April 4, 2021: Pandemic Activities: Making Music

Scratch another one off of the bucket list! As part of my year working from home, I took time to learn the SoundTrap DAW (digital audio workstation) and take a stab at creating music using MIDI loops, special effects and samples, and the tiniest (and cutest!) MIDI keyboard I could find. I've always wanted to tackle creating music, but past attempts with other software (I see you, GarageBand) left me more confused than inspired and productive. Fortunately, SoundTrap fit the way my brain works and I slowly constructed two tracks I felt confident in pushing to completion.

Jump ahead a few months and I've now spun the test pressing of a 7" 45 RPM record on the turntable. The experience of hearing music of your own design on the record player is one I cannot put into words, and I'm happy to mark down one more pandemic accomplishment. The last year has been miserable and challenging, but the little things like this make the time a lot easier to handle.

If you're interested in hearing the 99% completed tracks in their raw form (pre-mastering), I've uploaded both to SoundCloud.