My music project goes under the name ‘MemoryBug’ and I am also sometimes addressed in real life as John. 🙂
This site is mainly about how I compose music/video pieces which I upload primarily to YouTube. I currently aim to do this on a fortnightly basis.
I am based in London, UK. I have an ambition of going somewhere abroad for say a couple of months, and totally immersing myself in a different environment and just spend all the time producing music and visuals. I would love to see how that comes out!
I try to do something related to the MemoryBug project each day. I do feel a bit down if I don’t manage to do that. I know that you don’t make time for the things that you enjoy because there is so much to do in just getting through daily life. So, I try to stick to a rule that I must start and do something for 15 minutes each day. I can stop once I’ve done that but I will usually keep going for a good while longer once I’ve made that initial (often tough) decision to get started. It’s suprising how often I don’t even stick to doing the 15 minutes!
I have been involved in music (on and off) all my life. Although I enjoyed just noodling around I felt that I had no end product for the time I put in and really didn’t finish anything at all. I decided to take part in #jamuary2022 on a whim. Although, at first, I felt a bit imitated about starting it at all. I remember standing in the kitchen on the 1st of January and thinking well either I go and start the whole thing straight after this or just forget it and continue my day as I normally would do. I’m glad I did start and also completed uploading something to YouTube everyday throughout that January.
I didn’t want to knock it all on the head once #jamuary was finished so decided I would continue on a more manageable basis of uploading something once a fortnight (1st & 15th). I haven’t always managed to hit the actual dates but that’s what I’m aiming for.
The majority of the work is done using the Reaper DAW on my laptop. I sometimes use Ableton Live Lite and have worked out how to have the two working in tandem which I may do very occasionally . My keyboards are set up in the loft in a very haphazard fashion and that’s where I will do sessions when I want to use more external gear rather than just working with plugins in the box.
I really enjoy the process of trying to produce things in completely different ways and I suppose the overall quality might well suffer from this approach as I’m usually always ‘learning on the job’ so to speak. But this is really about the enjoyment and process of making music and I have no ambitions for it to be anything other than that. Of course, I will go with the flow in wherever this journey might take me!