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This is a sequel to my previous post Musically Challenged!

As I narrated in my previous post, the highlight of my musical (mis)adventures came during my postgraduate days when I used all my skills in persuasion, lobbying, and blackmailing to be part of a fifteen member chorus during a performance of the number “Kya ada kya jalwe tere Paro” in the annual college cultural festival. Singing the three words as part of that chorus left me with such a glow of achievement that I basked in its glory for years. Life got busier. Music took a back seat, until a couple of years ago when I stumbled upon Fruity Loops. I had promised to take up the story where I had left it and here I am!

Did I notice some of you cringing? Is that a groan that I hear? Hey Mister! Don’t you dare hit that “window close” button. Most of you who left comments on my previous post claimed to be in the same boat as me. Many of you in fact expressed disbelief in what I said and expressed a desire to hear me singing and even goaded me to post some audio clippings of my efforts. ashulec, apurba20, anjala and the others - you asked for it! Those of you picking up the brickbats, you know where to aim them. OK, OK, a couple of you did make it clear that you were relieved that I did not actually force my music on you. So seeingeye and Raja Ramachandra, you two are permitted to move on. A reward for your honesty! As for the others, stay and read and listen. You have to accept the consequences of what you did.

Fruity Loops! What an invention! A boon for those whose musical abilities do not match with their musical aspirations. A manna from heaven for armchair… err… swivel chair musicians. A twenty-first century outlet for the musically frustrated. A musical geek’s dream come true.

I stumbled upon it during one of my aimless surfing trips on the world wide web in the days before I had checked into Hotel Sulekha. I had settled comfortably into my new job. My better half was away in Bangalore leaving me to indulge my worse half in such mindless meanderings. I was searching for information on the Kellog’s breakfast cereal called “Froot Loops” which I had heard were perfect reward snacks for the laboratory rats that I was trying to train as part of a research project. I googled “fruit loops” and the clicked on the first page that came up and to my surprise landed in the homepage of a digital audio synthesizer software. The promo on the website claimed that Fruity Loops is a “fully featured, open-architecture music creation and production environment for PC…”. That caught my interest. “Create music? Now we are talking” I thought. A quick check showed that the cheapest version was a whopping 100$. There was no way I could explain that away to my wife. Just as I was about to close the window, I saw this offer of a free trial download. I sat through most of that night waiting for the trial version of the software to download on my cranky internet dial-up connection.

So what is a digital audio workstation? Its a software that allows you to create sounds, notes and put them together to form tracks. It lets you strum chords on a guitar, fiddle up melodies on a violin, blow trumpet notes or roll the drums without having to even have seen any of those instruments. It provides you some ready to play bits of music with which you can string together into a track. It helps you in jazzing up ordinary sounds with impressive special effects. It allows you finally to store the masterpieces you have created so that you can play them back as many times as you want. In short it’s your own virtual studio with all the musical instruments and audio equipment. For those who can or insist on playing real instruments or sing through their own real, physical throats, it lets you even record them and then play around with them to your heart’s content.

The next day I set to work. I had fourteen days (and nights) until the trial version locked up and was determined to make the best of it. My old desktop whirred and rumbled as it loaded and opened the software. I switched on the speakers and started experimenting with the virtually inexhaustible features. It was a fascinating, engrossing, addicting experience. I would create a note, add a percussion rhythm and try all possible variations of the note. How does it sound on the guitar? On the piano? What if I pitched it a little higher? What if I added an echo effect? How about using the arpeggiator? I experimented through much of the nights for the next two weeks with tone generators, synthesizers, piano rolls, drum loops, step sequencers, oscillators and equalizers.

My parents bore it with gritted teeth. It must have brought back memories of my childhood misadventures. But then I had returned home after an almost twelve year hiatus. So they did not let their irritation show. Towards the end of the trial period, my brother came home for the weekend from Bangalore and joined me. Now if you think I am musically challenged, wait until you meet him. His arrival doubled the fun for me and the agony for our parents. They withdrew silently to their room. The last two nights were long ones. We sat red-eyed in front of the computer, playing, replaying and re-replaying every note and its variations as we strung together our musical creations. The newly acquired pup of our neighbours downstairs kept us company throughout the night. It would incessantly squeal and howl every time we replayed our masterpieces-in-making.

We did manage to create six little pieces in that two week trial period and cut our very own CD. My Mom went to her favorite temple to offer a special thanks-giving puja the day the trial period ended. My wife, warned by my mother, postponed her visit home to avoid a losing battle with the computer for my attention. We make sure we “innocently” play the CD on the audio system when we have visitors at home, in the hope that some day some one will say “Hey, that’s a nice tune. Whose is it?” It has not happened so far, but we haven’t lost all hope as yet.

One last thing before I sign off and let you enj… I mean, bear the music. That neighbor’s pup that I was talking about - well, it’s grown up into a strapping young bitch now. It’s the weirdest dog I have ever seen. Behaves in the strangest manner possible for dogs. My wife who is a shrink, thinks it is neurotic. My mother has a theory. She thinks all that Fruity Loops cacophony it was exposed to during its baby days must have messed up its canine brain. She must be kidding right?

Ladies and Gentlemen, for your exclusive listening pleasure, a hotch-potch concoction of three of our creations called - what else - "A Muddled Medley"