andrewjtaylor 2

@andrewjtaylor 

Cape Cod US   Jan 2017


Artist Bio

Influences:   Jump Little Children, Radiohead, Brendan James, Michael Buble, Zoo Story, Imogen Heap/Frou Frou, Our Lady Peace, Travis, Rufus Wainwright, John Mayer, Collective Soul (Dosage), Damien Rice (BD & CB), Iron & Wine, Beck ("Lost Cause"), Coldplay, Matchbox Twenty, Josh Garrels, Nine Days (The Madding Crowd), Vertical Horizon (Everything You Want), Queen, Sufjan Stevens, "Once" the movie, Contemporary Christian Worship. Anything beautiful or with a great groove (and tasteful). I'm open to all time periods and genres...except maybe metal and hard rap. I'm all for a good rap track with a sung chorus, a song with a rapped bridge, or a pop song with a guitar solo'd bridge. :)

FAWM #6 this year (2022).

So, turns out my extreme lack of vocal stamina was due to Candidiasis. Dealt with it with a combo of CDS, Turp, & Castor and what a difference it’s made. Still need to APPLY the content from the book (The New Voice) I read over FAWM last year to increase it further. That and get proper sleep.

This year I plan to focus primarily on production. All my songs from year 1 were fully produced and they’re still my favorites. Being a composition major, and a procrastinator, and someone will little time to focus on FAWM after FAWM (never did March Production Challenge), I think this is the best route. Going to be exploring new genres and working collaboratively for the entirety. Going to try to approach things strategically rather than in a binge which isn’t sustainable.

COMMENT METHOD
When you comment on a song of mine I'll typically comment back on one of your songs rather than immediately saying "Thank You" on your wall. It doesn't mean I'm not thankful to you! I am. Very much. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm humbled & honored.

MOTIVATION
(1/25/21) I'm a bit concerned with my lack of motivation at the moment with just 1 week to go till FAWM. With COVID, rioting, and the insanity of the 2020 Presidential election, it feels like I'm in crisis mode and need to stick to the news 24/7. Odd. I've never quite been that way. But songwriting and music are important. They may be one of the best ways to better our world, even if it's just our little circle. I'm going to work on developing that perspective in the coming weeks. It's something I need to work on anyway. Songwriting just feels "unnecessary" (all art is, strictly speaking), but it's so important.

VOCAL CHALLENGES
Had to take a singing hiatus the last 3 years year due to vocal injury. Won't be waking up @ 3 AM to hash out ideas this time around! On a positive note, I really pushed on filling in my weaknesses by setting my sans-lyric music to lyrics.

TRACK RECORD
Thankful for 4 somewhat successful FAWMs under my belt, with 7 songs the first year (2017), 14 in 2018, maybe 13 in 2019, 8 full + 5 music to lyrics songs in 2020. Too bad my writing isn't all that consistent beyond FAWM! One of these days I might need to quit FAWM and commit to writing a song a week.

NOTIFICATIONS
My biggest gripe with the FAWM site continues to be the lack of a Facebook-like notification system (email or otherwise). Used IFTTT to send SMS notifications while at work, but the free limit is 100/month. May again pay the $25 for a Zapier subscription.

GOALS THIS FAWM
1) Increase collaboration & feedback
2) Produce everything at a level I can appreciate later without requiring major revision

COLLABORATION
Myers-Briggs Personality Profile: INFP

INSTRUMENTS
Voice, piano, acoustic guitar (nylon & steel), alto sax, ukulele, cajon. I play other instruments through teaching (trumpet, flute) with a decent tone, but not a lot of skill.

EXPERIENCE
Studied as a Music Composition major in college. Eventually chose Popular Music as my genre rather than more "classical" genres due to (in my mind) the disconnect of those genres with reality.

GEAR
DAW: Logic Pro X & SoundTrap (basic)
MIDI: 61-key keyboard controller
Mic: Rode NT-1A
Interface: PreSonus iTwo (will replace at the earliest opportunity)
Treatment: sE RFX vocal booth.
Plug-ins: full iZotope production Suite (finally!)

PERSPECTIVE/NON-NEGOTIABLES
I’m a Christian and an idealist, so everything I write/co-write has to jibe with that perspective (probably won't be using the NSFW tag [:)]). Most of my songs aren’t directly Christian (though I did write quite a bit in 2019 in that style), but are more musings on common issues we face (+/-) as human beings, whether in the internal or external world (2017 was largely about internal conflict; 2019 was largely about interpersonal conflict).

I’m very detail-oriented, and also very opposed to cheese and cliche, so sometimes that means my lyrics are limited for protection from that (despite writing out every rhyme possibility on 2 pages!). I didn't write my first song 'til I was around 20 because of that self-criticism and expectation of quality.

THANKS
So thankful for FAWM and all my "colleagues" at FAWM for empowering this process of growth.

Soundboard