This year I can truly say that I have found myself. I have been teaching myself music for 5 years now. I feel so blessed that I felt the courage in the beginning to continue with my practices, even when I didn't feel like it. I was overcome with emotion in the run-up to the release of my music. Thinking back to how I started, I felt so privileged to be in the presence of other musicians. This year, I knew exactly what I wanted to create, and I had a true vision of my album and honours project. I had a confidence that has allowed me to overcome the challenging newbie stage as a singer and musician and producer. It has taken me years to properly learn the mental skills, which I quickly learned to be the most important aspect of creating music. I create to hear the music in my psyche, to feel the emotion in the chords, and the groove we are creating. It is the feeling the emanates through our music, that creates a bond with the world. It allows us to connect with ourselves at the deepest level imaginable.
Then there was the physical aspect of practice, intensive study of songs, sheet music, and transcription. Dissecting music into pieces rather than a whole has helped me visualise whilst playing or creating music. It allows me to visualise the sonic field and place each element. Finding my own voice and sound as a producer has been a challenging yet rewarding experience. I have experimented all year with a range of sounds and textures, different genres and emotional inspirations for the components of my song. For example, listening to a lot of Stax and Mo-town soul records on repeat and really getting the knack for WHAT and HOW the engineers and producer created the sound. A lot of grit and colour due to the anlage nature of which it we recorded to tape. But this sound has been hailed in modern times by many artists and bands, it creates an almost instant throwback or vibe to the track. Recording, mixing and producing on my own has been great fun and vie learned so much that I really would like to work as a sound engineer now. As a musician, it gives you such clarity in what a song or record needs, When I listen to an instrumental for example. I can hear all the parts that aren’t there yet, string arrangements, Backing vocals, funky basslines. Studying old music has given me the ability to create a sonic picture in my head of what I would like the song to sound like. I feel this mental; imagery and mental rehearsal Is a huge part of what helps musicians learn. Being in the moment, closing my eyes and physically hearing what want the song to sound like, somehow allows me to streamline my ideas into DAW form. I experimented with creating chords from many instruments. This has become a signature sound throughout the album. Each instrument plays one note, harmonising with the other timbres creates a lush harmonic landscape often heard in string and horn arrangements, this is because each voice is colouring the chord in beautiful ways, and movement in any direction creates counterpoint harmony which is so pleasing to the ear. J.S Bach was the master of counterpoint and has been a great inspiration while composing and transcribing.
COLLABORATION
Collaboration is of huge importance, especially for music such as jazz, where groove is created between players to create swing. Players cook together to create a spontaneous composition, which is improvisation. While I had an unforgettable time playing and collaborating alongside Cos Voke, I felt that my collaboration could have been a lot stronger this year. My album was missing collaboration with other artists and musicians. This meant I spent a lot of the time creating and experimenting but also studying and learning my processes when writing, producing, and arranging my music. What do I like? What was my vision? I am greatly inspired by Soul, R&B, Jazz, Funk and Gospel music. In my studies as a pianist, I found the greatest musicians would be from church. I would spend hours watching videos, studying them playing amongst other incredible church musicians. This inspired my playing style and harmonic choices when composing. Jazz and gospel chord voicings create a sophisticated sound in my playing. These are essential genres to learn to create the harmony appropriate for any genre.
