Scores and Clefs

I’m constantly amazed at the new things I find on the web these days.  I keep thinking back to 1993 in my freshman year at collage.  That year, I got to work and study in a huge computer lab with what was then, very current technology.  The Internet was just a baby.  Recently invented of course by Al Gore (hahaha).  I was able to get on line in the labs and use Gopher to find various things that might help me out in my studies.  How primitive.  Then, later that year, we saw the first web browser that used HTML to offer graphics and such.  That browser (Mosaic) later turned into Netscape which then evolved the Internet even further.  I used to spend hours in the lab ignoring my schoolwork just surfing the Internet.  Then I would go home and pay nearly $400 a month for AOL who charged for Internet access at 14.4Kbs speed BY THE MINUTE (so I could complete the schoolwork I neglected in the lab).  Anyhow, to this day, I’m always surfing and finding new things, constantly amazed by new technology.  Of course now I have an unlimited 5Mbs connection for a tiny fraction of the cost.

Oh how I wish this web site had been around when I was attempting to draft musical compositions (something I suck at).  I hated learning the proper (traditional) styles of composition.  My professors hated my handwriting, not to mention my flat out refusal to avoid perfect traveling octaves in my assignments (among other composition faux-pas).  I’ll readily admit that I’m not a composer and I do indeed get why understanding the rules are important (it’s like proper grammar).  To me, music composition was ALWAYS first about how it sounded to ME the composer.  I had enough experience in classical, choral, and to an extent Jazz music to know what sounded good and what didn’t.  If it worked for what I was composing and it happened to break a rule, big fucking deal.  My professors saw things differently.  I learned a great deal being ridiculed by my composition professors and then given handshakes from my peers after class for doing my own thing and ticking off the prof.  No really, I don’t fault them for their insistence that I learn how to do things correctly.  It was for a grade after all, once I was out of their class I could do whatever I wanted…and I did.  Anyhow, for you composers out there, check out this web site.  If you are still writing in long form (and not using a computer), this might save you a little money.  Looking back, I think if I were in school today in a composition class, professors might treat my anti-rule attitude in regards to composition a little differently considering the evolution of music.  I think my profs were a little put off by me too since they realized that I still saw myself (and was being treated by my peers) as a big fish in a little pond.  My background, stubbornness, and the talent I was willing to express forced them to constantly try to keep my ego in check and that was a lot of work for a few of them.  They knew better than I did, if only I had allowed that to sink in a little further.

So on the same technology lines, I was thinking the other day as I added more friends on Facebook from high school, that my class was the last one in 1991 (my Sophomore year) to officially learn to type using a typewriter.  The following year, Christian Hell High installed a new computer lab and from that point on, kids learned using computers.  It’s crazy to think that in under 20 years, we’ve advanced so much that nearly everything I grew up with (except for Tinker Toys) is obsolete.  It puts into perspective a little what my parents must think about some of the tech toys I show them.

Well, it’s off to bed now.  5am arrives far too early.