Musical itchings and lack of practice

April 18, 2008 | Reading time: 2 minutes

I’ve been working on some music again, as well as changing my style a bit too. It’s been years since I’ve done anything semi-seriously, and I’ve had songs in my head for the last few years that I’ve been wanting to push down to .wav.

Also, I’ve been getting the itch to go back to caressing my artistic side. Once upon a time I was quite a freehand sketcher, but since becoming a professional nerd/geek I’ve not done this so often anymore. So I suppose that a slight regression to make me a more-whole person is in order.

I blame my semi-sudden rush of artistic need on some of the work my liberal buddy (I’m a moderate with conservative tendencies) Junkyard Sam has produced in the last few months. That man’s got some serious talent and imagination.

I think it’s probably time for guitar & piano lessons to help me focus and refresh my skills (my piano skills especially). I’ll probably do a few online and see if I can learn anything from them. Otherwise I’ve got a few sources that can teach me the basics of two-hand playing on the keyboards.

The composition software that I’ve been working with the last few weeks is Cakewalk’s Project 5 but I’m running into some creative workflow limitations and I long for something a bit more flexible. I honestly think that Project 5 would be great in front of a live audience once properly set up and it’s great for prototyping, but still not as familiar in composition as my old Roland JX-305 (which is having issues with the LCD screen after almost 10 years) — I’ve been more into software synths lately anyways.

Although I’m a SONAR version 5 and Project 5 version 2 licensee, I’m going to download the trial of SONAR version 7 to see if it’ll fit my workflow a bit more smoothly. I’ve always been a fan of Cakewalk’s software and Cakewalk’s user-centric licensing scheme (which borders on the honesty system–too many companies out there treat their users like criminals). The upgrade cost would be about $225 but it’s been a few versions since I’ve updated, but that software series is phenomenal.

So this blog may turn into my dark art blog over time, so beware. Honestly though I think I’d find that much more interesting that some random XBox gamer’s blog, eh?