit. It’s kind of a rock-ish/techno-ish/classical-ish piece that, like my novels, I can’t seem to fit into a genre. Hope you enjoy.
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