In this post I am going to talk about my introduction to Electronic Dance Music, and even though it has only been a few years, it has really changed a lot of what I do and how I think. I am going to talk a little bit before I found EDM, and how music has effected me since I was little. This does contain a little romance.
Also, I want to note that I have graduated last year in 2012, so my grammar and punctuation has turned to utter crap since I really don't care anymore. Anyone have a problem with that can deal with it.
Before Middle School
For all my life music has been a very big deal. Not to the point of me wanting to play an instrument (until Sixth Grade), but that I constantly would listen to music. Embarrassingly, even when I was a toddler I would be singing when I was on the crapper or when I was in the shower - even when I moved into my grandma's house when I was like eight she said that she would see me singing a long to music while playing video games on which I don't remember either. During this time period I heavily listened to rock music more than anything. I would always pretend to play the guitar or the drums when listening to the music. Linkin Park was definitely my favorite, I also liked the classics like Rush and AC/DC. But Linkin Park was my favorite. I just loved the contrast that they did, while back then I really only listened to their album Meteora and that would be a lot of what I listened to. Back then though, I really didn't have a wide range of music available to me because I never used the internet, and my dad is a priest, so back then they thought a lot was inappropriate for my me (They don't care anymore, but they were strict back then).
Middle School
This one is really going to be summed up into a few sentences, but I am putting it here because this is where my obsession with music started to become apparent.
A lot of memory from my sixth grade is really fuzzy, I mean I can give details about what I did with friends, but in terms to music, all I can say is that I listened to it a lot. Can't necessarily be called an obsession yet, but I had a cousin who listened to a lot of music ranging from soft rock all the way to heavy metal, he also listened to some rap. During this year, I really started to expand my tastes and started building a vocabulary of terms/genre and bands that I have not heard of before. When seventh grade rolled around ,my knowledge of music has skyrocketed since I was in elementary school (which really wasn't much knowledge, but compared to what I knew, it was huge). Now seventh grade came and the onceChristmas rolled around, I really wanted to learn the guitar, and so that is what I asked for and got. I was supposed to get lessons, but it just never came about to where eventually my interest in the guitar became minimal and uninteresting. At the time I didn't think about using youtube or music tabs, so I never tried to learn on my own. Regardless, it didn't stop me from listening to music any less. And one eight grade came about I wanted an iPod, because I was tired of just using cd's, and I just wanted a device I could carry all my music in. My birthday is in October, so early in the school year. I asked my parents for the 8GB purple Ipod Nano. Once the year ended I probably had roughly 800 songs.
Generalization up to this point.
Because of the next part is where I learned of EDM, I just want to talk a little bit about my other aspects of life. While I learned of EDM in high school, it really wasn't the first time I listened to a track. My cousin had a track from Daft Punk; Technologic. I have also listened to Eiffel 65's "I'm Blue." I am very sure that there were some other songs, but those are the two I remember the most - Guess I can include O-Zone's "Numa Numa." And let me tell you that while they were not really on my go-to list (as I listened to mainly rock/metal) but I really just loved the way they sounded.
Now I want to say what I happened to be like. Before high school I was very lazy and unmotivated. I would play video games and watch TV all the time, I was over weight (I did not look it, but I was). As a matter of fact, I was Proud to be fat. I used to boast that I was big, and I would shove everything down my gullet. And rarely would I go over to a friends house (seventh grade I started to hang out more often). I also had extremely low self-esteem, I would always feel bad for myself for no utter reason whatsoever. Seriously, I had it great, but I always felt down.
- So there, just wanted to point out that before high school that I was a fat low self-esteemed, unmotivated and lazy individual.
High School to Present
Freshman year really was my favorite year of high school. It's funny because people go on and on about your senior year. But for me, I loved my freshman year. When I started, I still had a crappy view of myself. But I had my two best friends, whom have been my friends since sixth grade and whom I didn't know would be my friends long after high school. I really wasn't that enthusiastic about my classes because I wouldn't be able to take auto shop until my sophomore year, other than that it was a very good year. The one class I was really looking forward to was French I, because my older brother (who was a senior, and in French IV) told me that it was one of the funnest classes because of the teacher (who we will call MS. X).
However low and behold, that with my luck I got the other french teacher MS. Y - She only taught French I because there is only one real french teacher; MS. X. Of course I was in the process of switching classes, I got the form from the office and got MS. X's permission. This all took the course of the first week. Too fast to remember how all took place so fast. So in other words, I had to be stuck in MS. Y's class - Which I could not have foreseen coming. On one of the first days after MS. Y went through part of the book, she had us pair up with those who sit right next to us to (In the book after you learn the new phrases, you pair up and do some practices that are in the book). I was going to pair up with one of my best friends (we will call him J) who took the class with me (he got duped in the same class, even though we were both wanting MS. X), when the teacher came by and saw that the guy on the right of J didn't have a partner, and a girl in front of J didn't have a partner (I was on J's right). The teacher had J and the boy partner up, and then had the girl partner with me. She sits diagonally from me (we will call her G). When she turned around, she had the prettiest face have ever seen. I immediately crushed on her. In result of meeting her, I decided to stay in MS. Y's class, and I convinced myself even more by telling myself that I will have MS. X no matter what for French II. G and I started talking a lot. I would be asking simple questions to see what kind of things she is into. We really started hitting it off, it was mostly thanks to J for encouraging me, as I was always shy around girls. Now, I really want to say that I asked her about what kind of music she listens to on the first day I met her, but I really do not remember. But yes, we are finally here. I asked her "Hey, what kind of music do you listen to?" Those are very close to the exact words I said. And I was really expecting for her to tell me that she listens to rap, and I really hate rape (few exceptions; Eminem, etc). But boy was I wrong, she responded "I Love 'Techno'" (I realize that is the wrong term, but most people do not know the term EDM, so when asked, you respond with Techno, because people at least know what that means.
