28 October 2006
Finding the Energy to Make Music
I'm not talking about inspiration or motivation; I'm
talking about electricity! A cursory glance around my
study reveals that of all the tools I rely on as a
musician, only the tuba is exclusively human-powered.
The rest? A stereo for listening; a desktop computer
and printer for music notation, typing and slow
internet access; a laptop computer for recording and
fast internet access; and an audio interface,
microphone and headphones for recording onto the
laptop. I use most if not all of these gadgets for
multiple hours each day. When I use them all at once, the room is a sea of blinking lights. It looks like the aliens have finally landed. Add
to this the fact that I work in this room almost
exclusively at night (meaning that there is always a
light on), that I waste untold amounts of paper trying
to print out my compositions and running into various
printer malfunctions and driver conflicts, and that I
log more miles in my car than I'd like to admit (about
400-500 each month; you can't carry a tuba on a
bike...or at least you shouldn't). The realities of
our collective energy usage should be enough to make a
conservationist out of anyone, even musicians. We do
tend to be left leaning in general. My mom raised me
to be environmentally conscious, so much so that even some
of my left leaning friends think I'm a little bit
obsessive about this. But we also seem to think that
what we do is sooooo very important (yes, I'm
especially talking to my fellow composers here) that
we can suspend our principles for the sake of our
work. Or, perhaps we simply have no choice. I wish I had
some reliable statistics and a background in
electrical engineering. Anyone with such knowledge
care to venture a guess as to how I stack up to the
average American in terms of energy use?
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