I enjoyed a lot of electronic music growing up and at a certain point, you're gonna be at least curious how it's made. I also played the drums growing up.
I thought of doing drum covers but as a more spontaneous player, I just wanted to jam out on drums (mistakes & all) -- nothing more.
With this give & take dynamic within music, I saw myself as just a consumer. One thing that kept me from starting was the myth that in order to produce, you need a ton of equipment.
All I needed to start was a laptop & some free trial software. It's doable with just a smartphone these days -- getting started at least. Gotta start somewhere.
In college, I was without drums so I was curious if I could put together a virtual beat with only drum samples & sample of my friend's voice.
The end result was basically a meme of my friend, but I enjoyed the process and wondered if I could incorporate some melodic elements and write an actual track, despite my lack of knowledge in music theory.
As time passed, I began to see my work as an extension of myself rather than some sound experiment. I was no longer just a consumer of music.
I was quite discouraged because I was nowhere near where I wanted to be.
However, this producing thing is a huge journey for everyone who decides to take it. Everyone faces that learning curve, and knowing that helped.
A huge inspiration for me was an electronic duo named Grey -- mainly the aesthetic of their music & how they programmed/sound designed their drums. Their sound to me just felt organic
-- an adjective quite lacking in the EDM scene at the time (before 2017). They were doing things different (but moreso doing things their own way) and you could sense that they were super passionate about creating their own sound.
Their Chameleon EP is the best example I can point to.
After doing some research into them, I found out they also came from a drumming background. They also happened to have some nuances in their sound I just really vibed with & also have never heard elsewhere. This goes back to what I mentioned about music being a form of expression. Taking Grey's example, they were able to create something that was uniquely them.
Then I started noticing a pattern. The artists I really looked up to were all making genuine music
-- not following or trying to stay within a certain genre, but being able to draw something out from within and make it work.
Tennyson is another artist that comes to mind. Listen to any of their tracks and you will know it's them. Smart, quirky. Pretty technical but still enjoyable even when not paying too much attention to all the details. It’s like they created their own genre.
It's not necessarily about being different than other people. Two artists can sound similar but have different inspirations & aspirations.
It's more of: are you giving a part of yourself?
In the end, am I just filling in a genre to fit in? If so, what's the point of it all? For me, it's not so much about producing but making sure my motivations are in the right place.
If I'm being honest, producing is often times more stressful than fun, but the possibility of creating something YOURS that you can vibe with & be proud of is just too hard to pass up.