One of my old friends who was once my closest friend, nearly a stranger now but not yet fully one, started a band with her new friends. I discovered them while I wasn’t e-stalking her on Instagram on a particularly not regretful day. Many years ago, in the post-pandemic 2021, she had told me something while I was fiddling around on GarageBand, making some silly 8-bit inspired music.
“Hey, can you make some background music for my songs? I have the lyrics, but I can’t make the background sounds.”
“Like instrumentals?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know, I could try but I kinda suck.”
We then completely forgot about it and drank some mix-and-matched soda-machine creations while singing terrible karaoke on the couches of her hangout room. I couldn’t tell anyone the color of those couches, the LEDs in that room washed out all the color. What I could tell you is not to mix the diet Dr Pepper and the BRITE Raspberry, though.
She moved across the country soon after.
Seeing her singing with her band, hanging out in her new room that appeared so much like the one she’d asked me to make music in, I thought, “That should have been me there. That was supposed to be me.”
And it *was* supposed to be me. It had been me, actually, at one point. We’d started a band with some other ghosts from my memories when I was 9 or so. I could only play the recorder at that point, so it’s not hard to imagine how it went.
Jealousy was the bare scrapings of what I felt, the rest being the feeling of getting robbed.
I treat my (in my opinion, relatively mediocre) music as a party trick of sorts. I’ll whip out GarageBand and tap my fingers on the keyboard, making up some random notes and throwing my friends’ voices into it.
When I was much younger, my parents would put on music whenever we were in the car. They usually either played 107.7 The Bone. On long road trips, they would put on Crystal Castles, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Electric Wizard, and a lot of Ladytron. That didn’t spark my love for music though. That started at 3 years old when I played The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past. My ears immediately recognized peak music when I heard the title theme as the game started up. That low-bit harp and brass changed my life. Listening to the music of the Dark World theme, I can still see the screen when you teleport.
I grew an intense love of orchestral music. When I started ballet, that love only grew. I got a violin, but I never took lessons for it.
The next big leap in my interest in music came as a result of Minecraft’s release in 2011. I was 4 then. The music from the game wasn’t what changed me. It was the minecraft parodies, like Don’t mine at Night and especially Fallen Kingdom. My brother and I would spend hours after school listening to Minecraft parodies. Everyday we weren’t playing minecraft we would listen to the parodies.
When I was 9 I got a phone, and I immediately started only using it for listening to music. Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild came out a year later, and of course I started listening to only Zelda songs. Covers, because Nintendo was too stingy to put music on Apple Music. That was all I would listen to for years.
I started 6th grade at Davidson. I’d chosen orchestra , planning to play the violin. But my teacher at the time said that too many people were choosing the violin, and that some people had to not, so I chose the viola. I wanted to do double bass, but I was talked out of it. At that point I still listened mostly to Zelda music, but I also listened to some Jpop. Honestly, I don’t remember a lot of my childhood below the age of 13, and music was one of the things I don’t remember much.
In 2019 I was introduced to TikTok. TikTok (for any old people reading this) used to be a music and dancing app. In 2019 it was still that sort of app. I was suddenly introduced to a huge variety of music that I had previously never heard before. And when the pandemic hit, I would use TikTok all the time, being exposed to different music every day. That was where I got introduced to Vocaloid music.
Vocaloid is a synthetic singing software. Each “voice” is made up of hundreds of voice samples from singers or voice actors, which can be used to synthesize a human-like voice. I had originally gotten into the big Japanese Vocaloid producers, Giga, Supercell, Maretu and Kikuo. I was extremely drawn to Maretu and Kikuo’s music, feeling comfortable with the dark themes of child abandonment, suicide, and general misery as I was a disturbed preteen. I was depressed at the time and suffering from all sorts of panic and anxiety disorders, so I found solace in dark music. Looking back, it probably made my health worse. I would listen to songs and maladaptive daydream for hours, unmoving in my room. I also listened to other songs and genres, mostly alternative music like Tally Hall and MSI.
This was after the golden age of Vocaloid, but before the rise of PJSK fans (fake puritan Vocaloid fans), so I was still listening to good Vocaloid music. After a while, I started listening less to the edgier songs, and more of the pop-ey, electric music that was becoming more common. I started listening to KIRA, a producer that made predominantly English songs. His music was strange. He was German, making pop music with a somewhat Latin beat, Japanese singer, English lyrics, and a German electric sound. His songs were so jarring that they immediately left a deep imprint in my head.
At the time he was 19 years old, making professional music, and I was 13, laying about uselessly in my room. I felt incredibly inspired to make my own music, even if it sucked. It wasn’t all that bad, actually. I tried to make something that sounded like a “real song” and not a soundtrack, but it would take years until I somewhat succeeded.
I remember making the first piece of music I truly felt proud of. It was some lo-fi sort of thing. Lots of high pitches. The first piece of music I still like that I made, however, is the 8-bit song I had shown my friend, all those years ago. I’d wanted to make something that sounded like the main theme of a video game. I had an idea for that game, the protagonist had to save mars from a wizard that used musical magic. And it was all pixelated and crunchy. That game was my first real music project. I made dozens of songs for it, not all of them great, but I enjoyed them and liked them. They weren’t complicated, I didn’t know music theory, but I still loved them.
After my friend left, I didn’t have anyone to share my music with. I slowly stopped making music as often. It just wasn’t fun to me anymore.
I tried to make some vocaloid songs like my idol did. But I lacked skill and the software was hard to learn. I struggled with making a catchy melody, didn’t know what a chord was, and frankly, was just not good at making songs that weren’t chiptune-ey.
Fast forward to April of 2024. I wanted to make something. I wanted to make a song that wasn’t a soundtrack, that wasn’t a joke, something that I could truly enjoy and listen to. That jump started it all again. The song started as just an 8 measure spamming of made-up chords using a harsh, strong organ sound. The melody was simple, also a harsh instrument. The drums of it were an apple loop, since I struggled and still struggle with making my own drum beats.
I posted a little demo of it online, the vocals were whispered due to my less-than-pleasant singing voice. It surprisingly got 1000 views, and a couple people said that they liked it. So I kept going. And I didn’t stop until it was done. I’d finally made a real song. Somewhat.
I started making music more often. When senior year started I would spend advisory working on new songs. Many of them were silly sounding pieces I made to resemble roblox music, but sometimes I truly tried.
My magnum opus (so far) is a short 2 minute or so piece in 6/8 time, titled “Hopeful Wlatz” . I kept the typo in because I thought it gave it character. It’s an insane jump from the simple 8-bit music I used to make. The waltz itself isn’t complicated. It’s got a few layers of sound, there’s a good amount of looping in it, and there’s no crazy complicated melodies or tempo changes. I made the drums myself. But it’s the best thing I’ve ever created in my entire life.
In my eyes, I’ve finally succeeded in my original goal. I’ve made a song that I enjoy, that I listen to, that I’m proud of. I can look at the old music I’ve made and see how my style has changed, how it got better and better every time I opened the garageband app. I have new people to share my music with, and it’s no longer just a hobby or a joke that I keep to myself. Making music is something that I don’t think I will ever part with, and I will never stop making it.
