[TBBT] Ch: 7 [One Song at a Time] (Patreon)

AN: Slightly unedited. Let me know if you find any mistakes.

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One week later, Apartment 5B finally looked less like I'd robbed a storage unit and decided to live inside the evidence.

The most important purchase had been the bed.

I hadn't realized how badly sleeping on the floor was affecting me until I spent my first night on an actual mattress again. I'd gone into the store intending to buy something sensible, then made the mistake of lying down on one of their larger mattresses while the salesman explained pressure distribution and spinal support.

Twenty minutes later, I owned a bed large enough to comfortably accommodate several versions of myself.

The mattress was absurdly soft without swallowing me completely, the pillows actually supported my neck, and I'd bought enough sheets and blankets that the whole thing looked suspiciously close to something from an expensive hotel.

I regretted absolutely nothing about that purchase.

The rest of the apartment had followed slowly over the next several days.

A small couch now occupied one side of the living room, facing a television that remained conspicuously absent because I'd decided entertainment equipment could survive another week. A large ergonomic chair sat behind my new desk, which was probably the best purchase I'd made after the bed because my spine had already suffered enough from years spent leaning over laboratory benches.

The computer sitting on that desk was considerably less restrained.

If I was going to buy a computer in 2007, I was going to buy a computer that didn't annoy me every time I asked it to perform more than three calculations simultaneously.

A Core 2 Extreme processor, eight gigabytes of RAM, dual graphics cards, multiple hard drives, a large monitor, and other mics like keyboard and mouse and speakers.

By 2007 standards, the thing was ridiculous.

By the standards inside my memories, it was adorable.

I still spent several minutes the first night staring at the hardware and thinking about how much faster the phones in my first life would eventually become.

Technology was strange when you remembered where it was going.

A compact air conditioner now kept the apartment comfortable, which immediately became one of my favorite possessions because Pasadena apparently believed human beings should occasionally experience what it felt like to live inside an oven.

Then I bought a large whiteboard. The upper left corner held research ideas. The upper right contained investment notes. The center currently had several possible business directions written across it, connected by arrows that probably made sense only to me.

The kitchen was slowly becoming functional too. I bought plates, glasses, pans, knives, mugs, and utensils for two people even though I currently lived alone. My reasoning was simple enough. Eventually somebody might visit, and making a guest eat pasta directly out of the cooking pot seemed like a poor way to build a social life.

My next purchase was a small refrigerator. I stocked it up with water, juice, eggs, milk, vegetables, sandwich ingredients, and enough emergency food that I wouldn't accidentally survive on cereal during long work sessions.

A wall clock went above the kitchen entrance, mostly because checking the time on my computer every ten minutes became surprisingly irritating.

The final purchases were the ones I cared about most.

Recording equipment.

I haven't bought anything ridiculous yet. I wasn't building Abbey Road Studios inside Apartment 5B. I bought a decent condenser microphone, an audio interface, headphones, a microphone stand, cables, a small MIDI keyboard, acoustic treatment for the corner near my desk, and software capable of handling basic multitrack recording.

It was enough.

Then my eyes landed on an empty section of shelving beside the desk.

I knew exactly what belonged there.

The LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series Death Star II.

I'd seen one while shopping earlier that week and stopped walking immediately.

My entire adult brain had apparently abandoned me the moment I saw the box. Don't judge me, I'm a big Star Wars fan.

The Death Star stared back from the packaging with several thousand pieces of beautifully unnecessary plastic engineering, and for approximately thirty seconds I became convinced that purchasing it would somehow improve my productivity.

Maybe assembling complicated LEGO sets encouraged spatial reasoning.

Maybe recreational construction reduced stress.

Maybe the finished model would provide visual inspiration while I worked on aerospace projects.

Maybe I deserved something fun after spending my childhood earning two doctorates.