What allowed me to explore different facets of my musical identity was my love and affinity for all types of music. I love country music and pretty much any songwriting with acoustic guitars. My love for simple harmony, combined with my knowledge of jazz and blues created an interesting place for me to start writing my album. The album ended up with a sublet mix of these facets of my writing style. A lot of acoustic songs, with plagal and gospel influences. Reflecting on my production skills, I could have created a higher-quality album working alongside professional engineers, producers, and other highly skilled musicians. I set out wanting to write perform and produce everything on my album. I look up greatly to artists such as Stevie Wonder, Prince, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, and Quincy Jones. Artists and producers who had complete control over the vision of their art. Prince, for example, was a renowned multi-instrumentalist producer, who at age 19 played every instrument on his debut album. The times when I wasn’t alone, I thrived in the learning environment. Writing and arranging for Cos Voke allowed me fully to expel any procrastination I was feeling and put it directly into the music, as it wasn’t my name and I wasn’t attached to it, I felt a lot of easier contributing truly from my heart. We had many recording sessions that were DIY, I used the knowledge and techniques I had learned working alongside Magnus Collie in Eastlake studio. Knowing how to mic up instruments to get the timbre and sound that is in my heads, has been of uber importance. Different mic techniques create a different sound and experimentation is key in getting the exact tone that is required to fit in with the other sounds in a song.
SOUND SELECTION
I didn’t realise how important sound selection, is when producing. I listen to a lot of jazz, Brazilian and afro Caribbean and classical music. All these instruments are acoustic, real instruments that have a specific timbre. EQ, compression a reverb can be used to correct or sculpt the tone of these instruments, but the sound is fundamentally the same. Meaning in any of these tracks, the sound selection is perfect and works together in harmony to create a sonic landscape that is pleasing to the listener. When producing in a DAW, using midi and VST instruments allows for a huge range of choices. I found that finding samples that worked together was herded than initially thought. Tweaking the sound is the most important thing to do. Experimentation allowed me to find the sound that I was hearing in my head, that fitted with the rest of the track. This almost jig-sawing of sounds has allowed me to create full arrangements and streamline my work as a producer, and a listener. Some of the most important aspects of a successful song are the arrangement and sound selection, way before any production. The song itself must be a solid foundation of rhythm, harmony, and melody. Each sound has to work with one another, much like a painter adding different colours to his palette, each has an emotional connection to the track and works to paint a picture or ‘story; this is done through the lens of the producer and arranger. I have made extensive use of field recordings. I experimented with various microphones and discovered that my Zoom field recorder worked best for picking up the audio. Processing atmosphere to create vintage and crunchy textures beneath my tracks gave me the lofi feel I was looking for.
EXPERIMENTATION
Turning the other way, facing the unfamiliar. It’s unusual to think it would be helpful, but my growth has come from experimenting. Creating different sonic textures at the source with my own instrument. And, postproduction with things like EQ, Reverb, and Delay. It can completely transform a sound to give a completely different vibe. Music to me is all feeling. It inspires me to create immediately, sending me down a different direction. My album reflects this nature of jazz.
CREATIVITY
Creativity has always been one of my strongest points in life. I am a hugely expressive and creative individual, and I have cultivated this over the course of my life. I never allowed the child-like qualities to disappear as a I grew older. Instead, I curated my skills as an artist and musician so that I could channel this energy through my music and art. It allowed me to feel confident, it allowed me to remain youthful in my experimentation and stopped me from overthinking my process. I was allowed to just do be, and to create. Over the past 3 years of my life, I have felt a huge block of my creativity. I have worked against the grain for a long time, trying to find out who I am as a creative. Sometimes feeling like I was moving in reverse, fast.
Writing, composing, and producing my own music became a challenge. I was struggling to finish pieces of music. I was creating every single day, and as soon as I got up, I felt compelled to play what is on my mind. It is a form of therapy and also my purpose. It gives me direction and motivation to continue, no matter how difficult things have got, how dark the light became. I have still been able to sit down and play my guitar, play my piano and sing what is in my heart. Allow it to come to the surface, which has been evidenced in the lyricism within the music. as well as the melodic and harmonic architecture of the songs. Believing in myself has taken time. I suffer from huge insecurities, I had to learn to appreciate my work, I had to learn to compliment myself and feel proud of my work despite no one seeing it. And you know, after many years I got the hang of it. I got used to smiling back at my artwork, crying at my music because it felt such a true and raw emotional truth that I was feeling.
