Gadget Bliss

Before meeting Pam for lunch, I spent time
talking about music technology
with a recording studio owner.

He told me he’d be willing to sell me
his Yamaha Motif synthesizer.

“It’s in perfect shape,” he said. “Nobody
ever uses it. All of my clients
either just play real instruments and hate
the technology stuff, or they’re experts
at the virtual studio programs
running on computers so they don’t need
the fancy keyboard workstations at all.”

I’m reasonably good with computers
myself and I’m trying to get better
at playing what he called ‘real’ instruments.

So I didn’t buy his fancy keyboard.

Exciting Waveforms

That story is completely true. A guy that owns a studio did offer to sell me a Yamaha Motif. I declined.

Now look at this picture:

That’s a current ad running for one of the newest models of the Yamaha Motif series.

Oh boy. Now, people who have read this blog for a while know that I once wrote a post called Hypnotized By Advertising. I bought one of those Tascam devices just because of that ad I wrote about in that post. I can’t really see down into my deepest, secret soul, but I suspect my thinking is something like, “Well, if I buy one of those gadgets and learn to use it really well, then if I meet a girl such as the girl who appears in the ad we’ll have a lot to talk about and maybe she’ll like me.” I don’t know. But I know I am a sucker for advertising and I’m a sucker for advertising that features beautiful women.

So look at that new Motif ad. Look how beautiful the woman is on the left playing the 61 key version of the MOX. And doesn’t she look all blissed out playing the gadget?

If I bought one of those gadgets and learned to use it really well, then if I met a woman such as the woman who appears in that ad we’d have a lot to talk about and maybe she’d like me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an idiot. (Well, not completely.) I know advertising is all fake and manipulative and designed to do to people exactly what the ad does to me. But, you know, nonetheless, the ad does it to me even with me being aware of all that.

And I’m not even in the market for a synthesizer workstation. I’m very happy with my Yamaha arranger workstation.

But there are two things that nag at me about this.

One is that this new Yamaha Motif has sounds that are a couple of generations updated from my Yamaha. On my keyboard not only can I play a synthesized guitar sound, but I can choose a “strummed” synthesized guitar sound. And I can split my keyboard and play a polyphonic strummed guitar with my left hand, and with my right hand play a monophonic flute sound that even gets some of the breathing dynamics correct in the flute sound. That’s a lot of fun, to say the least. And the new Motif would be able to do all that a lot better with updated hardware and software.

The second thing is, again: Look how beautiful the woman is on the left playing the 61 key version of the MOX. And doesn’t she look all blissed out playing the gadget?

Oh boy. Remember a long time ago there was a movie called “Transformers”? The first one. Look at this picture from that movie:

Okay. I didn’t like that movie at all, but I sometimes watch it and pretend it is the story of that girl on the right. It is actress Rachael Taylor playing the character “Maggie Madsen.” Maggie is a brilliant computer wiz and she’s energetic and, oh yeah, she’s my pick for one of the sexiest characters I’ve seen in modern films. Let’s look more closely at her costume.

So this Maggie character is smart and beautiful and energetic and she wears clothes you can see through!

Now look back at that ad for the new Motif. (If you click on the ad, the picture gets larger and more detailed.) Look at the beautiful blissed out woman. She’s wearing a see-through shirt, too!

It’s a look that short-circuits my brain. And my brain circuitry is kind of leaky to begin with!

So, here I am. I’m very happy with my Yamaha arranger workstation and I’m really proud of the two posts I did comparing arranger workstations to synthesizer workstations.

On Not Playing A Synth Workstation #1

On Not Playing A Synth Workstation #2

So I’m not in the market for a synthesizer workstation. But I can’t get that ad out of my brain.

And because I enjoy doing music posts here at the blog, my brain also nags at me saying the new Motif has much better computer integration than my current keyboard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My brain is just looking at the woman in the see-through shirt.


Anyway, this is something that’s on my mind now. Instead of my brain worrying about poetry or fiction or drawing or painting or writing songs or the metaphysics of monsters, some big chunk of my gray matter is sparking away at these images of women in see-through shirts and the insane notion that if I bought a new keyboard somehow I would be closer to snuggling up with one of these women.


And, you know, I’ve bought a lot of gadgets in the past. Secret Gadgets And Gadget Secrets They’ve been fun, but I don’t think I’ve ever achieved anything like gadget bliss.


[As I’ve typed today’s post, I’ve been sitting here, frowning, shaking my head the whole time.]


Dreaming of gadgets
taking me to gadget bliss
and see-through women.