Releasing a Song

by Andrei Ghita, Year 12

Well, I never thought I’d get to publish an article about this in the TIV magazine, mainly because I didn’t think I was going to put my songs out to the public until after high, at the very earliest.

So let me back it up just a bit to January 28, 2022. COVID-19 was unfortunately circulating around my year group at the time forcing us to remain at home and work online. Well, after a few days, it got to the point where the only two things keeping me away from exhaustion and fatigue were making music, and listening to music… everything else felt utterly pointless.

So one stormy Friday morning, while waiting for class to start, I picked up my guitar and started playing along to set the mood for the weather outside; it was a brilliant and rather serene way to start the day! I knew exactly how I felt and what I could do to make my day more exciting than it was.

With no question in mind or any plan whatsoever to write a song, I started muttering lyrics in a low pitched monotone voice while tapping the rhythm with my foot. It was maybe the simplest melody I’ve written up to that point. I intuitively started writing lyrics down, and in 15 minutes or so, I recorded what I came up with on a voice memo, and you could even hear the soft sound of raindrops tapping on the window sill as a backdrop to my recording.

After 2 minutes of redrafting, I felt like the song was finished to the point that it really didn’t need any more polishing whatsoever, which, to be completely honest with you, made me feel somewhat lazy (which is the reason I nicknamed the song “Lazy Bedroom Tune” before officially naming it “On and On”), as if I didn’t put in as much work as I could have.

It usually takes me days, weeks, or even months before I feel as though I have completely finished writing a song. But this barely took me 15 minutes, which led me to believe that it’s not always about how much I over-thought my feelings, but about how effectively I conveyed them in the piece.

The following few months, I started playing around with alternate tunings on the guitar, and even experimented with my (rather rusty) piano playing, in order to fully capture the essence of the track, and it was this really special moment for me, because the song started feeling more alive, and became the song that I am probably the proudest so far.

Thankfully, having met some remarkable musicians at the Five-Week Summer Program in Berklee College of Music, I was able to put my original songs on display, and this one was surprisingly the headturner from my setlist.

Then, one night, my roommate asked me if I has ever considered the possibility of releasing it, and if so, would I want to have him as the producer of the track.

I’ve never been through the process of releasing a song on a public platform- I have played live on many occasions, but there was something about putting a studio track out in the open that caused me a huge amount of anxiety. I think it probably because you know you are going to be judged and in the back of your mind you think, what if people don’t like my music, and the little ‘What if’ gremlins in your head start to cream and shout.

However, knowing that my friend had my back, and that he would actually be willing to produce the track and help me promote it, I knew that it was worth a shot, and that the process would be something magical.

So after multiple studio sessions, getting more people to work on it, and going through the process of sending tracks back and forth to one another, I am now able to confidently say that the final product resulted in exactly what I was wishing this song to sound like… and I don’t say that all too often.

The release date is still to be set, but it’s crazy to think how a simple idea conceptualized in my bedroom would evolve into becoming such a significant event in my life.

For those you maybe don’t know, Andrei Ghita appeared on The Voice in 2021. You can see him performing here