What you need to Start (personal experience)

Hi!

Today I would like to address what it takes to start making art, and what I needed to start in my experience. It should be acknowledged that while I did not have very much to start my musical life off, it is still something that is not provided to many, and do not wish to minimize the struggles that others face. To each their own, and I love and respect anyone who is trying to make music with whatever they might have.

Esprit Retro Machine Old Computer Vintage (CC0) by Max Pixel

(This is not the real computer, but a wonderful relic I wanted to share)

From a production standpoint; I started producing on a 10-year-old computer in 2010 that was running a free software called Reaper and I used a webcam microphone on a 20 dollar webcam I bought to talk to my girlfriend at the time (I was 14 and that was the only real way that I could see her daily). I had this and my parents rented an upright bass through my high school because I was in the orchestra. I had this and a teenage voice that could hold a tune 65% of the time (I am by no means a trained singer).

“marco in a dive bar” (CC BY 2.0) by Matt Weibe

But with this alone, I was able to record 10 demos for a band that I was in called Elsie Drive (that was named after the street the guitarist lived on). With a very slow computer and a cheap webcam, I was able to make these demos and a bunch of videos online. Later I was able to organize shows in very poorly lit dive bars in Trenton Nj ( resembling the photo above) and also be able to do this with not many hours put into learning it.

” Lower Trenton Bridge over the Delaware River, Morrisville PA — Trenton NJ (looking northeast by kayak)” ( Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 4.0 International) by Jag9889

But while the things that you can accomplish with minimal means are not by any means industry standards of success, but they are a start that could eventually go someplace that one would like to go. Because of these shows, and having the expectation of playing in some place, I was able to create a reason for myself to go actually see the places I was playing and to experience more of the state and county that I grew up in. The photo above is a wonderful example of the beautiful little things that people miss, and a constant reminder of the great things that have come from Trenton and more symbolically the great things that have been done by the place/ the town/ the county/ the state I’m from.

So with that as an outline of my experience and hopefully an encouraging message, I would like to encourage anybody reading this to message me via twitter, or even my facebook. Just say that you’ve read this story on medium :)