My Dabbling in Music

I've been dabbling in music creation/production since about the year 2005 (my last year of high school). I started with eJay (6, IIRC) since it came on a CD of free and trial software with one of the computer mags I used to read. (The company publishing it went under about five to ten years ago.) I moved on to using WavePad and MixPad (both from NCH) with free samples I found on the Web.

When I got software/Web development and technical support jobs, my music hobby got put on the back-burner, since my creative energies were diverted elsewhere or drained. For about a decade, I made little to no music, or very occasionally and sporadically.

Then COVID-19 happened and my interest/passion was renewed, since I was spending a lot of time at home, time in which I could (and did) muck about. I happened to see an advert for Rytmik on Steam and looked at the write-up. Through some twist of circumstances and happenstance, I mentioned it in passing in a conversation on one of the antisocial media sites on which I have an account. Someone whom I'd not met before happened to have music industry ties and very generously purchased it for me as a gift. I spent about ten months mucking about with it and made an album, which I've put on Band Camp. However, while a handful of people have given the tracks a partial listen, I've had no sales nor feedback (which is disappointing).

My aim for what I do next is to learn to use Ardour and Reason before moving on to Ableton and buying some hardware from Teenage Engineering, Roland and Novation. The real issue is that in order to have the money, I need to work a high-paying (and therefore highly-demanding and stressful) job which will sap me of the energy and drive to be creative. However, at this stage, that's a moot point since I've not made anything from my music anyway and so can't justify the investment or effort to branch out into additional/alternate income streams.

Lead image by Pixabay from/on Pexels