My brain produced arguments with alarming efficiency, and there were too many 'Maybes' in my head. Then I remembered the conversation I'd had with myself while sitting on the floor during my first night here: 'Give an intelligent person enough time and they could justify almost anything.'

I walked away from the LEGO set.

It hurt more than rejecting NASA.

That might've been slightly dramatic, although the Death Star remained inside the store while my money remained inside my account.

I wasn't banning myself from buying things I enjoyed.

I simply wanted one rule: Luxury spending would come from money I earned after beginning this new phase of my life.

Once the music started making money, I could buy whatever ridiculous plastic space station I wanted.

Until then, Darth Vader could survive without my financial support.

More importantly, I hadn't touched Mom's five million dollars.

That fact made me happier than it probably should have.

The patents I'd developed during university weren't merely impressive lines on my résumé. Several of them were generating royalties. The encapsulation technology alone had been licensed in enough places that regular payments had accumulated into a respectable personal account before I'd even left home.

I wasn't rich by Peterson standards.

That was a ridiculous standard anyway.

By normal standards, I had enough money to live comfortably for quite a while as long as I didn't suddenly develop a cocaine addiction or start collecting private jets.

Mom's money could remain untouched.

For now, at least.

I sat at my new desk late that afternoon while staring at three browser windows I'd opened across the monitors.

MySpace.

YouTube.

TuneCore.

There were other options, obviously, but those three immediately stood out because I already knew where the internet was heading.

MySpace came first.

People in my first life tended to remember MySpace as an ancient social network filled with glittering profiles, autoplay music, questionable HTML choices, and an entire generation learning enough web design to make their pages visually offensive.

For musicians in 2007, MySpace was incredibly powerful.

Bands could build audiences without waiting for radio stations to discover them. Artists uploaded tracks directly to their profiles, connected with other musicians, announced performances, interacted with listeners, and spread music through networks faster than the traditional industry had been designed to handle.

A sufficiently popular MySpace Music page could become a career.

YouTube was very interesting.

The site had only been around for a few years, and the production quality was still nicely simple. People didn't expect fancy lighting, professional editing, multiple cameras, drone shots, or thumbnails with surprised faces and big arrows. A camera, a room, a guitar, and a good voice were enough to make great content. This made it the perfect platform.

Then there were digital distributors like TuneCore and CD Baby.

Those were the real prize.

If I could release music directly onto iTunes without signing away half my future to a record label, then I could keep control while still reaching paying customers.

Control was the entire point.

I created accounts slowly, thinking through every detail before filling anything in.

Karl Peterson was already searchable because of my scientific work, which created an annoying complication. Using my real name meant anyone curious enough could connect the musician uploading acoustic songs to the twenty-one-year-old scientist with two doctorates and several patents.

On the other hand, hiding behind some ridiculous stage name felt unnecessary.

Eventually people would discover who I was anyway.

Better to control the story from the beginning.

So, Karl Peterson, it was.

I created a MySpace Music profile first, keeping the design surprisingly clean despite the site's apparent desire to make every page resemble an explosion inside a graphics program. Then I created a YouTube channel and spent several minutes staring at the empty upload page.

That was when the harder question appeared.

What exactly was I going to release?

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling while hundreds of songs surfaced inside my memory.

That was the danger.

I knew too many.

Some would sound completely wrong in 2007. Drop a song built around production techniques, slang, rhythms, or genre conventions from fifteen years in the future and people might either hate it or become very confused.

I wasn't trying to reinvent music overnight.

I needed something that belonged close enough to this era that listeners would accept it immediately while still being good enough to spread.

My fingers tapped against the armrest as songs moved through my head. Then one song surfaced and refused to leave.

"I am Yours."

I smiled.

That could work ridiculously well.

Simple progression, acoustic sound, relaxed rhythm, upbeat delivery, and the kind of melody people could hear once and remember afterward. It didn't need complicated production, expensive studio musicians, or technology that didn't exist yet.

More importantly, it wouldn't sound alien in 2007.

It would sound fresh.

