Recently I've been making some music in Milkytracker, a decidedly oldschool piece of music tracking software. I've made two songs which I am proud of, one of which is original, the other is a cover.

Here's the original piece, titled "A Fairy Leaves Home" (released as CC BY-SA 4.0, source file):

I'm fairly proud of this one. It's the first ever piece of original composition that came out the way I wanted with the level of complexity I wanted.

Halfway through the fairy meets some "frogs" (or toads?) who join her on her journey for a bit... see if you can identify what I mean.

Preceding this, I also did a cover of a song (source file) that's haunted me since I was very young. See if you can recognize it:

Your likeliness of guessing it is based on whether or not you or a member of your family watched a lot of daytime soap operas as a child. My mom watched Days of our Lives, often taping the show and watching it when she'd get home from work, but would occasionally turn on this one, which was The Young and the Restless, which had an incredible opening song. (I could never get into the plots of these shows, but the music was captivating... it's amazing how much nostalgia and attachment for television shows begins and builds with a theme song, honestly.)

I used to try to play this theme when I was a kid and I'd find a couple of chords at a time and then lose my place. I took piano lessons when I was young, but I was (in my view) never very good. And by that I mean I could never play a pre-existing song live very well. I'd get lost finding the keys partway through, and have to back up and try again. But I could improvise music I was happy with, and I could "find" the music I wanted... I was just not a very good performer.

But I think I am coming to realize that I am a better composer / arranger of music than I am a performer. Part of the reason I like tracker software in particular is that it's laid out in a sensible grid, spreadsheet-like. Even though very little programming tends to happen inside of trackers, it's a fairly common observation that trackers seem to appeal to computer programmers. But I had another realization, which is that the way I make music in Milkytracker also resembles the way lisp programmers especially tend to program: in programming, experiment in the REPL, then commit that experiment to code; in music, play keys on the keyboard (midi attachment or typing; many trackers are designed to be played on computer keyboards, and I use both) then commit to the tracker sheet.

If I were to start all over with learning music I might still take piano lessons but I would also start with a tracker right away. I'm a clumsy performer, but with trackers I can be the composer and let the software itself be the performer.

Still, even though I didn't feel confident in myself taking piano lessons all that time ago, I feel happy that some of it has stuck in my memory, and I'm grateful that my parents encouraged me. If only I had known more about how I had learned so I could better take advantage of such lessons at the time!

Thanks to my dad for encouraging me to flesh out the fairy piece and take it seriously after I shared an early draft. He challenged me to build several movements around the melody, and I did. When I finished I shared the piece with him and he was so excited he called me up to talk about it. It was good to hear him so happy with the piece; I was too. Maybe I will make more.