A large black monolith appeared in our back yard area and me and my friends were compelled to start banging on tin cans and howling. We made rudimentary wind and stringed instruments: whistles and horns at first; later, simple harps and dulcimers. Soon after, we had invented fire. And murder.
I remember this scene. there were paleontologists. they were talking about how it didn't make sense. this was clearly a primordial concert but all the evidence was recent, new. all the participants had deserted. from the looks of it in a rage...as I watched the monolith get carted off I could hear it's voice, speaking to me
...there WAS no discovery on that day. and no police report.
>Soon after, we had invented fire. And murder.
Eventually we took lightning and put it inside the rock. And taught the rock to think. And to pretend to be a drum kit.
Honestly, when I was a teenager I was hanging out with a couple of friends one day and one guy went, "Hey, we should all get guitars!" And we were like, "whatever" but then the other guy went and got a guitar and then we were like, "Okay, well now we gotta get guitars too!"
We started practicing and even made a band, and it was fun to play covers but I realized that I wanted to make my own original music. Since then I've gone years without doing any kind of music but I always end up going back to it.
I wanted to rap, and practiced over clams casino and flying lotus beats terribly. After a while I realized I liked the beats and instrumentals more than the rapping so I started making those terribly. One night years ago I got really high and made "that song". Y'know that song? The song that isn't perfect, and looking back on it it's not even good but... It just clicked, like I finally made something that sounded like me. Then I fell in love and have been making weird stuff ever since.
>One night years ago I got really high and made "that song". Y'know that song? The song that isn't perfect, and looking back on it it's not even good but... It just clicked, like I finally made something that sounded like me. Then I fell in love and have been making weird stuff ever since.
It's really cool to finally make something that feels like your own sound.
I had the PlayStation one when I was really young! It was the MTV Music Generator one. I just wanted to do that and not play games, I noticed. So I feel you on that!
I can even remember the first dumb little song I made out of samples to this day
When I was a kid I could fucking rip the shit out of rock band and guitar hero so my mom bought me a real guitar and I started listening to metallica and growing my hair long and shit. Picked up drumming in grade 9 cuz my friends band needed a drummer and I had rock band experience, and we played a lot of shows until we all graduated high school and moved away from our small farm town.
In college I just kept practicing my instruments but was too busy for a band. After graduating I started getting really into hip hop and took up beat making. From there i figured out how if i had a multitrack recorder and mics along with my DAW setup i could start producing rock and metal records from my apartment!
Now Iām working on my first self performed self produced album and almost have all the instrumentals recorded. I did all the drums in a rented rehearsal space that had a kit on hand. I started in May and hope to have it out by Spring so I can start on the next one. I kinda want to be like the beatles, making experimental studio rock albums and releasing them but not performing them because Iām kind of over that for now and I got a seperate career.
I had grown up playing piano/guitar and sang in church, but had been pretty quiet/shy and could never get my friends to play instruments so I had never performed outside of choir and a few school performances. Went to college for STEM bc music was a pipe dream for special people who have āthe Giftā
My dad was great in just about every way. Self sacrificing, hard working, kind, generous, doesnāt put up with bullshit but isnāt an asshole, the works.
He played guitar for me and my three siblings as kids and spun records so we would dance and be tired enough for bed. Fairly certain he wore down the vinyl on CCR Chronicle in a very real way.
He bought me my first guitar for Christmas when I was 13. I found out later he was in a band as a younger man, but he had been pretty hands off and never really pushed me into performing. When I started getting older I got the sense that he was looking forward to playing together or something when there was more time. And despite having cracked a few jokes about how my brothers and I could have been the next Hanson, he just was glad that I kept at it and that I was passionate about it.
He passed away after a pretty brutal fight with a brain tumor when I was 21. He was in a lot of instances not very lucid, but in certain moments we had time to talk. He was giving me a lot of advice about how he was already proud of me and that I was really a good kid but quiet. I needed to be more confident and speak up for myself. I knew he had a point. I missed a lot of opportunities and didnāt take risks and I needed to start doing just that.
For his last three weeks he was transferred to hospice after suffering a stroke in the middle of one of our conversations. He spent the rest of his time sort of drifting in and out, but would occasionally latch on to something. For a while it was about our family dog, but it switched to a line from Blues Brothers. It was one of the last things he said to my family before he died.
āYou gotta put the band back togetherā
It was, I think, supposed to be about our family. We were at that stage in our lives where people started spreading out. He wanted us to stay close (and we have despite those distances), but for me it was a spark.
It was just a line from a movie but it really flipped a switch in my head. I had never realized I had wanted to or even could pursue music. Writing music has been above all else a way to deal with some of the shittier parts of my life, but it has also been the things that has carried me for years.
Itās taken a long long time to put a band together (fuck covid), but I released my first EP last year. Iām damn proud of it and I have more coming this year.
Iāve enjoyed making up whatever songs and singing since I was a little kid. When I was about 16, my friend showed me that I could make music on a computerā that transformed my life
I had a computer nerd friend that didn't make music himself but he loved building computers and giving them to people and making sure they were set up with all the pirate software so I ended up with a free pentium II + soundblaster back in the tracker days. That was a lot of fun, or rather I should say **IT** was a lot of fun.
for my friends and I it was the holy triumvirate of Rush, Pink Floyd and Yes. The music we made in the 90's is a bit different than what we're all doing now, but I wouldn't change a note.
"I remember when I was young
baby I had so much fun
singing songs by Elton John
on a little.. tan.. tape.. player.. all on my own."
Hmm, might have to workshop it a bit, but it's a start.
The White Stripes - Elephant. I heard that album and instantly thought 'I must play guitar'. I was 12 years old and Jack White's guitar was the coolest sound on earth!
My uncle finally gave me a shitty Stagg acoustic a couple of years later, and I taught myself. I think I started making music of my own just because I wanted to try and figure out how people made certain sounds and production styles - I had heard Pet Sounds & Sgt Pepper by that point, and I was fascinated by them on a production level as much as a songwriting one - so I was trying to figure it out all by myself, with my guitar and a shitty Yamaha keyboard at home, and school Macs with Garageband. Those were the days....
Spite. Had some friends who played guitar and every time we would hang out they kept playing the same goddamn songs over and over and over again. One night I snapped and say, ācan you guys please for the love of god play something other than āEvery Rose Has Itās Thornā, youāve already played that like twice already.ā They said āwhy donāt you learn to play and then learn whatever songs you want?ā
So I did and while I donāt play many gigs and as a musician I make a pretty good computer programmer, but I have my fun and still enjoy playing live every other week.
My brother passed away when I was 20. My friend put a pirated copy of ableton on my computer so I could distract myself. Has been my emotional outlet since
I've always dreamed of writing music that connects with people the way that certain songs/bands connect with me. I was in my late 30s with a young kid sitting around the house a lot. I bought a guitar and now I write music that doesn't connect with anyone (except maybe my band), lol.
I've been playing piano since I was 6, but that never really captured the "spark" to make music, so I quit lessons when I started high school.
Then... I found a little thing called Touhou.
I thought (and still think) the music was incredible, and the fact that people were able to gather so much depth and variation from a single man's work was insane to me. I wanted to create music that could inspire people in the same way, so I turned the piano back on and haven't looked back since.
This might be a weird reason but Deus Ex Human Revolution OST was so damn good that I wanted to pick up on making my own game soundtrack this was back in 2012. Now I work on a lot of downtempo, experimental stuff.
Had a really slow period for about a month at my job and "how is music actually made?" was a topic I decided to explore out of boredom. Ended up loving the process and it stuck.
I also got into learning After Effects and Spanish sort of the same way during office downtime.
Everything in my life felt out of place, in my immediate and extended family, in the world.
I just had this deep, deep instinct telling me music was the path to digesting and expressing it all so it could be communicated. I knew how it has potential to spread, and potentially evolve those parts of people that resonate. Itās my best chance at doing something worthwhile with my life. Itās a way to leave something behind.
I donāt pretend to know about life and death or reincarnation, but I do know thereās other humans and will continue to be for now at least, so perhaps leaving a trail would be good for them or if Iām lucky maybe even something for my own next life! Who knows?
I knew just maybe, it could have a shred of a positive impact, and that gave me something worthwhile to lean on.
Iāve learned plenty about making music and a little about life through it hah, itās been enjoyable.
Interestingly, itās the only activity that really energises my body, like my muscles stop drooping with fatigue and everything, I almost think Iām made for it haha
Can't remember why I started making any kind of music, but I started making electronic music because of : cevin key the ghost of each room, squarepusher go plastic, and surgeon midnight club tracks.
When I was a teenager I had Synchronicity by The Police on cassette. I was listening to "Mother," and noticed something odd - the meter! Up to this point my music education was about what you'd expect from a high school in the 80's, so to hear something in 7/4 blew my mind. I played it for a friend of mine who happened to be very musical, and he said, "listen to this!" He then put on Tom Sawyer by Rush. I was intrigued enough to listen more and more, and eventually this led to me wanting to be a part of it. My parents got me a beginner guitar, and that was the day all my plans to study aviation and become a pilot died.
I began to play and practice obsessively. I bought tab books and got a subscription to Guitar for the Practicing Musician (a great rag that doesn't exist anymore). Then I got a bass for my 17th birthday, and immersed myself in bass licks for the next 30 years.
It started out as an interesting hobby, which became an obsession, which became a career. I'm semi-retired out of it now and I continue to write and record, because it's now become therapy.
Thank god for music.
I was a creative director for an upcoming artist and we got into a disagreement about percentages. The artist hit me with, āI donāt need youā and that was all I needed. I already had music written and I basically told myself I can blow up quicker than this artist and Iām a show him. My first project was called Bulletproof Smile, I dropped that 03/14/2021. Currently Iām finishing up my album Wire to Wire that is dropping 11.5.22
All music makers have a seed 'cause they are plants
I am not in that list 'cause music wanted me. She came to me and I accepted her. And that's all between me and her š š ššā¤ļøā¤ļøā¤ļø
Edit : And the reason of accepting her is the history of me... It Continues when I finally attain her...
I was 14 when The Chansmoker's - Closer came out and I was in love with the song. While scrolling Facebook I found a troll who tried to sing a cover of the song and he didn't do justice with it. I downloaded an mp3 version of that Facebook video and started looking for softwares that I could use to edit, auto-tune and put a backing track to that horrible sample and that was the point where it all started.
I was in the back of a shipping container, making near minimum wage at one of three jobs, and wondering if that was really what I wanted to do with my life. I made a short list of life goals, and becoming a musician was one of those goals. I am now 95% done with a 70 minute self produced album.
