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I took a course in ChucK at university. It was such an awful way to make music that all but three or four of around 20 people in the class dropped out.

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I think I'd have the same problem. If it's not got 88 keys or strings I'm probably not going to use it.

Interestingly enough, I have the opposite mindset. I never learned to play any instruments (although I would still like to buy a keyboard/synth one day), but I came across a reference to music programming the other day, which led me to ChucK. I'm intrigued by the idea of learning this (or one of the similar products) as a way to explore creating music without needing to learn to play guitar or whatever.

I thought the same many years ago and spent lots of time with trackers and more programmatic methods of music production.

Then I bought a hefty synth and after about 6 months of sounding like a tramp bashing a trash can lid, I finally clicked and it's an extension of my mind now, much like whistling a tune or tapping one out on your knee with your hand.

Very cool. I do still want to buy a synth/keyboard eventually, although I'm afraid that I'll wind up buying one then never find/make time to actually invest in learning to play. :-)

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