I need a geek

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased an interface device which will allow my digital piano and laptop to talk to each other.

You see, I have visions of making blockbuster music that people will snarf up on iTunes and I’ll make buckets of money and never have to “network” with business people ever again.

But first, I needed my laptop and digital piano to talk to each other.

So, I go to my friendly neighborhood interface-device type music store to buy this thing. There was lots of loud music playing and about eight hundred electric guitars hanging on the walls. I was directed to a glass-enclosed software place in the back where a salesperson named “Trance” helped me. (I swear, that was his name). Trance.

My first question was: “How do I get the laptop to recognize the interface?”
Trance said, confidently, “Oh, it will. Just load the software.”

And, of course, it didn’t.

So, I called Trance at the store who said to call the help-line. He said the help-line was really good and could sort everything out.

After waiting 40 minutes “for the next available representative” I got someone. And you know what? He was really good!

After taking down my phone number in case we got disconnected (thank you!) this guy stuck with me for over an hour. He had me pulling up windows I never knew existed and performing functions that boggled my mind. He was awfully patient with me.

HIM: “Okay, now I want you to open up your accessories.”

ME: “The ones in my back-pack?”

"No. On your laptop."

"Where's that?"

“Umm. Click on the ‘Start’ menu.

“Where’s that?”

“It’s the green icon in the bottom-left of your screen.”

“What’s an icon?”

Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but you get the idea. It turned out that we had to manually load something in a driver which involved me entering “%temp%” in a very obscure box.

But we got it done. I wanted a cigarette afterward.

THEN, I had to learn the software which will enable me to make music that everyone will want to buy on iTunes. It had been about ten years since I’d used any software like this. Believe me, things have changed in ten years.

So, I started in on the tutorials.

Click here to see some of the screens on the software:


Isn’t that impressive? I want to use that screen that has the squiggly line on it.

Last night, I got my laptop to play a note through my piano. I felt like I’d landed a man on the moon.

I wanted to publish that one note on iTunes, but I doubt there’s much of a market for that.