Year 2020 in 12 originally composed segments, 7 bars each at 92 BPM.
January: solo piano, C-major
I visited Malta with my wife Magdalena to escape the cold. It was unexpectedly our last trip pre-pandemic.
February: Moog Mother-32 x2, C-minor
That’s the first time we realized the pandemic might reach us home. Events started getting cancelled, news from neighboring countries started being serious.
March: Yamaha Revstar 620, G#-minor
I got myself a guitar for my birthday, deciding it’s better late than never to start learning to play. It suddenly became something to hold onto during the first hard lockdown.
April: Circuit Mono Station, G#-major
As a member of the Python programming language community, PyCon US is the biggest yearly event for us. This time it got cancelled, I could only watch pre-recorded talks from afar. One of those talks was mine, it was about MIDI sequencing with Python.
May: Subharmonicon, F#-minor
An unexpected gift from Moog, a much-improved general release of the Subharmonicon. Fantastic instrument, definitely made staying at home less boring.
June: Mother-32 and Revstar, F#-major
This is about the time when doomscrolling caught up to me most. I kept spending unhealthy amounts of time daily checking up on news, pandemic, Polish politics, US politics, you name it. Not a great time.
July: Mother-32 and Revstar, F#-minor
A long-planned and paid-for renovation of my house’s exterior finally got off the ground. Unfortunately due to it being Summer, me working from home, and the pandemic, it created a rather hectic, noisy and stressful environment that was impossible to escape.
August: solo piano, C-major
My wife managed to find and book a secluded house in the Tatra mountains in Poland. We went there to take a breath from the renovation and the pandemic-induced cabin fever. The trip was gorgeous.
September: Circuit Mono Station and Amen break, F-minor
I received my Polyend Tracker right before leaving for the mountain trip. By the time I was back I struck a deal with Polyend to help them develop the device. September was when I made my first stabs at it.
October: Tracker, continued
Not all’s great in Poland. Using the pandemic, the ultra-consernative government tried to effectively ban abortions. Street protests began despite the COVID-19 scare.
November: Solo piano, F-minor
By November I’ve had enough. Work-wise, home-wise, health-wise, this was the lowest I’ve been in years. Looming darkness.
December: Solo aiotone FM, F-major
I’ve been vaguely interested in Yamaha-style FM synthesis for a while now but with the release of the KORG opsix I decided to implement FM on my own. Amazingly it turned out to be within my reach. You can hear three patches from it (e-piano, pad, bass) in this segment. It’s one of the less significant software projects of mine but I’m pretty proud of it.
