For my second trip through Propel, my project was to find a place where I could further my studies in music production. I found a program taught in Ottawa, Ontario, at Algonquin College, called “Music Industry Arts,” where they teach about music production, entrepreneurship in the industry, and how to create a network of clients.

For my application, I had to write, produce, mix, and master a less than 5-minute track, write an essay about my history in music, and, lastly, write an overview of the track's production.

I wrote the demo after I discovered a love for soul musicians. The song was initially reported as if I just learned about stereo. This means I placed my instruments in unusual places, kicks fully in the right ear, and hi-hats going left and right.

Nobody liked it.

So, I moved everything in and added my more modern techniques.

After writing the demo, I asked my classmate Max to perform the chorus and overdub the trumpets. Afterwards, I mixed all of it and then finished with a quick master.

Next, I worked on my essay. I wrote several different drafts, and each iteration was tonally off until I began writing about my parent's influence on how I became a musician. Once the initial draft of this was written, it was short work to edit. Again, last was my production overview.  I ranted about five pages about the intricacies of my work, but I worried about if it was too much, so I emailed the collage and asked how long they typically are, and my response was “typically no more than a page.” To make myself look less “nerdy,” I played a slasher game with my writing, brought it down to 3 pages, corrected grammar, and then sent off my application. Within a day of applying, I was accepted.