It's been over 10 years now that I've been dabbling
into electronic music. I wonder today where it all
started, and where it's all going.
Programming my Vic-20 when I was 7 or 8 years old,
I discovered the INKEY, instead of input, the inkey
takes the key that you type and feed it to your
program. This discovery led me to create my first
'synth'. I attributed randomly each key to a sound,
so I could play music on it. I had never seens a
synthesizer but I programmed one, inspired by the
piano in my house and the INKEY function.
My highschool was filled with Gentle Giant, early
Pink Floyd albums, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis.
So I was already introduced to synth filled music.
Although a hippy, a friend made me listen to The Orb,
tower of Dub, and that got me hooked on electronic music.
I went to my first rave in the late 90's, a party
called SubProduct. I had been playing didgeredoo
on the roofs of downtown Montreal, high on mushrooms
with blue paint on my face.
With no cash and a big smile I said "yeah, I paid"
and showed him my hand... He just smiled back unsure at
first but convinced with my assurance. We dropped acid
on top of the shroom, I will never forget that night...
It was the start of many more nights in the underground
parties of Montreal.
I still love the energy of a rave, when we all dance,
lost in this infinity, high on drug, not wanting
tomorrow to come.
In my late 20s, I played with fruityloop a bit, and
before that I had an trippy encouter with a casio
synth while on acid.
It took me until my 30s to start experimenting with
electronic music. It's been a slow process too. I am
finally taking music lessons for the past 2 years which
really helps with, well, playing music!
I finally also figured out what works for me with
electronic music. It's been quite a ride. Here is a
list of toys I've had the chance to play with
(you can skip ahead!)
Pure-data and processing were the 2 software that got me
back into electronic music, while running PureDyne OS.
Figuring out this setup was really the key to
get a foundation in creating electronic music.
My biggest problem is that I am following this
desire to play live electronic music. I don't know
why. But since the begining I want to play live
electronic music. Nothing swayed me away from this
goal. It's been hard, expensive, discouraging,
non-sensical and sometime just a pain in the ass.
I've often thought about selling everything and
just play the flute and the tabla. Who cares if
I play electronic music? I've often asked myself
'What's your goal here? Where do you want to go
with all that?'
I don't think you need 10 years to produce decent
electronic music. If you use the right software,
learn a bit of music theory, chord progressions,
rhythm, song struture, I'd say in a year you can
get to produce usable material on a dance floor.
I probably could have produced many albums and
released many track if I simply went an easier way,
composing music in a daw, where I can fine tune,
polish, take my time to make a track. I'm not saying
that I would have produce good music, but for the time
and energy I spent going my own way, it feels like
I should be more fluent in my creative skills.
I finally feel good about my 'live electronic music
playing'. Is it marketable skill? Can I start selling
track and performing? I don't think so! And maybe
it will never happens!! Really all I want at this point
is to have fun, maybe playing with other people. My
next goal is to play live for an audience, and maybe
make them dance to my grooves!
I have even been thinking to maybe collaborate on a project
with someone, if the opportunity arise! If anyone is interested
to share a creative process - send me a track and I can see
what I can add to it! :D
