Only recently, I have been really empowered in the world of music. I am a million miles closer to bringing the melodies in my head to the world. Wow. Now I am closer to writing out the album of my dreams.

2012 has been about learning.

Jan – June

I improved my ability to “play by ear”. I learned 100 traditional tunes from just listening. I used a software to slow down recorded songs, and that made a world of difference! The great thing about traditional Celtic songs is that they are all in the same key, so that also helped.

July – Dec

I learned how to write scores on a software. Paper was tedious, especially for me, since my handwriting is like intricate scribbling. And sometimes I wanted to change the arrangement, and it took a long time to re-write some parts. So I got this transcribing software, Sibelius, that radically really changed my life. Actually, I would say that learning Sibelius is probably one of the most significant events in my life. With just a few clicks I can arrange songs in different time signatures, in different keys and different harmony parts. In fact they have a plugin that will write the harmonies for you in anyway you want. There are many crazy out of this world plugins. I experimented with so many music ideas. I can export them all as midi or pdf. It’s crazy man.

I learned new music production software. Reason. Logic Pro. Native Instruments. And some Ableton. I used Reason before, but I think Logic Pro will be the one I’ll stick with. ProTools can’t do nearly all the cool things Logic Pro can. I wish I knew about Logic Pro earlier!

I also did the weekly private lessons, workshops, video tutorials, books, concerts, & of course listening to endless amounts of CD’s.

Thanks to the musicians who give their knowledge freely on the internet. Thanks to years of studying theory. Thanks to this software called Sibelius. Thanks to this Mac book pro. Thanks to my bf who convinced me to buy the Mac book pro. The possibilities are infinite.

I recorded a few songs this year, but in 2013, I will focus more on creating audio with what I learned. I already transcribed 10 new original songs for my debut album. Watch out 2013.