Shiny Things

Music

My first piano lesson was the day before my fifth birthday. I often combine computers and music, like in my live performance software KeyMaster. That program stems from an older program I wrote with the same name that I originally wrote on the Commodore 64 and used on stage for years. I later ported it to the Atari ST, rewrote it for the now-defunct BeOS, and wrote a Ruby version called PatchMaster.

Currently, I play keyboards in Ellis Island, a cover band based in Connecticut. Check out our Spring 20204 demo video contains eight 30-second snippets.

I played in bands from circa 1975 to January 1993, went on a hiatus, and started playing out again in 2013. Over the years, I’ve played everything from progressive rock to dance pop to electric jazz and R&B; covers and originals.

I write different kinds of stuff. Most of it is funk/dance/pop, but I also dabble in orchestral styles, Sondheim-esque pieces, game show themes, thirty-second newsroom background music, and whatever else tickles my fancy.

Aside from the typeset pieces below and the sequencer and MIDI files of the music I’ve done on my own, I have thrown a few things up on Soundcloud for the fun of it — none of it production quality. Out of all of the original songs we did in the late ‘80’s, I only have one crappy cassette of a bunch of works-in-progress . It’s dated but really good stuff. The sound quality is horrendous. Also, the tape broke so I’ll need to repair it one day and digitize it.

My MIDI reference has moved here. It’s not a tutorial. Rather, it is intended as a quick overview and a reference guide.

Compositions

Here are three pieces I composed that I’ve typeset using LilyPond.

Here are a few of the other songs on my SoundCloud page:

Equipment Collection

Here’s what my home “studio” looks like in 2023. Since then, the Iridium has been replaced with a 3rd Wave. When I play live I take the Kronos and the Hydrasynth.

My Home Studio, 2023

Here’s the schematic for my home studio and my live rig.

Schematic: My Home Studio and Live Rig, 2024

Equipment List

Live Rig

Here’s what I use when I play live with Ellis Island. Everything here is from the above equipment list. You can see it in action here, though that video was made before I started hooking up the synths with MIDI.

I’ve dabbled with WIDI (Bluetooth MIDI) but had some latency problems that have got to be caused by the way I was routing things. If I just set up WIDI between the two synths everything works fine, but when I introduce the iPad with Midiflow and BandHelper, there’s a delay when I use the Hydrasynth to play the Kronos. So I don’t do that.

Software List

Old Gear

Just for fun, here’s a list of my old gear. I started playing in bands in the late ‘70’s. Here’s what I remember:

Band List

Here are the bands and orchestras I’ve played in over the years, in reverse chronological order. Believe me, you’ve never heard of any of them.