continuing nerd education

so, music production is a nerd field. it appeals to a wide nerd spectrum, from hi-fi nerds to lo-fi nerds, from nerds with lots of nerd friends to loner nerds.

and it offers a treasure-trove of what i would call "nerd crack:" which is, of course, minutiae. not just any old minutiae, but technical, counterintuitive, obnoxious minutiae that every once in a long while turn out to be really important.

i remember using a program in college called reason, which was really cool (in a nerdy way). it's music creation software, and it's completely digital - you don't need to know how to play an instrument or anything. i remember one guy made a cool (nerd) song totally from sounds he made using a paper bag.

anyway, what made reason so appealing and (nerd-) useful was the knobs. rows and rows of hundreds of little knobs. if you've ever seen a mixing console in a recording studio, you know that there are lots of knobs involved in this process; but in reason, because it was all digital, you could have as many knobs as you wanted. you could build your rack so that the knobs went on to infinity.

and each knob represents a Decision. and most of them don't matter, but some of them do. thus, nerd-crack: you could spend hours and days turning little knobs this way and that to see if they made something cool happen - all while sitting in a dark basement with headphones on, getting paler by the minute.

well, i'd been in withdrawal for a while without really realizing exactly what i was jonesing for. turns out it was something very, very obvious. something even non-nerds recognize and maybe even use: the graphic equalizer.

seriously, how cool is this thing? if you've never played with one, i must insist that you try it. itunes has one. just mess with them while a song is playing and see if you aren't overcome with the giddiness of a schoolgirl as i have been.

of course, this might turn out to be a gateway drug for you - and you could end up a full-blown nerd. after all, you're already reading a blog instead of going outside.

be careful.

i've updated "the pirate song" and might do so again, soon. also "emily" is in the works, an older song that i still like and have never recorded.

here's a mardi gras picture i'm just getting around to posting:



and a poem:


The Red Wheelbarrow


so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.


William Carlos Williams



Thanks for stopping by.