🎶
I went on a seven year hiatus from making music. Life happened, I didn’t have time, and overall I wasn’t having fun when I tried to play. A few months ago I played for a bit with a friend and fell back in love with making noise. This weekend I got my old gear out of storage, and it brought back so many memories. It felt like I was playing with the ghost of who I was all those years ago. I’ve been radically transformed by time but parts of who I was exist still. I don’t play like I did back then, I’m a lot softer and this time around I am only playing for my joy. I like aging, I like becoming a softer human, and making music helps me celebrate that.
All of this to say, get your gear out of storage and play if it’s been awhile. visit who you were so you can celebrate who you have become.
Apr 15, 2024
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🎵
Throughout my whole life, I had awful music teachers. I had a piano teacher that made me sit on my hands because he was frustrated with the way I played scales and a music teacher in primary/middle school that gave me so many anxiety attacks that my doctor finally gave me a note so I didn’t have to go anymore.
I was told so many times throughout my life that I had no music talent, discouraged from going further than scales but all of those people (teachers!!!!) were wrong. They just couldnt fathom that I had a different musical brain than them.
When I was 23, I ended up having to move back home from LA after my job rescinded their promise to sponsor me for a visa. I was depressed and heartbroken and lonely. I went to school for writing but didn’t want to write anymore so I ended up opening GarageBand on my iPad.
I was inspired by all the things I could do on it. I suddenly felt like I was entering a new world. After making a couple beats, I started moving everything over to the laptop version of GarageBand. I bought big headphones, a cheap usb mic and a keyboard off of a guy from Craigslist and continued to tinker. One of my favorite things to do at the time was to download karaoke midi tracks of popular songs I loved, import them into GarageBand and change the instrument until I felt like I was making something new. I would then use my shitty mic to wail on top of it.
I used GarageBand for years after that to make tons of songs that I just uploaded to SoundCloud without thinking about it much. Eventually I got a controller/sampler and access to Ableton and thats when the fun really started.
My love for music making snowballed after that, I amassed more gear and skill and eventually made an album after a couple years. I was obsessed with making it and while I feel really whatever about it now, I don’t feel whatever about the experience.
Music has allowed me space to express parts of me that there are no words for. The best thing I can impart is to take advantage of this. There are some things that you can only explain with a kick drum or a sine wave or a really hard bassline.
Music is still a huge part of me! I made another album after that first and now I’m working on my next project. I recently reincarnated myself (everyone in the ~industry~ advised against this but I’m a different person now) and I’m excited to see what’s in store for me. I don’t expect to make money or become famous but music feeds my soul in a way nothing else can.
Have fun!!
May 4, 2024
💽
i haven't made a lot of music in 2024 so far. i've spent a month interstate and another month counting the days until i got put on the payroll again.
however, i've finally finished a proper track of mine in my usual way. i haven't even played songs my main synth, really, with the exception of an open mic i did the other week. it was really cool because i met a lot of like minded people who were all brilliant in a different way. they loved my songs even if that was the first time i touched my synth all year, so my playing wasn't too good. but open mics aren't about playing good.
i have also been messing around with DAWs and programming my own VSTs... FL studio is where it's at with DAWs. really really fun to make a song and get it done. my boyfriend has been a huge helper with it, i love making songs for him to slow and reverb as part of his music. i made a song just for him to do that on valentines day <3
programming VSTs is really cool too. ive always been interested in making synths, but there are many many roadblocks with hardware synths... i approve of free software even if there's really big drawbacks to it. like weird undocumented stuff that comes to bite you on the ass.
i recorded a song properly today, which i havent done in quite a while. it's quite fun, i miss working with my digital recorder. for me, everything with hardware like that Just Works. one of my cables broke but ive managed to bend it back in shape and it works(tm) for now. awesome 😎
Feb 16, 2024
The new year has arrived. The same year I told myself and everyone with earssssssssS that I was going to use to change my life. I'll make music again, I'll take better care of myself, I'll stop working in hospitality. I hope I will do all that I've said, although my current unemployment has led me to have the job site search for barista sitting at the tips of my bored fingers.
How does someone who's been off stage for 4 years (basically 5) and totally out of the habit of practising, jump back into it? I don't have the answer to that but I intend to find out this month, what that is going to take.
For now, I will concentrate on inspiration. I'll listen to powerful female vocalists and see where I want to fit. I have no intentions to be famous or even known on a larger scale than a local open mic night. Music is my heart, singing is what feels like the core of my soul. I have gotten into the habit of distancing myself from the people and things that I love, strangely since I found the romantic love I was (some may say, desperately) searching for.
To honouring who I was and learning how to be who I've become.
Jan 8, 2025
