Jarome Matthew’s Blog

Actually I never dust off my old hardware synthesizers, there’s something about an old electronic thing like that with dust on it that is appealing… It isn’t so good for the hardware thought, the dust gets in the pots and sliders and you get all kind of crackles and noise when you turn the knobs and use it.

What I mean is I am working on a new 80’s inspired pop album for artist Heather Dore. She’s a real sweetie, she even wrote a blog entry about me without even knowing how much I love being appreciated.
The interesting thing about Heather coming along and requesting I rejuvenate her music career by helping her create her favorite kind of music is that I have spent the last decade telling myself “the 80’s are over, things have to sound modern now, 21st century” (which is interesting as a producer in a way, because the production values and attention to detail on a record in the 80’s have never been equalled).
And now that I have finally almost mastered that, I have to go back to my roots that I love and forget discipline from using dated sounds for Heather’s 80’s inspired music. But we will be combining modern elements too, so stay tuned for that, it will be very interesting.

Anyway, it is cool to fire up this old hardware for her music because I have really been into virtual instruments lately in the computer because they save so much time. They aren’t better, they just save time and money. But the old synths have all kinds of crackles and buzzes and stuff that keeps things interesting (and technically challenging from the spoiled computer use). Today one old synth, the Roland MKS-50 that I used (which is a keyless Alpha Juno) started outputting this weird low frequency feedback drone noise which would come and go by itself when I wasn’t using it. Not surprising when using a device that is creating sound using real current generated oscillations. That’s the beauty of old analog hardware, it’s alive.
Now I just have to get these old beasts to behave long enough to capture their essence.

ahhhh, dusty old synths…

Check out the latest and most popular design for electronic composers to perform music, it’s called the Monome:

What you can’t see in this video is he has it hooked up to a laptop with different instruments, loops and patterns prepared. I understood how it worked after seeing it because i have used step based sequencing, but that’s only one of many uses of this seemingly simple but extremely sophisticated device…

http://monome.org

It never ceases to amaze me exactly how low the importance of children is in our society in terms of the priorities of things in our culture, country, political system etc.

Lately, this painful reminder came during a meeting with our local government adoption agency, who handle children with possible developmental issues that we are considering as we expand our family.
Apparently, due to ‘privacy of information’ the government cannot obtain any medical information about the mother, and therefore know little to be able to help with a child’s health and future development. Considering the lack of care, and often self abuse that goes on in many cases with biological parents of these children, this means very serious consequences for the future of any child that is without a family (in the area I live in alone, there are thousands - all with developmental disorders that can’t be identified until the children are old enough for this to have caused major problems)

You could argue that I am ignorant of how the system works, but I like to think I know injustice when I see it.
Approaching this from a purely materialistic and non-spiritual perspective, as a politician, what could possibly be the incentive for not passing an amendment for the freedom of information act allowing personal privacy to a mother who is a drug addict, on welfare, alcoholic etc. that demands full medical records of that person for the sake of being able to provide the best care to that baby possible? (a mother who uses during pregnancy often causes irreparable damage)
How do special interest groups, corporate incentives, and all the other groups that politicians actually serve besides themselves, actually benefit from protecting the medical records of a mother who cannot take care of her child? Shouldn’t the rights of that child outweigh the rights of it’s mother? What is the incentive for that not to be the case?

I understand the low priority of children in a corrupt, un-spiritual system, but what I cannot fathom is as a politician, focusing on the materialistic and business perspective of this issue, a child is a future taxpayer! If we are going to ignore all good and virtuous motivations, for the sake of future income through the total taxes each of us pay in our lifetime, one would think the government would protect a child like a golden asset, growing to provide future millions of dollars to the government! But even THAT is not enough of an incentive for politicians to put priority on the care and education of our children.

If that doesn’t show absolute and irrepreperable corruption of the ‘modern democracy’ and political system, I don’t know what does. It’s hard to believe anyone is naive enough to have any faith left in this current system. It’s way beyond band aids and solutions, the only thing that can save it now is a total collapse. USA, lead the way!

Well, it’s a new year, the first of the three of them (I celebrate the Gregorian new year in December, Chinese new year in February, and Baha’i New Year in March)
Every year, I commit to making a resolution to listen more, and talk less. Like the good old days when people thought I was on drugs. will this be the year I actually do it? That remains to be seen.
“Do or do not. There is no try” the wise master Yoda says.
  This of course includes interrupting less. For those that are a victim of this (ie: most of you that I have ever talked to), it’s only because I don’t trust my own brain enough to remember what I wanted to say by the time you are finished speaking. I do love to talk, I guess you could say I am extremely opinionated. An air hog if you will.

But my other resolution is to be more compassionate to myself so I can be compassionate to others. Given the above I may not be off to a very good start… Oh well, I can try again next month for Chinese New Year.