Old Joe Clarke can rest easy
I thought it was worth documenting here that, last week, I passed the beginners piano course I started back in January. When I say passed I mean my teacher said "okay, you're done with this stuff" as this wasn't a formal, exams, type of course. Simply that I played the last piece of the course he uses, called 'Old Joe Clarkes Boogie', to his satisfaction.
The last 5-6 months have been quite an awakening for me. Despite a love of music I have never seen myself as being musical. And it's not like I'm claiming any special gift now but I have at least discovered that I have some talent. That, as hard as it seems to me right now, I can play the piano and have it sound more or less like you'd imagine. That is quite the big thing for me.
It's getting towards a year since I first started to dabble with the idea of making music. Since I saw the reacTogon video that kicked all this off for me.
In that time I've:
- made headway learning the piano with the expectation of much better progress in the year ahead
- started learning to read music and understand the processes of composition and arrangement
- made lots of progress in production techniques using Logic Pro
- creating a a couple of dark ambient tracks I am quite proud of, e.g. Never Tell
- built and released one open source sequencer, Elysium, and started on a second that I hope to release this year
I've no specific goals in mind for where I am going with all this. I'm just trying to enjoy the journey as much as possible right now. But I maybe do look forward to a time when I don't have to pass by the baby grand in the foyer of that swank hotel but, instead, can sit down and entertain my fellow guests with a little Satie.