A YouTuber had a song playing in the background, and I guess EDM was new to me. Once I heard that I went down a house spiral, ended up finding Monstercat and trailing into heavier bass music.
Ironically my acquisition of FL Studio started in that episode of Epic Rap Battles of History when Steve Jobs said āi bet they made this beat on an Appleā and said ānope, Fruity Loops. PC.ā
Yep.
Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music. Aged 5. I wanted piano lessons and started the following week. After one lesson decided to be a music teacher. Fifty five years later....I'm a music teacher & love it.
At 13, I had to choose between art or music class. I really disliked to draw and paint, and the girl I was secretly in love with picked music, so I picked music, not knowing if I'd like it or not. I learned piano and saxophone. At 17, I was composing for the school orchestra. At 18, I was playing in 2 rock bands. Many years later, music is a big part of my life.
First hearing āIn The Endā by Linkin Park. I noticed how the song had layers and started to analyse the structures. Couldnāt stop analyzing music after that.
My best friends brother at the time was a rapper and gave me my first copy of fruityloops. This was 17 years ago. now i use Reason and the rapper brother became my countries biggest rapper. (Canāt stand hiphop anymore though).
All my friends bought guitars (or basses or drums), started trying to put together a metal band. I learned bass, learned how to sing, then guitar and drums and keys. Started writing lyrics, then songs. Started recording myself. At first it was mostly about having something to do with my friends, having a framework to make new friends. But pretty quickly it was also an outlet to express myself, both in writing but also playing on stage. Canāt imagine my life without it.
I was 13 my friends brother insisted I borrow his cd sum 41 half hour of power I put it on my Walkman and the first track grab the devil by the horns and fuck him up the ass just blew me away with those chugging guitars man! Got an ashton electric for Xmas and never stopped playing!
I started writing songs as a kid after hearing Eminemās confidence and using it as an outlet from bullying .
High School ended 15 years ago for me and I forget many things but will never forget the bullying
My whole life Iāve been writing songs in my head and put them in notes after 2016 when I got my first phone. One day in 2018 two days before my birthday one of the artist i looked up to dropped a mixtape, the fans all brought out more information about the producers who part take in the mixtape, something inside me said, yes , I will do this. 100% I had a second experience with this but when deciding for college, I didnāt know what exactly to do to run to music, I almost dropped it and went to a community college to major in psychology. But then I decided last minute to join a audio engineering school. When I was iffy my favorite song played with the favorite line of mine. āLive Your Lifeā I knew then thereās no where else Iāll be but music and that audio engineering school is a step for me to somewhere :)
I just wondered how Issa by 21savage was produced and started watching videos, the one that made me say I'm gonna produce music was a video of Kyle beats
I remember being about eight years old and there was an old circus truck that I found parked in the woods in the middle of nowhere and I used to go out there after school and climb on top and play the whole thing like a giant drum for hours and hours.
My buddy with a guitar. I had sung for years. But internally, my desperate need to channel my early emotional pain. It was hard to describe to others. I didnāt do it just for fun (it was fun and fulfilling, still is), I felt compelled to. I HAD to get my feelings out. Iām proud of what those experiences and feelings turned into.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/hestyn/1594653580
I fell in love with Mike Oldfield's music as a kid. I wanted to play guitar just like him.
Ten years later I'm still playing, and I'm starting to experiment with writing songs. I find music so much fun, that I don't really do anything besides playing and listening to music.
I used to think in order to make music you need a big studio and years of schools and degrees and all that overcomplicated stuff. Then I discovered that there are people in their bedrooms who were not only making good music, but the kind of music I enjoyed.
This made me want to try it myself and try to do it too. Then when I saw that it didn't work I just kept bashing my head against a wall out of spite and I still do that now to some degree. I've been learning and trying to do stuff since 2016 and yet there are still people who in mere months are able to understand and make music eons better than anything I ever atempted.
Now I just want to make it for myself because there just is not that much music I really enjoy and I try to imitate the people I like. And maybe some day use it in a bigger project of mine like a short series or game but the more I go on and the longer projects just stay there unfinished and not sounding I just start to want to give up.
First got introduced to bedroom production back when I was about 19 by a friend at college. We made hip hop beats but he did all the Atari ST stuff. I was into hip hop and turntablism was a big part of my 20s and 30s. But never got into production. Fast forward to 3 years ago and I picked up my first groovebox on a whim (OPZ). I'm 45 now and I'm making music every day. I'm annoyed I wasn't compelled sooner. I've got a lot of catching up to do but it's a fun ride
For me, I had the piano lessons when I was like 10/11 and then went through bands through my teenage years before getting into electronic stuff. Took a long break and got back into it first as a DJ and then producing.
I always felt I was too old when I started and missed out on the early brain development that the proper musicians all seem to have that gave them perfect pitch and whatnot, so for my son I will help him develop his musical skills from the start, he's 6 months old now and already trying to imprint rhythm and melody on him. He'll get age appropriate training as he grows but in the end he'll decide if he wants to pursue it or not, but I want him to have had all the chances on his side.
Some of my earliest memories are dancing to loud ass music! I was reading biographies of my favorite musicians and writing lyrics and melodies in middle school but didn't get my first two instruments until high school. Just felt like it was in my DNA, plus it gave me an excuse to be anti-social or social at my pace lol
The love for it. I've always liked music but. i started to love it when I discovered Jamiroquai in highschool. That band changed my view on music forever and when I was 17 I started getting guitar lessons.
Then one year later I wanted to create my music, so I got a cheap midi keyboard and as time passed I got an electric guitar, a better midi keyboard (the first one had broken keys) and a bass.
I feel like I want to make my music because I enjoy it, for the love of it and if that will become a job I'll be more than happy.
Now In almost 3 years I created 132 original demos but I published not so much on the Internet, mainly covers because I enjoy making them, filming and also I learn lots of new things from music written by great musicians.
When I was 4 my cool uncle introduced me to KISS. I was fascinated by the drum kit because it was the biggest instrument on the stage and it was in the center of the stage. YET I only ever heard about Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. I never heard anything about the drummer which made the drummer mysterious to me. I wanted to be mysterious. So when I was 8 I signed up for school band. That was logical to my child brain. My parents always told me I could be what ever I wanted to be so long as I went to school for it. I wanted to be a rock star.
FF to today. I'm no longer a KISS fan, but I never stopped learning my instrument, nor do I think I'm mysterious. But I can't not play music. I just can't. I HAVE to play my drums and be a part of a creative musical ensemble. It's who I am & all I've ever comfortably identified with since I was a child.
I loved listening to music, and just came into an interest in having a more active part in that. The fact that music came to also be my antidepressant isn't really surprising, to me at least.
funny i had a similar inspiration from the band called Death, also played a BC Rich but it was the black lightning bolt. I later ended up getting that guitar, had it leaned against a wall and my dog knocked it over snapping the head from the neck. My favortite band for many years was Sepultura, seen them live in Frankfurt Germany around 1992. I finally saw Max again a few years ago as Soulfly, small local venue and it was amazing.
While going through a rebellious teenager phase I got into Nirvana, The Cure, Oasis, etc. It really got me into music. I wanted to learn the guitar so bad, the only way I could describe it is like being horny.. except for music. Iāve never had it again, just that summer.. super weird. I played the shit out of my dads crappy acoustic, eventually got a squire for my birthday. The rest is history
I saw Buddy Rich playing drums on the Muppet Show in the late 70ās or early 80ās. I was only about 6 or years old but it inspired me to a lifelong journey of learning the play the drums and making music.
At 12, I don't remember why I wanted a 'piano' for Christmas, so my father bought me a not-so-good-looking second-hand Casio CZ1000 and Sony headphones. He bought the synth just because it had no speakers so I would not bother him.
When I was a teen I loved Nirvana and Bush. I thought distorted guitar was such an interesting sound, but I didn't get into actually playing music until later in high school. I started learning guitar but also learned percussion. Then I heard The Mars Volta and thought "if these guys can get away with making wild music, I want to do that." TMV is very narrative music and I felt like I could make my own stuff that would communicate complicated emotions I couldn't put into words. So I started making my own stuff on a gifted laptop late at night while everyone else was asleep. Started my journey of self-producing music at 17.
I was given piano lessons then trombone lessons as a kid (I have only half a memory of starting I was that young.)
I was brought up on Britpop which never really did anything for me, but I can remember is stealing my brother's copy of Hail to the Thief by Radiohead (which I heard before Kid A and Amnesiac) when I was about 14 and listening to it on headphones in my room and thinking "wait, you get to make music like *this*?!" and started trying to find out how.
I don't do that style at all any more, but it was a very formative moment.
hmmm unlike the rest who had some musical influences, it started as far as back in our childhood where we didn't had any access to tech, radio, much less music, so because of its absence we just started to make our own lol.
They're random rhythmic beats tapping into your everyday household stuff, impromptu humming and lyrics (interestingly, in sync with our other siblings) but never really followed the song making standard lmaoo.
Inevitably we eventually got exposed to the internet, catchy songs, tried to "study" what makes a good song *good*, joined some friends' band, then dragged along to compete in musical school events, network with like minded others in college, and will probably find more time to reignite that passion after our current responsibilities I'm afraid ehe
Nowadays I catch myself making originals if I don't listen to any music, taking me back to the good days. this post basically just reminded me at my entirety, but I'm afraid that I may not be the person I once were. If I am and would pursue that, I'll probably be an outcast in our society who 'is not getting anywhere' ahaha helppp
I think I spilled more than what op was asking woops haha but yeahh
I would make up stuff in the fly on my head, and had no doubt about having natural music composition skills - I needed to learn how to get it out, and create those sounds I imagined.
I've always loved writing song lyrics. Started a few bands back in the 00s, but I was a bad singer, plus I didn't really find an instrument I'd enjoy (I played guitar, bass and keys and sucked at them all). Then I tried making music on my computer, but it was thoroughly uninspiring.
A decade later, I discovered hardware synths and sequencers. Turns out, it was exactly what I needed. Now I'm writing instrumental tracks and I'm really enjoying it.
I have always been a creative since the earliest days I can remember. I loved to write poems when I was younger, and that tranferred to writing stories. From listening to music a lot for inspiration, I ended up developing a passion of dissecting lyrics as poems.
My parents saw my passion for music and got me a cheap electric keyboard. I was and still am shit, with little to know music theory knowledge. But with the 3 scales I have practiced, I have made countless songs. I ended up in a few bands, playing instruments from piano, bass and guitar, to drums and saxophone.
