This blog was begun on 22 Feb 2015. So much to do!
I’ll be posting nothing pertaining to politics, religion, or other hot-button issues. There’s so much of that online already, my voice doesn’t need to be added to the cacophony. 16 Jan 2021: Well, that had been the plan. Our 45th president was more provocation than I could resist. That notwithstanding, I’ve now purged my blog of those posts that have a political intent. Back to my original purpose. With luck and a no-drama 46th president, I will stay apolitical.
This blog was intended from Day One to be a convenient portal for my former schoolmates to old audio clips from our high school days in the 1960s, as well as a repository of remembrances of my dad, Joseph R. Ervin — “Papa Joe” to his many students. It is also one repository of a memorial video to our classmates from the SAHS Class of 1968 who have passed on.
Visitors are welcome to reply with comments or suggestions (I don’t expect all that many), but should be “on topic” or related in some ways to our shared experiences. For now, any comments will be unmoderated. We’ll see how that goes.
My posts will be sporadic as I continue work digitizing old LPs and scanning artifacts from Dad’s teaching days. You’re welcome to follow the blog or individual posts, although activity will be light and intermittent.
About the page header graphic (or “the mother of all synthesizers”):
No, I don’t actually have anything that elaborate (or spooky). My synthesizer is being built up module-by-module with gear from Synthesizers.com in Tyler, Texas. Thus far, I have roughly half of a more-or-less complete 88-space system not unlike that used by Keith Emerson back in the early ’70s. Basically most of the essentials minus the larger sequential controllers and their peripherals (visible at the extreme left of the graphic).
— J. Ervin, Jr., 22 Feb 15, Oh-Dark-Thirty
I started getting interested in modular analog synthesis in the very early 1980s. By that time, an outfit called PAiA was selling kit-built components for do-it-yourself-ers. These are now mostly museum pieces, but they were pretty ambitious in their time. The only synthesizer I ever built was a tiny, internally normalized PAiA Gnome with its ribbon controller and single VCO, VCF, and VCA. Only now in my semi-retired years have I begun assembling an actual modular synth. It’s great not to have to solder at my age! Since I have pretty limited keyboarding skills, I often patch the instrument to generate its own sequences — or drive it from my iMac. Next step will be to interface it to MIDI events programmed in Csound.
Joseph Ervin Jr: Synthesizer Fan 
I have created a web page for our 1967 graduating class. I would like to embed the Alma Mater on our home page. Would you allow me to do that, and if so, could you provide me with your embed code? Any help would be appreciated.
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Hi.
No need to embed. Just go ahead and download the MP3 and use with my compliments. That way, you’ll have the file available whatever the future may hold for me and my blog.
Just FYI, I will probably revisit the voicing, although I don’t know when I’ll get to it. My hope is to incorporate it eventually into the Class of 1968 memorial video, but with less of the virtual brass instruments. Perhaps I’ll work up an alternative, “kinder, gentler” version for that purpose. In the meantime, feel free to re-purpose and enjoy.
JE
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Joe, I’ve begun making copies of my Opus records – 1967 and 1968. I’m using Audacity as the software and exporting to WAV files as well as saving the project files. For LP1 of 1967 (did that today), I just did the two sides for each and stopped at the piano tuner stuff. If you want, I can sent to an eMail address project and WAV files to you and you can use as you want. You can respond to the eMail address below. All the best from Mary.
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Amending my earlier message. Joe, I attempted to send WAV files to a classmate – they were too big to send via eMail or Facebook. So if you want a copy of the WAV files (and the Audacity project files from which they can be created again or exported to other formats), let me know your postal address – it would have to be sent to you on a joystick. Anyway, still if you want that send me the note of postal address to my eMail address as given.
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