I got into music school last week and I’m going to study guitar exclusively for the next year. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, but just never had the chance. Either I wasn’t good enough (being self-taught for so many years) or I just didn’t have the money. After being laid off and getting a small package I decided to practice my ass off on the guitar, do a few live shows to get ready, and then audition for a school in the city.

I definitely freaked about it, and waited until the last Friday before the school opened on Monday. I made an appointment, walked in, sat with the director, and went through the small audition. I was very nervous, since playing music is about the only thing that I’m intimidated by these days, but I did well enough to get into the one year program. I was just hoping to do six months, but when I was offered to do one year I decided to just go for it and bust my ass.

As the director said, I’m not quite good enough to be in the program, but being older and motivated means I can probably pull it off. So far he’s been right, since I’m having to pick up a ton of extra things you don’t learn when you teach yourself. Simple things like the best way to actually practice, or why I keep lifting my pinky too much when I play.

I get up at 6:30am every day and practice for 4-6 hours if I can. I’m easily the worst musician there which is both kind of scary (especially at my age) and also very fun. Having so many younger better qualified people to interact with and learn from is great. Hell, I’m even older than a few of my instructors and some of the people who run the school.

That’s basically all I’ve been doing, that and writing when I can. I finished off a ton of my electronics projects, like the PAiA Mid-Side Mic and now I’m putting them on hold during school. The mid-side mic was very fun to put together, and PAiA does a good job making the kits they sell. This one is great because it’s just large enough to challenge your electronics construction skills, without being so large that when you fuck it up you can’t fix it.

In this case, there’s a small errata section at the beginning that mentions two tiny little jumper wires you have to add. At first I didn’t have these in so it wasn’t working. After I read about those two, and managed to find the little bastards, I installed them and the thing work great. It has a few flaws like the mics are a bit too sensitive, and they need to have screens on them, but otherwise the thing is awesome for recording my ukelele or harmonica.

The funniest thing about this mic is how people react to it. I first show it to them and they go, “You made this?” I tell them it was a kit but yes I assembled it and got it working. Then they hear it and freak out since it makes things far away from you sound like their right by your head. It also has weird features like if you pull one of the 1/4” jacks, the other jack takes over and “downmixes” the stereo sound image to mono for the remaining jack. It’s a very nice microphone, especially for $120 including shipping (and my time to assemble, but that’s just fun).

Some guy even bought me a biscotti when he saw it because he was impressed. He was also kind of strange and asked me if I was straight or gay, so yeah, I’m just happy I only got a biscotti.

After that I’ve been running the FU meetings. The next one is on the 25th of Sep. and we’re doing a visual show. People will show off paintings and a weird visual debugger. I may bring something, and as usually I’ll be icecasting the whole thing live so you can listen to the fun.

If You Had The Chance, Would You?

That’s all I’ve been doing. Guitar, writing, and FU. Now, some people when I tell them that I basically used a huge chunk of my severance to learn music at my age ask, “What are you going to do with it?” Well I could come back with, “I just wanna rock.” Which is partially true, but obviously in my own weird little way. Another answer is that I want to make tech for musicians, but the truth is I want to be a musician who makes tech for himself.

The better question is why people think that the things they learn only have value if there’s money potential. Yes, I understand more than anyone that being poor sucks and that many people can’t even eat let alone attend a fancy music school. This is why if I have the chance to study now, and I don’t take it, then I’ll have wasted an opportunity other people would kill to have.

For me however, the biggest reason is I’ve got something to say, and I think music is the best way to say it. When I’m done with my year of school, I’ll be able to use my knowledge to express myself, my ideas, and the things I want to say. It may never make me any money, but it will make me a better person.

The reason music appeals to me now as a way to express my feelings and ideas is that, unlike code, people expect you to be weird or creative with sound. When I tell people the software I write is art, or if I make something weird just as a joke, they look at me funny or roll their eyes. To them, coding is how they put potatoes on their plate. It’s not art, and I should shut the fuck up and get back to work.

When I write, people seem to enjoy the humor and the information, but very rarely enjoy the creative writing I do. Hell, I don’t think I’ve written anything creative in years. It’s all informational technical writing or funny blog posts. The reaction this form of expression receives is powerful, but only in the opinion forming or political-social way. The popularity of the phrase, “Steak and Strippers” from my blog is a good example of how my writing influences people.

Yet, with music I can play a wide range of styles and tunes, compose little tiny songs or bing horrible evil ones, and people will react in more direct varied ways. Sometimes it’s, “God I wish he’d quit playing.” Other times, they make my stuff into a ringtone and preserve the joke for future generations.

With music I can write sad songs, or happy ones, or funny stuff (yay ukelele) and even get serious and deadly if I feel like it. People will listen even when I’m just noodling around on a little thumb board over the internet. People just generally like different interesting music and respond to any range of emotions I can put into it.

With code, they hate emotion. People will actually email me to ask that I not put “curse words” into my open source projects. With code, nobody appreciates the huge amount of work that went into the little web server that runs their massive business operations. With my writing and public speaking they expect me to be a raving lunatic asshole (which is kind of cool too).

Music though gives me the chance to be more myself, and just write songs or say whatever the hell I want. No pretense about it, just me dorking around making something I feel like making.

Well, actually, when I get better at playing that is.