You Can't Do That (says who?)

I started bar hopping when I was 15, mostly so I could go hear live bands.  But I loved the social interaction with strangers that bars afforded too.  Back in the 90s, I was sitting in a bar with a friend of mine and a bunch of his acquaintances, several of whom were in local bands.

At one point, one of them asked me, "Are you a musician too?"

I said, "no, I'm more of a composer."

He looked like I punched him in the face, "What do you mean?"

I explained, "I make music, but I don't actually play any instruments."

By that time, he was thoroughly confused, "How can you make music without playing an instrument?"

"Well," I started, "I use a sequencer inside my computer, which controls a synthesizer that outputs sound."  (It wasn't really a synthesizer, it was a Rompler, but I didn't want to confuse him anymore than I had to).

"You can't do that."  He was emphatic.

"What?"  Now I was confused.

"You can't do that.  You can't make music if you can't play an instrument."  It was like I beat up his mother or something, he was so hurt and angered.

"Why?"  I said, because not only could I do it, but I had done it, many times.

"It's not right.  You can't make music if you can't play an instrument."

I didn't bother to point out to him that I could play an instrument, if I wanted.  Nor did I point out that I could imagine compositions more complicated than what I could play, begging the question, are they destined to remain only in my head, locked up in the trash can of time, never to come out.  His attitude, then as well as now, seems so foreign to me, I just can't understand it.  Why does he even care what I do in the privacy of my bedroom (and we're not talking about sex here, lol).

Ultimately, a computer is a tool, like any tool.  I suspect he thought the computer was doing the composing and I was just pressing buttons or something.  To me that's like suggesting the hammer builds the house and the construction worker is just there to keep the hammer from falling on the ground.  It's absurd, right?

On the other hand, the computer is a tool like no other.  It can't create or think for you, but it can help you out immeasurably.  It freed that music from my neurons.  It didn't write it, but no other tool could have helped me get it out.  In that sense, it's much more powerful than the hammer I mentioned before.  And, as such, I started to get very suspicious of it, lol.

In spite of the incredulousness of that guy in the bar so long ago, I did decide to go back and start playing instruments again.  There is a human quality to playing that computers lack.  I love the mechanical drone of a drum machine, but I equally love the power and presence of live drums.

Anyone telling you you can't do something should make you ask "why"?  But I guess sometimes when they tell you that you can't do something, what it really means is, you should just rethink it.

P.S.  When I started writing this, I did not expect I would come out even slightly on the side of the jerk.  Strange.