How it all started.
Playing the piano and composing my own music has always been a big part of my life. When I was five years old, my parents brought in my great aunt's Yamaha upright piano. Following the footsteps of my older brother, I quickly wanted to start learning more about this instrument and took piano lessons when I started going to school. The piano seemed to be so enormously huge back then and I remember questioning how it would be possible not to get lost in this maze of 88 identical black and white keys. Sometimes I still wonder if things would have been different had my parents not decided to inherit the piano. It's one of the earliest Yamaha uprights from the 60s with lots of character and warmth. And even today, having played numerous of grand and upright pianos from some of the best manufacturers, there hasn't been a single piano that made me feel this way. You may call it nostalgia, and you're probably right about that. But there's something about the imperfection of this instrument that draws my attention to it and makes me feel lost in time and space.
Seeking for more.
Being able to explore this instrument day in and day out ment that I could hone my musicianship to new dimensions. When writing my very first piano composition, I realised that this "music thing" might be something to consider for my future. The tune that I wrote back then won first prize at a competition which made me the proudest boy in town for one day. I wanted this feeling of constant evolution to last forever. The more I learned about my instrument, the higher I wanted to reach. The part of me that wanted to seek out, that wanted to understand, that wanted to innovate, is still within me today even after all these years.
Finding myself.
At a certain point, playing the piano wasn't enough. I started producing my own songs within a copy of Steinberg's Cubase, which my brother gave me after giving up on music himself. I learned everything I needed to know about music production, how to create and polish a sound, how to mix (even though my mixes sounded atrocious back then) and I even started playing in bands. My first band project was called "Dreadless Ocean". We had a drummer, a guitarist and a bassist. Roman, the bassist, also happened to be our lead singer and wore dreadlocks, which gave everybody the wrong idea about our band's name, considering that German folks aren't notorious for their outstanding English proficiencies. Honestly, our music wasn't that great. But it was pure. And we had the most fun time of our lives. Otto, our former guitarist and a very close friend of mine, was the person who introduced me to a lot of musicians from his music school. We had a blast back then with constant jam sessions, fun gig nights and lots of wild music in the making. It took me a while to realise that all of this would end sooner than later once we graduated from high school and left this small but beautiful town for good. After graduating, I decided to move to Berlin and applied for a music programme. Luckily, I received a scholarship which let me apply for studies in popular music at SOPA university (school of popular arts). Without the financial help, I wouldn't have had the time and money to focus on my degree. Most of the artists that I have produced in the past have been contacts that I got to know over the course of these years. I started to have regular gigs with bands like "Steppers Division", a band project that was formed back in 2019 and has been doing quite well recently. I even got to play live on big festivals like the "Helene Beach Festival" or the "Mit Dir Festival" and enjoyed fun feature gigs in venues like "Privatclub Berlin". Another time, we went out to pick up a raft and recorded a live session for a sophomore of mine. Like always in Germany, it had to be a typical foggy and windy day on the water. But because of this trip, I found out that the Shure SM58 mic has got to be a brick since even after falling into the lake while connected to a full-spec mixing desk it showed no signs of malfunction whatsoever. Sadly, this should be one of my last adventures as a keyboardist since I decided to shift focus towards being a music producer.
About taking risks.
In 2021 I decided to move to Sweden in order to study music production at the Linné university. My decision came out of the blue and wasn't prepared at all. To be fair, being on stage was quite hard at this point in time since people were facing the Covid pandemic and venues started closing all around the globe. Luckily, that was also a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to apply for studies without the need of taking the entrance exams directly on campus. So applying for studies abroad was a no-brainer and I would do it all over again. Studying music production in Sweden has been nothing but a great experience so far.
In retrospect.
During my time in Sweden and Germany I got to meet some amazing musicians which I am still working with today. Sometimes I miss the feeling of playing live on stage but I still think that this journey was the right decision. Being able to work in a big studio every day has also made me a better producer and opened up a lot of new opportunities, especially in the film music industry. If you are interested to see some of my recent work I would gladly invite you to visit work where you can find my productions as well as compositions for the music and film industry.