Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series with lots of Vangelis music.

Vangelis – Alpha is the music that changed my life 😀

I must have been between eight and ten when I first listened ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd. That was the sparkle. As a young kid, after listening to the original tape (from an older friend) non stop for a couple of weeks I decided that I wanted to make music like that. At the age of ten I was introduced to music theory at school and begun learning the keyboards. My music teacher was into Pink Floyd, The Beatles and Stevie Wonder, and that was the musical background I grew up with, along with tapes and vinyl records (that belonged to my parents) from Michael Jackson, Billy Idol, James Brown and several compilations of music hits from the 1970s and 1980s.

In my teens I started learning classical guitar and eventually got interested in electric guitar. During my mid to high teens I got introduced to Whitesnake, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, Queen, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen via another older friend who worked with my parents. He eventually introduced me (when he thought I was ready) to Chick Corea & The Elektric Band and Pat Metheny. This is where I consolidated my interest in electric guitar as my main instrument. I also explored other styles from Blue Grass to Classical music. In the late 1980s I begun listening to Heavy Metal more avidly, and Iron Maiden soon became my favorite band, although I also loved Judas Priest, Sepultura, Morbid Angel, Testament and Metallica, to name but a few.

[EDIT: I didn’t realise the Enter key automatically publishes the post instead of inserting a line break until it was to late]

I knew from early on that I wanted to be a musician. In the early 1990s I joined my first band, after having some experiences with friends, writing some music, and I filled the slot of the lead singer. After our first concert, there was a lineup change and I became the lead guitarist as well. We toured Portugal, north to south, for a few years with this band and recorded two demo tapes and a single for a compilation CD.

In the mid 1990s I moved to the south (I grew up near the capital) to study Physics & Chemistry and started playing covers in bands and eventually became a professional musician.

Fast forward twenty odd years, and after a health issue that nearly took my life, the global pandemic disrupted the music scene and I became interested in audio engineering (which I had been doing for decades without knowing much about it, mostly by instinct) and music production as a whole. That’s what I’ve been doing since, although I still perform whenever there’s work.

There’s a lot of stories to tell from those twenty years but it’s a long story that I’ll leave for another time.

Kind regards,

My love for music was born thanks to two people: my father and Stevie Wonder.

I started with a Casiotone MT-540 when I was 7 years old, a Christmas gift from my father. The first song I ever learned in my life was I Just Called to Say I Love You.

My father turned our basement into a studio, and it became my second home. Over time, it also became a source of conflict, because it was seen as the place of temptation. I would leave my school homework unfinished just to play with the Roland D-50 and S-50, and to randomly press buttons on a 12 track AKAI multitrack recorder and a 24/8 Allen & Heath mixer.

While the other kids were outside playing, I spent a large part of my childhood and teenage years in that recording studio.

Today I am still here, trying to keep my love for music alive by creating sounds. As a composer, I would love to do even more, but I do not complain. The community of musicians that I have built over the past 7 years, without even wanting to mention the name of my company, is the greatest achievement I have reached so far.

Thank you all for giving me the chance to share this little story.

I grew up in a family that appreciated music, but none were musicians. Somewhere around age 12 I decided I wanted to MAKE some music. I wanted to play drums, but learned enough to know that a cheap set would just fall apart, so I asked for a guitar. MOST cheap guitars are good enough to learn on. I took lessons for a few months. There was a “head shop” in my little town. Bear in mind this is 1971 in a small South Dakota town (SCANDELOUS!). Exactly what you might picture- Incense burning, tapestries, bongs, and a waterbed on display (they sold them). The proprietor played guitar and encouraged anyone who wanted, to bring their instrument and jam, so I did. My Dad sold insurance in an office next door and he thought it was a great idea. Jamming with others is what sealed the deal for a lifetime of musicianship.

I became friends with a drummer who was a few years older in High School, who got me “in” with the band director who allowed me to play percussion in the H.S. band (In this town H.S. started at grade 10) and guitar in Jazz band. My public school music teachers were just amazing, encouraging, dedicated educators who went above and beyond to help myself and others persue the craft. By the time I was a Senior, one of my friends and I were hired by the school district to assist the band director via a special program where by we received high school credits for our “jobs”. We learned to play all of the instruments and taught beginners (grade 5) private lessons. We also learned to repair band instruments, arrange string quartet music for horns, and even sit in any section of the H.S. band if we wanted a challenge. Teachers in S.D. are some of the lowest paid in the United States. It is a shame, and a travesty. I was so lucky to be mentored by three of the best.

I started in the early 70’s with one of the simplest instruments of all – tin (penny) whistles in various keys. It was hard to fine one that was in tune throughout the range but i was probably not paying enough. I also played the recorder which I had hated in my earlier music lessons in school. My one and only live performance was playing the tin whistle at my local folk club – it didn’t work out well as I was too nervous!

I then bought a Woolworth’s ‘Winfield’ electric guitar which almost put me off guitars for life – I think the strings were around a cm above the fretboard! My fried and I used to write & perform dreadful punky songs which we wrote and recorded on cassette.

A few years after I started working I bought a Wasp synthesiser and Spider sequencer which were fun. These were followed (and possibly preceded) by various Casio keyboards. I amassed a number of effects pedals and my tiny living room was a mess of cables! I didn’t really produce much though I had a bit more inspiration then than I do now despite having so much inside the PC.

I have tried playing guitar a few times over the years owning a Westone electric (which had lovely sustain) and a cheapish own brand acoustic. I just could never ‘get’ the guitar. With the keyboard I could see exactly where the notes were – with the guitar I just didn’t have a clue beyond the first few frets!

I didn’t do much at all for around 30 years focussing more on writing reviews and other articles for physical and online media – including a local folk magazine.

I got back into composing using aan early version of teh Sibelius software before getting Cubasis bundled with my Creative soundcard on my first PC. Very little of the music I created there was bounced out (as usual with me most were unfinished projects) so I ended up losing it when I changed PCs – I exported the midi but that didn’t go that well!

I then started using Sonar 8LE that I got with my Roland APro 800 controller and have progressed through Sonar Home Studio, Cakewalk by Bandlab to the new Sonar free edition – which may have an uncertain future as Peter has posited. I’m still only ever half creating things and haven’t written or arranged anything for a couple of years at least as other activities have taken over. Most of the time I am using my DAW nowadays I am just running through presets on the latest free or cheap synth I have acquired. maybe one day one of those will inspire me.

When I was younger I always used to hear music in my head that I couldn’t reproduce – now that I have the means to reproduce it to a large extent I don’t hear the music!!

Part of the reason may be that when I was younger I wasn’t particularly happy and, like my then musical hero, Tchaikovsky, that angst made me more creative. I am a lot happier now so perhaps teh urge to express myself just isn’t as strong – does anyone else have a similar experience? Of course it is possibly that, with the internet, I just have so many more distractions nowadays! I am constantly going down music rabbit holes, watching tutorial videos for software I don’t use and wasting time on Facebook!

Well that ended up being a bit longer than I planned – congratulations if you made it this far! 🙂