While my code gently weeps
It’s an observation and not a solid fact, but it surely looks like a significant part of software developers, at least those in the Apple ecosystem, are also aspiring musicians. From personal experience, any Apple developer’s conference of 100 attendees can easily assemble several bands, and in fact there is one, James Dempsey and the Breakpoints, that has a raving fanbase in the community and an album in iTunes.
As to myself, despite my mom being a teacher of music theory, solfège, and classical music in general, my interest in music only started when I became a teen.
And while I don’t think that teen hormones had anything to do with it, somehow from liking rap music I went on to develop a keen interest in learning to play an electric guitar. I remember well that I was mesmerized by the guitar work in En Vogue’s “Free your mind” and on Aerosmith’s “Amazing”. Now when I think of it, I never learned to play these two.
We also had a cool music teacher in grade 8. In those classes, we watched and analyzed Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” It so happens that David Gilmour is also such an inspiring guitar player.
Long story short, I convinced my dad to buy me an electric guitar when I was about 15 and taught myself to play using some books, the Internet of mid-90ies, and a little help from my friends.
Speaking of friends, with some of them we formed a progressive rock band and started to write music. The band was called “Gray Eclipse.” Yeah, marketing wasn’t our strongest point, and we were all fans of Pink Floyd.
We went on to record a couple of demos in a local studio and, after running out of funds for that, my dad sponsored some recording gear. So we continued to record at my apartment (except for the drums, of course). These recordings resulted in a demo album which we were very proud of. We ordered cover art, burned our CDs, printed the cover on an inkjet printer, had a concert in a local community center and tried to get some recording deal. One label liked half of the songs, so we started to work on more material.
Unfortunately, our 18-yo keyboard player drowned in the sea, while heroically saving a mom and her daughter from the same. We became older, and adult life took over our time. Most of the recordings from that time are on SoundCloud. To this day I’m very proud of these.
We never came back together as a band, although my old bandmate and I started to work on a new song in the last year. Hopefully, we’ll get it finished and will be able to share it with in the vast and lonely expanses of the internet.
I kept my interest in playing guitar and still have fun playing and occasionally recording stuff. Some recordings are available on SoundCloud, including covers of some of my favorite solos.
In 2015, I also recorded two videos of geeky parody covers. First was “Cocoa Police”, based Radiohead’s “Karma Police” with lyrics that only make sense to those who followed community discussions of the transition from Objective-C to Swift.
The second is a more accessible (for non-developers) cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” “App Oddity” tells about the ups and downs of indie app development.
In my most recent video, I recorded the solo from Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, which is one of my favorite albums.
Lately, I try to write and record in a jazz-rock fusion style, and that’s my current focus of creative musical work.
I wonder if the reason that so many indie developers are also musicians or are active in other arts, such as performing or writing, is that programming, especially as an indie, is also an expression of one’s creativity. As Steve Jobs famously said, it’s the intersection of technology and liberal arts that drives us.
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