Intro

For as long as I can remember, I have been using music programs. My earliest memory of using them comes from when I was in elementary school. My best friend came over to my house for a sleepover. I didn’t have any video games so the following morning when we got up, we Garageband up on the family desktop computer. I remember playing around with the loops and putting together what sounded good to my friend and I. Around 4 years ago, I started taking it more seriously. I saw it as not only a craft and hobby but as a potential future career. Now I use Logic Pro X, which is the upgraded, professional version of Garageband. For the explorations projects at Freestyle Academy, I was asked to either explore a new skill or build upon a current one. I choose to build upon my music production skills. To achieve this, I created a large number of beats and pushed myself to create a better one each time. I got this idea came from Kanye West who used to produce “3 beats a day” in order to improve his skills and eventually break into the industry as a producer. Along with a large number of beats, I also sought feedback from my peers. This helped me learn what was working well with my beats and what I needed to work on. Big thank you to Francesca and Tanshi for their feedback on my beats. This feedback helped teach me how to take constructive criticism, something that used to be hard for me. As for my production skills, I will continue to work and expand on them as I see myself with a future career in this field.

Process

For this project, I produced a large quantity of beats with some being much stronger than others. But I ended up landing on one beat as my “final” product. The beat itself and a screenshot of its Logic Pro X session can be found below. The first step in my production process depends on what mood am I in. Sometimes I may feel very inspired by a particular song and want to implement that idea or technique into a beat of my own or I just want to go and create something “new”. No matter what though, I almost always start with the drums. I believe that this is the most important part of a song and they can make or break a beat. However, for explorations, I strayed away from this and that is why I believe that some of the beats I made during this project period were not my best. After drums, I move onto bass. I feel that bass can really set the mood and, especially in Hip-Hop, it must fit well with the drums in the beat. After drums and bass, I work on the melody. This can be the hardest part for me sometimes as I am not classically trained whatsoever. However, I have taught myself some music theory and I generally have a good ear for what sounds good. Sometimes the melodies come really easily to me, other times, I can spend long hours trying to build a melody that works for the beat. In general though, I usually just play with chords and notes until somethings fits. Even as I have grown up and my equipment has upgraded, my process of production hasn’t changed too much from that little kid on the family computer.

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