socrates fav music creation

My Favorite Music Creation

3/4/2017

Socrates Howard - New York City Oct. 2016

My #1 artistic expression and first creative love is and will ALWAYS be music. I can't really put into words both written or verbally, how the power of music ignites my body and soul. Coming from a music talent and literally experiencing/listening to music my entire childhood honestly made me run away from it as a child. But even then, I had signs of the art of music. My parents put my sister in piano theory classes, and me being the boy, that wasn't an immediate action. However, I would sneak and teach myself how to play child songs on a piano older than I was at the time, and did by myself. I should have known then, that music had pretty much stole my heart. Since 2000 I've produced several pieces for artists, film, media, TV, hell even elevator and restaurant music. But when I moved to New York, NY back around 2008 there was one genre of music that changed my life...Read more to find out and hear about the sonic addiction.

I feel like anyone in music whether you are a producer, rapper, singer, writer, composer, collaborator, A&R, choreographer, backup singer/dancer you always get asked those few questions "how'd you get into music, what type of music do you do, have I heard you before, what's your favorite type of music"???

And for me, it all changed back when I heard Kanye West's sophomore album "Late Registration" Now I will admit, I'm bias when it comes to Ye, but even today I still believe it was his best album. And for one sole purpose: JON BRION. He's produced and played for artist such as Radiohead, Fiona Apple, Portishead, Alicia Keys, Kanye West and many more. This guy changed music and my life for all eternity. Late Registration was not the normal "hip hop/rap" album...there was something different about it from in ever form sonically. A song titled "Bring Me Down" started to play featuring Brandy. This sh*tt right here was literally so epic. I was bouncing my head, and vibin hard because I heard this 17th century sound...Jon Brion added an orchestra to a hip hop track live!!! Ironically today, this method is used often but at that present time, this blew me away. I teared up and played the song about 50 times back to back. I've always been a historical nerd and the fact that string arrangement, horn ensemble and brass could potentially pioneer music in hip hop made me feel like I really had a shot at the music game.

Maschine
Komplete
(Native Instruments)

Fast forward about 3 years into moving to NYC and out of nowhere I was in the presence of my orchestrated hero. I don't have enough finger strength to write what that short encounter gave me musically, but I'll say between meeting JB, and submerging the music sounds I heard for the better part of my life from my mother I begin to create music that I genially loved. I began to feel the music, the vibe, and felt its breathe around me. This led to what many have become to know me for and that's including some sort of orchestrated element to the records I produce no matter the genre. I don't care what genre, it can be folk music or Dub and I will still found a way to bridge the orchestral gap.

The song I've added below is the instrumental from a record I produced and performed titled "Political Campain". Why is this my favorite creation??? Welp, because it embodies my idea of music and hip hop...it's not always about the kick, hi-hat, snare/snap combo with the side step of an 808 that makes hip hop. It's true music, it's the fact that hip hop can be combined with every music form not the planet without a hitch. When I created this record it took about 3 months to work out the orchestrated element, but in that 90 day timeframe I had the blessing of collaborating with true composers all over thanks to the wonderful web...and I mean true composers who don't create hip hop as their first music form. Nonetheless, I hope you can enjoy this instrumental as much as I do and although I know I'm treating it like my baby, I believe everyone can find a piece of it that speaks to them :). Hope you enjoy and don't forget to follow me on all social channels below !