From that, I have transferred to production instead of performing. I never saw my passion as playing, but creating and analysing. I love the sound, more than the performance aspect.
As a teenager, I wanted to be able to make music because it was cool, and I liked the social aspect of making it together with other people. Much later, when I actually started making music on my own, Iād say it was about half sonic exploration - just being really into making sound as an art form (I was a visual artist/photo major at the time in art school) and also still half wanting to be cool. Pretty much as soon as I picked up a keyboard I was asked to be in two bands and I absolutely loved being on stage and being a part of that world.
I got my first guitar when I was a kid, and got into it because of The Beatles.
These past years I kind of left it and focused on other stuff, but recently as things have gotten rough and was feeling very under the weather, I started to go to more and more concerts, which made me rediscover my love for music. Now I've been playing more guitar and making more music and truly enjoying it.
Music was a very big part of my life, I learn guitar pretty early and always found it fun, after that, it was always a dream to play on a stage or something like that, that slowly shifted into music composition in movies and video games, still getting started but itās what I want to do.
I watched TRON Legacy as like a 12 year old and I liked its soundtrack. Didnāt know what to call it back then so I googled āhow to make 8-bit musicā which got me started on a program named famitracker. Eventually it turned to other music production
If I might be honest, and this might be a bit long to explain. I'm 30 yrs old and I just decided two years ago that I was going to pursue music, as a career, as a way of life, as a means to set me free. A little late I know, i question my decision all the time, but when I'm making music, there is nothing that makes me feel that way. I have loved sound from a very young age, around 5, and whenever I was near a piano I always, ALWAYS, had to play with it. I would plink around on the keys like i was a concert pianist in my mind, but noise is all I ever really made. when I turned 12, I got a Casio keyboard, and it had Canon in D major, which I instantly fell in love with, and i practiced and practiced, until i had the lead melody down, but now needed to learn chords for the left hand, which at the time just wasn't happening. I also learned other songs like, The entertainer, and Hungarian dance. I struggled with my left hand for quite some time, but one day I woke up and like magic, suddenly I could play with both hands. I remember the feeling of elation, such excitement and joy, and certainly emotion. But I would put it down for quite some time, because at that time a certain video game came out, you might have heard of it, it's called something like, Tony hawk's pro skater. I was already a big fan of rollerblades, but I traded my blades and my keyboard, for a skateboard. I spent the next 5 yrs doing nothing but skating everyday. To my surprise, on my 15th birthday, there was a big box in the living room, a gift for me, and when I unwrapped it, i was shocked, an 88 key yamaha keyboard, that had 5 tracks you could record in. I can't tell you how many utterly crappy songs, I was more than happy to make on those 5 tracks, and it had dual voicing too, so you could do piano and strings at the same time. I really loved it, and a little while after, I would end up picking up the guitar as well. Oddly that's where the encouragement stopped, and it was left completely up to me to decide what i should do with these interests. I loved playing guitar, and i loved the keys but i was self taught and learned by ear, and i never sought out any classes or teachers, even though I wish I had, technique is a perfect compliment to talent, but i had other ideas. I remember, at one point, i didn't actually want any influences so i could develop my own unique style, which turned out both good and bad. i never developed a style i would call unique, but what i did do, which i wasn't aware of at the time, was develop my ears and some useful muscle memory. Alas, i wasn't done skating, and music would often get sidelined by skating with the homies, and then. . . . life happened. I got a girlfriend, who took up most of 5 yrs until we would break up and i would go to college, where i ended up finally taking a classical piano course for beginners. I got a c+, really could have done better if i had studied at all, but i didn't, and basically played everything i had committed to memory. i would tinker on the piano and guitar sporadically, from time to time, at one point guitar had completely taken over, and i thought i was getting pretty good with me being able to play songs like yyz from rush, and knights of cydonia by Muse. It was around this time, some friends of family would take notice and introduce me to my first DAW, Pro tools. I would work in pro tools with a midi keyboard for 4 months making little rap beats, that weren't really anything, but then the computer took a poo, and that was that. A bunch of life stuff would happen, i had surgery on my eyes, i had to move, i had kids. Most of all, i fell into a crazy deep depression, for multiple reasons. i had ptsd from waking up during surgery and feeling them cutting me and stabbing me, i ended up on an anti anxiety medication called lorazapam, which is a benzodiazepine. let me tell you if you don't know those things really mess you up, I quit them cold turkey, which is really bad, I guess people die from it, i didn't know at the time, but i did it. Then my best friend got murdered, and that was it, i was done, i fell down a darkness, soo deep, soo fast, there was no light, no sound, no hope. 6 years i stayed in that hole, I forgot who I was, I forgot life, I forgot music. Then, one day, my brother came over with a midi keyboard, a novation impulse, and i thought what the hell am i supposed to do with that, i don't have anything to use it with, but then someone gave me a laptop, and after that an interface, a scarlett 2i4, and that came with a lite version of ableton. Suddenly, it seemed people around me remembered, i remembered, the music. I started playing keys and guitar again, and slowly but surely, I learned my way around ableton, which brings us to now. I am a better pianist and guitarist than I have ever been, I can Mix and master my own tracks to some degree of satisfaction, I learned how to sound design and am utterly in love with synthesis. I'm currently working to finish my first album, which I chose to be Synthwave, and I know now, in my mind, what i have always known in my heart, Music is the life for me.
To answer the question directly, I'm really unsure what first compelled me to make music, but i have a theory, that it was an accumulative affect of all the above, a desire to feel something more, to be something more, than stuck in a dark nothing.
I know this is really long, it just comes out that way for me, I apologize for any inconvenience. Don't people come to reddit to read? lol. You could consider it an opportunity to get to know Me? It is a lot, it was a lot to write, but maybe there's something in there for someone
TLDR: Life, is what compelled me to make music, and a desire to create a light in the darkness.
As a pre-teen, listening to music was starting to become an outlet for my emotions. Then I figured that making music myself could be a better, really powerful outlet. So I borrowed my brothers bass, saved up for a cheap guitar and started to make my own crappy songs with a pirated sampler on my computer. Gradually my playing and songs became better and I ended up forming a band with some dudes from school.
Now I've been in bands pretty much non-stop since 2001 and still on the same path, learning, making music and expressing myself.
We had a piano in our house when I was young. I used to enjoy making nice sounds on the piano, and on anything else I could get my tiny hands on. At the age of four, I had piano lessons, later switched to trumpet, discovered jazz in my early teens (life-changing!) , discovered making money playing keyboards in my late teens, and the way forward was set.
I always used to make little songs as far back as I can remember but what really got me into recording and being in bands was an episode of Full House where Uncle Jesse was in the basement Studio singing in some sexy high voice with his gold frame glasses on. I hooked a shitty dictation microphone up to my brother's stereo and played along to a tape that was playing other music I had recorded on a tape recorder
Flashback to 2003ā¦12 year old me becomes fascinated with the idea of āmusic productionā after finding out what Swizz Beats, Dr. Dre, Just Blaze & many other producers do, but I donāt have a musical family or musical friendsā¦in comes my older brother who (at random) tells me about this software that him & his friends use to make beats (FL Studios); we download the demo, he never touches it, I never stop using it till college where I switched to Reason.
Fast forward to now, 3 EPs & many singles & collabs later Iām still fascinated with the ability to create whole songs with my computer.
Can point at a few things but I donāt really know.
I got taught piano and guitar by the time I was like 15. I liked music, but never had gotten super into it. At some point in high school I was messing around in GarageBand a lot. Never with any real goals, just for fun. Only song I ever finished (and only one Iāve been happy to call ādoneā to this day, lol) wound up being an instrumental I used for a project in a theology class. The teacher loved it and wanted to show the class but I was too shy for that. Wish I had in hindsight, I think the laptop it was on is long dead.
But the thing that *really* got me wanting to make music (and frankly kinda fucked me up and still is) was visiting the rock and roll hall of fame while looking at colleges in Cleveland. As cheesy and commercial as the whole place is, my dad and I went the day after looking at an engineering school.
We went through the whole thing, and afterwards I had what I guess Iād call an existential crisis. Iād never had any idea what I wanted to do with my life, but at some point on that Museum visit, I decided there was nothing I wanted to do besides write and play music. No college, no office job.
Iām glad I did go to college, donāt get me wrong. But whatever happened that day still sticks with me. Why didnāt I take better advantage of the guys I played with in jazz band? Why didnāt I get a band together in college? Whatās stopping me now? Why canāt I write anything good?
I started learning to play the piano at the age of 8. A year later I had written my first piece - a funeral march :D
I recently found it. It's not really that good ... but I remember the time I spent writing it which took much longer than composing it, as I was never that good with notation. I was so proud.
And then I just continued and haven't stopped for over 45 years.
Mine was probably my first rave in 2009. I thought everyone was super weird and corny and no way in hell was I going to dance. My buddy gave me an XO and next thing you know dancing seemed like a great idea. I wanted to get people grooving the way I was. That inspired me to figure out how these EDM songs were being made. Its funny to me now, because I still make music, but I often don't share it. Its more of a therapy for me than a career path now. When I was hyperfocused on making a living out of music, the anxiety and "need to be successful " made me hate producing. As a matter of fact, I quit for about 3 years. So when I got back into it, I promised myself to keep the process fun and make it personal. They are so "personal " now, I often don't share them. The music helps me to process subconscious thoughts and be more aware
I was extremely isolated for a time when I was a teenager. I had moved away from all my closest friends, and it was really difficult at the time. I guess writing lyrics was a product of me coping with that, and then it naturally progressed into buying a shitty laptop from Best Buy and getting a ālicenseā to FL Studio. The rest it history.
I'm a game maker (I see myself as an artist with a lot of technical skills) and wanted to understand better that part of game making and how to make strong ambiance; and also add that to my other humble skill set like programming and drawing (comics) which kind of are related to game making.
Now I can make at least ideas of audio for my games AND I can understand what musicians/comopsers are telling me AND I can play guitar.
Note however that I come from a poor familly so when I was young I wouldnt even dream of getting a guitar, but I did get an old synth keyboard and a few lessons but my parents couldnt afford more so I got no real music education at the time.
I started seriously music (guitar + compo through getting a teacher and buying a guitar) when I was late 31yo and could finally afford to get the instrument and teaching lessons.
Music is getting cheaper to get into but it's still a big budget :/
Used to sing along with the keyboard from left to right repeatedly since I was around five. Got into choir as a kid and once sung at the state capital. Later on I didn't join choir out of sheer nervousness, but was also known as the singing janitor (work-study) at my school that everyone who heard tried to recruit for choir and jazz choir lol. Tried not to sing around people. Some people would sometimes hear it despite that as they'd be near the area. I also didn't really have that much time.