I turned toward the guitar resting beside the desk.

"Well," I murmured, pushing the chair back, "somebody has to write it first."

The thought felt slightly strange when I allowed myself to examine it too closely.

In another history, someone else had written the song.

In this history, that hadn't happened yet.

Some may say I'm a thief, stealing others' work. Then ask why I can't create my own song and how I can live with myself after taking others' life work. Well, I'm gonna leave a note for them right now in both simple and scientific terms. 

Simple: "If the universe handed you tomorrow's winning lottery numbers, you wouldn't leave the ticket unbought out of sympathy for the guy who might have bought it the next day."

Chaos Theory: "By introducing 2026 causality into a 2007 phase space, the non-linear dynamics of chaos theory guarantee that the original future has been nullified. Expecting me to wait for someone who, thanks to the butterfly effect, will statistically never write this chord progression is an insult to basic physics. I'm simply filling a cosmic vacuum."

I picked up the guitar, checked the tuning, then moved toward the recording corner. I positioned the microphone. "Okay, looks good... now." The interface lights came on when I powered it up, and the recording software opened across one monitor while I adjusted the input level.

I sat on the chair and rolled my shoulders once.

"Let's begin."

I adjusted the guitar against my leg, leaned closer to the microphone, and let my fingers settle into the progression. The first few chords came out clean enough, so I kept going and started singing.

🎵 Well you done done me and you bet I felt itI tried to be chill but you're so hot I meltedI fell right through the cracksAnd now I'm trying to get back 🎵

I stopped before getting much farther.

The guitar wasn't the problem. My timing was fine, and I knew exactly how the melody should sit over the chords. My voice was what bothered me. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't where I wanted it either. I sounded rusty, especially when I pushed a little harder, and a few notes came out rougher than they should have.

I stopped the recording and played it back through the headphones. And yeah, it's not good. I pulled them off and rubbed my face.

My voice needed work.

Knowing how something should sound didn't magically make my throat cooperate, so I spent the next hour warming up properly. I worked through breathing exercises, scales, humming, and a few simple vocal drills until my voice started loosening. Every few minutes, I picked the guitar back up and tested another section, then stopped whenever something felt off.

By the next proper attempt, the difference was obvious.

🎵 Well open up your mind and see like meOpen up your plans and damn you're free 🎵

That sounded much better.

I kept practicing through the afternoon, running the full song several times and fixing whatever stood out. Sometimes I came in slightly too early. Sometimes I pushed a note harder than necessary. A couple of times, I got so focused on the singing that my strumming lost the relaxed rhythm the song needed.

I kept trying to make every take too perfect.

That didn't fit the song at all.

It needed to feel easy, warm, and natural, like something people could hear once and find themselves humming later. If I kept treating every note like a research problem, I'd suck all the life out of it before anybody else ever heard it.

So I stopped overthinking everything.

I let the rhythm breathe a little more, relaxed my shoulders, and focused on enjoying the song instead of judging every second of it. Once I did that, my voice settled into place much more naturally.

[After a quick late lunch]

I was ready to record the full version.

I checked the microphone position, adjusted the input level, made sure the guitar was still in tune, then sat back down. 

I hit record and started playing.

This time, I didn't stop.

The opening progression flowed smoothly, my breathing stayed under control, and the first verse came out without the roughness that had bothered me earlier. There were still tiny imperfections, but they didn't sound like mistakes anymore. They made the recording feel real.

I kept playing through the whole song, relaxing more with each part. By the time I reached the end, I wasn’t thinking about my technique anymore...

...I was just playing.

🎵 'Cause our time is shortThis, oh this, this is our fate, I'm yours 🎵

I played the final chord...

I stopped the recording and looked at the time.

A few minutes past four.

I listened to the full take once through the headphones without touching anything. When it ended, I leaned back in the chair and smiled.

"Oh, yeah. This is good."

Time to upload...

Next: Meet Howard & Raj