Josh Starmer

Hi everybody!

This week I finally released three new songs!
These are Learn To Fly, So-Called Angel and I Caught You Staring At Me.
I really love the songs, and I hope that you all love them too!
They haven’t received many plays yet so please go and listen to them!
They’re available to download free of charge as well so please download them!!!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SONGS!!!

I realised recently that if you listen to all of the songs I have released for free download in a particular order, they seem to fit together well like an album.
However, this album doesn’t seem to have a song that fits well at the end yet.
I’m working on releasing one more free download track, which should hopefully be the ending song. Then I will reveal the track list for the songs and you should be able to enjoy them as an album experience!
I haven’t got any ideas for a song yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.
Once this is released, I will put all of my energy into finishing the EPs and my official debut album.

Today I recorded a demo of Obsessed, which is a song for my album and it sounds absolutely incredible!
I’ve mentioned previously that this song is my favourite thing that I’ve written so far.
Judging from the demo, I’m pretty sure it will be amazing!
I’m so excited for how this song will turn out!
I’ll let you know how the song progresses when I work on it in the future.

I have also updated the “Inspiration behind my songs” blog with the three new songs.
Please check this out!!!

Thank you so for reading this blog, please be sure to read the other “My Music” blogs and to check out my music if you haven’t already done so!

Thanks,

Josh :)

Hi everybody!

I just released three brand new songs!!!

These songs are…

• Learn To Fly 
• So-Called Angel
• I Caught You Staring At Me

Please check them out and download them 100% free of charge!!!

These songs are also available on my YouTube and MySpace page (link below)

If you enjoy these songs, I’d really appreciate it if you click “like” on my Facebook page and re-blogged this to let all of your followers know about my music.

Thank you so much,

Josh :)

Hi everybody!

This week I finally finished the instrumental to “I Caught You Staring At Me”.
I think it sounds great, I haven’t had the chance to record vocals for it like I thought I would this weekend, but I’m on half-term this week and I haven’t made many plans to go out so I’m sure I’ll find some time!
I don’t think the vocals will take me very long to record since the song is quite short.

I realised earlier that it’s the first song I’ll be releasing to feature my Roland MC-307 drum machine that I bought almost a year ago!
I have actually only used it on one other song, which was called “Simon Says”. I was going to put up for free download but then decided that I didn’t like the song.
Maybe I’ll release it some day, but as of now I have no plans to do so.
Anyway, the kit sounds great on “I Caught You Staring At Me”, and I’m definitely going to use the kit more often! (I’m really not sure why I haven’t used it very much)

After I have recorded and released the three new free download songs, I’m going to put all of my energy into recording tracks from my EP and from my album.
I’ve recorded demos of the majority of the songs which will be on these records, and there’s no reason for why I can’t start the proper recordings of them.
The only song I’ve started doing this with is one which has the working title of “Human”. This song has quite a lot of changes and instrumentation so it has been taking me a while to finish this. 

I’m going to put “Human” on hold and start working on “Obsessed” since I’ve finally decided on an idea that I wish to go with. I’ve been playing around with lots of different ideas for that song, it’s the first song that I’ve ever struggled with trying to develop the perfect sound for it.
My idea for the song sounds a bit confusing, I want the song to have quite a minimalistic production but at the same time sound very big and intense.
I’ve found it quite difficult to take that idea and get it just right on the recording, but I think I know which direction I need to go in now.
I’ll let you know how that turns out!

Also, this week I noticed that I received 10 downloads on SoundCloud this week!
I know that certainly isn’t a lot, but usually I’m lucky to get more than one download a month so I’m really pleased!
Please continue to download all of my tracks on SoundCloud, they’re all free of charge!
Links to download will be at the bottom of this blog.

That’s all I have to say this week, thank you so much for reading this blog.
Please be sure to check out the other “my music” blogs and to check out my music if you haven’t already done so!

Thanks,

Josh :)

Hi everybody!

This week I finally completed my new song “Learn To Fly”.
I really love it, hopefully you all will as well!

I mentioned in last week’s blog that I’d finished the music to “Learn To Fly” and was going to record vocals later on that week.
I recorded the vocals on Tuesday night, I wanted the song to have a live feel, so I recorded it in one take instead of recording individual sections like I would with any of my other songs. I tried the song twice and decided to use the second take.
I felt really happy with it, but I felt that there was something missing.

After a few days, I thought about the track and realised that it needed some harmonies during the chorus, but I didn’t think the harmonies sounded right when I sang them. So my sister offered to sing them over the top of the song, she just sings an octave higher than me, and it makes the song sound perfect!

Although my sister is only singing for two very brief moments, it makes such a big difference to the song!
This was also the first time my sister has ever sang on a song recording.
I cannot wait for you all to hear it!

“So-Called Angel” and “Learn To Fly” are now complete, all that I have to record now before I release any new music is “I Caught You Staring At Me”.
I’ve sequenced the song into pro tools, and I’ve developed some sounds that I will use in the song.
All that I need to do now is record the sounds and my vocals.
I finish college for half-term this Wednesday, so I will probably do that when I come home!

After those songs are complete, I’m going to release them for free download then I’m going to focus on finishing both EPs and my album.

