Einar's articles from the NWCA Newsletter.

December 1994

Important Note: These articles are history, dude, and all references to upcoming meetings and contact addresses and phone numbers and other things that change with time should be ignored. I decided to leave them in for readability.

December 1994

So it's show & tell at the Northwest Cyberartists meeting. I was talking to Steve - sort of feeling out how elaborate the evening will be. He suggested bringing in a Dreaming Head, something that maybe a lot of people haven't played with. We'll see. My problem is most of my stuff is big on its own, and since they're mostly MIDI controllers, you have to have sound modules, etc... Hmm. now I remember why I enjoyed portability so much.

As an alternative, Steve suggested that I bring in some recent music that I have been working on.

Sigh.

His fun suggestion caught me by surprise. Every Cyber thing that I've done has grown out of my first love - electronic music - and now I haven't even touched a keyboard, created a sound, or slapped out a "killer" rhythm in over two months. I miss those late nights laying down tracks of weird sounds and playing the fresh new songs for my family in the morning. Before I go to bed.

Lately, to keep busy I have over-volunteered myself on some fun projects. At Beyond Fast Forward I built the big keyboards to drive Mike Storie's Wasserspieller (Musical water fountain). I also built an array of twelve push buttons mounted on a piece of shiny black plastic that I can't wait to use as a live controller at the next gig. My wife recorded a segment of the King 5 Five O'clock news, in which there were a few seconds of footage of kids and adults playing my "Einway" pianos and push buttons and drum triggers to drive Mike's beautiful fountain. I can't tell you how that made me feel. Building things for kids is very rewarding - especially when I can show the footage to my Mother-In-Law.

On Friday Nov. 4th I'll be setting up the Speaking Orbs to help out at a benefit for the Audubon Society. Bob will also be contributing. If you haven't "done" CyberArt before, and you love nature, here's your chance. The Orbs will be playing bird songs.

Anyway, not doing music really disturbs me. All my late nights have been spent soldering and sawing and trimming and programming samples and other very boring tasks. So I mentioned to my lovely wife, Juli, that I was frustrated, and her answer was "You need to add something to the studio to spark you again." Wow. To all you musicians out there, I wish you a spouse with that kind of attitude! So I ran off to a local music store and bought a new set of waveforms for my O1/W. It was the cheapest way to get a whole new instrument that I already knew how to use.

And so this Saturday morning I am typing this article a day or so behind schedule because I was up late working on music again.

Feels good.

I need a nap!

See ya,
Einar

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