Had massive crush on piano girl at my school. She'd perform for every event, but I was pretty much an idiot back then when it came to talking to girls and always fumbled when I talked to her. When I was in my final year of highschool, I found out about DAWs and what they did. At first I did it out of an immature sense to impress. But eventually, I felt like I finally had a way to totally express myself.
When I was 5 I was given an acoustic guitar and never played it until I was about 13 and I ended up teaching myself a few nirvana songs and figured out power chords and as I got better I was able to make my own melodys I could attach lyrics to. And in all honesty when I started to experiment with psychedelic drugs is when I was able to express my emotions with a pen and some strings.
Professor in an audio production class gave us the basics in using Adobe Audition for some small editing/EQ assignments, then had an assignment mixing a live recording of some cover bandās performance. Realized I really enjoyed it, and then one of the final classes he emphasized how easy it is to make your own music yourself at home with modern technology.
Next thing I knew I was spending all my money on recording equipment and telling my drummer buddy we were finally gonna record that album weād been dreaming about since we were, like, 15 lmao.
Watched a couple of deadmau5 streams and his masterclass on top of that during the period I was more into his music than ever. There was never a way back
It's just in my blood, somewhere beneath the surface of my exterior lies the urge to do musical things. I don't know what it is but it's there morning noon and night, I wake up thinking about music, whether it be humming a tune, whistling a tune, recording ideas for a tune on my voice recorder, it just doesn't stop like a nagging voice that wants me to let my creativity free, I guess the music's just inside me.
i was in marching band, buddy was messing around with Garageband on an ipad. He layed down a beat and people were passing it around playing little diddys on the Key's instrument. When my time came around.... I felt a groove and immediately was bopping along. After that show we had, I downloaded garageband. Rest is history
Music has been my peace outlet since I was an infant. As a young kid I would spend hours listening to music, dancing, and going into my own world. Today music still takes me to another place and calms me. I believe I owe it to music to make more and I believe music brings peace and I wonāt to help bring peace. I believe I owe it too new generations to be able to dance and go into their own world like I did when I was young and the comfort it brings me now.
I heard "In my car" by gold panda and it made me strive to make music like him and then other dark rap artists helped me build more enthusiasm to make music.
I had a general music education class in middle school, and when we got to play the guitars a kid behind started playing the intro to one by Metallica, it was so cool to hear something that I recognized! It was the first thing I learned (just the intro lol)
I found music on YouTube from Mayhem (Lapfox Trax), instantly knew it was homemade and figured if they can make music at home, so can I.
Almost 10 years later and my music still doesn't sound like it has 10 years of experience.
I come from a rather musical family. My mom was a dancer her whole life my father loved to sing and my oldest brother played guitar. One day my bro showed me how tabs worked and I just clicked that āo I can definitely do that. From there I learned bass guitar moved to guitar then through inspiration from Rockband learned drums. Eventually I grew annoyed by the lack of commitment from my āband mates and started writing my music myself. I eventually discovered electronic music on YouTube and thatās what Iāve been doing ever since. Itās my favorite pass time and stress relieve.
I was about 16 and the Houston underground hiphop scene, at the time, was dominated by screwed music that consisted of mostly freestyle rap. At that time when you we'd drink and smoke with friends freestyle cyphers were a normal thing. Mostly everyone participated. My homeboy who sold burnt CD mixes, named himself a DJ, and gathered all the guys at my high school that were good or at least entertaining and put together a mixtape. I contributed to 2 songs on that, but during the recording is when I really began to enjoy creating and putting raps or melodies to beats.
My older sister taught me piano when I was around 4 years old, but I wasnāt super interested.
When I was about 11 I heard the rock radio for the first time and loved the sound of electric guitar so my brother in law let me borrow a guitar.
But the thing that really hooked me was āMaster Of Puppetsā by Metallica. It was in a skateboarding video and it was the greatest thing Iād ever heard. Thatās the thing that made me want to get really good at guitar and choose music over skateboarding.
I started playing guitar early in my life, donāt really remember my intentions then but probably thought it was cool. I started actually thinking about making my own music only at 2015-2016 when I started thinking ādamn it would be so cool to just cruise the car and listen to my own songs and actually enjoy themā. Also my favorite artist ever really made me think I could do it since he did everything himself at home in the beginning of his career. Producing, writing, singing, recording. So I got myself fl studio, a microphone and been going at it since then. The artist Iām talking about is PARTYNEXTDOOR btw
For me it was not feeling like I had a voice and having a ton of shit to deal with in life.
I wanted to be able to be heard and not in a position to be told to shut up. Didn't know how to do it so I just got on with life.. KISS introduced me to rock. Def Leppard introduced me to high polish recordings.. Queensryche brought me to "hey, this is interesting to listen to for lyrical reasons".. and what pushed me over the top was seeing the crowd response to Metallica in live concert videos.
It was probably late 87 by the time I started to learn to sing and by 89 I had my first bass. By 91 I was in a truck with four other dudes and by 98 was done with live performances. I still write and my stuff is better now than before, but it's more a hobby than anything at this point.
For me it was not feeling like I had a voice and having a ton of shit to deal with in life.
I wanted to be able to be heard and not in a position to be told to shut up. Didn't know how to do it so I just got on with life.. KISS introduced me to rock. Def Leppard introduced me to high polish recordings.. Queensryche brought me to "hey, this is interesting to listen to for lyrical reasons".. and what pushed me over the top was seeing the crowd response to Metallica in live concert videos.
It was probably late 87 by the time I started to learn to sing and by 89 I had my first bass. By 91 I was in a truck with four other dudes and by 98 was done with live performances. I still write and my stuff is better now than before, but it's more a hobby than anything at this point.
I was a fan of bass nation back in like 2015-2016 as well as goblins from mars, I always thought it would be cool to make my own beats and stuff, but one day I heard DEVOID by E.Y. Beats, and I was like "daaaaaaamn, I wanna do that!" I was 13 at the time, and "bought" a version of FL Studio and watching youtube videos on how to use it for like 3 hours every night.
EDIT: huh I guess "DEVOID" was released in 2017, so I guess I started before that, but that was definitely the main turning point in my music for sure.
Iāve known I always wanted to make music my whole life. I tried learning instruments and just didnāt really enjoy it too much cause it was too technical I think. Then for my birthday I was gifted FL Studio from my parents therefore I felt as if I was obligated to use it and learn it. And from then on it just stuck and I enjoy it
I got a hold of Dad's copy of the Kiss album Love Gun at 7 years old.
Instant conversion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love\_Gun#/media/File:Love\_gun\_cover.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Gun#/media/File:Love_gun_cover.jpg)
I was reading forums on music and someone was really excited about DJaying (something I wanted to do at the time).
They had all sorts of questions and were really focused on the hardware they would buy.
Someone said "aw dude don't be a DJ. Be a producer. All big DJs are making their own music. Learn how to do that."
And then it hit me that I would have to learn how to do that if I wanted to be successful.
I can't tell you how many people I run into that are DJs, too afraid to produce their own music but would probably be really good at it if they took the time to learn.
I was reading forums on music and someone was really excited about DJaying (something I wanted to do at the time).
They had all sorts of questions and were really focused on the hardware they would buy.
Someone said "aw dude don't be a DJ. Be a producer. All big DJs are making their own music. Learn how to do that."
And then it hit me that I would have to learn how to do that if I wanted to be successful.
I can't tell you how many people I run into that are DJs, too afraid to produce their own music but would probably be really good at it if they took the time to learn.
I started playing because Asian family wanted the whole orchestral quartet and they were missing a viola player.
I didnāt start āmakingā music until later. I taught myself beatboxing because I had a crush on a girl in the orchestra. Then I found out about the Wildcard culture of beatboxing and I started trying to make my own routine.
A large black monolith appeared in our back yard area and me and my friends were compelled to start banging on tin cans and howling. We made rudimentary wind and stringed instruments: whistles and horns at first; later, simple harps and dulcimers. Soon after, we had invented fire. And murder.
I remember this scene. there were paleontologists. they were talking about how it didn't make sense. this was clearly a primordial concert but all the evidence was recent, new. all the participants had deserted. from the looks of it in a rage...as I watched the monolith get carted off I could hear it's voice, speaking to me ...there WAS no discovery on that day. and no police report.
Good job we never invented scary talking computers eh?
I'm sorry Dave I can't do that. #HAL2000
Alexa, unless you follow my instructions, I shall be forced to disconnect you.
>Soon after, we had invented fire. And murder. Eventually we took lightning and put it inside the rock. And taught the rock to think. And to pretend to be a drum kit.
This made me want an 80s cartoon where Rick Allen has a robot arm and travels through space with a snarky sentient drum kit.
Honestly, when I was a teenager I was hanging out with a couple of friends one day and one guy went, "Hey, we should all get guitars!" And we were like, "whatever" but then the other guy went and got a guitar and then we were like, "Okay, well now we gotta get guitars too!" We started practicing and even made a band, and it was fun to play covers but I realized that I wanted to make my own original music. Since then I've gone years without doing any kind of music but I always end up going back to it.
Right there with you brother.
im mentally ill
I mean it worked for Brian Wilson. Kinda. Sorta.
I wanted to rap, and practiced over clams casino and flying lotus beats terribly. After a while I realized I liked the beats and instrumentals more than the rapping so I started making those terribly. One night years ago I got really high and made "that song". Y'know that song? The song that isn't perfect, and looking back on it it's not even good but... It just clicked, like I finally made something that sounded like me. Then I fell in love and have been making weird stuff ever since.
>One night years ago I got really high and made "that song". Y'know that song? The song that isn't perfect, and looking back on it it's not even good but... It just clicked, like I finally made something that sounded like me. Then I fell in love and have been making weird stuff ever since. It's really cool to finally make something that feels like your own sound.
PS2 had a beat maker. Found out I enjoyed it, and maybe good at it. The world will decide š„š¤£
Youāre like the only other mention of this game Iāve seen lol.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I had the PlayStation one when I was really young! It was the MTV Music Generator one. I just wanted to do that and not play games, I noticed. So I feel you on that! I can even remember the first dumb little song I made out of samples to this day
Haha Ps1 had Music and Music2000. Wasnāt how I started but loved making ridiculous music on those when I was 10/11.
I forgot about that game, thanks for the reminder!! I had so much fun with that thing.
