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Check out my new tune Limbo on Soundcloud!

https://soundcloud.com/inkaupendo/limbo

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The sexualisation of women is only appealing if it's nonconsensual. Otherwise it's "sluttiness"

Linda West 

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Sell your soul and profit

The Internet has allowed people to enter a new kind of era of promotion: self promotion trough social media. For some this seems like the most natural thing to do but I feel terrified. I have a problem of “selling myself” be cause it feels very fake to me. Even the phrase makes me think of prostitution and the red light district in Amsterdam. I understand my ideal self and the “real” me will never be identical but I have always payed extra attention and effort to the concept of balance between them. I have always tried to “keep it real”.

Selling one-self in different cultures differs widely. The traditional Finnish logic is: “if you don’t have anything meaningful to say, it is better to be quiet and say nothing at all”. That can easily show differently on the outside and is at least partly the reason why Finns are so unfamiliar with small talk. Without the talent of small talk and being so self-conscious of what to say, you do not really possess the greatest workbench for selling. I feel like this influences my unwillingness to publish my work. Then again I might just be one of those damn perfectionists.

Cultural differences and “just being a Finn” can’t be the only reason why I haven’t taken part in the game of thrones for most followers in social media. So why haven't I published my work earlier? For this game, one needs to be active, engaged and consistently provide new value for the social media of choosing. As a 90s babe, I am not as into the social media world as my younger fellow students. I received my first phone, Nokia 3310, when I was 10 years old and my first smart phone in 2011. I did not want to have a smart phone of any kind but at that time the world had changed and my job required me to have one. I had been against all social media be cause I saw how it stole my friends’ concentration and focus out of the real social life. When having a cup of coffee with my mates, I would insist them putting the phone back to their pocket and not leave it vibrating on the coffee table, steeling the limelight from the conversation.

Unfortunately I can't afford my opinions anymore. The problem I am facing is that nowadays when you're trying approach a label, you are expected to already have some fanbase that you have collected yourself through social media. Meaning I would need to have a social media outlet where to advertise myself and gather followers. This makes me want to vomit. Unwillingly I will have to face the fact that the social media revolution is here and it's not going away. "The social web and mobile technologies have accelerated the rate at which relationships develop, information is shared and influence takes hold", says  Marc Benioff in BBC online news and I can't shut my eyes anymore. What I really want is to make a living with my music and it seems that self promotion through social media is the way to get there. So I guess I got to suck it up, sell my soul and profit.

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What is in the future?

Music-wise, I wish more opportunities for composer producers. I feel like I live the revolution of electronic music, a wave of young musicians who got bored with the traditional way of making and teaching music and found their own way because the old stuff was simply boring. There is a massive amount of young people who make, perform and produce their own music but get no opportunities to do the same professionally because still one has to fit in a box. Why can’t you do it all if you have the passion? I want to do it all.

Musicians produce and publish without help more and more because professional help costs way too much for a newcomer. So if all this new electronic music is being made and released, isn’t it just sad that it doesn’t get airtime? Just be cause there is no outlet for it.

One of the reasons why most of the money in the music business goes to the same artists is be cause it’s too hard to find new music. And I’m not talking about artists and music enthusiasts, I’m talking about everybody else.  It’s not easy enough , accessible enough. The people want things that are not time-consuming. Something to grab from the shelf, removing the plastic around it, sticking it to the microwave and then your pie hole. Omnomnom easy. Now one has time to waste time anyway one sees fit. I feel like we need something similar but bigger then Spotify’s discover weekly. So that when a person gets that feeling of “oh I could listen to some new tunes right about now” they can just whip their phone out and within a few movements they are directed to new artists and musicians who wouldn’t get that chance to play for these specific ears otherwise.

I’ve always felt powerless in front of capitalism and poverty. I’ve felt like an idiot walking past homeless people on my way to the airport. I’ve always thought there’s nothing I can do to change the situation of the world. Being vegetarian doesn’t really change anything major, only saving the lives of the animals I choose not to eat. I know I’m not the only young person who feels this way. I am just starting to realise that I can change something with my music and how I present myself as a female artist and producer. It its really frustrating that when you’re trying to type in “female artist producers” in the internet, all you get is mainstream artist like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Madonna etc. Where are people like Grimes, FKA Twigs and Holly Herndon? I want to know more of them so I can do the same. As a female artist and producer you have to have so much confidence in yourself not to break down and not feel good enough in front of this male dominating industry. I see myself a little bit more confident than the average woman. F**** Gillette Venus razors, my leg hair is here to stay and to keep me warm. I can only think about how all these less confident girls are trying to make it in a world of technology, feeling stupider just because they started to explore it later on in the game. Because during the school plays we still get put to sing in the choir when boys get to learn about live mixing and lights.

What if in the future, there would be an outlet for young musicians where you knew more about the facts of who made the music? Where in the world it was made, with what dove etc. Where you could share and meet other artists to work with. Why even stop with that. Let’s get all kinds of artists in there. People with visual skills could work for album covers, lights and visuals for live shows, anything. The future of the music in is the Internet , that is for sure. The future is communication in the Internet. There are always people who need help with something and always people who know the answer. Let’s get all the artists and tech people together. Everything is already accessible in the internet. The searching part is the hard part. What if you could search for songs that handle a specific topic, like slut-shaming or anti-gun thoughts? Wouldn’t it be great for the young, growing mentalities to hear music that doesn’t say: “Bitch sit down, bitch be humble” or “My anaconda don’t want none if you ain’t got buns hun”. I mean seriously it’s so obvious that girls of generation Z are twerking their buns thinking it’s cool because of the sexualisation of women in the popular culture and media. If these girls could hear cool music made of other cool girls, with lyrics saying it’s cool to dance in trousers and to succeed without having the best buns, wouldn’t we have healthier minds to help other minds in the future?

