Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people and will be blogging about the process.

Johnny’s Blog #3

We spent the two rehearsal days in the same building that I first met members of the Irene Taylor Trust, for a making tracks project where we produced, recorded and performed an album in a week. It was nice to be back in a familiar venue with friendly faces, that I have worked with previously. I also grew up in Kennington so it always brings back childhood memories when I’m there.

Making music in such a big room is so refreshing; the sound really echoes through the space around you. There’s something really humbling about making music in a church and it felt like it contributed to us producing soulful sounds and righteous lyrics.

Helen and I were accompanied by a crew of talented musicians that work with the Trust on various projects: Emma (Producer, instrumentalist), Gary (Guitarist), Adrian (singer songwriter) as well as Tegan (Percussionist) from the  Royal Academy of Music and Rachel (saxophonist) from Guildhall. We also called in Louisa (singer songwriter) and Pedro (Lyricist) who had both been on a previous “Making Tracks” project with the Trust. It was a really strong team and a pleasure to work with a full band and other vocalists. Lauren, Jake and Celia from the Trust were also there to support us as an audience and document the experience with film, photography and recordings.

We spent the next two days producing 3 tracks: Helen’s poetic song “Phoenix”, Louisa and Adrian’s insightful song “Strive” and Adrian, Pedro and myself wrote to a groovy blues song called “Everybody loves music”. We got some recordings of each of the tracks so people could hear them back, outside of the sessions in preparation for the gig. It was really helpful to have other songwriters there to assist with lyrics and encourage us to contribute to the messages of the songs.

It’s quite exceptional how a roomful of musicians can work so well together, to construct such quality music in such a short space of time. I always find it really inspiring when working with the ITT and it just goes to show what you can achieve with like-minded creatives, to express yourself and have some strong material to perform for an event.