Music fills the surrounding air, each note hitting the ear like a warm breeze. A few figures stand beneath the sun, each humming their own tune created by themselves. Each melody unique and beautiful to listen to.
Experimental music is a broad, 20th-century-originated genre that challenges, questions, and defies traditional musical arrangements. Instead of following the traditional structures, instruments, and composition techniques, it is characterized by exploratory, often improvised, and unpredictable, or “undetermined,” outcomes. This genre emphasizes the process of creation over the final result. It’s like using chance, rolling a dice to decide your choices.
Freshman Gavin Abrera makes just that, getting into creating music that uses an attitude of experimentation. He got into creating music by the artists he listens to and as an enjoyable cool hobby in which he uses the software FL Studio that was gifted to him.
With what the genre is, it’s no wonder Abrera loves Sophie Xeon’s own music. Sophie Xeon was a British DJ, songwriter, and music producer who went by the mononym SOPHIE. She helped pioneer the 2010s hyperpop microgenre.
As a creator of experimental electronic, avant-pop, and deconstructed club sounds, SOPHIE’s songs featured high-pitched vocals, metallic, “sugary” textures, and chaotic production. Instead of having a preference for general pop music, Abrera thinks the experimental kind of music opens up a wider variety of stuff.
Because the genre is more of an exploration of combining sounds, Abrera said that when he makes music, “it’s just more of how I’m feeling at the moment that if I want to continue producing.”
Abrera said his favorite track he has made so far is “Chipped”, preferring that kind of beat and style. And while he doesn’t have many songs out currently, most of them sitting in his files, he recommends listeners to check out his most recent project he has dropped which is a single called “Chipped and Repaired”.
“It releases as a single but I have both [Chipped and Chipped and Repaired] in the same project,” Abrera said.
Countering experimental music, rap music instead focuses on flow, lyricism, and groove. Hip-hop rap music specifically is a global cultural movement and music genre that originated in the 1970s in New York City’s African-American and Caribbean communities. The hip-hop aspect of this music genre serves as a broader influential cultural expression while the vocal element, rapping, features rhythmic, rhyming speech over beats.
Senior Victor Lopez started making his beats on a tablet when he was in eighth grade, liking the genre of hip-hop rap because of its energy. To make his songs, he said “I listen to what is trending or what was trending back then and I just sample certain sounds that I like and fuse them together with my type of style of music.”
Not only do certain sampled sounds inspire Lopez, but also his top three artists: ASAP Rocky, MF Doom, and TY Dolla $ign. His music consists of hip-hop rap, sometimes featuring neo-psychedelic samples, gospel, and a few samples similar to Kanye.
The inspiration doesn’t just end there. Lopez’s cousin, who used to make his own music, guided Lopez to his interests today. Lopez had gotten really inspired by his cousin who is a popularly well known artist, following in his footsteps by producing for himself and other people. Producing music that he likes allows him to express who he really is, also noticing how he has been able to bring people together through his songs.
Lopez said his favorite song he has made so far is “Say to Me” with his reasoning being “because, honestly, funny enough, that song was really just made in one hour.” He had gone straight onto BandLab on his phone without any inspiration, making it on the spot. And in the end, he said it came out really good.
Lopez continues on about his music, recommending listeners to listen to an album that will come out just as he graduates. “It is gonna launch on my SoundCloud” under the name Victulious, or listeners can stream the album on YouTube under the handle Viktulious once it releases.
The music genre R&B shares similar rhythmic production to hip-hop rap, frequently collaborating and are treated as a combined genre in popular culture. But R&B (Rhythm and Blues) focuses more on melodic singing, emotions and themes of love or hardships, and smooth production. The genre originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, blending jump blues, gospel, jazz, and soul.
Senior Logan Guinoo found the music online interesting, seeing many people dive really deep into the subject. Encouraged by wanting to try to make music as well and his ego reassuring him he could do it, he dove in as well. Guinoo would look at samples from other people, eventually seeing if he could recreate them or make some of his own.
Guinoo never really got inspired by a specific artist, instead going through his journey along with a friend. “My friend would play the song,” Guinoo said, following up with how he’d get inspired by that.
His exploration of music likely consisted of navigating the songs he found online and his friend playing other types of songs. These blended his inspiration into a want to create. Guinoo said “[R&B] is not really the only genre I make, but [it’s] the main one.”
Guinoo’s motivation comes from finishing his projects, listening to the rhythm he has created. His reasoning comes from him “Just trying to finish the beat”. And while he doesn’t have a specific recommended song he has made for others to listen to, he continues to work on his tracks.
It’s likely they will be released in the future, more R&B music coming for listeners to enjoy. But no matter the questions asked, his response to music is a strong “I just [find] it interesting, absolutely.”
