I think I mentioned this before, but if I haven’t, I will now. The first record I owned as a kid was Maurice Ravel’s Bolero. My mom raised me well–got me hooked on classical early on. Obvioulsy, I’ve broadened my horizons, but classical will always be at the root of my love affair with music.

In 2003, I bought a Yamaha keyboard. It’s a 3/4 size, a respectable sound bank, some semi-useful drum sounds. Nothing I’d need to smoke a cigarette after hearing, if you get my meaning, but they work. So of course, I started tinkering with it, and I had a handful of songs that I had learned how to play from when I lived at home and tinkered with my mom’s piano: Rush’s “Subdivisions;” Queensryche’s “Someone Else;” Van Halen’s “Right Now” and “Jump;” I mean … nothing really complex, right? and certainly nothing that required mixing software or anything.

I have a copy of Adobe Audition. It’s a respectable track-layering piece of software. The keyboard has a USB port. So … I mean … you can kind of see where I’m going with this.

As is also one of my strong affinities with music, I like new age stuff. You know … Yanni, Anael, Kitaro … stuff like that.

Here’s my idea: I think it would be amazing to re-do Bolero using just the keyboard, using various sounds in place of the traditional orchestral instruments.There are soft, lulling bell sounds, faux-wind instrument sounds … there are even a few timpani sounds to start off the track. This could *really* be a lot of fun!!!

This is *just* a whim. I’d love to see this through to fruition, and I’m going to give it a shot, but I’ll be honest; I’m not a musician. I know a little about a lot when it comes to music, but there’s no way I would try to pick up a guitar and create a song, though I can play just about every bass line to every Alice in Chain’s song out there and “Silent Lucidity.” Doesn’t make me a musician; it makes me a tinkerer. And yah–I can pick out tunes and start playing them on the piano/keyboard. Again … not a musician. Ravel was a musician, and he wrote a superb piece of music (IMHO). It would give me a great sense of satisfaction to re-do such a staple from my childhood with what I’ve learned and come to appreciate over the last 30+ years. So … why not give it a shot?! I have the keyboard, I have the desire, and I’ve already picked out the melody. I can *do* this!

Don’t expect progress reports though. 😉