Whatever this outlet will be, it should have a strong point of view of the art that gets presented in it. Other things then sex will have to be able to sell. We know it’s possible, it’s just not the easiest way.

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Always follow your own path ppl

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Follow your path.com

My greatest inspiration and role model for the music industry has been my father who has never sold his soul trying to succeed in anything else but in his own vision. From up close I have seen that it truly is possible to provide for yourself and family following your own path. Naturally this has influenced my vision of my real-self and shaped my musical taste. I’ve simply always wanted to stay true to myself. Authenticity is the key and one great example of if is Frank Ocean, the man who’s music tickles my intestines and makes my ears orgasm. Some how Ocean has been able to reach the stars, have success in the mainstream music business while holding his ground and trusting his own vision.

Jon Caramanica wrote in 2016 in Nytimes.com : “Over the past three years, his absence from the pop troposphere — a void interrupted only by the occasional collaboration, Tumblr post or paparazzi shot — has felt like a position statement against celebrity culture, while simultaneously guaranteeing that Mr. Ocean’s fame, turbo-boosted by fervent curiosity, would grow even wider.” This is as interesting of an approach to selling oneself as the Daft Punk’s was. The hiding results into growing interest in the artist. I believe this stems from these artists’ attempt to stay authentic and maintain some kind of privacy in a world where everything is accessible through the internet.

Authenticity combined with intuition is a powerful thing. When Ocean parted his management team and publicist for his sophomore album to take a different direction with his career, former manager Chris Clancy offered some insight into Ocean’s decision making. “This is a guy who has the ability to change things, and for him to change things, he has to follow his intuition,” Chris Clancy told MTV News last year. “If he doesn’t follow his intuition, then it’s not real. The goal is to trust the guy who wrote the music to present his art, his way — Frank has incredible intuition. Just fucking incredible. He very clearly sees things; my job is to say, no matter how far out it may be, I’m going to trust that.”

This guy gives me hope of doing things right and believing in my own path.

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Know your in and outputs 

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How I make a track

One of the best pointers I have learned with tracking is to divide the work into two separate parts. This is how you can prevent yourself from feeling trapped with endless possibilities. Part 1: Choosing the sounds and samples you will use in the session. Part 2: Actually making the track with the sounds you have already chosen.

You can always add samples in your track when sudden inspiration comes to you but when you are experiencing the flow, the full involvement and the energised focus, looking for “that specific kick sound” might cut if off. So this in mind, I always start with flipping through the browser content pane of Ableton Live Suite 9, which I am currently working with. I set a drum rack to a midi track and choose samples to the drum rack.  I always start by looking for the kick. The kick is EVERYTHING <3 . It needs to hit you in the face with low frequencies while possessing a high frequency, that “snap” sound, so that you can hear it even through the crappiest smartphone speakers. Next I am looking to find the snare. At the moment I’m kinda over the conventional claps and snares so I try to find alternative sounds for the role of the snare. Same goes for hi-hats. I rather use something I have not heard a billion times. Glitches, scratches, crackles, snaps, blips and blops, any kind of interesting high pitch percussion sounds are pleasing to my eat at the moment.

I often create the drop, the beat, whatever you wanna call it, first. When that is groovy I kind of feel relieved and can focus on the other parts of the track in peace. These times when we have the damned quantize button, it it really easy to loose the groove. You do not want your track to sound plastic. Remember that every dove has a swing knob. Finger drumming  your beat without quantisation, nudge your midi clips by hand and play with it. Have fun, experiment. Always duplicate, duplicate, duplicate to save previous ideas without loosing the flow. You can always go back to delete but not recreate.

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“Music is like masturbation, one does not simply fap without inspiration” - Inka Upendo 

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Inspiration

I only work on my music when I get that sweet sensation of inspiration. During those moments I can simply let the music flow out of me. The soundscape of the song starts to form itself. Luckily, I experience this daily. Any kind of piece of art can act as a trigger for the inspiration. It does not need to be specifically music. Anything goes: a sentence off of someone's speech, a painting, a simple doodle, sounds surrounding you when you're having a walk, warmth of the sun, saltiness of coastal winds, literally anything. They key of constant flow is being aware of your surroundings, being open.

Recently I watched the documentary "Daft Punk Unchained" that was released 2015. I had to pause the film 5 times be cause I felt like overflowing with inspiration. I put it on pause, got my laptop and Push 1 controller for Ableton Live out, and just started banging out tunes. I wouldn't even stop to eat, drink or to pee. It wouldn't be until late in the night when I realised I seriously needed to drop the kids off at the pool. Now you might think "that's disgusting", but I'm saying that's dedication.

The best sources for inspiration vary for different personalities. If you want to create something new, I'd say go and discover something else then Spotify's Discover Weekly. (Btw just saying Daft Punk's Discovery album is the s***!) For harnessing new inspiration, I'd say go and experience other art forms then your own.