Maiden Voyage
I suppose this is a curious title for a blog intended mainly as a running commentary on my interaction with music and technology and all the ins and outs that are likely to constitute the penumbra of my musical universe over the course of the next months and years. Some folks will think immediately of Herbie Hancock and hear, or imagine they hear, sus cords and melodic sax lines. But this is a maiden voyage for me in two respects: it's my first effort at a blog and it represents my initial effort to get my arms around a series of problems that are - at least for me - pretty complex. These problems sometimes have to do with technology - e.g., computer software, hardware, audio interfaces, midi interfaces, protocols, standards, etc. - and sometimes have to do with the music itself - writing, composing, performing, recording, editing, mastering, etc. And sometimes the problems lie at the intersection of these two worlds, e.g., in the place where technology inspires or inhibits creativity or the place where ways of creating music are readily conceptualized but realized in and through technology only poorly, if at all.
Already this sounds a little too geeky and over-intellectualized. That's not at all what I'm wanting to do with this blog. Rather, I want to start a conversation about the problems and issues I encounter on a regular basis and highlight the things that I'm learning, or stumped by, or angry about, or thrilled with. In addition to talking through the problems and issues, I'll try to say a few words about the solutions and resources I run across.
Before I really get started, I need to introduce myself. I'm Tom Higley. I suspect I began to be interested in music the first time I heard my mother sing to me. She had - still has - an extraordinary soprano voice, and I grew up hearing Carmina Burana, Mozart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, and Mairzy Doats (Words and Music by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston).
I began my formal musical education with the clarinet. (I was too stubborn to take the piano lessons that Mom recommended.) Then I moved on to the saxophone. Then the guitar. The guitar would become my instrument of choice for 30+ years. I played guitar in rock bands, jazz groups, R&B groups, country groups, big bands, and who knows what else from 1968-1977 and after that, for awhile I played and recorded songs with a more spiritual bent. When I was playing regularly, I used a 1970 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a couple of Gibson ES-175s, usually through Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers with some sort of additional home-made preamplification and a few extra speaker cabinets.
[A bit of a digression, but worth mentioning: I long ago lost a significant portion of the high end of my hearing range, a loss I attribute to many years of playing lead guitar with the volume set at "11." At this point, it's hard for me to pick up the consonants of many words, and it is, unfortunately, from the consonants that we derive the distinction, and therefore the meaning, of most words. "Say what?"]
Someday I'll devote some time in this blog to talking about the places I played and the musicians I played with. But that was a long time ago. I haven't played the guitar professionally for over 25 years. A few years ago, I decided that it would be of great benefit to me if I could develop a modest ability to play the piano. While my keyboard skills are still pretty horrible, I am able to detect enough progress in my playing that I have avoided any sense of discouragement. I love the piano. I especially love the sound and feel of an acoustic Steinway grand piano. But I also own and play many other synths and keyboard controllers, including the Korg Triton Studio, Roland Fantom X6, Yamaha S90ES, Novation X-Station 25 and Kurzweil 2500X.
After deciding in 1977 to step out of the music business, I did all sorts of things. Waited tables. Built houses. Painted houses. Worked on the assembly line at a GM plant. Only in 1982 - 10 years after graduating from high school - did I decide that I really wanted to get an undergraduate degree. I went to the University of Michigan. After that I went on to Harvard Law School, where I graduated in 1989. I practiced law for six years. Then I became an active entrepreneur. I started several companies - FortNET, NETdelivery, Service Metrics, Latis Networks - and ran most of them, at least for awhile.
By 2001, I'd managed to do well enough in all of this to be able to retire from the business world and return to music. Since so many of the companies I had worked to build were tech companies, I had become pretty familiar with computers and a wide variety of computer-related technologies. I bought my first computer in 1984, a 128k Macintosh. (Yes, there really were 128k Macs! Within a year or so the outrageously powerful "fat-Mac" with a whopping 512K of RAM was introduced, introducing me and everyone else using a personal computer to what would become a never-ending cycle of hardware and software upgrades.) For a time, while I was a practicing lawyer, I moved over to the PC world and used Microsoft products pretty much exclusively. In fact, I helped the law firms in which I practiced to adopt new computing technology, automate document creation, storage and retrieval and navigate from one platform to another. So even as a lawyer, I was in the technology thicket. And I liked it there.
So when I found my way back to music, I had a pretty good idea that I was going to do it with an eye toward the use of technology - i.e., computer hardware and software - to facilitate writing, recording, mixing, editing, etc. The first challenge was the platform. I wasn't sure, at first, whether I wanted to start with a Windows or a Mac-based music system. I had the means to explore both, but I didn't really have the energy or the time. I bought a new Mac PowerBook G4 in 2001. Other family members followed suit. It wasn't long before we were principally a Mac-oriented household.
