Blog 1 - Launch Day

3/3/2025. It’s the official launch of rwxMusic and I’m really excited to get going. I remember listening to the amazing film scores of James Newton Howard, John Williams, Hans Zimmer and others as I was growing up. I always loved the sound of the orchestra and had a keen interest in music. Whilst I was lucky to learn the piano up to Grade 2, I had to stop due to disability at age 8. If you couldn’t physically play an instrument, there were no other options. I did nothing musically for over a decade because there was no obvious way to do so.

When I went to uni, I was fortunate enough to houseshare with people who were into film making and discovered almost by accident that you could write music on PC using sampled instruments. More importantly, I could do this using a mouse and computer keyboard. The fact that I couldn’t play an instrument was irrelevant. The software I used was Sibelius, which still exists today. It is arguably the best software to use if you want to learn traditional music notation with sampled instruments. However, I quickly moved on to Logic Pro, which is a more traditional DAW with better quality sounding instruments. I realised that despite learning about musical notation from Grade 2 piano, and briefly Sibelius, this actually wasn’t needed because you don’t write notes using traditional music notation in DAWs. None of the physical skills I learned from playing the piano in childhood were needed either. That’s not to say that learning music theory is a waste of time, nor is the ability to play an instrument. They’re just not essential for this process in my opinion.

I slowly improved and got better over a number of years. I wasn’t interested in writing a “professional” album to release - for me music creation was more of a wellbeing tool that I used for myself, and I still use it for that reason. That’s what makes rwxMusic different - I believe that the process of making music is as important as the quality of the finished result. It’s the process itself which is enjoyable, and I believe that is where the mental health benefits are.

DAWs and sampling is something used by hundreds of thousands of musicians and producers all over the world. However, I believe the key to this technology is in inclusivity. By removing the physical barriers to music creation, this can open up a world of possibilities to people with disabilities or those unable to play an instrument for whatever reason. But the reality is, there’s almost too much choice in this area. There’s lots of different DAWs and sampling libraries available. Some paid, some free. Some better for writing music, others better for recording live instrumental performances. Many of them do similar things and if you don’t know where to start, there isn’t a clear route to entry. I wanted to find a way to streamline this process, by finding free, but perfectly good DAWs and sampled instruments and provide people with the key skills needed to get started writing their own music. The amount that you develop will ultimately depend on the time you invest in it, but the most important thing is whether you enjoy doing it.

If music theory isn’t a barrier to entry, physical ability isn’t a barrier to entry, and cost isn’t a barrier to entry either, then there are almost no other barriers left. Whether you are young or old, have disabilities or none, you can do it. My dream is that this approach to making music will become mainstream for those with disabilities, and recognition that software and sampling has the potential to be a useful and viable wellbeing tool, with the potential to expand into the growing field of music therapy.

I look forward to seeing where this new chapter takes me, and hopefully rwxMusic will prove to be a success.