Stay in the Loop
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Dan Coren
To angry readers, music lovers and pandering politicians who for the past several weeks have besieged the Broad Street Review office to demand the latest installment of my continuing series on sonata-form:
In late September, at the end of my ninth and latest installment, I blithely wrote, “After I’ve mastered the tools available to me with my snazzy new iMac computer, I’ll be able to show you the details of how these passages work.” I imagined I’d be back in business in a few weeks.
You might think that after all these years in the software industry, I would have known better. Well, it’s taken me until now (mid-November) to finish my dithering about what products to buy. Just this weekend, I finally took the big leap and sprang for Apple’s massive Logic Pro 8 package and a relatively simple MIDI keyboard (an M-Audio 88ES). Since I lack the customary male automotive gene, I tell myself (as well as my wife, whose equanimity about this purchase is a miracle of marital laissez-faire) that this package is my long-overdue Maserati.
As I write, Logic Pro is installing on the computer across my room. It says that the installation time remaining is “about 12 hours and 1 minute.” Luckily, its estimate 20 minutes ago was more than 15 hours.
And then there’s the little matter of learning how to use the software. The largest of the three very nicely produced user’s manuals is more than a thousand pages long.
So to loyal BSR readers waiting anxiously to find out how those augmented sixths in Mozart’s Jupiter and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony work out: Patience, all twelve of you!
Meanwhile, I’ve been preparing for my next essay by spending most of my listening time on October’s new albums from Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams.
Dear Lucinda, I’ll always listen to whatever you have to say, but oh my goodness, what in the world has happened to you?
In late September, at the end of my ninth and latest installment, I blithely wrote, “After I’ve mastered the tools available to me with my snazzy new iMac computer, I’ll be able to show you the details of how these passages work.” I imagined I’d be back in business in a few weeks.
You might think that after all these years in the software industry, I would have known better. Well, it’s taken me until now (mid-November) to finish my dithering about what products to buy. Just this weekend, I finally took the big leap and sprang for Apple’s massive Logic Pro 8 package and a relatively simple MIDI keyboard (an M-Audio 88ES). Since I lack the customary male automotive gene, I tell myself (as well as my wife, whose equanimity about this purchase is a miracle of marital laissez-faire) that this package is my long-overdue Maserati.
As I write, Logic Pro is installing on the computer across my room. It says that the installation time remaining is “about 12 hours and 1 minute.” Luckily, its estimate 20 minutes ago was more than 15 hours.
And then there’s the little matter of learning how to use the software. The largest of the three very nicely produced user’s manuals is more than a thousand pages long.
So to loyal BSR readers waiting anxiously to find out how those augmented sixths in Mozart’s Jupiter and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony work out: Patience, all twelve of you!
Meanwhile, I’ve been preparing for my next essay by spending most of my listening time on October’s new albums from Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams.
Dear Lucinda, I’ll always listen to whatever you have to say, but oh my goodness, what in the world has happened to you?
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