A Typewritten Time

I wasn't sure why I started this blog over the weekend, why this forum makes sense at this time, or what it intends to do with me. Even the title, A Thousand Keys, seemed at best haphazard, since I was finishing up the song on its anniversary date of being written.

I was studying at a local coffeeshop. I approached the counter for a cup of decaf coffee. My ears have been run ragged from hours of headphone monitoring and a sinus infection. I felt myself moving through the day in a haze, or bubble.

Then I heard a familiar sound over the din of conversation and overzealous cooks and silverware on plates and espresso machines. I turned around and sitting in a booth was a teddy bear of a man with his enormous paws hammering at an old Royal typewriter. It was gorgeous.

I loved looking at his typewritten page. I saw all his ex'd out mistakes, since there's no "delete" button. I thought of recording, the waveforms and digital information, firewire-driven. Many recordists pine for the days of analog and reel-to-reel, when edits were spliced with a blade and a hopefully-steady hand. These were days limited in available track space, so you had to commit to ideas or the hopping band had to get it right in one take in front of a singular microphone. Even the happy accidents had a home, served a purpose that would eventually become part of recording mythology, or would make you want to commit suicide if you played the LP backwards on your turntable. Lots has been written about this, in magazines like Tape Op and related discussion boards.

This typewriter seems to me a remnant of a forgotten time, when we operated with purpose and intent. The machine is made to power one through the writing process - instant feedback and a multisensory experience! Proprioceptive input from hitting the keys, the rhythm of writing egged on by a hypnotic tippity-tap and a Pavlov reward bell at the end of each line, the zip of the carriage as you drag the lever to the left, eager to keep going. I wonder who I'd be if I were born in a decidedly typewriter generation, when it was harder to delete an action or thought. Maybe I wouldn't be the generalist I lament. Maybe I would be more focused on one endeavor at a time, forced to look at mistakes rather than dragging it to a recycle bin on the lower left corner of my screen, or disabling a blog or highlighting an entire waveform and disposing at will so I wouldn't have to hear of my aural trip-ups.

In this regard, A Thousand Keys seems like an apt title after all. The Royal typewriter was a timely visitor - reminding me to avoid the temptation to delete.