Judge Dredd To be musi

August 20, 2021

Why does be musi exist in the first place? Every good service has to start with a genuine reason to help others and provide the highest and best value offering a service that will genuinely solve a person's music or production problems. Let me share with you why be musi exists in the first place, from Judge Dredd, to the best outros in the world and a jam session at the Cucumbar that all led to the creation of be musi.

Judge Dredd

From the moment I could walk I was hearing music in my head, playing naturally on the guitar like a modern lovable little Mozart; friends and family would watch in wonder as I blasted through the riff of Wipe Out, my parents were so proud of their naturally talented son destined for the world’s stage patiently waiting to host this bright, talented little thing!

Oh who am I trying to kid, it was Ben (a family member) that blasted through Wipe Out, he could even play the drum part the talented little bugger! As far as I go, from the moment I could walk I had no interested in music whatsoever, in fact I’m not sure what I was interested in. I went through countless interests, karate, football, tennis, Nintendo 64 (I was amazing at Super Mario!), skateboarding, BMXing with the exception of Boy Scouts; I hated Boy Scouts! Music wouldn’t find me until my mate Spencer Johnson, thinking he was the saxophonist from Baker Street got a sax. I got a guitar emblazoned with Judge Dredd that I couldn’t play for anything; couldn’t even tune it judging by the number of strings I went through but I loved my Judge Dredd guitar. You could call it my Rosebud, I’ve considered finding that guitar again over the years as my music obsession has taken me from one journey to another.

Millions of people have heard my music. So, less the genius bit and taking a number of years to get here, perhaps my parents are proud after all?

Adam And The Ants And Adam

So, I’m not going to bore you with my life’s story but do indulge me, for in this blog I want to share my story so you can understand what be musi is about, how it came into being and why I want to share my knowledge with you and inspire you with my story!

Before being into music I was more into the covers of albums, which has always made me think maybe I should have gone into the visual arts rather than music but that’s possibly the imposter syndrome constantly kicking in! At that time things like album covers were my only way of seeing a world completely differently to my colloquial upbringing.

Culture Club’s and Adam And The Ants’ album covers were like looking into an alien world, little would I know many years later I’d be onstage performing before Boy George stepped onto the very same stage that evening.

The first time I saw an Adam And The Ants’ video on MTV it just blew my mind, that white line across his face and the buccaneer styling totally sparked my imagination. It must have made an impression because years later I’d be out with friends and Simon asked if I’d joined Adam And The Ants, safe to say I felt rather proud of myself!

Anyway skip forward a few years and I find myself in a band with Adam, who still is an amazing singer and songwriter who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on Disney and Turner projects over the past few years. We may not have hit the stadium circuit but we’ve had millions of people hear our tracks, featured on a number one album on the Amazon Charts and entertained millions of kids! We went through many band iterations but it was always the two of us. Adam started on the drums when we were signed to the biggest joke of a record deal. However, what wasn’t a joke was the legal cost to exit that deal.

Working with Adam is really where my love of learning everything I could about music started. First on the guitar and later in composition. We would stay up into the early hours listening to different artists breaking down their tracks from the drums to the vocals.

I used to love this; what’s more pleasurable than hanging out listening to music, sharing ideas, learning and having a good time? I feel that helped me so much in terms of my own development. I learnt that when you share your learning you’re not just more likely to retain that knowledge, you are more likely to see it from a different angle too.This is one reason why I created be musi. I want to share the experience that helped me develop as a musician in the best and most positive way, with friends. Sharing my knowledge and experience in a space where like minded musicians and composers want to discover and learn together can be very powerful and it creates great memories at the same time. Seriously, what could be more fun?

The Best Outros The World Has Never Heard

Being in a band was great but it had severe lows that in the end outweighed the highs of writing music, playing festivals and every (at that time) smokey dive and hovel across London. By this time Adam was singing and we had signed to a high ticket music manager.

Ours is a story that has been well prodded and besieged by artists for decades. Most notably Prince, who changed his name because Warner Bros had asked him to release less music, in 2010. Amanda Palmer was released from Roadrunner records after artistic disputes and more recently Raye, a British Brit award nominee went public saying “I have had albums on albums of music just sat in folders collecting dust, songs I am now giving away to A-List artists because I am still awaiting confirmation that I am good enough to release an album”.

Raye was highlighting the power labels have to control and dictate the output of an artist, a different context to Prince but essentially the same thing. I’ve read some journalists arguing it’s worse today but whichever decade or however far back you go it’s basically the same, just evolving with new technologies that bring new ways labels can control their artists.

Back to me and Ads. Our own much smaller form of control was being influenced, naively, by all manner of people brought in by our manager, telling us how we should dress, what we should look like, who we should sound like and “hang out with music journalists and take drugs with them!”. When the first look didn’t work the next look was to dress like Oswald Mosely. If you’re not aware of Oswald Mosely he wore (very) high waisted trousers, black roll neck sweater and dark hair slicked back. Did I mention he was also a Hitler loving fascist? Yep that’s who our manager wanted us to look like!

