Hello Music World!

January 29, 2019

Hello music world, when I first wrote this for some reason the blog post posted the wrong date (see above, nope not written in 2019!), anyway it got me thinking back to what I've done over the past year, how did I develop as a musician and most important how well did I cope with a 'black swan moment'.

Hello and Welcome To Be Musi!

The date of this post is January 29th 2019. Why this post has an incorrect date I have no idea as the date i wrote it was actually 20th May 2021. I’m currently in the process of writing the courses that you’ll hopefully join me on when be musi launches later in the year. Just like in all DAWs we have to suffer bugs from time to time although having a bug in this first post led me to think about what I was doing on the 29th January 2020 (not 2019 as this post would suggest)? What was I doing in life and what was I doing musically too?

Black Swan Moment

Looking back I’m fairly sure I was avidly watching and reading about events unfolding in China which were gradually spreading across the globe.

Europe was the first continent to suffer on a large scale at the hands of COVID. Codogno a small town in northern Italy saw their healthcare system almost collapse due to the number of hospitalisation in a short space of time. During that time it amazed me how we all (including me) became experts in science and virology; the language and terminology we began to adopted made us all sound like real experts. I remember telling my family and friends at the start of 2020, this is a ‘black swan moment’ and make sure you take vitamin D to avoid a cytokine storm. I had to google the spelling by the way, so as far as being the expert, spelling medical terms isn’t one of them. I became an expert in understanding graphs, graphics and spent many an hour discussing data and COVID numbers not really having a clue what I was talking about, all while others were succumbing to a strange disease that wouldn’t be noticed by some who were asymptomatic but equally robbing others of their lives.

The Beauty Of Discovery

Now, in 2021 we are living in a world where we have to come to terms with and learning how to cope with a new virus. In reality my understanding of science and medicine is still very superficial despite all I have read and watched, I still remain ignorant to most of it. However, When I relate that to music I realise that every week I learn something new, gain new terminology, techniques and production skills that help me to grow as a musician. I hope you don’t think I’m being disrespectful comparing music knowledge to those who have suffered and will suffer with this potentially terrible virus but the point I’m trying to make is that when you need or want to focus on something it’s amazing how much you can discover.

Don't Be A Part Time Science Expert Like Me

If you want to learn more about music, develop your technical skills as a producer, orchestrator or composer there is always something else to learn, something to discover that will broaden your musical understanding and ability to write better music.

The key though is not to be a sideline science expert like I became at the beginning of 2020. Talking as if I knew and fully understood the terms I was discussing with friends. Understanding something is about gaining depth of knowledge first and then applying it practically. The next step and most important step to becoming an expert rather than part time science guru is repeating what you’ve just learnt. Guitar is my first instrument, I spent hours when I first started to learn playing scales, learning techniques and had great teachers that taught me how to master the techniques through focused repetition, eventually the techniques I’d focus on became as easy as walking, effortless.

If you want to compose, arrange and produce with effortless ease I encourage you to focus on learning one thing perhaps once a week and repeat it until it troubles you no more. Once mastered fully, only then will you truly master the music you want to write.

Roblox vs COVID

If there’s one thing I can refer to myself as an expert in, it’s music and thinking back to the start of 2020 and the pandemic (although I just google pandemic and according to the Lancet COVID is not a pandemic it’s a syndemic!) I was working on a commission for a company called Turner writing music for a computer game on the Roblox platform. It was sort of strange working in my studio bubble away from the chaos unfolding in the world, working as a composer you’re mostly on your own so isolation didn’t feel much different, but writing upbeat fun superhero music syncing to brightly coloured coloured animation that would be enjoyed by children felt sort of strange.

Looking back now though my expertise as a part time scientist spouting medical terms really amounted to nothing and ultimately meant nothing either but having the opportunity to use my actual expertise to write music that potentially could have helped ease the boredom of millions of children in lockdown, well there’s something, however insignificant in the grand scheme of things that brings a sense of satisfaction.

I’m glad and thankful I have spent a lifetime in music and will endeavour to keep learning, sharing my knowledge and above all value life post our black swan event.