At first, since all the musicians I knew seemed to be running Pro Tools (yes, even then), I thought it made the most sense for me to purchase and get up to speed on a Pro Tools rig. I bought a Mix Plus system, a system that would allow me to offload some of the processing power onto hardware that was specifically dedicated to audio recording. I thought it would be fairly easy to manage the Pro Tools learning curve, and with the help of some friends and paid consultants, I did get a system up and running that would allow me to record audio with a high degree of quality. But things grew very complicated, very quickly. And nothing seemed easy. Or inexpensive. Or quick.
Already this sounds a little too geeky and over-intellectualized. That's not at all what I'm wanting to do with this blog. Rather, I want to start a conversation about the problems and issues I encounter on a regular basis and highlight the things that I'm learning, or stumped by, or angry about, or thrilled with. In addition to talking through the problems and issues, I'll try to say a few words about the solutions and resources I run across.
Before I really get started, I need to introduce myself. I'm Tom Higley. I suspect I began to be interested in music the first time I heard my mother sing to me. She had - still has - an extraordinary soprano voice, and I grew up hearing Carmina Burana, Mozart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, and Mairzy Doats (Words and Music by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston).
I began my formal musical education with the clarinet. (I was too stubborn to take the piano lessons that Mom recommended.) Then I moved on to the saxophone. Then the guitar. The guitar would become my instrument of choice for 30+ years. I played guitar in rock bands, jazz groups, R&B groups, country groups, big bands, and who knows what else from 1968-1977 and after that, for awhile I played and recorded songs with a more spiritual bent. When I was playing regularly, I used a 1970 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a couple of Gibson ES-175s, usually through Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers with some sort of additional home-made preamplification and a few extra speaker cabinets.
[A bit of a digression, but worth mentioning: I long ago lost a significant portion of the high end of my hearing range, a loss I attribute to many years of playing lead guitar with the volume set at "11." At this point, it's hard for me to pick up the consonants of many words, and it is, unfortunately, from the consonants that we derive the distinction, and therefore the meaning, of most words. "Say what?"]
Someday I'll devote some time in this blog to talking about the places I played and the musicians I played with. But that was a long time ago. I haven't played the guitar professionally for over 25 years. A few years ago, I decided that it would be of great benefit to me if I could develop a modest ability to play the piano. While my keyboard skills are still pretty horrible, I am able to detect enough progress in my playing that I have avoided any sense of discouragement. I love the piano. I especially love the sound and feel of an acoustic Steinway grand piano. But I also own and play many other synths and keyboard controllers, including the Korg Triton Studio, Roland Fantom X6, Yamaha S90ES, Novation X-Station 25 and Kurzweil 2500X.
After deciding in 1977 to step out of the music business, I did all sorts of things. Waited tables. Built houses. Painted houses. Worked on the assembly line at a GM plant. Only in 1982 - 10 years after graduating from high school - did I decide that I really wanted to get an undergraduate degree. I went to the University of Michigan. After that I went on to Harvard Law School, where I graduated in 1989. I practiced law for six years. Then I became an active entrepreneur. I started several companies - FortNET, NETdelivery, Service Metrics, Latis Networks - and ran most of them, at least for awhile.
By 2001, I'd managed to do well enough in all of this to be able to retire from the business world and return to music. Since so many of the companies I had worked to build were tech companies, I had become pretty familiar with computers and a wide variety of computer-related technologies. I bought my first computer in 1984, a 128k Macintosh. (Yes, there really were 128k Macs! Within a year or so the outrageously powerful "fat-Mac" with a whopping 512K of RAM was introduced, introducing me and everyone else using a personal computer to what would become a never-ending cycle of hardware and software upgrades.) For a time, while I was a practicing lawyer, I moved over to the PC world and used Microsoft products pretty much exclusively. In fact, I helped the law firms in which I practiced to adopt new computing technology, automate document creation, storage and retrieval and navigate from one platform to another. So even as a lawyer, I was in the technology thicket. And I liked it there.
So when I found my way back to music, I had a pretty good idea that I was going to do it with an eye toward the use of technology - i.e., computer hardware and software - to facilitate writing, recording, mixing, editing, etc. The first challenge was the platform. I wasn't sure, at first, whether I wanted to start with a Windows or a Mac-based music system. I had the means to explore both, but I didn't really have the energy or the time. I bought a new Mac PowerBook G4 in 2001. Other family members followed suit. It wasn't long before we were principally a Mac-oriented household.
At first, since all the musicians I knew seemed to be running Pro Tools (yes, even then), I thought it made the most sense for me to purchase and get up to speed on a Pro Tools rig. I bought a Mix Plus system, a system that would allow me to offload some of the processing power onto hardware that was specifically dedicated to audio recording. I thought it would be fairly easy to manage the Pro Tools learning curve, and with the help of some friends and paid consultants, I did get a system up and running that would allow me to record audio with a high degree of quality. But things grew very complicated, very quickly. And nothing seemed easy. Or inexpensive. Or quick.
posted by Tom Higley at 9:26 PM
0 comments
