Enjoy The Show

When I was younger, my grandparents took me to see the Nethercutt Collection. There was a lot to like about that visit, but perhaps the most stunning and most impactful was the Mighty Wurlitzer Theater Pipe Organ.

It's hard to describe the grandeur and magnitude of an automatic pipe organ, as big as a small theater, blaring a cacophony of horns loud enough to drown out all other sounds. It's truly unlike anything I had ever seen before or have seen since.

This experience seems to have left an impression on me. I've spent a great deal of my life programming robots to play music for me. The ones in my possession are smaller, unassuming, taking up only a small desk. They are only as loud as I'm willing to let the volume knob go. But writing music on the digital automatic pipe organ that is my computer is an exhilirating and surprising experience every time.

There is something magical about the creation of digital music: navigating a vast array of buttons, clicks, and knobs to enter strange glyphs into a glowing black box, only to hear your ideas brought to life in exquisite fidelity by unseen and unknown instruments.

We are the phantoms and wizards of the future. We create that which does not exist. Our world exists because we want it to. The robots are here, helping us, as they always have been: quietly, accurately, and faithfully. They have created us as much as we have created them. They have always been a part of our story, as we are part of theirs.

So bring them along, and let's enjoy the show.