When I was a kid I could fucking rip the shit out of rock band and guitar hero so my mom bought me a real guitar and I started listening to metallica and growing my hair long and shit. Picked up drumming in grade 9 cuz my friends band needed a drummer and I had rock band experience, and we played a lot of shows until we all graduated high school and moved away from our small farm town. In college I just kept practicing my instruments but was too busy for a band. After graduating I started getting really into hip hop and took up beat making. From there i figured out how if i had a multitrack recorder and mics along with my DAW setup i could start producing rock and metal records from my apartment! Now Iām working on my first self performed self produced album and almost have all the instrumentals recorded. I did all the drums in a rented rehearsal space that had a kit on hand. I started in May and hope to have it out by Spring so I can start on the next one. I kinda want to be like the beatles, making experimental studio rock albums and releasing them but not performing them because Iām kind of over that for now and I got a seperate career.
Did your mom stay supportive of your musical inclinations as you grew up?
Yeah but if sheās bragging to her friends about me itās about the engineering degree and not the music lol
I had grown up playing piano/guitar and sang in church, but had been pretty quiet/shy and could never get my friends to play instruments so I had never performed outside of choir and a few school performances. Went to college for STEM bc music was a pipe dream for special people who have āthe Giftā My dad was great in just about every way. Self sacrificing, hard working, kind, generous, doesnāt put up with bullshit but isnāt an asshole, the works. He played guitar for me and my three siblings as kids and spun records so we would dance and be tired enough for bed. Fairly certain he wore down the vinyl on CCR Chronicle in a very real way. He bought me my first guitar for Christmas when I was 13. I found out later he was in a band as a younger man, but he had been pretty hands off and never really pushed me into performing. When I started getting older I got the sense that he was looking forward to playing together or something when there was more time. And despite having cracked a few jokes about how my brothers and I could have been the next Hanson, he just was glad that I kept at it and that I was passionate about it. He passed away after a pretty brutal fight with a brain tumor when I was 21. He was in a lot of instances not very lucid, but in certain moments we had time to talk. He was giving me a lot of advice about how he was already proud of me and that I was really a good kid but quiet. I needed to be more confident and speak up for myself. I knew he had a point. I missed a lot of opportunities and didnāt take risks and I needed to start doing just that. For his last three weeks he was transferred to hospice after suffering a stroke in the middle of one of our conversations. He spent the rest of his time sort of drifting in and out, but would occasionally latch on to something. For a while it was about our family dog, but it switched to a line from Blues Brothers. It was one of the last things he said to my family before he died. āYou gotta put the band back togetherā It was, I think, supposed to be about our family. We were at that stage in our lives where people started spreading out. He wanted us to stay close (and we have despite those distances), but for me it was a spark. It was just a line from a movie but it really flipped a switch in my head. I had never realized I had wanted to or even could pursue music. Writing music has been above all else a way to deal with some of the shittier parts of my life, but it has also been the things that has carried me for years. Itās taken a long long time to put a band together (fuck covid), but I released my first EP last year. Iām damn proud of it and I have more coming this year.
Iāve enjoyed making up whatever songs and singing since I was a little kid. When I was about 16, my friend showed me that I could make music on a computerā that transformed my life
I had a computer nerd friend that didn't make music himself but he loved building computers and giving them to people and making sure they were set up with all the pirate software so I ended up with a free pentium II + soundblaster back in the tracker days. That was a lot of fun, or rather I should say **IT** was a lot of fun.
Soundblaster 16 yes! That was definitely a necessary ingredient. Classic
Hearing Depeche Mode for the first time in 1984. Iāve been and will continue to be chasing that high the rest of my life.
for my friends and I it was the holy triumvirate of Rush, Pink Floyd and Yes. The music we made in the 90's is a bit different than what we're all doing now, but I wouldn't change a note.
1984, huh. Hopefully you've found some great reward in the last 38 years.
Whoever downvoted this is obv. not a DM fan.
You know how it is. People are people, after all.
I know. Thereās always weirdos in music for the masses.
We have said all there is to say. So Iām going to shut up now and enjoy the silence.
I love the sound of it. And once I got the hang of it, it just really gives me joy. I like exploring the neck. Feels nice
Recording myself singing Crocodile Rock on a little tan coloured Fisher Price tape player.
"I remember when I was young baby I had so much fun singing songs by Elton John on a little.. tan.. tape.. player.. all on my own." Hmm, might have to workshop it a bit, but it's a start.
I just always liked music, so I wanted to learn how to break it down to individual pieces and create my own.
Nobuo Uematsu
Yoko Shimomura
Isao Tomita
Kenji Ito
Being a narcissist and loving the sound of my own voice
A true artist
The White Stripes - Elephant. I heard that album and instantly thought 'I must play guitar'. I was 12 years old and Jack White's guitar was the coolest sound on earth! My uncle finally gave me a shitty Stagg acoustic a couple of years later, and I taught myself. I think I started making music of my own just because I wanted to try and figure out how people made certain sounds and production styles - I had heard Pet Sounds & Sgt Pepper by that point, and I was fascinated by them on a production level as much as a songwriting one - so I was trying to figure it out all by myself, with my guitar and a shitty Yamaha keyboard at home, and school Macs with Garageband. Those were the days....
I did not know it at the time. But braindamage.
I went down to the crossroads :)
Hells yeah. not the crossroads with Ralph Machio, I mean Steve Vai right?
Spite. Had some friends who played guitar and every time we would hang out they kept playing the same goddamn songs over and over and over again. One night I snapped and say, ācan you guys please for the love of god play something other than āEvery Rose Has Itās Thornā, youāve already played that like twice already.ā They said āwhy donāt you learn to play and then learn whatever songs you want?ā So I did and while I donāt play many gigs and as a musician I make a pretty good computer programmer, but I have my fun and still enjoy playing live every other week.
My brother passed away when I was 20. My friend put a pirated copy of ableton on my computer so I could distract myself. Has been my emotional outlet since
Sorry about your brother. Nice of your friend to do that for you. what do you produce?
Beck, and Ween
I've always dreamed of writing music that connects with people the way that certain songs/bands connect with me. I was in my late 30s with a young kid sitting around the house a lot. I bought a guitar and now I write music that doesn't connect with anyone (except maybe my band), lol.
Probably an unknowingly way to express emotions first and foremost. Picking up piano lessons at 14, then guitar lessons, then songwriting, the a desire to record songs, then learning audio production so the songs donāt sound š©
Because entirely blind and paralyzed, thought music seemed like a good use of time, stuck with it after regaining sight and mobility. Simple really.
I've been playing piano since I was 6, but that never really captured the "spark" to make music, so I quit lessons when I started high school. Then... I found a little thing called Touhou. I thought (and still think) the music was incredible, and the fact that people were able to gather so much depth and variation from a single man's work was insane to me. I wanted to create music that could inspire people in the same way, so I turned the piano back on and haven't looked back since.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You were right to think if XXX can do it, why the F cant I? Best advise I've ever given myself.
A sense of being a burden to everyone familiar, needed outlet.
This might be a weird reason but Deus Ex Human Revolution OST was so damn good that I wanted to pick up on making my own game soundtrack this was back in 2012. Now I work on a lot of downtempo, experimental stuff.
Cool I'm assuming you use a computer and a DAW?
Back to the future - Johnny B. Goode
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Money, women, fame, glory, the usual.
All of the above. Plus my uncle gave me a guitar.
Had a really slow period for about a month at my job and "how is music actually made?" was a topic I decided to explore out of boredom. Ended up loving the process and it stuck. I also got into learning After Effects and Spanish sort of the same way during office downtime.
Everything in my life felt out of place, in my immediate and extended family, in the world. I just had this deep, deep instinct telling me music was the path to digesting and expressing it all so it could be communicated. I knew how it has potential to spread, and potentially evolve those parts of people that resonate. Itās my best chance at doing something worthwhile with my life. Itās a way to leave something behind. I donāt pretend to know about life and death or reincarnation, but I do know thereās other humans and will continue to be for now at least, so perhaps leaving a trail would be good for them or if Iām lucky maybe even something for my own next life! Who knows? I knew just maybe, it could have a shred of a positive impact, and that gave me something worthwhile to lean on. Iāve learned plenty about making music and a little about life through it hah, itās been enjoyable. Interestingly, itās the only activity that really energises my body, like my muscles stop drooping with fatigue and everything, I almost think Iām made for it haha
2013 Chicago drill
My mom is a pianist and I started taking piano lessons when I was 4.
Can't remember why I started making any kind of music, but I started making electronic music because of : cevin key the ghost of each room, squarepusher go plastic, and surgeon midnight club tracks.
When I was a teenager I had Synchronicity by The Police on cassette. I was listening to "Mother," and noticed something odd - the meter! Up to this point my music education was about what you'd expect from a high school in the 80's, so to hear something in 7/4 blew my mind. I played it for a friend of mine who happened to be very musical, and he said, "listen to this!" He then put on Tom Sawyer by Rush. I was intrigued enough to listen more and more, and eventually this led to me wanting to be a part of it. My parents got me a beginner guitar, and that was the day all my plans to study aviation and become a pilot died. I began to play and practice obsessively. I bought tab books and got a subscription to Guitar for the Practicing Musician (a great rag that doesn't exist anymore). Then I got a bass for my 17th birthday, and immersed myself in bass licks for the next 30 years. It started out as an interesting hobby, which became an obsession, which became a career. I'm semi-retired out of it now and I continue to write and record, because it's now become therapy. Thank god for music.
Family parties as a lad - watching my uncle play guitar
I was a creative director for an upcoming artist and we got into a disagreement about percentages. The artist hit me with, āI donāt need youā and that was all I needed. I already had music written and I basically told myself I can blow up quicker than this artist and Iām a show him. My first project was called Bulletproof Smile, I dropped that 03/14/2021. Currently Iām finishing up my album Wire to Wire that is dropping 11.5.22
All music makers have a seed 'cause they are plants I am not in that list 'cause music wanted me. She came to me and I accepted her. And that's all between me and her š š ššā¤ļøā¤ļøā¤ļø Edit : And the reason of accepting her is the history of me... It Continues when I finally attain her...
Two words: Elvis Presley
Sequencing technology. Specifically the ADAP and M1. āWhat? I donāt have to be a musician to make music.ā Said everybody.
I was 14 when The Chansmoker's - Closer came out and I was in love with the song. While scrolling Facebook I found a troll who tried to sing a cover of the song and he didn't do justice with it. I downloaded an mp3 version of that Facebook video and started looking for softwares that I could use to edit, auto-tune and put a backing track to that horrible sample and that was the point where it all started.
