BACKGROUND ON THIS AUDIO PROJECT

I recently heard someone say — and it was a person who should have known better — that computer programs like Logic Express “make the music for you.”

Good grief — no more than a word-processing program writes or edits stories for you or a $3,000 Canon camera takes pictures for you! No more than InDesign lays out pages, Dreamweaver creates Web sites or Adobe Illustrator creates artwork “for you!”

These things all require study and dedication mixed with hours of failed attempts to get something worthwhile.

The Valley Arts Standard Pro guitar, custom made in California in the early 1990s when Valley Arts was first going strong — before the big fire that sent them into Gibson's embrace. Aside from my 1954 Les Paul, this is my favorite guitar, which is why it's the only electric I have left. Not even the gold top could beat it.

SOMETHING NEW

I should mention that I never launched a music-production software program until March of 2007, though I had a small home recording studio in my family room for a few years, a holdover from my days of playing lead guitar in a rock band. So I am very new to digital music creation with a lot to learn in every respect.

IT GETS PERSONAL

While one's initial work in Logic begins as a matter of selection and arrangement — like photography, it depends on composition — it soon transitions into somthing quite personal. One soon begins editing or totally rewriting Apple loops, changing the melody of the song; one then begins rewriting other loops for the sake of orchestration; one then becomes intent on re-voicing his various instrument selections, doubling sounds and adding various sound-shaping plug-ins; one then begins playing notes and orchestrations into the program via MIDI keyboard, often adding guitar and bass to the mix.

What starts as selection ends as creation.

STYLE NOTE

I am not sure how one might describe this music — but I would rather channel Thomas Newman, Stanley Clarke or Herbie Hancock than Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix; though I love them both, I am not, at this point, interested in writing rock riffs for video, though Ready, Set, Rock is an exception to the rule.