Music is present in almost every part of modern day life. From the song we wake up to, to the tune we drive to school with, to the music we automatically turn on when we pull out our earbuds and listen to our newest playlist (or the playlist that we have been adding to since we got a Spotify account in sixth grade), music is present. 

Listening to music is a constant activity in many people’s lives. Yet few choose to cross the line from consuming music to creating it themselves. Scott Coleman ‘22 decided to take that step when he was in seventh grade. 

Since then, he estimates he has made over 1000 songs in his free time. While Coleman typically makes music just for himself, last week, a beat he had posted on YouTube got recognized by artist Rio Vaz and is now featured in Vaz’s newly released song “27.” Coleman explains how this accomplishment came about. 

“I was in Croatia over the summer and I didn’t have any instruments. I just had my computer and headphones,” Coleman said. “I was listening to a lot of music at the time but I was really frustrated because I couldn’t make anything.” 

The beat that resulted from this frustration is available on Spotify. While now being a producing musician, Coleman did not always have the success he has today. His achievements came after years of experience. 

“I didn’t really know what a music producer was when I started [on Garageband] and I definitely didn’t have a knack for it,” Coleman said. “My first beats are still on my mom’s computer and I remember being really excited about them but they were actually all really bad.” 

His passion for creating music revealed itself in middle school.

“It started at my middle school in seventh or eighth grade when [my teacher] showed us Garageband, and one of my friends made a really cool song,” Coleman said. “And I was like I’m gonna try to make that and I found out all of these things you could do on Garageband.” 

Since then, he has progressed from using Garageband to a similar program called Ableton. In this program, Coleman created an album with his friend and fellow music producer, Brewster Galley ’22.

“The process to make the album was a little random,” Galley said. “We just made one song and decided like ‘okay this is kind of fun’.”

“Dear June” is now a published album on Soundcloud. Both Coleman and Galley collaborated to make this product special. 

“Making music with another person is more collaboration of ideas. It’s more like, you have your feelings and emotions and they have theirs and then you kind of combine the two to create something unique,” Galley said. “When you’re by yourself it’s more personal.”

Coleman has a similar stance. 

“It’s really cool to see how the music you make is affected by the people that you are with.” 

When asked what inspires him, Coleman’s response was short but telling.

“Everything.”