All of these pressures had a big impact on us, our own self belief and where we were actually going. Definitely not fascism though! One thing we did have confidence in was our writing but we were constantly being told we didn’t have a first single, “you’ve got your second third and fourth as well as an album but you just need that first hit!”. We needed a really catchy chorus but all our best hooks seemed to be in our outros. We still joke today that if outros were the part of a song that made a hit record we’d have 100s.

Give us a stadium full of dubious music fans and I can tell you right now they might have felt so so about the verses and choruses but mark my words when the outro kicks in we could be dressed to the nines in Mosely get up and the audience would have still loved us. It could be said, Adam and I might be the only song writers on earth to have written the best outros the world has never heard!

So how does this relate to be musi? I’ve been through the process of being controlled and see artists still going through that process or even feeling the need to copy, conform or emulate someone else’s style for fear of ‘getting it wrong’ or missing out on what’s popular now. be musi won’t make you a genius writer or even help you to write the best outros in the world (I’ve got that one covered!) but it will help you to find the creative freedom and expression that you are looking for, in a space where you can share your ideas with others and get feedback from your classmates, enjoying your musical journey, whatever that might be

Dream Date

So rolling forward past the best outros in the world and a near miss with fascism brings me to my first venture in television as a fully fledge pro composer. “Can I play it down the phone to you, so you know what I don’t want?”. “Sure” I said as I listened to another composer’s work who was about to be fired. As of writing this post I’ve been fired in the past three years so karma eventually caught up.

I couldn’t believe it, not only did I have my first paid job but I also knew exactly what they wanted based on hearing what they didn’t want, which is why the other composer was fired.

The show in question: one that would send me into to the stratosphere of dating television was Chantelle’s Dream Dates; I sill have the pink fluffy handcuffs, mints, toothbrush and wash bag given to me at the wrap party. The mark of my first job will always be a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs.

My short career as a manipulated rock star has helped in TV, games and media, being constantly told what to sound like was the perfect training ground for being constantly told what to sound like in TV.

So music written, definitely not sounding like the other composer led to my next issue, production. I was waiting excitedly to hear the first few bars of my music on TV for the first time and to be honest was a bit disappointed. It didn’t sound as strong and upfront as I wanted, I realised my mix and master wasn’t as good as it perhaps could have been which led to a quest for learning everything I could about mixing and mastering in order to be happy with hearing my music on TV.

Fortunately I have worked with some amazing mentors who have taught me a ton of stuff about getting a good mix. Years later this led to me wanting to share my knowledge with others to help them avoid the mistakes I’d blindly made early in my career. Mastering In Logic was the result and 1000s of people have taken my course of which I’m humbled and thrilled to have shared my production skills with others wanting to learn.

Mastering In Logic

Mastering In Logic was my first venture into creating a video course about production. It launched in 2016 and ran until 2020 providing as much value as I could to customers, I’ve met some amazing people along the way who have studied with me, which drove me to add as much value as possible with free logic templates, compressor settings and chains for mastering as well as hours of content.

There was two things I found frustrating about Mastering In Logic:

the whole site was geared to just mastering but there was more I wanted to share as a composer to add more value for my customers; who would often ask me to help them with composing.
Video courses are great but I wanted to add a personal touch by being able to talk to members live. Most composers today learn alone, searching for hours on YouTube, from a book, from a forum or from websites that make the instruments we buy.

If you’re like me chances are most of what you learn today is online; discovering on your own. Music isn’t about that, it’s about sharing, working and enjoying the thrill of creating something amazing together. One of my best night’s out was at a bar called the Cucumbar in London. It was a jam night in the spirit of Django Rheindhardt. What was amazing (apart from the music ) was watching beginners to seasoned West End pros all working together loving learning, playing and sharing music together.

This got me thinking, rather than just on demand video courses is it possible to run live classes where like minded people who want to learn about composing can get together and hang out?

be musi

And so be musi was born. It is my hope that be musi will have the same fun, shared experience just like that jam session at The Cucumbar. Not only were they having a blast playing and jamming together, the more novice musicians where learning. When they finished playing a song they’d stop and ask questions. The pros would demonstrate, share their knowledge adding immense value to the beginner musician.

I want be musi to be that, a place where you can learn, ask questions live, try things out in class and develop in an environment where you share your journey with other like mind composers and musicians.

If you want to experience the joy of working with others, learning more about music and being part of a friendly group of like minded musicians and like the idea of a regular weekly meet-up learning about composition then be musi could well be just what you’re looking for?

I’m excited about this new journey here at be musi and look forward to welcoming you to a coaching programme and teaching you very soon how to write the best outros the world is still yet to hear!