What does a seer use to hear the unseen? Ancient seers have used many tools: horns of beasts, timbrels, bells, springs and strings – all with mystical properties. The most important tool, however, is a seer’s hands. Even the roughest of instruments can be made to sing at the hands of a mystic prophet.
If I had lived in times of old among J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel, the tools of the times would not have been limiting at all, but perhaps liberating. A shorted audio cable might have been a thick stringed instrument. Audio dropouts might have been short moments of silence in a four part chorale, not heinous cacophonies, the perpetrators of which are fortunate to have never crossed my path.
But times change, and technical difficulties afflict humankind in the quest for art. The fluid substance of artistic thought is oft interrupted with the unexpected turbulence of technical calamity. Fluidity of thought and oneness with art are rarities that must be fought for.
I will continue my fight, as my favorite software synthesizer slowly slips away on the horizon – trapped in the past – trapped there by Microsoft those many years ago. This special seer’s tool, is not forever to be left in times past, but will be brought back to ubiquity.