Music and I have had a life-long relationship. Yes, I’ve always enjoyed listening to it, but I’ve also been fortunate enough to have experience playing different instruments. I even took accordion lessons from a blind teacher when I was a kid.
The two instruments I always come back to are guitar and keyboard.
As a kid, I always played keyboards by ear and never bothered to take formal lessons. That’s just because I’m lazy and I’m not a fan of following rules. Even when I took lessons I never bothered to practice, so I never got very good at any instrument.
Synthesizers
To this day, I regret not getting my hands on a synthesizer when I was a kid. I chose a keyboard thinking it would give me more options, but now I believe an physical synth would have been the most engaging at the time. Especially considering how much I love their sound and how technical they are! Luckily, they’re easy to get your hands on as virtual instruments nowadays.
Today, as a full grown tech nerd I love taking on technical challenges like this Massive X synthesizer from Native Instruments 🤓
Honestly, I think it’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever taken on. While it’s just like anything else, where you take it one piece at a time, manipulating the countless parameters to give you the exact sound you’re looking for requires lots of practice to gain the experience needed for it to become an intuitive process.
Making Music
Having spent most of my life recreating other people’s music, writing my own is something that I’ve only dabbled in over the decades.
Generally, it’s just been a matter of “feeling” my way through the circle of fifths.
“Feeling” is the key word that defines my relationship with music, as I’m sure is the case with anyone.
We’re all drawn to music because it moves us emotionally.
Lately, I’ve been drawn to the technical challenge of learning the wide range of VST instruments, how to work in a digital audio workstation (DAW), and the process of not just making music, but making music that’s moving.
Music in the Age of AI
As someone who builds AI solutions for a living, I’m always looking for new ways to use it. So, obviously I’ve explored making music with it.
Sure, AI can make music. But I’ve found it can become repetitive, which is where it’s lack of creativity is exposed.
It’s great if you’re just looking for some quick background music for a video. You can even use it spark some inspiration if you’re feeling blocked.
What it lacks is that human touch, which drives true emotion.
There may come a day when most music we hear is generated by AI, but I believe there will always be room for human creativity in the music industry.
A New Commitment
I’ve committed to making music a core project of mine. That means sticking with it through the challenges and to build the skills and intuition required to make music worth sharing.
My goal is to make something that I personally enjoy listening too, which hopefully others enjoy too, because I’m planning to distribute my music.
I’ll share how in future articles and videos on my YouTube channel.
With any luck, it may become a possible stream of income, but that can’t be my focus. I have to enjoy the process of learning and the creativity, otherwise it becomes another job.
Since music has worked it’s way into my life at different times over multiple decades, it only makes sense that I finally give it the focus it’s clearly been asking for.
Especially considering how handy it will be to use my own music in my other projects!
Stay tuned by subscribing if you’re interested in seeing how everything comes together.
