“Beats of Me” (A self-produced five-track EP): A Little Creative Insight

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Hello, steemians! it is my pleasure to share with you my recent release which is a five-track extended play (EP) written, performed and produced by myself with support from my friends Paulson Faith and ND James who played the piano and bass guitar respectively. I also plan to bring them to the Steem platform, they are awesome musicians. It was both very challenging and exciting having to write, perform and produce my own music all by myself but at the end of it, it was very educating and a rewarding experience. Putting myself in the place of both music producer and music artist has really taught me a lot about stress, workflow, and communication.

From the standpoint of a music producer, I could understand the amount of mental and physical energy it requires to successfully work with another artist. Settling and merging viewpoints from two different artists (music producer and music artist) can be very challenging and energy consuming. But at the end of the day, it is the job of the music producer to bring to life what was conceived in the artist’s mind irrespective of the differences in thoughts or which school of thought either comes from. For example, a musician who plays the guitar could insist on using “Drop A” tuning disregarding the fact that a bass player still needs to lay the bass line to a song as well as other instrumentalists in the rhythm section and “Drop A” is going to make the music sound kind of muddy when the other instruments are fully added. It is the job of the producer to make this work. And also putting myself in the position of a music artist, I understand how hard and challenging it could be to manage time, work under pressure and also deliver as expected. Putting myself in the place of this two has not only made me a better musician but also a better human being. I believe.

I chose the homophone of “bits” (beats) because I wanted the title (Beats of Me) of the EP to represent two things which are; original music from me (beats from me) and tiny fragments of my artistic self (bits of me). I hope that made sense. To me, the tracks in this EP are simple, free-form experimentals. I call them “experimentals” because, at this stage in my career, I am still trying to create or find my very own unique sound. It took me more than a month to put this all together.

Track one (Summer Vibes)

My intention was to create something simple but jazzy with the 6-3-2 progression. The dirty grand piano intro was gotten from splice. I would encourage music producers to check out the website, they have a lot of great sounding samples, loops and even plugins for both sale and rent. The lyric is made of basically simple words and the message I am intending to pass on is “I am ready for play”. The first few lines of the song state this: “It’s a summertime vibe and I'm loving it, Give me or not I'm still having it / I don't need a dime to feel good tonight / Catch me if you can”. I personally love the piano and bass guitar on this one. I intended the song to be very short in length because it also acts like an intro for the EP. The tonal center is the key A-minor.

Track two (Afro Lullaby)

Who dances to a lullaby? Africans. Lol. A typical lullaby in Africa can be danced to. The mother or the grandmother lay the baby down, sings softly and claps a nice rhythm to accompany the melody until the baby falls asleep. I still remember how my mum would swing my little sister softly in the air when she was still an infant. She would vocalize the syllable “eh eh” to a nice, moderate tempo but danceable rhythm till she falls asleep. This is pretty much the case in most parts of Africa or at least in this part of Africa.

“If I say move your body, would you move your body
If I want the fire dance, would you do it for me
Would you sing along with me or would you fall asleep girl,
When I sing the Afro lullaby, my Afro lullaby.” — Afro Lullaby lyric

This track also doubles as a love song to a beautiful “fire dancer.”

Track three (Midnight Blues)

The most outstanding thing about this track that I would love to mention is that I did the entire voicing for the track after midnight. Also, most parts of the instrumental were laid in the night. My intention was to create something that represents that, thus the reason for the title “Midnight Blues.” I purposely refused to add any form of pitch correction to this track so the vocal delivery can truly depict the title, thus the reason for the minor imperfections in terms of pitch accuracy. The tonal center of this song is F major.

Track four (Zosi)

This song was recorded earlier and first released two months ago, still on steemit. For more details about this song, click here.

Track five (To You)

I wrote this for a close friend of mine and I am very glad I could include it on this EP. Also, the guitar sound was gotten from splice. It was boomy with excessive low ends, I had to high pass it up to about 100k or more to make it less boomy and also to sit properly in the mix. I added a little bit of saturation to give it more life, added a little boost to the highs and mid frequencies, added stereo reverb and also a nice delay to give it that unique sound. This was the only track in the EP that I applied very minimal pitch correction because I wanted it to have that modern feel, others are pretty much natural takes with no pitch correction. I hope you enjoy it.

I am an upcoming independent musician not just trying to make money with my music, but to also striving to make people feel something through my music. To me, not only the lyrical part of a song sends messages but also the instrumental parts. If the instrumental is something you can dance to, then that is a message. It is telling you to be happy, and you should listen to that message. The upvotes give me joy but what gives me more joy is when I know that someone out there is interacting with my music. So, feel free to drop your comments, tell me your best track and also resteem and share with friends and loved ones. I really, really hope to entertain you with this.

In subsequent posts, I will do a more detailed analysis of each track in the EP by taking you deeper into the whole creative process.

Thank you! Much love from this part of the world.

These songs were shared on Choon but I uploaded them to SoundCloud for the purpose of this post so it could be embedded. That way you can listen without leaving this page. If you use Choon, check my artist profile for all of my music.

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