Behind the Music

The very first process of the creative process is getting an idea for a song. There are many ways in which I get ideas for a song. Something I see, something I remember, something I hear etc. The next step is the hardest, it's putting a story to that idea through words. The next step is making that story come alive through music. For me at least I already have a general idea of how I want that song to sound in my head but at this time I will pick up my guitar and start jamming until I find the perfect sound! Many elements go into this step such as the mood, tempo, what key, the emotions to arise out of people, etc. Some things that help with this is first knowing the audience, you want to resonate with. Put yourself in their shoes. If you close your eyes and listen to the song, what do you feel? What memories come back? Would you buy this song? Is it memorable? Does it arise your desired emotion? All of these things will help you in your songwriting process. For example, my song "Back to the Hills" will not resonate with someone that's lived in say Arizona their whole life but to the tens of thousands of people who once lived in West Virginia and moved away but often come back to visit, it will. When writing songs the goal is to reach as many fans as possible, no one fan is more important than another one. Hint: As my one song says, "Were All Important." The goal is to always be expanding your fan base. To do that, you have to write different genre of songs with different ideas. For example, I have written songs about my home West Virginia, political songs, worship songs, general country songs, pop songs, rock songs, etc. All of these songs represent a different fan base that I'm appealing too. Remember if you have no fans, you have no career. My number one goal is to make my fans feel important and appreciated. After creating the song, the final step is applying vocals and mastering it and putting on the final touches! I use an Intel Core I9 computer with a Soundcraft Signature 12 unpowered mixer, 2 Mackie CR3 studio monitors, a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 3rd Gen USB Audio Interface, a Novation Launchkey 61 MK4 Midi and a Rhode-NT1 Cardioid Condenser Studio XLR Microphone. I use Pro Tools Studio, Hitmaker Expansion, Waveform Pro, Ableton Live Standard and dozens of plug ins like Auto-Tune, Antares, Brainworx, Softube, Landr, XLN Audio, Relab. Etc to get the sound you hear today. If I can’t find the sound or effect I’m looking for, I have friends who are recording engineers who can direct me in the right direction. I personally Use Mixea Mastering, which is part of DistroKid, my music distributor to master the tracks and finalize the song. It is then stored as a WAV track and there you go. You have a finished song! Now it's time to copyright that song at the US Library of Congress, register the song with BMI as well as the MLC and release your song! That's the creative process behind every song I make @ Brian Mullins Music!