For as long as I can remember, music has been a driving passion of mine. From middle school when I listened to Hunky Dory by David Bowie for the first time and started learning how to play guitar and bass, to the beginning of high school when I devoted myself to singing, songwriting and producing, my musical ability has been how I measure my own success and growth. All through high school, I have been working to improve all of these skills, namely songwriting and producing. Every year, I’ve written more and more songs and every year they’ve gotten better and better in every aspect. I began to realize late last year that I was finally confident enough in my skills to release them to the world. Since that realization, I’ve been steadily working towards creating a 10 track album with each song being produced, written, and played almost entirely by me. Although this project is founded on a passion project that I have been working on for years, I have never tried to make this dream of mine a reality before. This comes with a lot of challenges. First off, as much as I have improved since I started producing and writing, with each song I learn more and challenge myself in new ways by incorporating new styles and techniques into my songs and playing. I am constantly learning and improving, so much so that when completing each new track, the old ones sound outdated and in need of remixing. Second, I have never tried to finish a passion project of mine under a deadline, which I’m sure will challenge my approach and prepare me for real life situations of working in the music industry. Through this project, I want to progress my musical career from a passion that I harbor behind closed doors to a project that I share with the entire world. Although I know it is unrealistic to finish and release the entire album by June, I will consider the project successful if the album is done or very close to completion by that point. It is also important to me that through this process, I grow as a musician. With each song, I want to improve my skills and experiment with new ideas. I never want to be scared of trying something new. This project inherently fills 2 bucket categories, creative and academic, while working in service through work outside of my studio. Creative because I’m creating something new with each song, and academic because with each song, I learn more about production and techniques to make an idea come to reality while sounding professional.