Barely a few hours later and you are getting a second keyboard post today.

It seems as though my life is revolving around input devices on this quiet winter Thursday. 

Sigh.

Why is that?

Two reasons, one a tangent I didn’t include in the last post but which I thought was worth writing about and two, an update to my comment at the end of my last post.

I’ll start with the update: I spent an hour cleaning my keyboard after I got home from my cafe excursion and felt a little icky about having shared that gruesome picture of my filthy keyboard: 

The reality of most off the shelf keyboards is that you just deal with the grime. Sure, you wipe them down or blow them out on occasion, but in general you are kinda stuck with the fact that daily use leads to dirty keys.

When I bought this Nuphy Halo it was in the feature list that it could be easily disassembled for cleaning—which for the first while after you get it is the last thing on your mind.  But then time passes and one day for no good reason you take a close up pic of the grime and you remember that, hey, I have a tool to take it all apart and make it less dirty.

That’s exactly what I did. 

I pried off all the keys and arrayed them out in order on the table.

I got a bowl of soapy water.

I washed and dried each key.

And I used an air blower to clean out the dust and crumbs and hairs that had accumulated on the board underneath the keys (since I had all the keys off anyways.)

And then I reassembled the whole thing and left it out to completely bone dry before I powered it on again—and started typing this.

So my keyboard is now epically clean, and almost feeling back to brand new fresh, and one of my items is checked off my list.

But as I was doing this I was reminded of another keyboard that I bought a few weeks ago. That’s right—but it’s not quite what you are thinking. 

I bought a MIDI controller.

…which is a keyboard in the same sense that my writing keyboard is a keyboard but rather than keys denoting the alphabet and numbers and the like, the MIDI controller has 25 white and black piano-style keys.

A MIDI controller is not a piano. It no more has the capacity to independently make music than does the keyboard I’m writing this on have the ability to act as a word-processor: in other words, none. Both of them need to be connected to a computer to work their magic. This keyboard connects and sends ASCII signals to denote typing and characters to appear on the screen. The MIDI controller sends, well, MIDI signals which denote music notes, the pressure pressed upon the key and the duration that I pressed it.

The MIDI controller lets me play music on my laptop using a piece of software that acts like a digital synthesizer, an effort I am trying to improve upon by practicing piano multiple times per week, independently.

It’s simple and about the smallest mid-level quality controller I could buy, but for now it’s about all I need.

So…

I cleaned one keyboard today and did a bunch of typing, then I plugged in the other keyboard and played some scales, chords and musical exercises.

And now…

I’m tapping away on this keyboard again to make a note about this crazy hardware peripheral existence which I seem to live… which may sound utterly dull to you, but is very much a creative outlet for me, and damn near pretty much the only thing keeping me sane in this crazy world lately.

That’s life. A keyboard life.