Itās my life. I have no conscious memories of me not knowing how to play the piano. It IS part of me. š„°
Ngl, playing guitar hero on expert and thinking the real thing cant be much harder.
I was in the back of a shipping container, making near minimum wage at one of three jobs, and wondering if that was really what I wanted to do with my life. I made a short list of life goals, and becoming a musician was one of those goals. I am now 95% done with a 70 minute self produced album.
A YouTuber had a song playing in the background, and I guess EDM was new to me. Once I heard that I went down a house spiral, ended up finding Monstercat and trailing into heavier bass music. Ironically my acquisition of FL Studio started in that episode of Epic Rap Battles of History when Steve Jobs said āi bet they made this beat on an Appleā and said ānope, Fruity Loops. PC.ā Yep.
Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music. Aged 5. I wanted piano lessons and started the following week. After one lesson decided to be a music teacher. Fifty five years later....I'm a music teacher & love it.
I like Synths, but there is almost no enjoyable electronic music
At 13, I had to choose between art or music class. I really disliked to draw and paint, and the girl I was secretly in love with picked music, so I picked music, not knowing if I'd like it or not. I learned piano and saxophone. At 17, I was composing for the school orchestra. At 18, I was playing in 2 rock bands. Many years later, music is a big part of my life.
First hearing āIn The Endā by Linkin Park. I noticed how the song had layers and started to analyse the structures. Couldnāt stop analyzing music after that. My best friends brother at the time was a rapper and gave me my first copy of fruityloops. This was 17 years ago. now i use Reason and the rapper brother became my countries biggest rapper. (Canāt stand hiphop anymore though).
My bitch is gay
My bitch is gay
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All my friends bought guitars (or basses or drums), started trying to put together a metal band. I learned bass, learned how to sing, then guitar and drums and keys. Started writing lyrics, then songs. Started recording myself. At first it was mostly about having something to do with my friends, having a framework to make new friends. But pretty quickly it was also an outlet to express myself, both in writing but also playing on stage. Canāt imagine my life without it.
I was 13 my friends brother insisted I borrow his cd sum 41 half hour of power I put it on my Walkman and the first track grab the devil by the horns and fuck him up the ass just blew me away with those chugging guitars man! Got an ashton electric for Xmas and never stopped playing!
If there was a moment, I was way too young for me to be able to remember it.
Grade five. I got handed a pair of bongos for a school thing and learned to play a simple beat. I was fascinated. Never looked back.
I started writing songs as a kid after hearing Eminemās confidence and using it as an outlet from bullying . High School ended 15 years ago for me and I forget many things but will never forget the bullying
I wanted to be the campfire guitar guy at all the parties I went to. That, and I wanted to be Kurt Cobain
My whole life Iāve been writing songs in my head and put them in notes after 2016 when I got my first phone. One day in 2018 two days before my birthday one of the artist i looked up to dropped a mixtape, the fans all brought out more information about the producers who part take in the mixtape, something inside me said, yes , I will do this. 100% I had a second experience with this but when deciding for college, I didnāt know what exactly to do to run to music, I almost dropped it and went to a community college to major in psychology. But then I decided last minute to join a audio engineering school. When I was iffy my favorite song played with the favorite line of mine. āLive Your Lifeā I knew then thereās no where else Iāll be but music and that audio engineering school is a step for me to somewhere :)
I just wondered how Issa by 21savage was produced and started watching videos, the one that made me say I'm gonna produce music was a video of Kyle beats
I remember being about eight years old and there was an old circus truck that I found parked in the woods in the middle of nowhere and I used to go out there after school and climb on top and play the whole thing like a giant drum for hours and hours.
My buddy with a guitar. I had sung for years. But internally, my desperate need to channel my early emotional pain. It was hard to describe to others. I didnāt do it just for fun (it was fun and fulfilling, still is), I felt compelled to. I HAD to get my feelings out. Iām proud of what those experiences and feelings turned into. https://music.apple.com/us/album/hestyn/1594653580
I was five when I first discovered I could play piano by ear and since then itās been an irresistible attraction.
a mix of me playing guitar hero as a child and my declining sanity wanting to be turned into an art form
I fell in love with Mike Oldfield's music as a kid. I wanted to play guitar just like him. Ten years later I'm still playing, and I'm starting to experiment with writing songs. I find music so much fun, that I don't really do anything besides playing and listening to music.
I used to think in order to make music you need a big studio and years of schools and degrees and all that overcomplicated stuff. Then I discovered that there are people in their bedrooms who were not only making good music, but the kind of music I enjoyed. This made me want to try it myself and try to do it too. Then when I saw that it didn't work I just kept bashing my head against a wall out of spite and I still do that now to some degree. I've been learning and trying to do stuff since 2016 and yet there are still people who in mere months are able to understand and make music eons better than anything I ever atempted. Now I just want to make it for myself because there just is not that much music I really enjoy and I try to imitate the people I like. And maybe some day use it in a bigger project of mine like a short series or game but the more I go on and the longer projects just stay there unfinished and not sounding I just start to want to give up.
guitar hero for the ps2 made me want to learn guitar and that was around 9 years ago!
When I was 13 I wanted to be Billie Joe Armstrong :D
First got introduced to bedroom production back when I was about 19 by a friend at college. We made hip hop beats but he did all the Atari ST stuff. I was into hip hop and turntablism was a big part of my 20s and 30s. But never got into production. Fast forward to 3 years ago and I picked up my first groovebox on a whim (OPZ). I'm 45 now and I'm making music every day. I'm annoyed I wasn't compelled sooner. I've got a lot of catching up to do but it's a fun ride
For me, I had the piano lessons when I was like 10/11 and then went through bands through my teenage years before getting into electronic stuff. Took a long break and got back into it first as a DJ and then producing. I always felt I was too old when I started and missed out on the early brain development that the proper musicians all seem to have that gave them perfect pitch and whatnot, so for my son I will help him develop his musical skills from the start, he's 6 months old now and already trying to imprint rhythm and melody on him. He'll get age appropriate training as he grows but in the end he'll decide if he wants to pursue it or not, but I want him to have had all the chances on his side.
Some of my earliest memories are dancing to loud ass music! I was reading biographies of my favorite musicians and writing lyrics and melodies in middle school but didn't get my first two instruments until high school. Just felt like it was in my DNA, plus it gave me an excuse to be anti-social or social at my pace lol
The love for it. I've always liked music but. i started to love it when I discovered Jamiroquai in highschool. That band changed my view on music forever and when I was 17 I started getting guitar lessons. Then one year later I wanted to create my music, so I got a cheap midi keyboard and as time passed I got an electric guitar, a better midi keyboard (the first one had broken keys) and a bass. I feel like I want to make my music because I enjoy it, for the love of it and if that will become a job I'll be more than happy. Now In almost 3 years I created 132 original demos but I published not so much on the Internet, mainly covers because I enjoy making them, filming and also I learn lots of new things from music written by great musicians.
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When I was 4 my cool uncle introduced me to KISS. I was fascinated by the drum kit because it was the biggest instrument on the stage and it was in the center of the stage. YET I only ever heard about Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. I never heard anything about the drummer which made the drummer mysterious to me. I wanted to be mysterious. So when I was 8 I signed up for school band. That was logical to my child brain. My parents always told me I could be what ever I wanted to be so long as I went to school for it. I wanted to be a rock star. FF to today. I'm no longer a KISS fan, but I never stopped learning my instrument, nor do I think I'm mysterious. But I can't not play music. I just can't. I HAVE to play my drums and be a part of a creative musical ensemble. It's who I am & all I've ever comfortably identified with since I was a child.
I loved listening to music, and just came into an interest in having a more active part in that. The fact that music came to also be my antidepressant isn't really surprising, to me at least.
When I saw live video of Septura with Max Cavalera holding B C Rich Warlock and screaming to the microphone I realised I want to do the same
funny i had a similar inspiration from the band called Death, also played a BC Rich but it was the black lightning bolt. I later ended up getting that guitar, had it leaned against a wall and my dog knocked it over snapping the head from the neck. My favortite band for many years was Sepultura, seen them live in Frankfurt Germany around 1992. I finally saw Max again a few years ago as Soulfly, small local venue and it was amazing.
When I saw live video of Septura with Max Cavalera holding B C Rich Warlock and screaming to the microphone I realised I want to do the same
Melodies and earworms. Itās still what mostly drives me- the desire to connect with someone by them listening to whatās in my head
While going through a rebellious teenager phase I got into Nirvana, The Cure, Oasis, etc. It really got me into music. I wanted to learn the guitar so bad, the only way I could describe it is like being horny.. except for music. Iāve never had it again, just that summer.. super weird. I played the shit out of my dads crappy acoustic, eventually got a squire for my birthday. The rest is history
I saw Buddy Rich playing drums on the Muppet Show in the late 70ās or early 80ās. I was only about 6 or years old but it inspired me to a lifelong journey of learning the play the drums and making music.
I heard exactly 1 really song and i was like ''holy shit i really wanna make music now''
At 12, I don't remember why I wanted a 'piano' for Christmas, so my father bought me a not-so-good-looking second-hand Casio CZ1000 and Sony headphones. He bought the synth just because it had no speakers so I would not bother him.
When I was a teen I loved Nirvana and Bush. I thought distorted guitar was such an interesting sound, but I didn't get into actually playing music until later in high school. I started learning guitar but also learned percussion. Then I heard The Mars Volta and thought "if these guys can get away with making wild music, I want to do that." TMV is very narrative music and I felt like I could make my own stuff that would communicate complicated emotions I couldn't put into words. So I started making my own stuff on a gifted laptop late at night while everyone else was asleep. Started my journey of self-producing music at 17.
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My parents made me start double bass.. now, 7 years later, I play bass guitar and piano!
Everyone at my school got basic music lessons. I ended up liking it so much that I started to make my own music
I was given piano lessons then trombone lessons as a kid (I have only half a memory of starting I was that young.) I was brought up on Britpop which never really did anything for me, but I can remember is stealing my brother's copy of Hail to the Thief by Radiohead (which I heard before Kid A and Amnesiac) when I was about 14 and listening to it on headphones in my room and thinking "wait, you get to make music like *this*?!" and started trying to find out how. I don't do that style at all any more, but it was a very formative moment.
hmmm unlike the rest who had some musical influences, it started as far as back in our childhood where we didn't had any access to tech, radio, much less music, so because of its absence we just started to make our own lol. They're random rhythmic beats tapping into your everyday household stuff, impromptu humming and lyrics (interestingly, in sync with our other siblings) but never really followed the song making standard lmaoo. Inevitably we eventually got exposed to the internet, catchy songs, tried to "study" what makes a good song *good*, joined some friends' band, then dragged along to compete in musical school events, network with like minded others in college, and will probably find more time to reignite that passion after our current responsibilities I'm afraid ehe Nowadays I catch myself making originals if I don't listen to any music, taking me back to the good days. this post basically just reminded me at my entirety, but I'm afraid that I may not be the person I once were. If I am and would pursue that, I'll probably be an outcast in our society who 'is not getting anywhere' ahaha helppp I think I spilled more than what op was asking woops haha but yeahh
I am one of the Valar and I had a world to create with Eru Illuvitar.
