Saturday evening, I stopped over at my friend Nick's house with the unlikely goal in mind of trying to create some music. Unlikely because, unlike Nick, I have very little (that is, no) musical training or experience, just an adventurous ear and a willingness to experiment.

Nick, on the other hand, works in IT, but has played around with music on the side for years. A few years ago, he joined a Top 40 cover band that needed his guitar and voice (in other words, everything an audience actually listens to) for their sound, and played around town with them for a couple of months. Nowadays, he's settled into his own little home recording "studio," using computerized tools and synthesizers to fill in for his guitar and vocals.

He's been telling me about his set-up for a while now, but it was not until this evening that I finally stopped by to check it out. I was curious to see just how much music one could really create on a PC, and he wanted to see what I would do with access to the tools and software that he had.

I expected that we would record some sort of bizarre electronica, various distorted synth lines noodling over a techno beat, with random analog sound samples thrown in. What we actually wound up creating was in many ways far more mainstream sounding than either one of us expected, but at the same time far more professional sounding than I would ever have guessed.

On the one track that we recorded, I'm on drums and percussion (guiro and cowbell). Nick did all of the heavy lifting (guitar and bass - the track is essentially a guitar instrumental), and I added some Mellotron-like washes of sound just beneath the guitar.

As I've said, it's all synthesized, so when I say I'm on the drums, I'm not there pounding out the rhythm on a drum kit, but rather programming the snares and cymbal on the computer, with Nick's kind tutelage on how to work the program.

Anyway, for those who are curious, you can hear what we recorded here.