I found my love for electronic music to be too much and I downloaded Ableton for the first time in 2011. I started experimenting and "trying" to teach myself how to produce. I went through a pretty natural transition of sitting on my ass playing RuneScape aalll dayy to sitting in front of Ableton all day. I messed with as many features as I could and watched hours of tutorial videos (mostly massive tutorials though *facepalm*...I just really wanted to make those "l33t wub wubss").
Not too long down the road I started to get lazy - but I've always been an artist (visual before sound) and the drive to create in my new favorite medium was always there. I got so comfortable with how much I had learned (which felt like a lot then but was NOTHING in reality haha), and with my approach to production, that I just started coasting down that path - spending weeks/months busting out mediocre tunes with atrocious mix downs. ...And then I'd rush to upload them to soundcloud and attempt to send them to promo channels in hopes of actually getting somewhere (imo; all a mistake now that I look back. You know how some producer's have said "don't put out anything unless you're absolutely sure of it?" ...yeaah i'm an example of what not to be in that case haha. don't be like me! the proof is still up on SC though i’m easing into the deletion of my old tracks lol). I was really just fucking around, but I was kind of taking things seriously at the same time because I've always had an insane amount of passion for art and what I do. I think the reason why I was so motivated to stay on that path at the time was because I already had a small following to start with because of my activity on YouTube (as a runescaper l0l) before I started producing. I was getting good feedback from friends and I think I started becoming blind to my progress (or lack thereof) as a producer. This dragged on for a few years and I started to get frustrated and discouraged.
2015 finally rolled around, and i'll be honest, only three weeks into the year I had a very personal, profound, psychedelic experience that hit me with a strong wave of motivation and kind of sparked a domino effect of epiphanies in my life - one of them being about my progress as a producer and the use of my free time. I could go into alllll kiinds of detail on this but, at that point I really stopped to take a look at my life and faced some harsh facts. I realized I could have been working so much harder, and I should have been (considering the fact that I dropped out of college and i've been dead-set on making a career in music since 2012). Subsequently, I started changing my ways. I changed my goals from shit like "maybe get on this label someday" to "simply produce something you're proud of." ...So, I started pushing myself. I started reading again after years of not picking up a book and throughout the course of the year I plowed through 9 on different aspects of music (theory/mixing/history/the industry itself..everything I could get my hands on). This was all a nice chunk of new knowledge that I was loving but it still felt like it wasn't enough.. So I started watching tutorials again - MUCH "heftier" ones this time. I started keeping to myself more and deactivated my facebook account for a while, drastically cutting back the time I was spending on social media (much needed!). My boyfriend and I even went as far as to sell our TV and xbox when we realized how much time we were dedicating to unnecessary gaming and netflixing. Perhaps that was too far, but it was getting unhealthy for us... it's definitely been weird getting used to that, but no regrets (that's also forced us to be more social when we have friends over haha).
Now that it's 2016 (and nearly a year since my experience), I can't say that i've made it anywhere, but I can say that I'm on a better path now. I learned a lottt in 2015 and while it was agonizing to keep shoving information down my throat at times, I don't regret a second of it - i'm staying on that roll. I've also been working harder on graphic design and was fortunate enough to become MartyParty's (also 1/2 of PantyRaid w/Ooah of The Glitch Mob) official graphic designer which also opened a few doors to musical opportunities. He’s been a producer that I have looked up to for a long time, and we've developed a friendship and team of sorts. I worked up the guts to start sharing my music with him - he's one of the few people who's heard what I've been working on in the past year and he straight up said he wanted to collab with me/start a side-project, and release on a label (perhaps one of our own) later in the year. I didn't expect ANY of that to happen and it's been a huge motivator! (We're also nerding out, building an iphone app that i'm confident you guys will dig, because it's gonna smash the post-reach problem we all know and love >:] ...in a way haha).
Now I have 4 songs in the works for this year and they're already sounding better than anything i've done in the past. Just in the past two weeks i've written two songs that i'm actually really proud of (that's a first tbh!) and i've subsequently laid down the concepts and base of an EP which is something that I didn't think I'd be doing for a few more years at least. The ideas spontaneously hit me along side a wave of creative motivation and I rolled with it - it actually feels so right.
I feel like i'm kind of in the dark still, just working hard with absolutely NO idea what the future truly holds... but i've never been more confident and excited about my art and my goals in life. 2015 was like my year of learning, so I hope 2016 is my year of doing.
So that’s where I’m at so far! (sorry for the novel) Good luck to everyone else out there!
