Music is something that has been a huge part of my life since I was very young. I have recently found myself embarking on an entirely new journey with regard to musical creativity, and this has lead me, during lockdown especially, to a steep new learning curve and ultimately to me composing and producing my own piece of new music.
While this may be something that many people do, and indeed many of my friends do well; on a regular basis, it has never been where my head was at with music. I was a performer.
Since 11, I have predominately played percussion (drums mostly). I won auditions as a child, took music and drama in school and have played in bands up and down the counties I have lived in. I have played the drums more than anything else and to a good standard I believe. I have also played a bit of guitar and piano on occasion and I’ve dabbled as a DJ of mostly house, dance and trance over the years. Purely for my own enjoyment.
I have not however written any of my own music (beyond music class), or developed anything up to a point I could release it. Until now.
I have taken this route to try and satiate my need to be involved in music and to be creative with it despite my much reduced movement. Something that prevents me from playing my drums at the moment.
Now, although I love music from almost every genre out there, as a starting point I wanted to get stuck into the kind of ambient music that is embodied in chilled/ambient/movie soundtracks. The kind of area you might find John Williams or Hans Zimmer, and while I don’t pretend that the quality of my first ever original music piece is even in the same league, I’ve learned a lot about the process and that’s invaluable.
I’ve also had some great feedback, which is nice.
The Process
As a drummer, on either an acoustic or electric kit, it is very rare that I need to be involved in the same preparation or creativity that the rest of the band might be involved in. Of course I need cues and a set list and my own equipment and instruments (and I may improvise), but as for setting up at a gig, or writing music, setting up the PA etc; I’m very rarely needed/involved in the sound setup or composition.
It’s almost session work, but as a regular member of the band family.
So having to learn about VSTs and DAWs, and needing to sort out new midi controllers to start recording the music I had rolling around in my head, only to then realise I needed to sort out the latency of the sound on my PC so I could play the keys properly was a huge influx of new data.
I had to learn a lot, and quickly.
I already had drums that I could use as a midi controller of course, a few guitars and a PC, but that was it. None of my stage equipment was relevant.
So with the help of some composer friends (and old band members), I settled on my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), which is Waveform 11. I found a range of virtual instruments and got them installed. I made sure I got a better microphone with a pop filter and a new XLR to jack cable so I could route it through the new MixVibes audio interface. I threw a new 5.1 Sound Blaster card in the PC so I could use ASIO for the midi and reduce the latency so it was unnoticible when I played and then with the help of the same friend having a spare, I bought one of his Korg Micro Key Midi USB keyboards (three octave version).
So I now have drums, guitars, keys, vocals, instant sound and a range of digital instruments. It’s equipment I can certainly upgrade in time, but it is good enough to get me going.
I only had a few issues during the whole process (once I had a vague idea what I was doing), with one of the main issues rearing its head after the track was completed. I tried to export the music to MP3/WAV, but it was rendering silently.
It turned out to be the DAW having an issue with VST3 (which I had used), and so a simple change to the VST2 (64bit) versions of the same instruments let me render the track immediately.
I’m semi confident now that I have some idea of what I’m doing. Sort of.
The Music
The structure is not complicated at all. It is a nice ambient mix that allowed me to pick an idea and build the music I wanted around it.
I wanted to convey those mornings where you wake up and feel ready for the day. Those wonderful days where you wake up, fully rested and feeling well. Where the sun is shining in through your curtains and you can hear the birds tweeting in chorus and you slowly get up, stretch and head out into the day; hairs tingling on the back of your neck at whatever excitement might head your way.
That’s what this track means to me. Something I miss.
The track starts with birds tweeting, which is a real recording I took at home on the Isle of Anglesey early one morning of the dawn chorus happening just after 5am.
For now, I have absolutely no idea where this will take me. I’m not doing it for any reason other than to continue enjoying my musical creativity in spite of the health difficulties I’m trying to overcome.
If people like what I do in the meantime, then that’s a great bonus!
I have to say a huge thank you to my wonderful and very talented artist daughter for sorting the artwork out for my first release. She’s a digital artist in North Wales and does a lot of work with silhouettes and bright colours. She’s made a great job of the art for this track, which really depicts the feeling I was trying to convey.
If you’ve stumbled here and got this far, please do give her some support at Cerys Bailey Art. She’s absolutely fantastic.
My music links are:
Emmetelle Website
Emmetelle Soundcloud
Emmetelle Bandcamp
Emmetelle Mixcloud
Emmetelle Facebook
Emmetelle Instagram
Emma (Emmetelle)