i don't know when i stopped making music

Hi, this is Tejas and I make music. I used to make music. I have not made music in a while.

I don’t even know when it stopped, there was no moment where I was like okay I’m done. I just opened my DAW less and less and one day I realized it had been months. Life just happens, right? My focus has been on a lot of things, tech, work, my body, my life, just trying to keep things together. The music didn’t go anywhere, I just stopped showing up for it.

I guess that’s the thing about side quests. You keep picking up new ones and at some point you forget which one was the main quest to begin with. Maybe the main quest of life is just to live your life and be happy and have fun and you just add long side quests that get you there. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out.

so what does it even sound like

I primarily make electronic music. It’s textured, like the kind where you hear something new every time you listen. Granular, glitchy, layered with Indian melodies that just sit underneath everything. Flume is the closest reference I can give but there’s a different warmth to it that I can’t fully explain. You just have to hear it.

I was never chasing after perfection in the traditional sense. I was chasing after being good at something, building that skill to a point where the ideas in my head could actually come out the way I heard them. But somewhere in that you realize the gap between where you are and where you want to be isn’t closing fast enough and life starts pulling your attention. So you just learn to be proud of the progress. Enjoying the progress is what matters to me. Creating things, building things, that’s what matters.

the thing about building vs. consuming

Creating things makes me happy. Building things makes me happy. Consuming things does not make me that much happier.

I have consumed a lot of things. Binge-watching, I listen to a lot of music, I am on my laptop all the time, and I am consuming Instagram Reels throughout the day. That’s what makes you drained. But when you’re building something, you feel so energized; you can work for like 20 hours a day and sleep for 4 hours and still make it to work the next day and make it to the gym. That’s the difference right there.

anyway, here’s how I got into music

For context I have always been on my computer screen. I love being on my computer screen, it’s like an escape for me, a different world where I can just have my brain pause, not think, and just do things, create things. My brain doesn’t really shut up unless I’m in front of a screen figuring something out. It’s always going, always jumping between things. But the second I’m looking at how something works, how data flows, how a workflow connects, my brain finally goes quiet. It might not look healthy but this is healthy for my brain and that’s what makes me happy. I hope other people understand that.

One day I was on a website that I cannot name, downloading software just like any other kid in their teenage. I used to download a lot of software for video editing, like figuring out Dreamweaver. I was able to create my own website in PHP at some point. I have forgotten how to do it but my brain sure has a knack for that. It is easy for me to just look at things on my computer and figure out how it works, how the data flows, how anything flows basically. I don’t need a manual. I just need to open the thing and start clicking around until it starts making sense.

One of those downloads was a DAW. I remember opening it and just staring at it. It totally did not look like it was for me in the initial stage. A blank grid, a wall of menus, none of it making any sense. I almost closed it. But I started looking at videos on how to use it, pulling up templates, watching how other people were using it. Something clicked after a few hours, not like I suddenly understood everything but I stopped being lost and started being curious. I started creating my own toolkits, mapping my brain to each and every folder that has the samples, the kicks, the snares, the hi-hats. You sure want a snare that knocks, right? I didn’t realize it at the time but that was the beginning of something I wouldn’t be able to stop doing for years.

messing around is how you actually learn

I started off with making typical electronic house dance music and it’s a good way to start honestly. You get to learn about the basic beat-building structure, how the sounds are flowing in, how you should sidechain your kick to your bass. There is a lot of things that go into making music, and you have to learn one thing at a time so you can evolve.

Like the first time I figured out sidechaining. I couldn’t understand why my kick and bass sounded like mud no matter what I did. I’d sit there tweaking levels, frustrated, thinking the samples were bad. Then I watched one video that explained how the compressor ducks the bass when the kick hits, and suddenly the low end had space. One knob. One concept. The track went from sounding broken to sounding like music. That “oh THAT’S what that does” moment, that’s what kept me going.

People sure do tell you to follow guides, watch tutorials, and read the documentation. Sure, that helps, but what messing around gets you to learn cannot even match. You watch the video, you see and process how they are working, and you get inspired by that. Sure, it gives you a foundation, but from that foundation, you build your own style and your own signature.

The surprises, though, that’s the whole thing. You put things together, and you don’t know what you are doing. Then something sounds like something, and you feel it, and you’re like, “Wait, I made that?”

Damn. I sure miss that feeling. I’m not dying, I’m just missing the person I used to be when I was learning new things and I had the time for it. I mean not having responsibility as an adult to pay my bills, to get to my day job, not being tired before I even sit down. I’m not complaining about that, that’s how life is. But there was a version of me that had nothing to do but learn and I think about him a lot.

turns out music is just math until it isn’t

To me music was surely math, right? I didn’t know music theory, and still don’t, so I was basically reverse-engineering everything. You are trying to build a chord structure, so you just do 0, +2, and +1. Looking up online, like, “Oh, if I want to do this, how do I do this?” figuring out what minor to write in, what structure works, and building your progression by drawing MIDI, not knowing what music theory is. Half the time, I’d spend an hour on a progression that sounded off and have no idea why. I didn’t have the language for it. I just knew it didn’t feel the way I wanted it to feel, and I’d sit there moving notes around one at a time, like solving a puzzle with no picture on the box.

I should have learned music theory. I know that. I’m still telling myself I will. But surely a lot of 2 AM sessions went into brute-forcing it instead. Night after night, alongside everything else. No direction, no ecosystem for it. I don’t come from that background. I did not have enough money for proper equipment or training. Just me and a laptop and too much stubbornness to stop. I was getting maybe 40% there with the hours I could put in. But that 40% was mine.

Then it’s midnight, and you have work tomorrow. At some point the math stops working out. The math does not work out for you. There aren’t enough hours, and there never were. But the ideas didn’t stop. I still have voice notes on my phone from random moments, a melody I hummed while walking somewhere, and a rhythm I tapped out. There’s a folder called “Life” backed up on my Google Drive. A hard drive named Hit or Miss, full of half-finished projects. A lot of projects are just sitting there. I think about them more than I’d like to admit.

so what now

I love music. I will keep coming back to it. I keep saying that, “I’ll come back to it,” and I believe it every time but I also know saying it isn’t the same as doing it. I’m not giving myself any timelines for now. I just need to get my stuff together and eventually I will be there.

I used to write on my desk that I have to make music for four hours. It was a rule for me, come in even if you are not doing anything. Just sit on your computer and open your DAW. Even if you are just editing an EQ or making your snares, do it. Some nights I’d sit there, and nothing would come. Other nights I’d look up and it was 4 AM and I had something. That was the deal I made with myself, and it worked. I just don’t know when I stopped honouring it.

I’m not wrapping this up with a plan. I don’t have one. I just have a hard drive called Hit or Miss, a bunch of ideas that never became anything, and the feeling that I owe it to myself to try again.