My job as a music teacher in China is generally considered pretty irrelevant culturally, but the value and purpose of my job isn't determined by the culture, as far as I'm concerned, but the impact is has on the students futures.

I try to not only give them a handful of direct abilities but values and virtues that come in unique ways through the process of performance and creativity. Things that translate to all other real world scenarios.
Confidence, inspiration, improvisation, delayed gratification, maths & physics, teamwork, etc. You get the idea.

Anyway, because I'm culturally useless, I actually get a lot of freedom and flexibility compared to any other teacher, simply because I'm mostly forgotten, as long as I don't get any complaints (which I never have in 13+ years)

So this year, I implemented a new course, Music Composition. Not only do I think this is a valuable course for both beginners in music and the advanced, but it also helps me get back into composition, too.

I have barely composed anything more than educational examples for my classes for longer than I can remember. I kinda got bored of the process when I never shared or promoted my work anyway, and with the changing of my computer and the terabytes of lost software and such, I just had too many other interests to go with. Afterall, I love music education in and of itself, but I'm into a lot of non-musical things too, and I just have no time left in the day to restart up a pretty intense hobby again.

But now, by having an actual chunk of my job focused on that very premise, I have no choice but to start composing, start dusting off the old software and installing it, downloading new stuff, and re-familiarizing myself with my favourite DAW, Studio One v6.

I've been curious for a long time how teaching and therefore keeping alive and even improving the theory element of music will have affected my own compositions. Since my last full compositions, I've improved dramatically in my overall worldly musical experiences, from theory to piano chops, singing, repertoire, analysis, choral and more.

So now is the time to find out!

oh boy, am I rusty.

In some ways, everything is just as natural as it ever was. Harmony, melody, rhythm, the fundamentals, noooo problem.

But what do I actually want music to sound like? What message or emotion do I want to portray? No frickin' clue. My feelings are currently unable to imbue themselves into my music in any capacity.

If I were to write lyrics, they would be something along the lines of:

The cat was lying on the mat
The rat could barely breath
Cuz the rat was underneath the mat
His lungs were such a squeeze

... Actually that's pretty great.

But not exactly what I'd consider meaningful.

Enter Synthwave

Now, I LOVE synthwave, or vaporwave, or retrowave. Whatever. I just love the whole pseudo-futuristic vibe from the perspective of the 80's. That kind of Bladerunner-esque, City-pop thing that is absolutely perfect for background music and reminiscence but also just sick sounding music.

I decided I'd just learn this style, rather than forcing out my inner soul, instead.

Theoretically speaking, this music is a breeze. Some basic drums, basic chords, a melody, some jingly sounds here and there, basic structure, an arpeggiator, badabing, badaboom. Job done.

Technically though, this is a whole new world for me.

To do an authentic job, it needs authentic sounds, and to get those, I needed some truly retro plugins, many being actual emulations of classic analogue hardware of the ancient past of the 1980's or so.

Each and every one of them are their own beast, and each and every one of them I'm having to learn to at least a basic level in order to properly utilize. Sure, many have the same basics as any synth; oscillators, modulation, wave patterns, cutoffs, FX, EQ blah blah. But it can be totally overwhelming for somebody like me who is used to the more modern intuitive layouts. I mean, look:

It's hard to even look at. And this is just One. I downloaded a bunch of software, free and paid, and combined it's a steep learning curve. Here's just a selection of the ones I'm playing around with in my first attempt:

I gotta admit, the whole process is so fun. I feel like a n00b all over again. Sound design is such an incredible universe to play around with, and making things as retrowavey as possible is just giving me all-day positive vibes.

Here's what I got so far:

I'm not gonna share the actual track until I'm done with it. I've technically written it out musically, but I still think the mix sounds tacky, in a not-quite-80's kinda way. I could certainly just use a bunch of presets or even free loops you can get online but that just feels like cheating to me. A lot of tutorials do this, by teaching you how to make this style by just using a bunch of ready-made presets and samples. What's the point?

As for my students, we have a big national holiday coming so I've given them a project to do by mixing the multi-tracks from an Irish folk song, as this universe of plugins and VST's is something they're gonna deal with in the future. For now, just EQ and pan some real audio. Damn, this class is fun.

Maybe I'll do a blog showing how you can make such a recording come to life. It's a beautiful song.

Ok, that's all for now.