Hello, all.
Like a lot of people, I've been thinking about how I might make some difference, add a little something positive and useful to the world. I used to play my part the way most people do, through gainful employment. Hey, a cog in the machine at least serves a purpose. But I've been "Darwined out" of the rat race, so to speak, by some weird neuromuscular disease I'd never heard of. (MMN if you're curious.)
So what to do? Well, last year I had a revelation that made a pretty significant difference in my life. Turns out a regular schmuck like me can make music with a computer. I've been making music since I could reach the keyboard of the organ we had when I was a kid. I can still play a keyboard, a little, with one hand, but the ability to play guitar was the first thing I lost to this disease. That was a decade ago.
Imagine what it was like when I first stumbled across a notation program. You enter notes on a staff and it renders those notes in any instrument the sound font supports. I had such a nerdgasm. And I'm not even a nerd, or it wouldn't have come as such a surprise. That reopened an avenue of expression that I'd forgotten how much I'd missed. There are a lot of digital methods and techniques for sound creation, so it's been like learning a new instrument. It's been a year well spent.
And now I have something I can do. How can I use it to contribute? Well, I see public service announcements on TV, done at a cost I couldn't begin to guess at. They're generally negative and insultingly manipulative. I think a more positive and honest approach would be better. I could do something like that. I already had a couple of videos on YouTube from the early days, but, shamefully, I didn't give any thought to apportioning credit for the images. I've learned since then.
It was the bee massacre in the Target parking lot that motivated me to try again. I finished the new video and put it up on YouTube last night. But one of the things I've learned is that putting something on YouTube doesn't mean anyone will see it. (Duh! I'm too old to be such a n00b!) So I'm going to post it here. If you think it'll help, pass it around. Yes, it's self-promotion, but that's not how it feels. I'm just trying to make a difference.