Long time ago, when I was skinny and my daily diet included a bottle of Coke mixed with sweetened condensed milk (I’ve stopped consuming this long time ago), my biggest two hobbies were music and photography. Those were how I was identified by people around me. “ade the keyboardist” or “ade the photography guy”, to distinguish me from other Ade’s. It’s quite a common name in Indonesia.

Anyway…

My father got me a Nikon F90X camera in 1996. At that time, it was a superb camera (autofocus was expensive). If you were born in the 90s or after and you started using cameras just a few years ago, let me tell you that hardly anyone used memory cards to store photos those days. (I hear you gasp.) We used this thing called film (some people still use this, by the way). A roll of film can store about 24 or 36 shots. Before printing the pictures, the film needs to be processed in a dark room. Exposing the roll into open light is the equivalent of tossing a today’s memory card into a bonfire.

Yet people were just happy. (If at this point, you’re still expecting me to talk about music, keep on reading. I will do so, if you bear with me.)

These days, people with digital compact cameras equipped with a 4-GB memory card can take thousands of pictures. I recently bought a Fujifilm A170. It was the cheapest I could find in store (only 2 digits in Australian dollar), and just put a 2-GB SD card into it. The camera itself can store pictures at about 10 megapixels, yet I set the resolution to 1600×1200 (about 3 megapixels). The reason for this is that it’s only a compact camera with a small physical lens. You can put the best software into it, but the lens, which (nota bene), simply put, provide the input to the software, must still obey the laws of physics. I personally think 10 megapixels for a compact camera is overkill as the picture quality won’t be excellent anyway. If I need 10 megapixels, I’ll just use an SLR camera with a good lens. (And that’s why I only take pictures with a mobile phone if I forget to bring any real camera.)

Oh, I’m supposed to talk about music, right? OK.

If you’ve just known my music recently, you might now know that I also play digital keyboards. Well, not these days, but there were those days, and there may come the days.

I’m currently thinking of getting myself a keyboard. Whether it’s just a keyboard that sounds, or a synth, or a workstation, I don’t know yet. I haven’t played electronic keyboards for a while, and I haven’t really followed the progress of technology in this area. So, I’ve got a bit to catch up.

I just wonder whether we have a scenario similar to digital cameras here, i.e. do we have keyboards on the market just padded with features that aren’t really useful or only useful when paired with a missing set of features? Key lighting? I do not ever think it is useful. It’s more distracting than helpful. Recording facility, but no way to store the recorded song(s) into a removable media? It’s like, imagine a camera with only internal memory and no way to use a memory card. And no, just being able to transfer the recorded MIDI file into a computer doesn’t appeal me that much. When I take a picture by my digital camera, I can view it on the camera, and after I transfer it to my computer, I can see the picture exactly as I view it on the camera, and I don’t need the camera to see it on my computer. Not really the case with MIDI files.

Anyway… I’m still continuing my research to find a keyboard. Let me know if you’d like to help me. If I finally find one, I’ll tell my story here.

[Photo by Rohan Kar]

Get it while it’s hot! AllAboutJazz.com feature Download of the Day for 18 October 2009: Morning Vision.

“Huh? What’s that kind of title doing in a musical blog? Isn’t music about making sound?” Which is, correct. What kind of sound? The sound that we need. “Silence is golden” is a famous saying, and many people do practise it in their life. But again, what does it have to do with music? Before getting to that, I’ll just tell a story first.

My friend and I were once invited to go to a social gathering. The organiser managed to have a band playing. It wasn’t a top-notch band. However, in some cases, we may find a stand-out or two among the not-so-superb players. So, we saw this stand-out drummer. Well, so we thought, until at the end of the tune, he seemed to be showing off his skills by doing an excessively long solo… until his bandmates shouted, “STOP IT!” Boy, that was awkward.

A musician should know how to play effective notes. That includes being effectively silent. Every note should be well played, even though it’s only subtly played. Good musicians are not interested in showing off. They are more interested in making beauty, even if that means they should pause and be silent and let the others do the painting. And when they sound a note, they’re painting beauty. One who isn’t necessarily a highly skilled player can do this. It may be limited, but it is better than unnecessary sound done by skilled players.

Just a short announcement: Mike Glover, the announcer of Border Crossings, will play my track, Birth of Love (of my album, Visions), at around 11 pm UTC+11 (that’s 12:00 UTC) tonight. You can listen to it through the Internet or if you are in Melbourne, Australia, tune your radio player to PBS 106.7 FM.

Throughout my life, I’ve met many musicians. Or, if I were to level up my standard, I would say, I’ve met many people who play music. Uhm, what’s the difference? Well, it’s a subjective point really, to some extent. To me, a musician is not only someone who can play music. A musician is someone who can play music and also listen to other musicians (recursive definition intended!).

I have a friend who plays music. To preserve anonimity, let’s just call him Gorg. In my eyes, he’s not a superb brilliant player. Nevertheless, I enjoy his playing, which actually matters (Hm, this can be another topic for another post, but anyway…). And then, not long ago, I met a new music player. Let’s just call him Barg. I listened to him playing solo. “Beautiful,” I thought, “I want to be able to play that instrument like that.” To make a long story short, out of necessity, Gorg and Barg had to play together plus a bunch of other people. It was far from pleasant for me. Barg played as if he had been alone. He didn’t adjust to others. If he had been heard in isolation, it would sound great. But that wasn’t what happened. The whole ensemble minus Barg would be better.

I should haven’t been surprised. It wasn’t the first time I heard something like that. Yet, that happening made me even more aware that being able to play a musical instrument well is not enough to be a reasonably good musician. Being a musician requires awareness of oneself and others. A musician even knows when not to play any note. A good musician should be selfless and flexible.

(This post title is a reference to a very old album by Lee Ritenour.)