Musical Interests
My Toby Speakers
In the early 1980s, I purchased a pair of Toby speakers from Toby Guynn at his shop in Fort Worth, TX. See more details about these great speakers and how I had them reconditioned by reading about My Toby Speakers.
Go here to learn more about Toby Guynn and the history of Toby Corporation.
The superb quality tradition and legacy of Toby Speakers continues on under the leadership of True Taylor. To learn more, visit the new Toby Speakers website.
My Getzen Eterna
In the 1969-1970 time frame (my Sophomore year in High School) I purchased a Getzen Eterna trumpet, Severinsen Model for around $400. This was the pride of my high school years in the Marching Band, Concert Band, and Stage (Jazz) Band. After 7 years of hard playing in high school and college, followed by 40+ years stored in a scorching-hot attic in Texas, I had the instrument fully reconditioned by the masterfully skilled trumpet repairman, David Anderson of Denton, TX.
See more about this fine instrument, and its repair, in My Getzen Eterna Story. See more about David Anderson at Brass Alliance.
My School Band Experiences
I was lucky enough to have had the self-initiative to join the school band in the 7th grade. I was immediately immersed into the world of music, including learning the staff and the treble clef, the chromatic, major, and minor scales, sight reading, etc. Thus began a journey that placed me in the Marching Band, Concert Band, and Stage Band at Holy Cross High School, and later in the Marching Band from Tigerland at LSU Baton Rouge. To hear more about my experiences in this fruitful area of my life, see My School Band Experiences page.
My Favorite Artists
It is simply impossible to filter my favorite artist down to a select few for discussion in a webpage since there is just so much great music out there. However, as an exercise, and not to lightly dismiss the overwhelming number of great artists that I listen to, I will instead restrict inclusion of popular (pop) artists which are practically universally known, and stick to those artist with whom I might be able to share a new perspective for the readers of this page. To find out more, see My Favorite Artists, where I will attempt to limit the vast number of favorites to a select few that will, hopefully, be of interest to you, and will, perhaps, provide an interesting perspective from my point of view.
My Music Library Manager
I enjoy listening to good music, but I want the music I listen to to be of my own choice. I understand that many people are satisfied with using streaming services to do their listening (or rather “playing”). And while I agree that those services have the benefit of introducing the listener to new talent (for which I also occasionally use these services), I much prefer to directly control my choice of music to listen to by myself.
I have been searching for a hardware (system) or software (application) solution that would be able to perform the tasks I need to have done to support my FiiO X5 and X7 Digital Audio Players (DAPs). Unfortunately, I have not been successful in locating something that I felt meets my needs.
Thus, I have been busy developing my own VBA-based Music Library Manager to work with my FiiO X5 and X7 players. This software is currently in the working prototype stage. I have been back on this job throughout June 2023, and getting tantalizingly close to having the app fully operational. See more about My Music Library Manager and how I use this solution to fulfill my music listening needs.
The FiiO X7 is an Android-based device that can operate in two modes: Android mode, in which a user can install their favorite music playing application. I use the Android mode to transfer playlists and track files from the desktop to the X7. The X7 also has a “Pure Music” mode in which the device only runs the FiiO Music app. This is the mode that I use to play my playlist-based music library.
Custom Ringtones (Just For Fun)
A few years ago I played around with building my own ringtones from some of my favorite pop/rock/metal tunes. I use Audacity to build these files. My experience using Audacity for all my music processing tasks (which have been significant) has left me with a certain level of skill using the tool. Just the other day, I had “Strawberry Fields” stuck in my head, and I thought the intro to that tune would make a nice ringtone. I built that ringtone in just a few minutes. And so I decided to build a couple of more Beatles ringtones.
From there, I just started adding to my inventory of ringtones over time. Not that I will ever use them, it is just fun to do – getting a kick out the challenge of finding just the right few measures of music to convert into a micro-sample of the tune. It is a little bit of a challenge, and just fun to do. But all these ringtones really do not have much use for me, so I decided to post them here for anyone that might be able to use them. Enjoy!