Yep, that's me back in 1968 sitting at an organ. Already reading music. My family always had a lot of music around it growing up. It wasn't unusual for my Grandfather to sit and pick at his guitar and sing some old bluegrass folk songs around the pot belly stove. Sometimes my Grandmother would even join in. I have so many stories from those early days, but music has always been an integral part of my life.
In the 7th grade I joined the Junior High band and choose the trombone as my instrument. I drove my parents insane for a year, but I got pretty darn good at playing. Eventually making first seat in the band and orchestra. I even tried out for the University of Tennessee honors band and made second seat there. Our little jazz band "may" have even appeared briefly on the Lawrence Welk Show - but I have never been able to confirm if that aired or it was just for the audience attending. Either way, still pretty cool.
My interests really didn't really push me into a musical direction. I was more interested in Baseball and Basketball. And other pursuits, so in High School I dropped band and never touched a trombone ever again. But music remained an important part of my life. Just never the focus.
I also won awards in those years for my poetry and creative writing. I was always writing something. Stories, poems, essays, letters to the editor of the local newspaper, and other creative projects. When I was eleven I wrote a truly bad short story and submitted it to the Isaac Asimov magazine for publication. They respectively, and understandably, declined. I still have that rejection letter. After that came school newspapers, editorial cartoons, and - for a short time - film critic articles for the local paper.
I haven't changed much, even in those days I was constantly producing creative pieces. I just didn't know that some day someone would call it "content". To me it was just another way of expressing myself and trying out new things in the hopes that something would land and change my entire life. Nothing ever really did. At least, not in the way I hoped.
And then when I got into advertising clients wanted jingles, or original music, or sound effects, or other audio backgrounds for video projects. And I worked with some incredibly talented people who could bring my inspirations to life. So many wonderful people I worked with, who were all more than happy to share their own processes with me. Hours and hours in the studio learning Pro Tools and recording standards. I did this with cameras, editing, special effects, with every aspect of the process. I love learning new things and absorbing ideas. It's just who I've always been.
All of which, in a brief essay - is to say that while I'm no fan of AI for lots of sound and valid reasons, it has given me the ability to scratch a very, very old itch. One that stretches back to at least 1968. And while I understand that even that much of an admission might anger some people who read this - I don't care. People have always been angry at me. But that is the subject of another story.
Music means a lot to me. So I'm going to keep scratching that itch. As long as I can.
Now, back to Eve related stuff.