WRITERS BLOCK
This was metalling challenging, too. My music and piano playing are a huge part of my self-esteem and self-image. I realised how much I depended on this and that it was straining. Having to constantly keep up with this image as a proficient pianist. Was I good enough? Am I enough? I began to feel like I didn’t know who I was anymore. Dealing with mental health issues, has been a blessing and a curse for my music. I have dealt with chronic procrastination, even though music is all I think about, I would not sit down and create due to overthinking, anxiety, ADHD and neurodiversity. I have felt unmotivated and void of any feeling, which impacted my song writing and practices. One would think this would help, to channel this into music but some days I just felt unable to come up with anything creative or felt a huge block. Writer’s block is real, and I gave experienced it for 2 entire years, I feel almost frozen. I have not learned any new piano pieces like I used to, and while I keep up with practicing my instrument, I have not been advancing in my classical or jazz studies for some time I feel. I do though believe that my ear and ability to play less notes have improved hugely. Knowing when to play, and when not to crowd the instrumentation is a hugely importance aspect of musicianship. Listening to jazz has greatly influenced this as I have it on constantly, I am able to inmate great horn players, singers and pianists. Listening to the song and the other layers, and what they are doing really has informed my decisions as a piano player. The more I play with other proficient jazz musicians the more I learn how to speak the language of music, to call and respond, to interact rhythmically with a trio or any rhythm section. This is how to create music, whether recording alone, in a studio with a full band and with engineers. Pretty much every instrument has inspired me to play the piano, to create the specific sounds or emotions that the song requires. It’s all about Playing for the song. The song needs a groove, and it also needs harmony that cleverly harmonises the top melody, to create whichever mood the song needs. Sometimes, sophisticated voicings with upper extensions create the exact mood needed. Other times it's very simple triads, with add9 or add4 suspensions to create a stronger plagal or diatonic sound.
Production: General exploration
Exploring different genres has been key in developing my own sound. I have included on my soundcloud the many different types of styles I explored while writing for my album this year. I’ve got a lot better at singing, rapping, and speaking efficiently. Recording my own vocals, I discovered that in order to capture a clear vocal performance you must minimise making too much noise. Wearing clothing that makes noise like tracksuit bottoms, the mic can pick it up due to the dynamic nature of the vocal performance. During quiet elements it’s important to pronounce words correctly as to avoid mouth noises. The jazz singers of the 50s were truly masters of the microphone as they had learned through trial and error how to correctly project the voice into an audience. I have improved in my recording technique immensley. Through trial and error, I have learned to be as relaxed as possible whilst recording, as every small movement is picked up by the sensitive cardioid microphones used for recording. Whilst recording piano, it is crucial that proper pedalling technique is used. Improper use of the pedals creates distracting noises when it is otherwise not needed for sustain purposes. Overusing the pedal can create mud and distraction. I like to take my shoes off whilst recording piano and always wear comfortable clothes that aren’t noisy, for example tracksuit bottoms or anything making a swishy sound. I aim to be comfortable as I like to move around and be physical whilst recording vocals, to get the best take possible.
Over the past two years, my experience creating and producing beats has been absolutely humbling. Regarding writing, as well as listening to any music, I have clearer vision. Hearing the general feeling, or message, instead of paying close attention to minute groove and sound variations. Often as producers, artists, musicians, engineers we will obsess over every element of the track, everything needs to be perfect, because we can now edit absolutely everything about an audio track. They had to log straight to tape machines back then. People had to thus perform quite brilliantly, first time.
No Quantize
This album was anti-quantize. Although I did experiment with all sorts of quantization options, and MPC swing settings to create drum interesting drum grooves, with some elements off the grid to create a jerky feel, associated with Hip-hop producer J Della. I found that keeping strings and keys not quantized created a natural feel within the grid, exactly how a musician would perform a real instrument. This is of uber importance as it creates coherence in a track where other elements are directly on the gird. Sometimes the listener can pick up if something is just being repeated over, copied and pasted. Playing the same part as one full take creates a much more interesting part that really draws in the ear.