Week 5 of 52: "12 Scenic Woods"

I made “12 Scenic Woods” because I simply love experimenting with genre/style hybridization. I grew up listening to the Grateful Dead which drove me to absolutely love the flowing of styles either back-to-back or together (I gotta say though, as a very small kid, I didn’t get it… but as I got into music, their disregard of the boundaries of genre inside of a non-stop show became an obsession). As I got into electronic music, songs like “Closer” by Lemaitre and “Yo Ho and a Bottle of Bass” by Omnitica just showed me that electronic music really didn’t have bounds even though it’s common for artists to be confined to a genre or style. Listening to these artists and many more shaped the music I make now and you can find all those influences in this playlist at the bottom of this post!

When I started this song, I just wanted to play around because I was really down on myself. I hadn’t created a production I really loved in a while and, as all artists do, I worried that I may have just lost it. This song was my proof to myself that I could still create… but since it was just for me, I went all out with the creative use of reverb, hybrid styles, rhythm, and structure and just let my creativity take the wheel.

My mindset in creating this song was fully based around:

“What if I… ?”

I rarely build with structure in mind, I’m more of a “throw ideas on the floor and then arrange them later” kind of person so I usually just flow with what I’m feeling which helps me go new places since I’m not constrained to “ok, the next section is a hook sooooo...” but I’m also no asking what section should go next, I’m just thinking about what would feel right, next.

Follow your instincts, don’t question so much, do more.

It’s incredibly hard to stop thinking and let your creativity guide you, but it always brings the best music. Stop asking “what would sound good with this?” and start asking “what if I… automated this [BLANK], added this instrument, tried this effect, streached this sample, etc.?'“

Listen to “12 Scenic Woods” below and be sure to follow the #52Weeks52Releases Playlist on Spotify to keep up with the next week’s track >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>