• EP 1 is about 90% done, there’s just a few minor touches I need to make.
  I’ve decided that once that is complete, I’m just going to put the whole thing up for free download and send it to whoever asks for it.
  It’s not that I don’t like the songs, it’s just that they seem out of date compared to the stuff I’m working on now and the stuff I’ve already released.
  As I’ve previously mentioned, I wrote the songs when I was 15/16 years old.
  My songwriting, musicianship and production skills have improved drastically since those songs were written. Some of the songs sound a tad basic and have a bit of a “teeny-bopper” sound, which I’m not particularly proud of.
  However, some songs on there such as “Porcelain Doll”, “Time” and “Falls Apart” which I consider to be a few of my best.
  Just because I’m not as happy with it as I was doesn’t mean that people won’t enjoy it, which is why I still plan to release it soon.

• EP 2 is something that I have really high hopes for!
  I’ve finished writing and demoed 3 out of 5 songs.
  One song is 100% complete, one is almost done (I just need to record vocals) and I need to finish of two others and write one more.
  Some of the tracks on there are more experimental than some of my other stuff, but I still hope that you will all enjoy it.

• My album is something I’ve been working on for just under a year, and I plan to spend a lot of time on it. I have written and demoed 11 out of 13 tracks for this record, and I still plan to write two more songs.
  The album has a concept, which I shall go into more detail on later, but the main theme throughout the record is desire.
  Some of my most honest, personal and best songs are on here, which I cannot wait for you to hear!
  Once I’ve completed at least 60% of this record, I’m going to start sending songs off to various record companies so I can hopefully get it released on a proper record label!

That’s all I’ve got to say this week, thank you so much for reading this blog!
Please be sure to read the other “My Music” blogs and to check out my music if you haven’t already done so!

Thanks,

Josh :)

Hi everyone!

If any of you have liked my facebook page, then you may have seen a status update from me saying that I have reached over 800 plays on SoundCloud.
I know that isn’t much when you consider how many people there are in the world and most famous/signed artists reach that amount of plays within the space of a few seconds, but I never expected to reach that many!
Especially in a pretty short space of time since I only released my first song at the end of February.

I’d just like to say thank you so much to anybody who has ever listened to and downloaded my music, it means so much to me!
I’m currently on 822 plays, hopefully I’ll reach 1000 pretty soon!!!

This week I finished recording the “Learn To Fly” instrumental. It sounds really beautiful!
There isn’t much going on in the song in terms of instrumentation, but I think that’s what makes it lovely.
I haven’t recorded vocals yet, as I want to get them just right.
I think the vocals should sound like a live recording, so I’m going to try and do it all in one take. I’ll possibly do that on Tuesday after my singing lesson, as I’ll be all warmed up then!

This week I also demoed a new song called “Fantasy Love”.
The song is based on a quote that I found really releatable from a book called “The philosophy Of Andy Warhol, From A to B and back again” which is a book written by Andy Warhol in the late seventies. I’m a huge fan of Andy, It’s a really great book and I’d recommend it to anyone!
The song is an upbeat dance track, though it’s quite dark and edgy which I really like! It’s still in the early stages, so I’ll let you know how the song turns out when I do some more work on it.

That’s all I’ve got to say this week, thank you so much for reading this blog!
Please be sure to read the other “My Music” blogs and to check out my music if you haven’t already done so!

Thanks,

Josh :)

Hi everybody!

Just so you know, I’m feeling a lot better now and I’ve been well enough to do some music work! However, I’ve had loads of coursework this week all due in for the same day so I haven’t had time to do too much.

First of all, I’d like to remind you all that my “Time Of My Life” remix is still available to listen to, please create a SoundCloud account and favourite my track so I hopefully get closer to winning the competition.

CLICK HERE to hear the remix!!!

This week I sequenced “I Caught You Staring At Me” and “Learn To Fly” into Pro Tools, they sound great!
All that is left for me to do is convert the midi instruments to my real synths and record vocals for each of the songs.

Both songs are quite short and sparse, so I don’t think it will take me very long as soon as I find the time.

“I Caught You Staring At Me” is my first track to feature a tempo change, it’s starts off quite slowly but then becomes very upbeat towards the end.
“Learn To Fly” is rather different from the demo I created. Along with my voice, the demo had a lot more instrumentation as it featured strings, piano, synths and drums.
The final version will just be vocals, piano and one arppegiated synth. It’s a lot more mellow than the demo which I think is a far better representation of the song!
I love that there is a contrast between that song and “So-Called Angel”.
“lSo-Called Angel” is a very large production filled with instruments and effects, where as “Learn To Fly” is very relaxed and minimalistic.

I cannot wait for you to hear all three songs!!!
I know I said something similar to that when I released “I Can’t Stop Writing Songs About You” and “Couple On Show”, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt more confidence with the free download songs than I have with these three!

This week I also started working on a new idea for a song, which has the working title of “The Fall”. This song has very pretty chords and a relaxed mood, though it builds up into a huge upbeat production!
I love songs that do that song sort of thing, and I cannot wait to see how this track turns out.

That’s all I’ve got to say this week, please check out my music, listen to my competition remix that I mentioned earlier and check out the other “my music” blogs if you haven’t already done so!

Thanks for reading this blog,

Josh :)