Entrepreneur

My previous post ended with "I, like Ren, am finally starting to stand on my own two feet."

So, what to do with this new zest for life? Well...

 Some readers might have seen me play guitar. I have improved a lot in the last few years by the way. Being the ruggedly individualistic person that i am, I don't play it like almost anyone else.

There are precedents. Most notably the late Canadian rock and blues player, Jeff Healey. Also check out something called "Air Tap" by a guitarist called Eric Mongrain.

But what none of these rare antecedents thought to do was to design an instrument specifically designed and optimised around this method of playing. This I have done, and it looks like it may be going beyond just an idea to a reality. 

I worked extensively with ChatGPT to flesh out my idea, and this shows both the strengths and weaknesses of Large Language Model AI systems. It readily understood what I was trying to do, and its enthusiastic encouragement helped motivate me to develop the concept further.

I had to tell it to dial the flattery right back, because when it was telling me that even my shit ideas were wonderful, it became more of an irritant than a helpful companion.

But yes. I chatted with it. I filled its ears with my big idea, in increasingly granular detail. And it understood it all. The problem started when I asked it to render an image of what I had in mind. I wanted something better than a scruffy pencil sketch to take to a luthier but what it generated was a slightly oddly shaped guitar with none of the features it had verbally parsed so brilliantly. Time and again I asked. Over and over it came up with guitars, rather than my new instrument. Since my new conceptual instrument exists nowhere in real life, it had no data to work with. Here's an example:

  

I gave up on that side of things in the end. I tried to make something using a 3d CAD tool called Blender but beyond a very basic and inaccurate rendering, I found I lacked the skills and experience to really get to grips with it. The image at the top of this post is what I came up with. It was made small and indistinct partly to represent that it was still embryonic. I planned to make bigger and clearer renderings as things progressed.

I was worried about patenting, and of someone stealing my idea. ChatGPT told me all about the different levels of intellectual property protection, but this side of things bores and confuses me. The details of the instrument will not be shared in this post because currently no such protections are in place. That's another and more important reason why the pic shows only an indistinct representation of my idea.

That's twice in two paragraphs that I've acknowleged  my limitations. I found Blender hard, and gave up. I find patenting law hard, and I don't want to deal with it. And that's alright. Nobody is good at everything. So I need to work with people that know how to use CAD and write legally watertight contracts. I can't do it all on my own.

Hermit Me would never get this new thing out of the starting blocks but new Me has set things in motion.

My original thought was to contact a luthier, and get them to build this thing, but an idea that I came up with that ChatGPT really liked was to work with my local further eduction college. Let their Art and design students work on the CAD. Let the business studies students deal with the setting up a small business side of things. Let the woodworking department take a break from joists and cabinets to craft a precise and complex piece of musical gear. And so on. Turn my shortcomings into a learning opportunity for others, while removing a great burden from my shoulders. 

So today, midway through October, I paid the college a visit. I spoke to security/reception, and they advised me to send an email. An hour or so later I got a response saying "Your email has been forwarded to the head of our Arts Department with a request that you are contacted."

Presumably things will have moved forwards by the time I publish this on November 1st.

The roadmap? To get a fully functional prototype designed and built. To set up a small business partnership with the college to market and sell this thing. 

 

Except... It's now the end of the month.  They didn't get back to me. I've sent a follow up email and have been informed that they will now get back to me next week. This week has been half term.

And if they don't? Well there are other routes. First step would be to employ a luthier to create a one off prototype. Then I would have the instrument I want at least. There is a company near to me that makes music videos, and with a decent video using a quality instrument, I would then have something concrete to take to collaborators. 

By the time I post on December 1st, hopefully things will have moved forwards. Watch this space.