So having bought a MacBook on the cheap, I enter the world of laptop-dom in full-force. While I spend inordinate amounts of time this holiday season configuring the damn thing, I am working on Apple’s GarageBand, which is to music composition software what cell phone cameras were to photography.

I had all this stuff written about how programs like GarageBand have rendered professionalism no longer an indicator of quality, but it seems stupid now. Let’s instead get right to these three minor sketches I did while at my parents’ place over Xmas. I know I’m supposed to post everything when I write it, but with the holidays and the attendant familial craziness–indeed,I just found out my sister got married last night–I believe forgiveness from my dear readers is not too much to ask.

Besides, it’s not like I’m posting The Wall in its entirety here. Two of these tracks take advantage of the program’s (rather sophisticated) effects processors — in this case, processing my vocals. One sounds like Boards of Canada’s third album (replete with their somewhat earthbound drums); on the second, my voice sounds almost like something off a Wendy and Bonnie record. And yes: I like sounding like a girl. The third is more like what Brian Wilson used to call a “feel” — which is really more of a mood or a textural thing than a song — sometimes I like writing that way and finding the chords and melodies later. On each, I’m still working on figuring out how to be more detailed within the program. More later…