:: Sounds good. ::

Sunday, December 01, 2002

When I was in 8th grade, my school constructed a new music building complete with an electronic music lab which doubled as the control room for the adjacent recording studio. The school was situated on the side of a hill between Beverly Hills and Bel Air and was disgustingly awash in money (Gary Marshall, producer of 'Happy Days' et al, once forked over several million dollars to help fund the new sports/performing-arts complex that would bear his name) so the construction of new facilities was always backed by very deep pockets. Of course, the overabundance of wealth seriously warped the mindset of the students and fostered an aggressively competitive learning environment (my cousin, a very likable and friendly lass who stayed there until high-school graduation, anecdotally related to me that once she reached college, she was pleasantly surprised to find that her new classmates actually wanted to have friends), which was one of the reasons I spent so much time sequestering myself in places like the electronic music lab, but that's a story for another time.

The lab (I love calling it a lab - it's so Dr. Dre) included six or seven workstations, each comprised of a computer and keyboard ranging from the Korg M1 to the crown jewel, the Kurzweil K2000. The massive mixing board next to which the K2000 sat dominated one side of the room, perched conveniently below the sound-proof glass window. A bevy of samplers, digital effects processors, microphones, and amplifiers rounded out the clamorous cavalcade and provided a myriad of opportunities for adolescent discovery. It was the musical and technological equivalent of the proverbial kid-in-a-candy-store scenario and I did my best to gorge.

We were assigned tasks sometimes for the class which I attended in that room, but often we were allowed to simply sit, explore and experiment. Gradually, as we grew to know our tools better and better, we were allowed to play during free periods or after school. I can't claim my time there was prolific or productive in terms of musical output - I walked away with a few short compositions recorded on a tape and some assorted flies on a 3.5 inch floppy disk - but the impact far surpassed that meager material.

A psychologist once began a session of hypnosis by asking me to imagine myself merrily perched high atop the stratosphere, followed by an escalator ride which slowly took me down through light, fluffy clouds only to arrive at a door (to his credit, he did a good job of evoking all the necessary images and feelings - otherwise he would have activated the sensitive cynic-alarm with which all teenagers proudly equip themselves). Beyond the door, he instructed, I was to imagine a happy place: somewhere I felt relaxed, comfortable, and content. Entering this place would be a catharsis: all tension would fade away; all nervous energy would be dispelled. He told me to be patient, and to enter whenever I was ready.

Without hesitation, I opened the door, walked through, sat down at the Kurzweil and began to fiddle.

On a cold, wintry day here in Manhattan, when the sun starts to fade at 4:30, I could really use a little lab session. Guess I'll have to settle for a blog entry.

Posted by morland @ 07:54 PM

- Post a comment -

« Oh god, not another self-referential posting... | Main | Brings back memories of freshman year at college »