I have always loved listening to different kinds of music. Everything from chip tunes produced by the legendary SID chip to heavy metal. Sometimes I get a boost of energy while working from a great remix playing on SlayRadio and other times I find myself listening to classical pieces by one of the many great composers.
I first got into composing my own music using ProTracker on the Amiga 500. I want to say I tried on the C64, but remember it being a pretty laborious endeavor for a young child and that some beeps at most came out of it.
My own music has almost exclusively been for my own consumption. Or should I say my own outlet. I used it to put soundwaves on feelings and emotions. It was never ment for others to hear. Many of my pieces were just rough ideas, a series of notes that never grew to a full composition. This happened a lot during my teenage years where I accumulated a collection of somewhere between 500-1000 started or finished pieces.
Unfortunately the 500MB HDD I had them all on one day decided to go kaput and with that most of what I had ever composed was lost. Well, a few things actually survived on tapes I had sent to my then girlfriend, one of the few who got to listen to some of my music.
The years went by, we grew up and had children of our own. One day our oldest son, around six years old at the time, asked to learn to play the piano. We set him up with a tutor and bought a piano for him. I tried to help him with his studies and when he had questions I, with my limited knowledge, tried to help explain. I often drove him to the tutor and one time when we were there I played a small piece while they had a short break which caught they ear of his tutor. She asked me if I played to which I said I would hardly credit myself with any knowledge. But she said it would be fun if I too wanted to learn a bit. I felt my son deserved the time we had more than I did but when he said he also wanted me to do it I decided to give it a try. My initial thought was that I could learn a bit so I could help him more.
I bought Reason for my son to be able to dabble with composing himself and after a while this lit a smal spark in me and ideas for small pieces of music, that I had ignored for almost fifteen years, started to come to me again.
Today my son still plays the piano, he sometimes comes to me with a cool melody or a beat he has made in Reason and I feel that maybe music can end up being the companion for him it once was for me.
Today I occasionally dabble. I’m nowhere near the production rate I once was and I seldom have time to sit down these days. But one or two ideas might make its way into the world. Very few will be finished pieces but perhaps a few will.