I believe all of us have gone through phases in our musical life, yes?
Let’s share some of your background of both music you listened to, and created yourself. What styles, genres, inspiration etc. have you gone through in your life?
Here’s my journey:
I grew up with classic 80s rock/pop, and was huge into Michael Jackson, Queen, Scorpions etc.
In my teens I was part of the House/Trance/Electronica movement in Europe, and that’s the first genre I produced myself.
Then I had a couple of years of classic metal influence, like Iron Maiden, AC/DC etc.
Progressed into more power metal and operatic metal with Avantasia, Blind Guardian etc.
Had a 2 man band with a friend creating a fusion we called “Rock Star Dance Music”, which was basically soft metal meets EDM.
Then in around 2011 I started listening more and more on soundtracks, and that’s when I found my passion for cinematic music. Which is what I currently focus the most on as a composer as well.
Excellent post! Love your background and I’m excited to see other too!
Here’s mine.
For me, I started in church music… not classical, but contemporary music which is really an overs simplification of the Edges musical style (lots of soft distortion and dotted 8th delays). So I basically started off with a second hand U2 influence haha
After this I moved onto blues, where I learnt everything off BBKing, John Mayer and the greats of the 60s and 70s. At the same time I was learning classical composition in A level music. I went on to go to music tech college after a bad job as a care worker and then onto university. At the same time I was in a pop/jazz hybrid band where we took pop songs and jazzed them up a lot. From an early age I loved John williams and alan silvestri so I learnt all about their influences alongside my degree (which was theory and history based). I majored in film and tv, minored one pop production but came out with a vast understanding of nearly all aspects of music.
I then worked in a local studio for a year, then had 6 months in a foly studio and then started my business up where I’ve learnt a lot about how not to run a business
There’s b
Obviously been more that’s gone on but these are the important bits (to me anyways).
here is my little musical journey of my life with music:
I started as a guitarist in a school band and we played a lot of Beatles songs.
My friends and I heard a lot of AC/DC
When I was sixteen I was a member of a wind ensemble.
We played nSamuel Scheidt, Palestrina, Telemann, Giovanni Gabrieli, J. S. Bach, Pachelbel etc.
Music in the age of 18 till 20:
Mike Oldfield, Tublar Bells, Ommadawn, Incantations. I visited a concert with Mike Oldfield in Hamburg.
Gustav Holst, The Planets
Modest Mussorgsky the night on Bald Mountain
Maurice Ravel, Daphne et Chloe
Leos Janecek
Arcangelo Corelli
I appreciate the music of guitarists Joe Pass, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai and Al di Meola, Tommy Emmanuel
As a member of a guitar ensemble, I discovered irish folk and finger style.
At some point I discovered Steve Reich and Charles Ives.
In recent years I have been listening to chick chorea, lazuli and bebop jazz
I particularly like Bill Evans’ music.
This is how music accompanied and influenced my life.
I started out with Rock influences, U2, Clash, Nirvana, Pearl Jam , Marilyn Manson, Metallica , Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and all the good 80s bands, of course Zepplin and Floyd, those are like the required musical taste for any music artist. Then later got into music soundtracks and more specifically suspense ones, and music soundtracks like the movie The Others, where they blend classical and electronic or horror. Then because of very bad L.A. traffic , got into classical music to create a different reality in my car and now I realize the classical music I like is because of the rock/metal music I listened to, classical and metal almost the same in my opinion.
Oh gawd! I have to trawl back through my dusty musical memories!
From age 8, I was a chorister which helped develop my passion for composers like Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Palestrina, Victoria etc.
My early teens was full of Toyah, Visage, Ultravox, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby, New Wave and synth based music, but was eclectic enough to move into Mike Oldfield, Clannad, U2, the Mission, Cult, Fields of the Nephilim, Ozric Tentacles, Asia, Alan Parsons Project, Sugarcubes, Might Lemon Drops.
My Thirties and forties grew a liking for Bjork, Dead Can Dance, Ennio Morricone, Deep Forest, and more music I was catching in films and TV series, like M84, Clinton Shorter, Hans Zimmer, Thomas Bergersen, Harry Gregson-Williams.
I have such an eclectic taste and love to listen to the mastery of Richard Strauss, my favourite composer, who I think was a major influence for John Williams and others. I’d recommend listening to symphonic/tone poems like his Alpine Symphony Op.64.
Lots of names I’ve only herd of but not listened to yet. Great background. I think a lot of us will be checking out the ones we don’t know from that list
