The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Over the past few weeks, I’ve tripled the number of keyboards in my office (the electronic music kind of keyboards, not the typing kind). As a result, I’ve probably more than tripled the amount of music I’ve played as well.

Before I took up the accordion, I played the synth. I’ll continue to play the squeezebox, but it’s also nice to get back to my roots.

The DJX jam

About five weeks ago, I drove to a Steak n Shake in Valrico to meet someone to buy their Yamaha DJX, a dance music keyboard released in 1998, and a keyboard I regret not buying back then.

A day after I bought it, I did a little “DAWless jam” (that’s the term the kids use these days for “playing a physical instrument without the aid of computer software”) on the DJX. I started recording, picked a beat, and jammed for a couple of minutes.

Afterward, I gave the recording a listen and thought, “this needs to be on a 1990s cyberpunk-style video.” So I took the track, grabbed some cyberpunk clips from Canva and Pixabay, and assembled this video in Camtasia:

All told, I recorded the jam in under ten minutes, and put the video together over a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon.

The DJX II jam

The other keyboard I regret not buying back then was the Yamaha DJX II, the follow-up dance music keyboard to the DJX, released in 2000. In more than a few ways, the DJX is a better keyboard than its successor, but damn, the DJX II is a better rhythm machine than the original.

Rare as the DJX is, the DJX II is even more so. I found the DJX through good ol’ manual Googling. I found the DJX II only because I’d cobbled together a little Python script to comb through Craigslist’s “musical instruments” pages in cities all over the U.S. for a DJX II. As I wrote in an article I wrote earlier, it worked.

On Saturday, I recorded another DAWless jam, this time on the DJX II, and here’s the result. No video this time — just the audio of me pretending to be the backup band for Morcheeba or Lamb or Tricky:

What do I plan to do with all these jams?

Among other things, I make technology videos, which I post on the Global Nerdy YouTube channel. While I think I have a pretty good narrating voice (I’ve been told time and again that I should be on the radio), a video still benefits from having a good soundtrack. I already do the writing, presenting, and graphics — why not also do the music?

My videos already incorporate my music, and there’ll be more — both videos and music — soon!