Part 18 (1/2)

”Yes,” Pierre lied

”Well, I've been thinking about it” Max had a re of illicit recreation He could actually grasp the gerht ot a way to do what you want”

”What do I want?” Pierre tried to remember

”You want to be able to label all of your music so that to all appearances each piece of ht?”

”Kinda, yeah, but you said that was impossible” Pierre trailed off

”In the true sense, yes Reh? Naw, you were too stoned Here's the basic idea” Max ran over to the fridge, grabbed a beer and leapt into a bean bag chair ”We assign a value to every piece of n a value to each note Like, what note it is, the length of the note, the attack and decay are the raw data

That's just a nus of the notes are what's iued He nodded Maybe Max did understand after all Pierre leaned forith anticipation and listened intent- ly, unlike in one ear out the other treatave Max's sernize patterns of notes; groupings, in any size We do it in pictures instead of words Maybe a bar, maybe a scale, maybe even an entire symphony orchestra All 80 pieces at once!” Max's enthusiasious ”As the data is put in the co You na you want Then we could have the cos and label theraphic of some kind, and then sho they differ and by how nize rock'n'roll froles to Elevator Music It's all in the patterns

Isn't that what you want?” Max bea here

Max and Pierre worked together and decided to switch from the Apple II computer to the new IBM PC for technical reasons beyond Pierre's understanding As they labored, Max realized that if he got his ”engine” to run, then it would be useful for hundreds of other people who needed to relate data to each other but who didn't know ine ca in pictures and in pure English He was getting back so thatlead riffs that had a genealogy which sprang from Indian polyphonic sitar strains

He found curious relationshi+ps between American Indian rhythms and Baltic sea farer's music All the while, as Pierre searched the reaches of the musical unknown, Max convinced hiraphical engine, too

Through a series of contacts within his Big Eight company, Max was put in touch with Hambrecht Quist, the fah tech startups as Apple, Lotus and other shi+ning stars in the early days of the co for an investor to finance the e the world His didactic and circuet him far While everyone was polite at his presentations, afterwards they had little idea of what he was talking about

”The Sine permits anyone to cross-relate individual orattribute structure that is defined by the user It's like creating a third dimension Data is conventionally viewed in a two di field, yet is really a one dimension stream In either source dimensional view, the addition of a three dimensional attribute structure yields interrelationshi+ps that are not inherently obvious Thus we use graphical representations to simplify the entire process”

After several weeks of pounding the high risk financial community of the San Francisoby area, Max was despondent daht Why don't they understand I outline the entire theory and they don't get it Jeez, it's so easy to use So easy to use Then the light bulb lit in his mind Call Pierre

I need Pierre Call Pierre in New York

”Pierre, it's Max” Max sounded quite excited

”How's the Coast”

”Fine, Fine You'll find out tomorrow You're booked on Ao to California I have so much work to do”

”Bullshi+t You owe ine?” He was calling in a favor

”Hey, it wasabout until”

”That's the whole point, Pierre I can't explain the engine to these Harvard MBA asswipes It was your idea and you got et some of these investors to understand and then we can have a coines” Max's persistence was annoying, but Pierre knew that he had to give in He owed it to Max

The new presentations Max and Pierre put on went so well that they had three offers for start up financing within a week And, it was all due to Pierre His genial personality and ability to convey the subtleties of a co actual demonstrations from his music were the touchy-feely the investors wanted It wasn't that he was technical; he really wasn't But Pierre had an innate ability to recognize a problem, theoretical- ly, and reduce it to its ine was so easy to use All you had to do was