Name: Shawn Robinson
Major: English Writing
Year: Junior
“Never give up because it takes many years of practice and love and dedication to take whatever you want to do where it needs to be.”
While Junior Shawn Robinson takes a break from writing numerous papers for his English Writing Nonfiction major, he uses his creativity as a musician to compose and produce music for his friends to record over. “When I was in seventh grade for my birthday, I got my first acoustic guitar and started to get lessons from a private instructor. From there, I started playing guitar for a jazz band in high school and developed my own style from there.” Since then, Shawn has been working to compose fully completed songs ranging from three to ten minutes. Although at this point, he is able to complete a song in one night; it never was this easy. “It really started clicking through the years when I was playing in my jazz band. I really got to learn music theory and how to structure a song and play around with relative keys in order to create a cool sound.” Shawn’s high school also helped to strengthen his producing skills. “Throughout high school I took a class called Recording and Technology which teaches you how to use garage band, a recording software that comes with Macs, and Logic Studio which is an upgraded version that you can buy. Through that you can not only record live instruments, like a guitar, through a microphone, but you can also plug in a keyboard and record bass, drums and other accent instruments. Through that the song sounds more full which is basically what I started to do after learning how to do things like that.”
This summer, Shawn sat down with his friend, Henry, and completed a full rap album. “We were inspired by a rapper called Juicy J and basically we were listening to him rap and thought ‘Hey, we could make better beats than this guy. We can rap better than this guy. We can make better lyrics than this guy.’ So we just started pursuing that for complete fun to get a good laugh and mock the rap industry. I threw down some killer beats on the keyboard and Hank and I rapped over them. It turned out really funny and better than expected.”
Shawn’s process is most like other musicians. “It depends on what project I’m working on. So be it a rap song, a rock song or an electronic song. Normally if I’m going to be recording something with guitar, it starts with the guitar rift I play or a simple cord structure I stumble upon. I’ll record that and develop an entire song off of the one cord progression. Sometimes it can start the whole other way around, where I start with a beat from the drums and baseline and record guitar based on that melody.”
In the end, Shawn just enjoys making music for his friends. Although a career in music would be ideal, “the most rewarding part of creating music is being able to play something back for my friends to hear and seeing their reactions. I’m going to keep pursuing music to fulfill my happiness and my personal desires because it’s what I love to do.”