Over the weekend I was reminded of an incident that happened during German classes when I was (way) younger. I was called upon to write my homework on the blackboard and I refused to do so. I had done my homework and that: I just didn’t feel like writing stuff in front of the classroom. I think the teacher exploded (and the class fell out in miffled laughter) when I muttered the reason (‘I always do my homework. Here’s the proof. I just don’t feel like standing in front of the classroom.’). I do recall the faces of students and teacher. I also remember Alfons’ face, who appeared to be literally stunned by the situation. No offense meant, no rebellion, or ‘oops I didn’t do my homework’-excuses. I just didn’t feel like it. Only after threats to send me to the principal, I decided to give in. I’m not sure if I was punished afterwards: I don’t think so. I may have apologized or maybe not. German classes went on happily after that. I don’t remember being called in front of the class regularly after that. And as always, I did my homework.
Also earlier, I was looking for sequencers (as in MIDI) and happened to find nothing. Hey: for Linux there’s a couple of brilliant ones. But for Windows: nada. For a moment, I pondered about creating one (hard work). I decided to check out a couple of trial versions of renown sequencers like the ‘Cakewalk’ and ‘Voyetra’. I have good memories of Voyetra: back in the days we (Alfons and I) were introduced to the world of ‘sequencing’ by a lady who happened to be pretty good at it. It was also around that time we decided to buy up a genuine SCC-1. Good stuff. Good memories.
As for testing sequencers: only Voyetra comes close to what I had imagined. It’s solid (but bare) and feels a lot more stable than the others I tried before. It’s not expensive either: In the early days of PC-MIDI, DOS based sequencers were beyond the reach of students. Things have changed.