After years of living in apartments (together and separately), my wife and I decided to rent a house this year. Since we both are musicians, we want to make noise when neighbors won’t be disturbed, and we both need home offices.
I work a full-time job away from home (until the pandemic hit, when I worked at home exclusively for a few months). My home office is my creative space but also my get-shit-done space. It’s not ideal and it’s kind of a work in progress. But here’s what I have.
Main work space
iMac with a Scarlett interface and Yamaha HS5 speakers. I’m too cheap and too lacking in space for proper speaker stands, so they are on books for now. Heehee.
I’ve had this desk for a long time, and have no idea how old it is. It was a consignment-shop find, which my mom refinished. Now it’s seen some wear and tear as it has moved from GA to FL to GA to NC to TX. It has a solid work surface and plenty of drawers.
Piano & printing area
I’ve had this Korg since college, so it’s about 20 years old! Some of the interior felt has worn off so the middle section is pretty noisy. But it still works fine. I have a little USB-MIDI cable that goes into the computer. I don’t tend to compose note by note on the piano like that but I do use it for electronic pieces, recording my performance.
The speakers behind it are a pretty decent pocket PA by JBL. I got that for my wedding reception because I was like, why hire a DJ for $1000 when I can get a PA for $800, put on an awesome playlist, and keep the PA?
In the foreground: large format printer! I’m so glad I can print 11×17 music now. My orchestra piece and first band piece fit fine on legal (8.5×14). But my other 2 band pieces are large-format and I’m hoping (!) I’ll get to write more in the future.
Workbench
This is some old card table I’ve got set up for soldering, painting, etc. I have not been doing too much circuit bending and whatnot lately, but again, I hope to get back into it. In this picture I have some painted CD cases I’m revisiting for an installation or something.
Also pictured: Puck after I turned on the lights to take pictures. 🙂
Toys! And books!
These are some of the circuit-bent toys, sound installations, etc. that I’ve made. Eventually I want to cover the walls with stuff.
Storage
So happy to have this closet. I have a lot of random things. Cassette decks, an old Super8 camera. I have a million and one projects in mind, that I will get to. . . one day. . .
Let’s not forget…
And let’s not forget the tiny and mighty toy piano.
