New Beginnings - My Music Journey

Music is an incredible, personal form of art. We can express our emotions, stories, ambitions, dreams, and so much more within a nonvisual and often nonverbal medium. Music has been a major part of my life since I can ever remember. Even before I knew that I wanted to work professionally within the audio industries, music played a major role in my life. The connection we make with the artists and music that we love is beautiful, but connecting with and inserting yourself into your own work of music is something truly special.

My journey in music started in 2019 when I first visited soundtrap.com. Soundtrap is an web-based music making software that is incredibly simple and linear, made to be able to run smoothly on any hardware and be able to introduce newcomers to music production. The software is so simple that you really can't make much original music due to its focus on pre-existing loops. Using this, I made incredibly simple music, including a full length album, which was deleted long ago. What frustrated me about using this software was that I couldn't really make what I wanted to make. Finding a personal style within a software based upon using other peoples' work was very difficult.

After around 4 months of using this software, I invested in a proper music making software/DAW, FL Studio. By this time, I knew that music was something I had a deep passion for. My first weeks in FL Studio boiled down to just experimenting and messing around in the software. I didn't make my first demo of a song for multiple days, and that song was absolute garbage. But that didn't deter me, and it shouldn't deter anyone. Your first attempt in anything, no matter the medium will likely be very bad, but it's the lessons we learn in our experimentation that we take with us forever.

After around a month of experimenting with the software every night, I began to develop an early style for my music. It was a far cry from the kind of music I was listening to at the time, which surprised me, but I gravitated towards making long and calming ambient music. I had made my first full song, Eclipse, a 7 minute long orchestral ambient song. Looking back onto this song, I don't fully understand what inspired me to create this type of music so early on in my musical journey, but I'm glad that I did. This was a period of my music journey where I was experimenting heavily, trying out anything and everything.

After the release of Eclipse, I began to concept out my first real full length album. I struggled at first to realize my vision for this album, and had to tone down my original ambitions for the project. My goal was to just make a full, cohesive studio length album. I went back to the drawing board, experimenting with even more styles before realizing that I wanted to go deeper into the style that I had created with Eclipse, since this felt unique to me as a person. After many months of making various songs, I settled on the final 14 song tracklist for my debut album "Orbis" which released on May 24th, 2020.

The release of "Orbis" was a major turning point in my musical journey. It marked a point where I started to take music seriously and realize just how much I loved creating it. After the released of this album, I entered another experimental period. I wasn't thinking about the next album or major project, instead focusing on releasing singles and smaller projects. I began to produce more LoFi and non-orchestral ambient, and continued doing so for the next year, until decided it was time for the next major project.

My 2nd full length album, Catharsis, released on April 18th, 2021. The creation of this album was a long and difficult process. I struggled to figure out what exactly I wanted to create with this project. I knew I didn't want to just do another ambient album, I wanted to experiment and create another style unique to myself. I experimented with LoFi, Drum and Bass, Future Garage, Melodic Dubstep, and MANY other genres during the creation of the album. I had around 7 different versions of the album, and created around 30 different songs, which got narrowed down to the final 11 song tracklist. What ended up in the final tracklist of Catharsis ended up being a mix of what I experimented with. There was Ambient, LoFi, Future Garage, Drum and Bass, Future Bass, and even Melodic Dubstep influences on the final product. I learned a lot during this process, and it was a truly cathartic feeling when I finished the album, which is where I found the name for the album. Looking back on the project now, I want to punch myself over some of the technical and mixing aspects of some of the songs, but I wouldn't change any of it. It was a personal project that I connect with to this day.

After the release of Catharsis, I again started releasing some singles and side projects such as remix compilations, but I struggled to think of what to do for the next big project. For the next year, I was in a pretty hard creative block. I struggled to find a style that I felt was my own. I had been trying to replicate the style of the artists I admired, which resulted in predictably lackluster music. I grew frustrated with my process of creating music and didn't make anything for over 6 months. During this time I learned a very valuable lesson that I've kept with me since. Be true to yourself, make your own path. Copying others and trying to replicate others' creative processes only leads to frustration and disappointment. To break out of this block, I needed to a new start, a fresh slate. A new beginning.

On February 6th, 2023, my most personal and stylized album yet, "new beginnings" released. It symbolized a new start to my music journey, with me moving past my old styles and expectations for myself. The album is a combination of LoFi and Ambient styles, with calming piano pieces used as the intro, interlude, and outro. The project took well over a year from first concepting to final product, and what resulted was a deeply personal and bittersweet album. It marked a new beginning to my journey in music. I began to enjoy the creative process again, and learned to accept my own strengths and weaknesses. Looking back on the album 9 months later, I can again see some technical and mixing errors, but I wouldn't change this album if I could. It's a project that represents who I am, flaws and all.

If you've gotten this far and read everything I've had to say so far, thank you. Audio is my passion, and sometimes I struggle to put my thoughts onto paper, so I hope what I had to say was understandable. Music is a beautiful thing. It's a universal language that can say so much with so little and I feel infinitely lucky to have found this artform to express myself in.