History of Muse

I got my hands on a guitar when I was 14. It was my elder brother's christmas present. I got my own guitar (a futurama II which I still have and which still plays OK) when I was 16. I first programmed a computer when I was 19 (Titan, a prototype of the Atlas series. Long dead). They must have both been addictive because 30 years later I still play guitar and I still program computers.

The first graphics project I worked on was GDDM at IBM Hursley. It was clear to me that it could display music and I sketched something written in Rexx, I think, which drew five lines and not a lot more.

I worked on OS/2 release 1.2 and later 1.3 and the first version of Muse was created as an OS/2 application. That would have been about 1989 maybe. In 1991 I left IBM to be the first General Manager of the Microsoft UK Development Lab. This didn't leave a lot of time for hobbies, but Muse got the odd evening and the odd hour in the odd weekend. Most of the hobby hours went playing the fiddle in the Spike Island Band.

A lot of the music that we had in the band was third or fourth generation faded photocopies, dark grey notes on a slightly paler grey background with all the quarter notes (UK: crotchets) losing their middles and trying to turn into half notes (UK: minims). It was obvious that we needed something that would print legible copy and which didn't fade with each year and each generation of copy.

I spent many hours writing out music by hand or going over stuff that had become nearly illegible inking it in by hand. The music was full of mistakes too. We had bars that didn't add up, wrong key signatures sometimes. We wouldn't notice until the line-up of the band changed and the new person would play what was written instead of what it was meant to say. (The ability of Muse to play pieces so that you can proof-read them - or rather "proof-listen-to" them has proved very useful!).

In 1995 I managed to achieve a "reverse promotion" and moved from General Manager to developer / nerd / dogsbody. It took about a year to achieve. I think calling my immediate manager a "brown noser" to his face helped. I worked on multimedia, especially ActiveMovie. I was paid the same, but I had a bit more time for fun projects. The first six months felt like I was on holiday every day!

In late 1996 Microsoft decided to close the lab. I had two months of "garden leave". The garden didn't get much attention but Muse did! I persuaded a few friends to try it. I was rapidly and forcefully convinced that it needed a comprehensive help file and that no matter how intuitive the user-interface might be, it still needed explaining! They made many other useful comments too. I am very grateful.

The plan was to start marketing it on Jan 1 1997. Maybe something from Microsoft brushed off on me. The actual launch occurred in June almost 6 months late. In the meantime I worked for Sony on digital audio. I did that for 2 1/2 years, but couldn't help think that the object of the exercise was to turn people into bigger (probably!) and better(?) couch potatoes. I left Sony and spent best part of a year training to become a physics teacher. That went pear-shaped. Financially it was equivalent to early retirement, and that seemed to work - so now (July 2000) I am working on Muse and a few other odds and ends full-time.

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