My last post on music in this 31 things series involves something I have never done once, and that is compose music. I want to do this because I believe I can, and I also believe that today’s technology may make it possible. Twenty years ago when I was fiddling around with a keyboard, I had heard of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), where music you play could be interpreted by a computer and recorded digitally, but I didn’t fully grasp what it could lead to; today, you don’t hear that much about MIDI, but it’s still around. Instead, you hear more about Indie musicians, who are are able to record their music with exceptional quality, and sell it themselves, without the need for a recording studio and the producers and executives and all that stuff. All thanks to computers.

I’m not talking about any of that though. The technology I’m interested in allows you to actually make the music using just a computer. Sure, it’s not “the real thing,” but for someone like me who loves music, but doesn’t play it, this is as close as I will get to be able to see if I could create songs. A piece of software I’ve had my eye on for years is Cakewalk Music Creator, which allows you to compose, mix, create, all with virtual instruments. Really sounds like it’s exactly what I would need.

What would I compose? I don’t know – that’s the fun part. The idea of a group of people just “jamming” together is amazing to me;  in this case, I’d be jamming alone, and just see what would happen. I’ll admit, it would be incredible to compose a concept album, prog-rock style, something on the level of Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The storyteller in me likes that idea a lot. But I also realize it’s very ambitious, so I wouldn’t set my sights too high initially. It’s fun to dream though.

So that’s another thing I’d rather be doing now, composing music.