Most HT students know of Beethoven and Bach, but do they know of junior Jack Breeden? Breeden loves to write and compose his own music, specifically for the piano. Breeden has been playing the piano for nine years, and has a passion for the arts.
Breeden got into music composing about two years ago because he was very interested in writing and had a background in music. Composing for a wide variety of instruments has allowed him to expand into the arts and combine two of his main hobbies.
Breeden’s inspiration comes from a wide variety of genres, not just traditional classical music. “I’m inspired by a lot of different artists,” Breeden said. “I really like soundtracks from video games and even jazz.” Although he pulls inspiration from all across the music world, Breeden tries not to stick himself in just one genre and tries to write a variety of music.
Breeden does all of his composing on FL Studios, a digital application for music creation. Breeden comes into writing with a general idea of what he wants to do, going off of the feel of the music, or with a specific character in mind. Afterwards, everything comes to him from there. When beginning to actually write a new song, Breeden normally starts off with a baseline or a melody. Then, he takes the melody and he tries it out on the piano, to get his creativity flowing. From there, he heads to FL studio to let things come together naturally. “I just sit with things and tweak them until they’re up to snuff,” Breeden commented.
Additionally, he has a YouTube channel where he posts for himself to keep track of his portfolio. Breeden aspires to minor in music theory in college.
According to Breeden, music composing has progressed to become free range. A couple hundred years ago music composing was stringent; everything had rules about whether things were good or bad. Today things are different, as “(Society) has progressed in a direction where music is becoming more based on emotion; anyone can do it,” Breeden said.
As AI technologies develop, they continue as a distant threat to the creative world. “I am very much afraid that music and the creative process could be at threat with AI, in the future,” Breeden said. While using AI as a tool to spark creativity is great, people are at a risk of losing art and the beauty of making it. It is good to think ahead about the threat AI could have in producing and putting people out of the game, says Beeden.
If others are interested in composing music, Breeden recommends to “take a look at the fundamentals of music. Wikipedia has some great resources for those starting out,” he said.
The composing process varies for everyone, but anyone can write music. “Just start doing it,” Breeden encouraged.
