Create music

Music is a beautiful and spiritually developing hobby. You can be a passive hobbyist, limiting yourself to collecting records and listening to them on your home hi-fi equipment, or you can also actively engage in this hobby, making your own music.

Modern digital technology, the wide availability of great software (often completely free) and basic tools that until recently could only be found in the most expensive recording studios have meant that the possibilities of composing and recording your music are currently limited only by our imagination. . No matter what kind of music do you prefer? whether it will be ballads sung to the accompaniment of a guitar or even a piano; or rap music, to which you create your beats and record your own rap; or aggressive sounding and amazing dance music? it's all literally at your fingertips.

Just as photography was no longer the preserve of professional photographers, and filmmaking and editing moved beyond professional studios, music production has become accessible to all of us. Do you play an instrument (eg guitar) and would like to record an entire song with drums, bass, keyboards and vocals? No problem ? with a little practice, proper practice, and skillfully used tools, you can do this without leaving your home and without spending more than PLN 1000 on the equipment you need (not including the tool and computer).

Are you fascinated by the beautiful sounds of the best organs in the world and would you like to play them? You don't have to travel to Atlantic City (where the world's largest organs are) or even Gdansk Oliva to try to make this instrument playable. With the appropriate software, original sounds and a MIDI control keyboard (here also the total cost should not exceed PLN 1.000), you can enjoy your senses playing fugues and toccatas.

Don't know how to play the keyboard or any other instrument? There is a tip for that too! With the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) program, which includes a special tool called a piano editor (see Wikipedia for piano), you can program all the sounds one by one, just like you write lyrics on a piano. , computer keyboard. With this method, you can build entire, even very complex arrangements!

The development of technologies related to the recording and production of music is so fast that today many performers do not even feel the need to study in any musical way. Of course, a basic knowledge of harmony, principles of music-making, a sense of tempo and musical ear is still very useful, but there are many currents in modern music (for example, hip-hop, ambient, a number of varieties of dance music). music), where the greatest stars can't even read music (and they don't need to).

Of course, we are very far from telling you to stop playing music, because knowing the basics is as important as knowing how to read circuits in electronics. We just want to show that just as you do not need to be a programmer to use many computer programs, it is enough to master the operation of software and hardware systems to create music for your own needs. And one more thing ? you must have something to say. Making music is like writing poetry. The technology available today is just pen, ink and paper, but the poem itself must be written in your head.

Therefore, if you feel that music already exists or can become your hobby, we recommend that you regularly read our cycle, in which we will explain from scratch everything you need to know in order to be able to create it at home. As you become familiar with the following elements of what is often referred to as a home recording studio (its English term is home recording), you may feel a growing need for knowledge in this area or want to move to a higher level.

In this case, we recommend reading our sister magazine Estrada i Studio, which has been dealing with this topic at an intermediate and professional level for sixteen years. What's more, does the DVD that accompanies each edition of EiS contain everything you might need? a whole collection of completely free software for a home recording studio and gigabytes of "fuel"? for your musical creations, such as loops, samples, and other similar "musical blanks" that you can use to create your own music.

Next month, we'll cover the basics of our home studio and show you how to create your first piece of music.