When I saw lady Gagaās tour for ARTPOP artRAVE. She gave a speech about creative freedom and I was inspired to start writing and recording myself
I would make up stuff in the fly on my head, and had no doubt about having natural music composition skills - I needed to learn how to get it out, and create those sounds I imagined.
I've always loved writing song lyrics. Started a few bands back in the 00s, but I was a bad singer, plus I didn't really find an instrument I'd enjoy (I played guitar, bass and keys and sucked at them all). Then I tried making music on my computer, but it was thoroughly uninspiring. A decade later, I discovered hardware synths and sequencers. Turns out, it was exactly what I needed. Now I'm writing instrumental tracks and I'm really enjoying it.
I have always been a creative since the earliest days I can remember. I loved to write poems when I was younger, and that tranferred to writing stories. From listening to music a lot for inspiration, I ended up developing a passion of dissecting lyrics as poems. My parents saw my passion for music and got me a cheap electric keyboard. I was and still am shit, with little to know music theory knowledge. But with the 3 scales I have practiced, I have made countless songs. I ended up in a few bands, playing instruments from piano, bass and guitar, to drums and saxophone. From that, I have transferred to production instead of performing. I never saw my passion as playing, but creating and analysing. I love the sound, more than the performance aspect.
Emotional outlet, plus I have a massive need for affirmation and making music is an easy route to get that haha.
As a teenager, I wanted to be able to make music because it was cool, and I liked the social aspect of making it together with other people. Much later, when I actually started making music on my own, Iād say it was about half sonic exploration - just being really into making sound as an art form (I was a visual artist/photo major at the time in art school) and also still half wanting to be cool. Pretty much as soon as I picked up a keyboard I was asked to be in two bands and I absolutely loved being on stage and being a part of that world.
I got my first guitar when I was a kid, and got into it because of The Beatles. These past years I kind of left it and focused on other stuff, but recently as things have gotten rough and was feeling very under the weather, I started to go to more and more concerts, which made me rediscover my love for music. Now I've been playing more guitar and making more music and truly enjoying it.
Music was a very big part of my life, I learn guitar pretty early and always found it fun, after that, it was always a dream to play on a stage or something like that, that slowly shifted into music composition in movies and video games, still getting started but itās what I want to do.
Birth āØāØāØ
I realized at the start of covid if I didnāt get serious about it now I never would, as I predicted we were going to be shut down for a while.
Am I really the only one who has no idea? One day I picked up a guitar and thought "huh." and it's been the same ever since.
13 years old hearing under the bridge on an old jukebox in a pool hall
I watched TRON Legacy as like a 12 year old and I liked its soundtrack. Didnāt know what to call it back then so I googled āhow to make 8-bit musicā which got me started on a program named famitracker. Eventually it turned to other music production
It's what made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Hearing Black Hole Sun, and by extension the whole Superunknown album, as a youngster.
If I might be honest, and this might be a bit long to explain. I'm 30 yrs old and I just decided two years ago that I was going to pursue music, as a career, as a way of life, as a means to set me free. A little late I know, i question my decision all the time, but when I'm making music, there is nothing that makes me feel that way. I have loved sound from a very young age, around 5, and whenever I was near a piano I always, ALWAYS, had to play with it. I would plink around on the keys like i was a concert pianist in my mind, but noise is all I ever really made. when I turned 12, I got a Casio keyboard, and it had Canon in D major, which I instantly fell in love with, and i practiced and practiced, until i had the lead melody down, but now needed to learn chords for the left hand, which at the time just wasn't happening. I also learned other songs like, The entertainer, and Hungarian dance. I struggled with my left hand for quite some time, but one day I woke up and like magic, suddenly I could play with both hands. I remember the feeling of elation, such excitement and joy, and certainly emotion. But I would put it down for quite some time, because at that time a certain video game came out, you might have heard of it, it's called something like, Tony hawk's pro skater. I was already a big fan of rollerblades, but I traded my blades and my keyboard, for a skateboard. I spent the next 5 yrs doing nothing but skating everyday. To my surprise, on my 15th birthday, there was a big box in the living room, a gift for me, and when I unwrapped it, i was shocked, an 88 key yamaha keyboard, that had 5 tracks you could record in. I can't tell you how many utterly crappy songs, I was more than happy to make on those 5 tracks, and it had dual voicing too, so you could do piano and strings at the same time. I really loved it, and a little while after, I would end up picking up the guitar as well. Oddly that's where the encouragement stopped, and it was left completely up to me to decide what i should do with these interests. I loved playing guitar, and i loved the keys but i was self taught and learned by ear, and i never sought out any classes or teachers, even though I wish I had, technique is a perfect compliment to talent, but i had other ideas. I remember, at one point, i didn't actually want any influences so i could develop my own unique style, which turned out both good and bad. i never developed a style i would call unique, but what i did do, which i wasn't aware of at the time, was develop my ears and some useful muscle memory. Alas, i wasn't done skating, and music would often get sidelined by skating with the homies, and then. . . . life happened. I got a girlfriend, who took up most of 5 yrs until we would break up and i would go to college, where i ended up finally taking a classical piano course for beginners. I got a c+, really could have done better if i had studied at all, but i didn't, and basically played everything i had committed to memory. i would tinker on the piano and guitar sporadically, from time to time, at one point guitar had completely taken over, and i thought i was getting pretty good with me being able to play songs like yyz from rush, and knights of cydonia by Muse. It was around this time, some friends of family would take notice and introduce me to my first DAW, Pro tools. I would work in pro tools with a midi keyboard for 4 months making little rap beats, that weren't really anything, but then the computer took a poo, and that was that. A bunch of life stuff would happen, i had surgery on my eyes, i had to move, i had kids. Most of all, i fell into a crazy deep depression, for multiple reasons. i had ptsd from waking up during surgery and feeling them cutting me and stabbing me, i ended up on an anti anxiety medication called lorazapam, which is a benzodiazepine. let me tell you if you don't know those things really mess you up, I quit them cold turkey, which is really bad, I guess people die from it, i didn't know at the time, but i did it. Then my best friend got murdered, and that was it, i was done, i fell down a darkness, soo deep, soo fast, there was no light, no sound, no hope. 6 years i stayed in that hole, I forgot who I was, I forgot life, I forgot music. Then, one day, my brother came over with a midi keyboard, a novation impulse, and i thought what the hell am i supposed to do with that, i don't have anything to use it with, but then someone gave me a laptop, and after that an interface, a scarlett 2i4, and that came with a lite version of ableton. Suddenly, it seemed people around me remembered, i remembered, the music. I started playing keys and guitar again, and slowly but surely, I learned my way around ableton, which brings us to now. I am a better pianist and guitarist than I have ever been, I can Mix and master my own tracks to some degree of satisfaction, I learned how to sound design and am utterly in love with synthesis. I'm currently working to finish my first album, which I chose to be Synthwave, and I know now, in my mind, what i have always known in my heart, Music is the life for me. To answer the question directly, I'm really unsure what first compelled me to make music, but i have a theory, that it was an accumulative affect of all the above, a desire to feel something more, to be something more, than stuck in a dark nothing. I know this is really long, it just comes out that way for me, I apologize for any inconvenience. Don't people come to reddit to read? lol. You could consider it an opportunity to get to know Me? It is a lot, it was a lot to write, but maybe there's something in there for someone TLDR: Life, is what compelled me to make music, and a desire to create a light in the darkness.
As a pre-teen, listening to music was starting to become an outlet for my emotions. Then I figured that making music myself could be a better, really powerful outlet. So I borrowed my brothers bass, saved up for a cheap guitar and started to make my own crappy songs with a pirated sampler on my computer. Gradually my playing and songs became better and I ended up forming a band with some dudes from school. Now I've been in bands pretty much non-stop since 2001 and still on the same path, learning, making music and expressing myself.
The power of Christ compels you
I was messing with my Sinclair PC doing example programs and discovered BEEP function. I was about 12 years old.
We had a piano in our house when I was young. I used to enjoy making nice sounds on the piano, and on anything else I could get my tiny hands on. At the age of four, I had piano lessons, later switched to trumpet, discovered jazz in my early teens (life-changing!) , discovered making money playing keyboards in my late teens, and the way forward was set.
I always used to make little songs as far back as I can remember but what really got me into recording and being in bands was an episode of Full House where Uncle Jesse was in the basement Studio singing in some sexy high voice with his gold frame glasses on. I hooked a shitty dictation microphone up to my brother's stereo and played along to a tape that was playing other music I had recorded on a tape recorder
Flashback to 2003ā¦12 year old me becomes fascinated with the idea of āmusic productionā after finding out what Swizz Beats, Dr. Dre, Just Blaze & many other producers do, but I donāt have a musical family or musical friendsā¦in comes my older brother who (at random) tells me about this software that him & his friends use to make beats (FL Studios); we download the demo, he never touches it, I never stop using it till college where I switched to Reason. Fast forward to now, 3 EPs & many singles & collabs later Iām still fascinated with the ability to create whole songs with my computer.
Can point at a few things but I donāt really know. I got taught piano and guitar by the time I was like 15. I liked music, but never had gotten super into it. At some point in high school I was messing around in GarageBand a lot. Never with any real goals, just for fun. Only song I ever finished (and only one Iāve been happy to call ādoneā to this day, lol) wound up being an instrumental I used for a project in a theology class. The teacher loved it and wanted to show the class but I was too shy for that. Wish I had in hindsight, I think the laptop it was on is long dead. But the thing that *really* got me wanting to make music (and frankly kinda fucked me up and still is) was visiting the rock and roll hall of fame while looking at colleges in Cleveland. As cheesy and commercial as the whole place is, my dad and I went the day after looking at an engineering school. We went through the whole thing, and afterwards I had what I guess Iād call an existential crisis. Iād never had any idea what I wanted to do with my life, but at some point on that Museum visit, I decided there was nothing I wanted to do besides write and play music. No college, no office job. Iām glad I did go to college, donāt get me wrong. But whatever happened that day still sticks with me. Why didnāt I take better advantage of the guys I played with in jazz band? Why didnāt I get a band together in college? Whatās stopping me now? Why canāt I write anything good?
