Music prod.

Skills: FL Studio, Trumpet, Guitar, Piano

In the beginning, to me music was something I didn’t see myself taking tremendously. I still remember being assigned to write a trumpet solo for a winter concert in high school. Given this task, I came to my band director with some questions on how to go about such a piece. When he began to discuss music theory I comically made it out as if music theory was something I’d avoid like the plague. To be truthful I really did. It didn’t come until later that same year when I was experimenting with musical programs and instrumentation that I began to feel differently. I came back to my band director with a piece of music. In my mind I had it made for myself. This was perhaps the coolest piece of music I could have created...

His reaction was nothing more than a smirk and a laugh. “It just really needs to go somewhere!” I remember him saying. It was that day I realized I’d need to start taking this a bit more seriously if I wanted to invoke any emotions besides embarrassment with it. I worked hard to scrap the synthesized instruments in exchange for my own recorded instrumentation. “Now that’s musical!” he exclaimed. “At last,” I though as I was rather happy to see I was getting somewhere. Until I wasn’t. Looking back, what I produced after that was perhaps some of the least musical works of my musical journey. Then the pandemic hit. I was stuck inside and there was one phrase that kept hitting my mind. Music theory!!! I tried to ignore it until I couldn’t anymore. 

I’ve learned so much since then. Now I take all aspects of music very seriously. The pyramid of sound, audio mixing, instrumentation, triads, musical modes, modal modulations, no over-reliances on cheap synthesizers, I began thinking about all of it. Now I give my recent musical creations a listen and I finally think to myself.. Much better… These days I’m capable of creating pieces that truly illicit emotions in an audience; the perfect supplement to my visual work as well as a standalone artform.