You Know You’re Rural When…
… you need a riding lawnmower to trim the grass along your driveway.
After Much Deliberation… College!
After I’d graduated high school last year, I decided to take some time off from school, and focus on determining what it was I wanted to do with my life. I tried a little filmmaking, I tried a little art; writing, programming, sculpting, painting, pyrography, farming, scientific experimentation… but nothing really felt right. Until music.
I’d always liked music before, and dabbled in it some – playing a tune on the piano, strum a few chords on the guitar – but it wasn’t until I found East West Quantum Leap that things really took off.
Let me be clear: THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTISING POST. No one is paying me to write this, I’m just sharing my adventures.
Ok, with that disclaimer out of the way:
Video games have always been something I’ve liked. When I was younger, I really liked playing them. Now that I’m older, I prefer designing and programming them. In 2011, while creating an RPG game I call Dragon Rider, I realized my need for original soundtrack, and began looking into tools to compose it, being the DIY kind of guy I am. After a lot of disappointing tries, I found FL Studio, an awesome DAW program. It enabled me to write some rudimentary soundtrack for my game.
While the synthetic sounds and digital voices that came with the software might be enough for some designers, my journey wasn’t finished. I was constantly tweaking the voices and synthesizers, trying to make them sound a little more realistic. Then, on the website Open Game Art, I came across some incredible music by a fellow named Matthew Pablo. Listening to his music, I was enraptured; more so because I knew he had done it with the same program I had!
So I did I bit of reading on his blog and found that he used a VST by Eastwest. With the money I had from gifts for my recent high school graduation, I was able to invest in a bundle of plugins, and began experimenting with double the vigor and triple the outcome.
Fast-forward to last Wednesday. Browsing online, I stumbled across Eastwest again, and found that they were offering a new deal, one that included all the things I didn’t get in the last bundle. In talking it out with my family, I decided not to buy the plugin… but to go to college and get a Bachelor of Music degree with a focus on Composition.
That’s the plan…
now to execute it…
Finally; Some Summer Rain!
After such a wet spring, I thought we’d be in no danger of a drought. Nevertheless, the dry curse of Summer came right on time, and as July began, I watched dry patches appearing on our lawn and wondered if it might be time to start watering the grass.
As it turned out, I only had to water once, because later that day, the sky got dark, and air heavy, and a real rainstorm kicked up. My younger siblings, of course, continued to play outside undaunted (or maybe even encouraged) by the buckets of water cascading from the sky.
I loved this when I was younger.
Our pastures benefited from the rain too. They were beginning to look like standing hay! The cows, as anyone who has cows will already have guessed, enjoyed the rain too.
Cows in the rain.
With dark clouds sticking around and bare patches making a comeback already, here’s to hoping we get some more rain!
Happy 4th of July!
Have a great fourth of July, and don’t forget what we remember today!
You Know You’re Rural When… #4
You Know You’re Rural When…
… you’re yelling across your property to someone about echoes without wondering if anyone can hear you.
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