The band at high school was not a stylish venture for a big kid in 1950. The basketball coaches had others plans for me, all the time dribbling to the beat of a snappy polka. Graduation came at the maturity of the Korean war and with several of my high school buddies, I joined the army. Playing clarinet in our company band and later playing accordion with a small group while stationed in St Louis, was good passtime.

Once a civilian, working a paying job became a neccesity, but my mother, being as addicted to music as I, had purchased a new Hammond organ. My Dad took the lessons that came with the organ, learning Bach tunes while sister Dolly enjoyed playing popular tunes. Mom and I just played whatever we could remember from the piano days. It came easy for us both.

Theatre Pipe Organ music played on a Wurlitzer or Morton became something I had to try, and in the early 1960's, I made my way to a local theater where there was a Wurlitzer being restored. Picking the stops came as easy as playing the two manuals and pedalboard. Soon I was enjoying regular visits to play the "Mighty Wurlitzer".

Once the theatre organ style and power, attaches to your very soul, life becomes a quest for either enjoying it forever, or in a few cases, creating it forever. Just such an attachment caused me to build a three manual electronic theatre organ of absurd specification. This occured with the help of income from overtime pay and second employment while completeing my 26 year career as a police officer.

In 1983, after learning of the MIDI system invention where anything can be played through one wire, I decided to get my first computer and keyboard. A simple system was no end for me, I had to have the power equivalent of one of the monsters that filled big theaters.

I once had eight Casio and Korg modules wired together with MIDI. They were to be the organ of organs. I've sold most of the Casio's but this is where the "Honky Tonk Train Blues" was born. I originally did that using six little Casio CZ101's. It was done on the Commodore in 1986 before "velocity" was a common feature. Hell, the Casio's didn't even respond to volume control. The limitations of the Commodore program "Passport MIDI 8" made it neccessary to type basic commands, just to go from the sequence page to the edit list. The edit list was so cryptic, it was hardly worth working with, but if one wanted to get timing adjusted or change something, one had to learn it. Then there was another page called "assembly". This required another basic command to get into. This is where you assembled the parts into a complete song. The edits were always too sloppy for a good joint. If it hadn't been for the purchase of an Atari Mega ST4 and the "Notator" program, I would never had been able to get it joined properly.. "Notator" came along just in time to save the project. I doubt whether I would even do a project like that again today.

All things considered, I have these memories of the difficult way to sequence music. This makes looking at the overall picture of getting a song or composition finished, somewhat easy. In the early days, there were so few people involved in MIDI-sequencing it was possible to meet synthesizer stars like Bob Moog and Walter (Wendy now) Carlos.

Remember Carlos's "Switched on Bach"? A classic recording done the most difficult way.

Bob Moog is the inventor of the Moog synthesizer. The absolute pioneer of the modern synthesizer, he became affiliated with Kurzweil and in the early 1980's held seminars in NY City to promote this way of making music. I spent many a closed seminar with as few as six other attendees, listening to his methods and ways to make music with a synthesizer. At coffee breaks we would exchange ideas with him about how to make synthesizers and sequencers more user friendly.

I would do the trade shows with Micro W and having Wendy Carlos stop to see our latest inventions was a common occurence. She showed interest in the "Honky Tonk Train Blues" sequence I did as it was playing on all eight of the modules with train whistles, bells, chugs, and pipe like sounds going full tilt. It sounded better, I think, than the way it is now in general MIDI. I'm glad someone can finally enjoy it. I never made a dime after spending untold hours on the project. The learning experience was well worth the time spent however.

Having met two wonderfully talented people on the internet, Grandpa Frank Schober and our dear friend and webmistress The Duchess, has made it possible for me to share my music with you. I consider you all as family. I intend to share what I have left to share, as a proud father, husband and grandfather, with whomever joins me from day to day.

Thank you for your generous visit.

Eugene

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