I’ve been making music since I was about 11 years old.
I played my first instrument, the baritone, in band class in 6th grade and ever since then I have enjoyed playing and creating music. I was first chair baritone, but the school band didn’t really fulfill my desire to make music. School band is conformed to specific songs, rules, and mannerisms, so I quickly realized that it wasn’t something I desired.
Several years passed and I made my way through high school. It wasn’t until experiencing some intense life struggles late in high school that I rediscovered music again. I slowly but surely taught myself how to make music on my crappy Pentium processor computer with 1 gigabyte of RAM and the cheapest version of FL Studio 4. My computer was really slow and limited my creativity, so my musical projects were very bad. I remember longing for a great computer that would allow me to make limitless music with endless sounds and effects. I kept on making music as best as I could and teaching myself new things along the way.
Music was a way for me to escape the harsh realities of my personal choices and every day dramas of life, and it still is to this day. When I make music, I completely zone out and forget about what is worrying me at that moment in time. I use the emotion from my day and transmute that positive or negative energy into sound frequencies and emotional melodies which eventually turn into beats and songs. I feel like all musicians understand music as their own personal outlet of freedom and creativity, and no one can take that away from us.
I keep making music because I love it. I have loved music for the majority of my life, and have taught myself everything I know through trial, error and passion fueled by a desire to become a better musician. Learning music on your own without lessons takes a lot longer, but you develop more love for the art in the end. I’ve been using FL Studio since version 4, which leaves me at over 10 years of experience making music with the program.
Every musician has their instrument and software of choice, and I don’t feel that it is the equipment that makes the musician, however, it is the musician that makes the equipment. Without musical knowledge, a person with the best equipment in the world would make some of the worst music, although it does provide them a unique advantage if they have the desire to learn and improve. I’ve also taught myself how to play piano and guitar over the years and I highly encourage you to learn to play an instrument if you have not done so yet in your life.
Music can be a great stress reliever and outlet for creativity. Keep playing.