---Oddly enough, I never questioned the term "techno," in fact it never crossed my mind to ask her what it was, like I automatically knew what it was - the term, not the music. Which now always makes me ponder if I found the term before, but I can't recall in recollection of the term "techno" before that very moment. Usually when presented with a new term, I am usually curious to what it is. For example, lets say that I didn't know rock music, and I asked the same question to somebody else and they responded with "rock," my typical response would be "What's rock?" While knowing that it is music because that was the response to the question, I would usually respond in a way that people would know that I seriously have no clue. But with G, I never did that, I never questioned it, like I have known the term forever.---
All I said, was something along the lines is "oh that's cool, you will have to recommend me some artists later on, as I don't think I have ever heard techno before."
The conversation from that went inwards to other stuff. Later that day in my last class, I texted her (yes, we already exchanged numbers) to suggest a techno artist. And she responded with Basshunter and Daft Punk. When I got home, I logged onto youtube and searched for Basshunter. And while I really do not remember the first song it was - because even twenty minutes later I forgot what the first song was. or the experience I had when listening to it - I know for a fact that it had the word "Water" in the title - Which had to be "I Can Walk on Water." No doubt, like he has no other song with the word "water in it. Directly after that song I searched Daft Punk, and listened to "Around the World." I fell in love with the sound.
Of course I talked to G about how much I loved the music, and she was happy that she got me started on techno. I ended up searching amazon for Basshunter, and was in time for the album "Now You're Gone," which came out like a month before, so very new. I ordered it had a local music shop, because I liked supporting them. the next day at school I told G that I ordered the new cd, and she was really happy. However she did not have the album yet, So I decided to give her the cd when it got to me. She was very appreciative, I also gave her a blank disk so she could burn it for me. I am not that kind to give a free cd to someone who isn't my girlfriend, so I wanted at least a copy. Another reason I did it was because I really didn't know if I would enjoy it that much, as I usually listened to rock.
When I got the copy, I started listening to it nonstop, and put it on my ipod. And from that point my love for EDM grew immensely.
I started to love the music so much that I started researching on how to create the music, on which I found the Moog Minimoog Model D synthesizer, and really started wanting to play/learn and create my own tracks. To this day, I am glad that I found the Minimoog in comparison to ableton live, because I LOVE hardware synthesizers. I also learned that Basshunter made his music with the computer program FL Studio, so I ended up downloading the demo. I would mess around with it for a little while, but started getting bored because I needed hands-on instruments And so for my birthday I had my parents buy me my first keyboard - they hesitated because of what happened with the guitar, but they let me get it. It was a cheap Yamaha YPT-320 keyboard. I started teaching myself through youtube, and got two piano teachers over the course of high school, both didn't really work out because it was interfering with school work. But I kept learning through youtube and MIDI files. Through both my keyboard and the demo of FL Studio would be the start of my music. And really, after that, the rest of high school isn't worth talking about. But a few things that happened. We didn't work out, never became a couple. it ended freshman year. I also purchased a 160GB Ipod Classic because my music library was growing quickly and I needed more space.
My 18th birthday (senior year) I asked for my first synthesizer which was the Korg Microkorg digital synthesizer, and my grandma got me the Korg Monotron. And when Christmas time rolled around my aunt got me a gift card for the app store because I recently got the Iphone. My grandma also got me headphones and a best buy gift card. So what I got with the app card is FL Studio Mobile, Moog Filtatron and the Animoog. With the best buy card I ordered (online) a used copy of Korg DS-10.
And so I was well on my way to creating music. Note that I only created 3 songs (crappy songs) since I got my firs keyboard because I had to focus on graduating.
However, during senior year, my priorities changed. I really wanted to pursue music, but then it changed, and now I am focused on becoming a United States Marine. So from this point, music can only be pursued as a hobby.
But music was still a big deal, and because of this, a year after graduating (2013) I was able to purchase my first real Analog synthesizer, the Moog Minitaur Bass Synthesizer. I also purchased a laptop and finally upgraded from the demo FL studio to getting the boxed version for FL Studio 10 Producer edition. and then I purchased the Digitech Talker, while I do not plan on doing vocals, I had to purchase because it is hard to find. Then I got my sound interface so I could record my synthesizers. And now we made it to the present. I am now working very hard to create some very good tracks. They will never be as great as Basshunter or Daft Punk, mainly because I can't focus on it, I have to stay focused for the military. So I am really doing this just for fun now.
This is what my setup looks like:
Conclusion
I really do thank electronic music for the following. Once I discovered electronic music, I started becoming happier, stopped carrying about what others think. I now have hobbies which includes music. And I can now say that I clearly have favorite music artists, which is Basshunter and Daft Punk, they are my inspirations for music. I now listen to a wider range of music, before electronic music I hated music without words, and now I can listen to wordless songs and appreciate them. I am starting to even get into classical music. I even plan on learning as much instruments as I can throughout my lifetime. And I now have ambitions; the military.
Now I am really loving life.
And I all thanks to Electronic Dance Music, which in turn is all because of G. Too bad things couldn't work out with her, maybe one day she will come back... Oh well.
So yes, my life has completely flipped upside down. LOVE Electronic Dance Music!!!
- NONtoxic
