But it seemed there was little I could do about it. Sure, I could learn to play the guitar, but by the time I learned to play it, I would have forgotten the song. I could learn to read and write music, but that would take a long time too and my song was very complex – only a guitar wouldn’t begin to do the trick. What I needed was to learn to read and write music, learn to play a guitar VERY well, hire a bunch of other musicians to help me play the song, and pay a studio to help me produce it. It seemed hopeless – until I heard about MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). I discovered that with a personal computer and a few hundred dollars I could do it all myself, with much less training than would be necessary to learn to play a mean guitar or become an expert at musical notation.
There are two basic ways to use MIDI to create a song. One way is to buy a lot of hardware such as electronic instruments, mixers, and effects devices, kind of like you might see some well-equipped DJ using. Another way was to simply buy myself a MIDI keyboard for a couple of hundred bucks and then drop another three hundred bucks or so for some MIDI software such as Logic, Cubase, or Reason. With MIDI software all your hardware becomes software – your electronic instruments, mixers, and effects devices are all virtual, meaning they exist only on your computer screen.
Now my computer sits on my bedside table within arm's reach of my pillow…
