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Classical Hip-Hop, Mobile Thinking, and Letting Ideas Lead Every time a new music tool drops, the conversation gets louder. New features appear overnight, workflows shift, and suddenly there’s a sense that if you’re not adopting everything immediately, you’re falling behind. What rarely improves at the same pace is the music itself. This week’s episode of The Backpack Composer  grew out of that tension, and from an unexpected nudge at home. My wife informed me that this weeke

There’s a particular anxiety that shows up whenever technology touches art. It isn’t really about the technology itself—it’s about control . Who gets to create? Who gets credit? And who decides what “counts” as real? Artificial intelligence just happens to be the latest mirror we’re holding up to those questions. This week’s vlog looks at gear, workflow, and ethics—but the larger conversation underneath it is simpler and older than AI: Music has never been a fixed object. It’

Last week was about control. Very intentional control. Tone shaping per instrument. Deliberate decisions. Everything dialed in exactly where I wanted it. This week, that plan deleted itself. Not metaphorically — literally. The original idea unraveled, got replaced, unraveled again, and eventually turned into something that didn’t resemble the plan at all. Which, in hindsight, was the most honest direction the week could have taken. I’d been traveling. Some of the recording ha

Tone shaping and arranging get mystified because we talk about them backward. We describe them as moments of revelation — a sudden turn of knobs where everything “clicks.” In reality, they’re closer to cooking  or sculpting  than to inspiration. They’re tactile, deliberate, and rooted in proportion. No serious cook throws unmeasured ingredients into a bowl and hopes seasoning will save it later. Ingredients are portioned first. Ratios matter. You decide what carries the dish

This week’s vlog wasn’t about introducing anything new. It was about proving something . Over the last few months , we’ve talked about a lot of individual concepts: looping, chord progressions, modal mixture, melody writing, improvising and ad-libbing, arranging, mixing, note choice, plug-ins, and workflow. Each video focused on one piece of the puzzle. Useful on its own, but still abstract unless you see it all working together. This week was the moment where all of those id

There’s a misconception that still floats around creative spaces: that revenue comes from one  big win. One viral song. One licensing deal. One platform cracking the algorithm in your favor. In reality, sustainable creative income doesn’t work that way—especially in music. Revenue doesn’t grow linearly. It grows multiplicatively , and networking is the multiplier. Revenue Isn’t a Number. It’s a System. If you look at most working musicians—especially the ones who aren’t famou

If you hang around musicians long enough, you eventually hear someone say, “That’s not how this genre works. ” Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re gatekeeping, and sometimes they’re just repeating rules someone else told them. But here’s the truth I’ve learned from years of writing in too many styles to count: Genre blending is one of the fastest, easiest, and most joyful ways to grow as a musician. It opens doors. It breaks ruts. It unlocks creativity you didn’t know

Let’s talk about how. The Power of What You Already Have : Logic Pro for iPad comes with one of Apple’s most underrated features: the Session Player. It feels human, reacts to your music, and gives you a starting point that already sounds like a drummer. Once you take control of the MIDI mapping — assigning every pad, trigger, and velocity to the sound you want — the Session Player becomes a creative instrument, not just a preset. And here’s the best part: You don’t need more

When I first started The Backpack Composer , my only goal was to show the process — me, my iPad, and whatever idea happened to show up that week. Somewhere along the way, I drifted into explaining how everything works, and while that’s valuable, I realized something this week: explanations are useless if you don’t see  the tools being used in context. So this week’s video wasn’t a tutorial. It was a demonstration . A reminder that every musician, regardless of setup, has to l

A song is only useful if it leaves your possession. That doesn’t mean you need to sell your rights, sign a deal, or hand your creativity over to someone else. Yes — that’s the fastest way to make a living in music. But for many of us, music isn’t purely transactional. It’s expression. It’s curiosity. It’s therapy. It’s art. And yet… most of our art never leaves us. If you’re a hobbyist (or a working musician who still feels like one), you probably have a folder full of voice

This week’s vlog explored the ethical use of AI in songwriting  — a topic that hits right at the heart of what Backpack Composing  stands for: creating music anywhere, with whatever tools you have . There’s an understandable tension in the music world right now. On one side, AI raises valid concerns about originality and authorship — about whether something generated by code can truly belong to the artist who clicked “create.” But from another angle, especially in the context

When you’re self-taught — a singer, producer, or multi-instrumentalist building songs from scratch — it’s completely natural to lean on what you already know. You find a pattern that feels right, you reuse a familiar groove, and before long, you’ve built your musical comfort zone. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s exactly how most of us learn. But it also means that unless someone shows you what’s possible beyond that comfort zone, you might not realize how much more ther

Last night’s gig reminded me why I keep coming back to melody as the heartbeat of a song. The secular bar scene, for all its rough edges, has a generosity that never fails to surprise me. People root for each other. There’s a sense that your effort matters and that the room wants you to sound like yourself. I didn’t always feel that growing up in church circles, where underpaying musicians can quietly breed competition and creative anxiety. The welcome I get in bars—sometimes

When I launched The Backpack Composer , the idea was simple: prove that you don’t need a full studio setup or a MacBook to make...

Why I Chose Logic Pro for iPad Over a MacBook for Music Production

Hello and welcome! I’m thrilled to share some exciting news and updates from The Back Pack Composer. As we embark on this journey...

Mastering on iPad: Logic Pro vs. GarageBand

Mixing, Arranging & Automations in Logic Pro & GarageBand on iPad

Leveling and FX Chains

Normalizing on iPad