About me & music
Before you start reading - this might be a TL;DR for many of you.
I'm sorry if this is too much, but I swear it's already the short version. 😏
Born and raised in Hanover, Germany, more than 50 years ago, I started music quite early with the usual suspects: playing a recorder flute and singing in the school choir. Later my music teacher thought it was a good idea if I learnt playing Cello, to be honest, I didn't think so and dropped the lessons before even being able to play a clean note.
Learning to play the guitar was much more enjoyable, but still I hated the lessons. Actually, all instruments I play I have taught myself. That took a 'little longer' and there are still things I struggle with but this got me where I am now.
Being 16 I started playing in my first band. That was in the beginning of the 80s and our skills were sufficient to play punk, new wave and especially something called 'Neue Deutsche Welle', characterized by German lyrics. Circumstances made me 'sing' and play synthesizer and keyboard in that outfit - it was my first encounter with the black and white keys.
Since then I played in several bands with different styles and on different instruments.
Genres range from Rock and Pop via Punk and Industrial to Reggae and Ska, with the last two being my all time favorites.
The Present:
Around 2018 I started making music again. The band before, a fairly successful 7-piece-Ska/Rocksteady-outfit dissolved six years before, and the split had hit me that hard that I didn't even touch an instrument in the meantime.
Since I always was interested in computers and in making music with them, I decided to give it try again. When you're deeply into music you never can drop it completely - at least I couldn't. So I purchased some hard- and software and made it go. First I thought of covering old Ska and Rocksteady tunes - the style we played with my last band. Anyway, it didn't take long for my own musical ideas to emerge and I made my first original tunes.
The first track that went public was an entry for a music competition in a FB Boom Bap group. There was a cut and paste challenge where contestants had to use a fuge by Bach as base for the tune. I wasn't that much in Hip Hop - I didn't even know what Boom Bap was - and it was the first time I seriously dealed with loops, samples, chopping and pasting. Nonetheless I finished among the first ten of around 100. Curious to hear that tune? Check it out on Soundcloud!
The challenge and how I ranked was a good starter for the things to come.
Meanwhile I published nearly 50 tunes, most of them on Bandcamp and many streaming services. The biggest part of them is indeed heavily Reggae and Ska influenced. A lot are instrumentals, but there also several tracks with vocals - be it samples and loops, collaborations with vocalists, or even me trying my best on the mic. The ones I sing are usually more personal, two are even in German. But the more I sing the more I dare to sing. So next to using sampled voices there will be more of my voice featured in my tunes in the future.
Finally, most instruments that can be heard in my music are 'virtual instruments'. Surely there are bass lines and some guitars I really record into the box - but I mostly play a keyboard while recording. Well, and I usually use loops for the drum tracks, it just sounds more natural.
But even though I now make music 'strictly' in the 'box', I still feel mainly being a bassist. And more than that - I always strive to make the music sound 'natural' - like played by a band - and not like straight out of the computer.
I hope you are as curious as I am for the next things to happen.
Karl a.k.a. Bluebeat Shelter