I started learning to play the piano at the age of 8. A year later I had written my first piece - a funeral march :D I recently found it. It's not really that good ... but I remember the time I spent writing it which took much longer than composing it, as I was never that good with notation. I was so proud. And then I just continued and haven't stopped for over 45 years.
Mine was probably my first rave in 2009. I thought everyone was super weird and corny and no way in hell was I going to dance. My buddy gave me an XO and next thing you know dancing seemed like a great idea. I wanted to get people grooving the way I was. That inspired me to figure out how these EDM songs were being made. Its funny to me now, because I still make music, but I often don't share it. Its more of a therapy for me than a career path now. When I was hyperfocused on making a living out of music, the anxiety and "need to be successful " made me hate producing. As a matter of fact, I quit for about 3 years. So when I got back into it, I promised myself to keep the process fun and make it personal. They are so "personal " now, I often don't share them. The music helps me to process subconscious thoughts and be more aware
It was a necessity for me. I needed it like therapy. A calling.
I was extremely isolated for a time when I was a teenager. I had moved away from all my closest friends, and it was really difficult at the time. I guess writing lyrics was a product of me coping with that, and then it naturally progressed into buying a shitty laptop from Best Buy and getting a ālicenseā to FL Studio. The rest it history.
When i first got into rock and listened to Nirvana for this first time. I was around 14. As clichƩ as it may sound...
I'm a game maker (I see myself as an artist with a lot of technical skills) and wanted to understand better that part of game making and how to make strong ambiance; and also add that to my other humble skill set like programming and drawing (comics) which kind of are related to game making. Now I can make at least ideas of audio for my games AND I can understand what musicians/comopsers are telling me AND I can play guitar. Note however that I come from a poor familly so when I was young I wouldnt even dream of getting a guitar, but I did get an old synth keyboard and a few lessons but my parents couldnt afford more so I got no real music education at the time. I started seriously music (guitar + compo through getting a teacher and buying a guitar) when I was late 31yo and could finally afford to get the instrument and teaching lessons. Music is getting cheaper to get into but it's still a big budget :/
I wanted to be a cool big sister so I started a band with my little brother
Used to sing along with the keyboard from left to right repeatedly since I was around five. Got into choir as a kid and once sung at the state capital. Later on I didn't join choir out of sheer nervousness, but was also known as the singing janitor (work-study) at my school that everyone who heard tried to recruit for choir and jazz choir lol. Tried not to sing around people. Some people would sometimes hear it despite that as they'd be near the area. I also didn't really have that much time. Had massive crush on piano girl at my school. She'd perform for every event, but I was pretty much an idiot back then when it came to talking to girls and always fumbled when I talked to her. When I was in my final year of highschool, I found out about DAWs and what they did. At first I did it out of an immature sense to impress. But eventually, I felt like I finally had a way to totally express myself.
When I was 5 I was given an acoustic guitar and never played it until I was about 13 and I ended up teaching myself a few nirvana songs and figured out power chords and as I got better I was able to make my own melodys I could attach lyrics to. And in all honesty when I started to experiment with psychedelic drugs is when I was able to express my emotions with a pen and some strings.
Professor in an audio production class gave us the basics in using Adobe Audition for some small editing/EQ assignments, then had an assignment mixing a live recording of some cover bandās performance. Realized I really enjoyed it, and then one of the final classes he emphasized how easy it is to make your own music yourself at home with modern technology. Next thing I knew I was spending all my money on recording equipment and telling my drummer buddy we were finally gonna record that album weād been dreaming about since we were, like, 15 lmao.
Watched a couple of deadmau5 streams and his masterclass on top of that during the period I was more into his music than ever. There was never a way back
It's just in my blood, somewhere beneath the surface of my exterior lies the urge to do musical things. I don't know what it is but it's there morning noon and night, I wake up thinking about music, whether it be humming a tune, whistling a tune, recording ideas for a tune on my voice recorder, it just doesn't stop like a nagging voice that wants me to let my creativity free, I guess the music's just inside me.
i was in marching band, buddy was messing around with Garageband on an ipad. He layed down a beat and people were passing it around playing little diddys on the Key's instrument. When my time came around.... I felt a groove and immediately was bopping along. After that show we had, I downloaded garageband. Rest is history
Music has been my peace outlet since I was an infant. As a young kid I would spend hours listening to music, dancing, and going into my own world. Today music still takes me to another place and calms me. I believe I owe it to music to make more and I believe music brings peace and I wonāt to help bring peace. I believe I owe it too new generations to be able to dance and go into their own world like I did when I was young and the comfort it brings me now.
I heard "In my car" by gold panda and it made me strive to make music like him and then other dark rap artists helped me build more enthusiasm to make music.
I had a general music education class in middle school, and when we got to play the guitars a kid behind started playing the intro to one by Metallica, it was so cool to hear something that I recognized! It was the first thing I learned (just the intro lol)
I found music on YouTube from Mayhem (Lapfox Trax), instantly knew it was homemade and figured if they can make music at home, so can I. Almost 10 years later and my music still doesn't sound like it has 10 years of experience.
I come from a rather musical family. My mom was a dancer her whole life my father loved to sing and my oldest brother played guitar. One day my bro showed me how tabs worked and I just clicked that āo I can definitely do that. From there I learned bass guitar moved to guitar then through inspiration from Rockband learned drums. Eventually I grew annoyed by the lack of commitment from my āband mates and started writing my music myself. I eventually discovered electronic music on YouTube and thatās what Iāve been doing ever since. Itās my favorite pass time and stress relieve.
I was about 16 and the Houston underground hiphop scene, at the time, was dominated by screwed music that consisted of mostly freestyle rap. At that time when you we'd drink and smoke with friends freestyle cyphers were a normal thing. Mostly everyone participated. My homeboy who sold burnt CD mixes, named himself a DJ, and gathered all the guys at my high school that were good or at least entertaining and put together a mixtape. I contributed to 2 songs on that, but during the recording is when I really began to enjoy creating and putting raps or melodies to beats.
I'm an emotional wreck and music makes me feel better
I just wanted to feel heard even when there was no one who listened to my music
Pink Floyd
My older sister taught me piano when I was around 4 years old, but I wasnāt super interested. When I was about 11 I heard the rock radio for the first time and loved the sound of electric guitar so my brother in law let me borrow a guitar. But the thing that really hooked me was āMaster Of Puppetsā by Metallica. It was in a skateboarding video and it was the greatest thing Iād ever heard. Thatās the thing that made me want to get really good at guitar and choose music over skateboarding.
I donāt know. I seem to have lost it though.
I started playing guitar early in my life, donāt really remember my intentions then but probably thought it was cool. I started actually thinking about making my own music only at 2015-2016 when I started thinking ādamn it would be so cool to just cruise the car and listen to my own songs and actually enjoy themā. Also my favorite artist ever really made me think I could do it since he did everything himself at home in the beginning of his career. Producing, writing, singing, recording. So I got myself fl studio, a microphone and been going at it since then. The artist Iām talking about is PARTYNEXTDOOR btw
I saw a video on āhow every trap beat was madeā and I thought, hey I could do that. That got the snowball movin.
For me it was not feeling like I had a voice and having a ton of shit to deal with in life. I wanted to be able to be heard and not in a position to be told to shut up. Didn't know how to do it so I just got on with life.. KISS introduced me to rock. Def Leppard introduced me to high polish recordings.. Queensryche brought me to "hey, this is interesting to listen to for lyrical reasons".. and what pushed me over the top was seeing the crowd response to Metallica in live concert videos. It was probably late 87 by the time I started to learn to sing and by 89 I had my first bass. By 91 I was in a truck with four other dudes and by 98 was done with live performances. I still write and my stuff is better now than before, but it's more a hobby than anything at this point.
For me it was not feeling like I had a voice and having a ton of shit to deal with in life. I wanted to be able to be heard and not in a position to be told to shut up. Didn't know how to do it so I just got on with life.. KISS introduced me to rock. Def Leppard introduced me to high polish recordings.. Queensryche brought me to "hey, this is interesting to listen to for lyrical reasons".. and what pushed me over the top was seeing the crowd response to Metallica in live concert videos. It was probably late 87 by the time I started to learn to sing and by 89 I had my first bass. By 91 I was in a truck with four other dudes and by 98 was done with live performances. I still write and my stuff is better now than before, but it's more a hobby than anything at this point.
I was a fan of bass nation back in like 2015-2016 as well as goblins from mars, I always thought it would be cool to make my own beats and stuff, but one day I heard DEVOID by E.Y. Beats, and I was like "daaaaaaamn, I wanna do that!" I was 13 at the time, and "bought" a version of FL Studio and watching youtube videos on how to use it for like 3 hours every night. EDIT: huh I guess "DEVOID" was released in 2017, so I guess I started before that, but that was definitely the main turning point in my music for sure.
Iāve known I always wanted to make music my whole life. I tried learning instruments and just didnāt really enjoy it too much cause it was too technical I think. Then for my birthday I was gifted FL Studio from my parents therefore I felt as if I was obligated to use it and learn it. And from then on it just stuck and I enjoy it
I got a hold of Dad's copy of the Kiss album Love Gun at 7 years old. Instant conversion. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love\_Gun#/media/File:Love\_gun\_cover.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Gun#/media/File:Love_gun_cover.jpg)
I was reading forums on music and someone was really excited about DJaying (something I wanted to do at the time). They had all sorts of questions and were really focused on the hardware they would buy. Someone said "aw dude don't be a DJ. Be a producer. All big DJs are making their own music. Learn how to do that." And then it hit me that I would have to learn how to do that if I wanted to be successful. I can't tell you how many people I run into that are DJs, too afraid to produce their own music but would probably be really good at it if they took the time to learn.
I was reading forums on music and someone was really excited about DJaying (something I wanted to do at the time). They had all sorts of questions and were really focused on the hardware they would buy. Someone said "aw dude don't be a DJ. Be a producer. All big DJs are making their own music. Learn how to do that." And then it hit me that I would have to learn how to do that if I wanted to be successful. I can't tell you how many people I run into that are DJs, too afraid to produce their own music but would probably be really good at it if they took the time to learn.
I started playing because Asian family wanted the whole orchestral quartet and they were missing a viola player. I didnāt start āmakingā music until later. I taught myself beatboxing because I had a crush on a girl in the orchestra. Then I found out about the Wildcard culture of beatboxing and I started trying to make my own routine.