New (Old) Song and some thoughts...

So, I was digging through some files tonight, technically early this morning to some of you who won't read this until it's fully Sunday, sun up and all. Anyway, I found this little gem that I decided I like enough to post here. It's on the FB page as well.



Called it Sudden Rainstorm. I thought about that title though and it really seems more like one of those rainstorms that creeps in slowly and before you know it you look up and the sun is gone and the sky is a creepy dark gray, thunder rumbling louder and louder every second...you'll hear what I mean.

Anyhow, this is just to preface that I have been writing again, mainly in Fruity Loops and I may just get those pieces finished in the next few days and post them here and there. It feels good to be writing again, especially since I keep saying I want to try out Indaba. It's been slow going though. Earlier in the week I made a comment on the Facebook page about still not grasping the point of Twitter and was met with encouragement to give it another shot and tips on how to get the most out of it. Wanting to be smart about my online networking, I decided to do so. But I realized that there's something overwhelming about trying to find your way around a new social networking site. Indaba is no different. It doesn't help either that on top of Indaba and Twitter, I recently joined FourSquare and Yelp. FourSquare and Yelp, being that they require physically going out places to get the most out of them, can wait. I'm getting a little broke this month to be going out so much.

Anyway, Twitter and Indaba can only help my career. Yelp and FourSquare are, at best, distractions at this point. It can be frustrating, too, with so many distractions that I feel like I'm not getting near as much done as I'd like. The temptation to go out and do things in this city in the summertime is pretty impossible to ignore sometimes. Add to that the fact that every time I think my troubleshooting with this computer is over, I waste an entire day off trying to isolate problems when I could be recording, writing, or generally using the computer to be creative. Then, because it's so hard to get things going with a small amount of time, say, before work, I invariably end up waiting another week to get working again.

If only I didn't need a day job...which is probably the cry of every artist in the world who isn't already successful enough to support themselves solely with their craft. I could wish for more hours in the day but if I got them I'd use them sleeping or socializing, knowing me. But then, when one realizes that those two have become the default activities to spend free time on, one wonders if one's interest in becoming a professional artist hasn't waned considerably. I sure hope not. It's awful to think of something that was once my hobby and then became my passion could be relegating itself to the realm of the sometime aspiration of a whimsical teenager.

I suppose it's key to stop and remember why I do these things at all. Why I even bother. If I were one of those people who would answer that question with something trite like a wish to be famous or successful, then I'd seriously have to question myself. It's awful hard to base an interest in something on the desire for fame or success when you examine the notion of fame or success, whatever that might mean to you. It's simply a destination, one that you could get to by many paths. If I only wanted to be a musician to be famous (and not, say, to personally enrich my life through the creative process), then I might as well not be a musician specifically but should instead just find the thing that's most likely to make me famous. Some people resort to reality TV for this. I shall not stoop so low. For it is not fame that I want but the chance to create and collaborate. Supporting myself while doing it would be nice too, of course.

My point is that being famous is not a very lofty goal...Paris Hilton is famous (and for what?) Instead, to be able to express myself creatively and enjoy doing so is a good enough goal for me. To continue doing it and enjoy doing it despite the pressures of other responsibilities. If I make money, awesome. If not, at least I kept it up.

Anyway, back on the topic of Indaba, I really like the idea behind this site and am seriously going to be uploading music and considering spending a good amount of my "music time" on Wednesdays on tinkering with the features, maybe connecting with other musicians. The thing is, with a site like this, there are so many uses. Collaboration, hosting, networking, meeting potential band mates. All these things and I can't think of which to use it for. I'd love to jam with some people soon. I thought about it recently. Just having some friends over and gathering around the piano and improvising. I'd also love to get my chops up recording and getting input from other musicians, possibly collaborating. We'll see.

For now, I need to sleep. A comment on the weather though...Fall is almost here, I can taste it. Favorite season of the year, hands down. I mean, I wore a jacket last night! In August! Gonna go for now. Enjoy the music!

Clean slate...

You're never going to believe this...I don't want to speak too soon but I think I figured out the problem with my computer, the source of my eventual livelihood, and incidentally, most of my current frustration.

I'm in the process of reinstalling all of my software, piece by piece and copying files from my backup drive back to my main hard drive right now. A few days ago, I freshly installed my operating system and, subsequently, a few of my software synthesizers and the drivers for my sound card and audio interface, the bare minimum, as it were, to do my work. After a few tests of just playing through the computer with the keyboard, sure enough, with no other background operations running, no silly internet toolbars, no anti-virus software and no possibility of any viruses on the computer, I had dropouts, audio glitches and CPU overload. WTF?!

So, naturally, I called my dad, whose brain I normally pick when things like this happen and he suggested re-seating the memory sticks. So I powered down and went to pull them off the motherboard and swap them and that's when my attention was drawn to the amount of dust covering the motherboard and, incidentally, the processor fan. I am a classic idiot. I haven't cleaned off the dust in there since I built this computer 2 years ago! So, I promptly ran out to Radio Shack and bought a can of air and proceeded to blow the caked on dust out of there and then suck it all up with a vacuum.

So, I've yet to do any extensive testing but I'm pretty sure that will have fixed it. An overheating processor makes total sense. That would explain why it was so intermittent, yet so regular. Once it would get going doing a lot of work, it was only a matter of time before it started to drop out.

The question is, why did I insist on overlooking the most obvious of solutions to things like this? My mind is too complex. What can I say? I initially imagine that something this baffling must have some complex reason behind it. Wonderful life lesson here.

This particular clean install I've done has made me realize how little I actually need to have running on this computer. I've been using Google Documents so no need for a word processor, I have anti-virus that I know works, there are some files that I never use and can just leave on my online backup or my external hard drive, and I don't need to run a million internet tool bars. In fact, I don't even think I'll be doing much web surfing at home now that I have a smart phone.

Remember how I said I wanted a Droid. Well, I caved, mostly because it made sense too. Waiting for the discount in December when I would have been eligible, would have saved me the exact amount of money I would have spent now to use my insurance plan to get my old phone replaced. So, now I have entered the world of the smart phone and there is no going back. (I ended up with the LG Ally)I'm probably a little bit too enamored of it and I'm sort of waiting for the novelty of all the various applications and the sheer utility of the thing to wear off. In the meantime, I've been thinking all sorts of existential thoughts about what it's doing to my way of thinking and my lifestyle. For instance, am I losing brain cells playing with this thing? Is it making me smarter or dumber? And what of my attention span? Am I becoming one of those guys who whips out his smart phone every five seconds (I saw a few people give me a look while I was walking and texting...yes, I walked and texted a few times in the last day or so). And all manner of other thoughts ranging from loss of productivity (i.e. time spent playing with the light saber app) to, ironically, gain in productivity (I found a neat application that I can use to make loop-based songs like I used to do in college with Fruity Loops so now I can capture ideas at work or wherever I am) right down to how much energy the smart phone consumer tacks on to what he/she already uses and why no one has thought to put solar power on a smart phone like they did with calculators (I admit it probably wouldn't supply enough power to fully charge a phone's battery but perhaps it could extend the life of one...then again, I guess the phone would have to spend enough time out of one's pocket in the outdoors for such a feature to matter...nevermind).

At any rate, hopefully, at least, the cordoning off of my internet time to periods when I'm out and about killing time, or otherwise away from home, will lead to more productivity music-wise when I am home. Let's hope. In addition, I now have another clean slate on my computer with this fresh install and this time, my files are all safe. Hopefully, it'll work much faster as well.