The delicate sounds of the guitar revereberate off the walls of the bedroom where junior Marko Vrhovac sits, his mind swirling with melodies and lyrics of unfinished songs. Vrhovac is an aspiring musician and publishes his work on Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and Amazon Music under the name ‘mwrko’.
There are a multitude of different genres of music, each one bound to appeal to a different person. Vrhovac in particular focuses on a softer, acoustic vibe.
“I don’t know if I can boil it down to one genre, but I’d say it’s like a folk Indie mix with my music. I play a lot of instruments. I play guitar, piano, and sometimes a few other instruments. I play traditional instruments for my country from Croatia,” Vrhovac said.
Vrhovac’s passion for music goes all the way back to when he was a child, making the hope of being a successful musician a lifelong dream he is making into a reality.
“I would say that I’ve always been [interested in] music. I definitely think that it’s just kind of my thing. I’ve been put into it since I was little and I really wanted to make that my career when I got older and seeing tons of other artists and other bands just like performing on stage stuff like that has really inspired me to make my own music because I feel like making a living off of my passion for music is so important and I’d genuinely like to live that life.” Vrhovac said.
Senior Tony Valera publishes his music under the name Comet Studios on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music. Valera’s music consists of instrumentals featuring piano, guitar, and drums.
“So in middle school, as one of my elective classes, I chose one that had a music production class. And it was in eighth grade. It was something that I really liked. And that’s where I learned what MIDI keyboards are, which are basically like a keyboard that you plug into a computer.” Valera said. “I thought that was really cool, being able to make my own stuff, just random melodic ideas that I had in my head. So eventually, during quarantine I bought myself a MIDI keyboard. And then I started just making songs on this free software that I use on a web browser that I still use to this day. And I just started just having fun with it. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”
Inspiration is one of the driving motivators for musicians, and Vrhovac describes what gives him the most inspiration.
“I would say that just listening to music and being in that space and being in lessons and stuff like that. It just inclines me to strive for being an artist and being a musician.” Vrhovac said. “I also really do enjoy the songwriting process because it allows me to get my ideas onto paper and put them into songs that people can relate to and people can enjoy.”
Music making isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and it takes a person with both passion and grit to be able to pass through those hurdles, Valera shines a light on the amount of work it takes to create a piece of music.
“I feel like a lot of the music process kind of gets overlooked. I feel like a lot of people just see the final outcome and they’re just like, anyone can do that.” Valera said. “[and] anyone can do it, but it’s not as easy as it looks. You need to put hard work into it.”
With the many different forms that music takes, there are a plethora of different methods of creating this art. Freshman Ben Freitas, who has an account on Spotify under the name LoverBoy, explains his process to make music.
“It takes a lot. Usually I’ll use free stuff on YouTube for the beats or sometimes I’ll even like I’ll pay like a lot of money for a beat. And then I will make lyrics. I have a program that I use. So I pretty much just paste the beat in the background and then add the lyrics and some effects.” Freitas said.
Valera gives advice to those hoping to start out.
“Just don’t be discouraged at first because I think that a lot of people starting nowadays will see the amount of different softwares and hardwares that there is like they see these pictures of giant production studios. But I think people sometimes forget, you can make high quality level things with an iPad and a dream.” Valera said.
