captkevman

Wow. I found this while Googling myself (upon discovering some other “captkevman” selling sketchy things on another site). I completely forgot that I had written this. A little background: I had just launched a website targeted at GarageBand users. And I was still giddy with excitement about GarageBand.

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GarageBand: Stirring the Creative Soul
Posted by CaptKevMan on Wed Feb 11, 2004 12:13 am
(personal editorial) by Kevin Copeland (“CaptKevMan”)
MacJukebox Founder & Publisher

I remember watching the Grammys; it was either 1984 or 1985, and there was a performance tribute to the then-emerging genre of electronic music. In the midst of a fortress of synthesizers, drum machines, sequencers, arpeggiators, electric pianos, and countless miles of cables, four musicians charged about like mad scientists – tweaking knobs, adjusting sliders, pushing buttons…and playing keyboards.

Herbie Hancock. Stevie Wonder. Howard Jones. Thomas Dolby.

The first two were already legends of the ivories. The latter two were legends in the making.

It was with awe and amazement that I watched this performance, and it was at that moment I decided that, at the wizened age of fourteen, I had found my calling in life. I would do whatever it would take to be able to do what they were doing. Well, everything short of study classical piano. A guy has to draw the line somewhere, after all.

(Hey…I was fourteen…classical piano was for Liberace-types, not cool synth kids!)

Within months, I was bussing tables at a busy local seafood restaurant, saving every penny that happened to cross my path. I subscribed to Keyboard magazine, and I studied Howard Jones’ sophomore album, Dream Into Action. It simply amazed me that one person could do all that stuff…without the aid of a band. Complete command over the creative process: a control freak’s dream!

After a summer of miserly living, I finally schlepped to the local music shop (the rock shop, mind you…not the student music store I had been frequenting throughout junior high band. Nosirree, not me…I was about to step into the Big Time!). I putzed around with the synths they had in the keyboard section until someone scolded me not to touch the expensive equipment.

“I’m actually thinking of buying one of these,” I asserted.

With a wry grin, the guy leaned over and, with one of those Oh-Isn’t-This-Just-Adorable tones, he asked, “Oh really? And how much are you looking to spend there, kiddo?”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out my entire summer’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears, which I previously had changed into nice, crisp $100 bills.

“About $1500,” I replied, plainly.

Well, after that, the guy couldn’t seem to try to help me fast enough. But as it turned out, I had to venture elsewhere to buy my first synthesizer (note: I was not buying a “keyboard”…this was the 80’s, and I was buying a Sophisticated Electronic Musical Instrument™ worthy of the title synthesizer).

Thus began my brief love affair with writing music. I ended up getting an Akai AX-80, which was sort of a “beginners’ synth;” at least, I called it that, since it had LED bar graphs across the entire face of the board that represented the different analog parameters of the programmed patches. I figured it’d be easier to learn to program if I could “see” what I was doing. (Well, that…and it looked really cool). The next summer, I continued my busboy job and was able to swing another synth (a Roland alphaJuno 1) and a drum machine (Roland TR-505). By the time my junior year in high school rolled around, I was Mr. Electronic Music Guy.

For Christmas that year, my parents gave me a Commodore SX-64, and a family friend gave me a copy of Dr. T’s Sequencer and a MIDI interface. My setup was virtually complete! I whiled away my time tweaking, pushing, programming, playing to my little heart’s content. I was a Happy Lad.

Ah, the Good Ole Days™, A young teenager lives the condensed American Dream, works hard and saves all his money to get a buttload of musical equipment. It doesn’t get much better than that, right?

( * Cue warm fuzzy sunset ending * )

( * Fade to credits* )

Now, some 16-18 years later, after abandoning my musical dreams in favor of things like food, shelter, and family, I’ve recently found myself at a crossroads.

While music was always my passion, art and graphics are in my blood, so I ended up bastardizing even those talents into perfecting the art of taking other people’s creations and making them print. Or scanning them. I can’t even call myself an artist anymore; I’m a play-dough mold operator. I take cans of goo and turn them into something resembling product. Somewhere along the line, making a paycheck and paying the bills became more important than expressing myself. I was no longer a creator. I was a consumer. Heck, I might even qualify for less than a consumer: I simply Feed the Economic Machine. My work has little, if any, importance in the grand scheme of things. I’m a graphics monkey. Throw me your PowerPoint files, I’ll make ‘em print for you. Don’t know how to set up Quark Xpress files for prepress? I’m your guy.

And so it’s been for the past dozen years or so. Occasionaly, I’d break out a pencil and start sketching or cartooning a bit. Occasionally, I’d find myself window shopping at the music stores, staring dismally at the price tags on the equipment, resigning myself to the fact that it’ll be a long while until I am able to play with creating music again.

So, I’ve kept on working. And I’ve kept on longing for that spark to come back. Over time, I’ve realized that I need to surround myself with creativity again. Over the past several months, I’ve taken steps to involve myself in local design groups, I’ve enrolled in school online to complete my degree…things have been going well. I’m on my way back to being a designer again. I’m on my way to being a creator again.

But something was still missing. That is, until January 6, 2004.

Like many other Mac geeks, I found myself glued to my monitor for the MacWorld San Francisco 2004 keynote speech by Steve Jobs. I like to watch the keynote whenever possible, because (A) there’s just something inherently spiffy about watching Steve Jobs give a presentation, and (B) I’m just that much of a Mac dork. For some reason, I get really excited hearing announcements for great new products that I just can’t afford.

But this year was different. This was the year that GarageBand was announced.

Hearing the introduction of GarageBand, along with Steve’s demonstration with John Mayer, was one of the few true, “I’m going to pee myself with excitement!” moments in recent memory.

All this time longing to create again. All those desperate, fruitless trips to the music stores. None of it matters now. Apple has just delivered my answer in the form of a $50 “digital lifestyle” suite of applications.

I became so excited about GarageBand that I started a website for it (nevermind the fact that I’ve never really run a website before). I wondered how many other people were out there who, like me, had relegated the notion of creating music to the “when I win the lottery” list of to-do items.

Quickly, the world has taken notice of GarageBand, and just as quickly, the GarageBand users community has exploded on the scene. Websites like MacJukebox, iCompositions, MacJams, SonicCat, and MacBand are just the beginning. There are hundreds of people sharing thousands of files already. People like me, maybe…who once had a dream of writing a little song or two, but just never got around to it. Or maybe people like my son, who loves music, but didn’t care too much for middle school band.

While GarageBand may be intended as a musical composition tool “for the rest of us”, it has proven to me to be much more than that; it possesses the power to rekindle the creative enthusiasm of what seems like a lifetime ago. Somehow, Apple has found a way to bottle the fountain of youth, and has allowed me to put it inside my Mac.

So, why did I make you trudge through that long story of my youthful zeal and early musical experience? Because until this re-awakening of creative energy, I hadn’t felt anything like it since those few years of my youth, with my focus unwavered, working toward my goals of musical bliss. Not all of my current ambitions are necessarily musical, but without my desire to create music again, I don’t think it would be possible to pursue any of them with the passion I currently feel for all of them. I think I can credit GarageBand for that.

So, I’d like to offer my sincerest and most heartfelt thanks to Apple for making this personal renaissance possible.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have more creating to do.

-CKM

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Postscript: The online degree program I was pursuing at the time fizzled out. Of the GarageBand websites listed, only iCompositions and MacJams survive (to my knowledge). And apparently, I’ve felt just as creatively impotent fairly consistently since posting this over six years ago. But I’m still trying.