Domelgabor Music - 3 years already...

domelgabor
Mar 19, 2024
8 min read

Updated: Mar 21, 2024

I cannot believe it has already been three years since I released my first track.

Initially, I never intended to have my music distributed and released on most music platforms. I was doing it for myself and posting it on YouTube for my family and friends to hear (like hundreds of thousands of other people), with no real expectations. However, I was still hoping that, eventually, other people would like it.

Let me tell you how it all began...

2020, the year of COVID-19, was "the year when the earth stopped" , as most human activities came to a halt due to curfews, restrictions, and other security measures taken in most countries to try to prevent the virus from spreading and becoming a pandemic.

However, it was already too late. The virus had spread globally, and fear began to set in people's minds. Many people had to stay home and/or work from home for weeks. Stuck with nowhere to go and having more time on their hands, some took advantage of the situation to be creative, while most people indulged in watching Netflix and eating and drinking more than they usually do.

The situation was only bearable depending on the country's restrictions, which differed from one country to the next.

In some countries, people were locked at home, which was fine for those who had gardens or lived in the countryside but psychologically and physically challenging for others living in the city, especially those in small apartments without balconies. In other countries, like Hong Kong, people could circulate as usual amid a few restrictions and even continue their regular activities.

That said, overall and in general, confronting such an "unprecedented" pandemic has been dramatic and traumatic for most people. In the worst cases, a lot of people lost their jobs, suffered, and/or died of causes directly and indirectly related to COVID-19 combined with pre-existing comorbidities.

The physical and, more significantly, the psychological consequences were disastrous for most people (depression, anxiety, anguish, dark thoughts, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, inability to focus, etc...).

I don't know about you, but it was precisely that for me. Some psychological agony. Hundreds of questions were spiraling in my head. Is it the end? Are we all going to die? What about my parents? My siblings? My family? My friends? In fact, what about all the people I know and all the rest of the world?

I felt crazy and exhausted, not knowing what to think or do. I felt so psychologically stressed and anxious that I even restarted smoking for a while.

Hong Kong almost immediately closed its borders and isolated us from the rest of the world (*), like a golden prison. It limited traveling to certain countries and made it challenging to leave Hong Kong. Flight ticket prices skyrocketed for a little while, discouraging people from traveling.

Then I thought about my parents in France, 10,000 kilometers away, on the other side of the planet.

What if something happened to them? Older people and others with particular physical conditions seem more seriously affected by the virus. What if it was the last time I saw them? I had to go to France to visit them.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the number of infected cases and mortality (related or not) grew rapidly, making it difficult to foresee or anticipate the outcome. So, crazy, exaggerated, and/or irrational thoughts like mine were common to most people.

I had to make sure my parents, my family, and my friends were okay. A few weeks later, during the Summer, I made up my mind, left the kids with their mother, and flew to my hometown of Bordeaux, France. I stayed in Bordeaux for about ten days.

During that time, a dear friend taught me how to create electronic music. She showed me how to use "Garageband" and some of the few tricks she used to create her own music. It was a very insightful experience. I will never thank her enough for that. She lighted the darkness in which my mind was sinking in and brought back some hope to better cope with the uncertain future.

Learning to make music that way was like a dream come true, as I'm not a musician. I do not know how to play an instrument, and despite a long-overdue strong desire to do so, I have never learned.

I have loved music since childhood, wanted to learn to play something, and often dreamt of making my own tracks, but I have never been able to do it due to lack of time (I have worked in restaurants most of my life) and finance (other priorities like my kids).

I grew up listening to a combination of rock, metal, and jazz (from my father), classical music, and French pop (from my mother). And despite not knowing how to play an instrument, I have always had a very good ear for music and sounds in general.

So, learning with her how to combine loops, sounds, and effects to create melody and music without having to play a real instrument except for notes on the keyboard was the ideal way for me to create my own music finally.

Since an early age, I have expressed my creativity through writing, drawing, photography, illustrations, and collages. Yet, I always wanted to do it through music, too, and it was now possible for me to do it. She opened my brain and my eyes to new creative possibilities. I owe her and thank her for that. Thank you, LN.

After a few days of practicing and seeing how easy it was, I even asked myself why I had never tried to learn years ago. And yet, I'm the type of person who needs to be coached for certain things, as I do not always find the motivation to do it on my own due to a lack of confidence in myself.

My trip had been a truly unique experience (in many ways). I was sad when it came to an end. I flew back to Hong Kong. Spent ten days in quarantine in a hotel with no view. The weather sucked. It was depressing and sad to be back. Only the thought of retrieving my kids and the idea that I could now make my own music cheered me up.

About a month later, I bought myself an iPad and an M-Audio Oxygen 49 keyboard. My journey in making music with Garageband could finally begin.

I practiced a lot for a few months and made some truly bad tracks, posting some on Soundcloud and my YouTube page. I also started creating my own videos. It was fun, and I took great pleasure in making them, even if the combined results were quite awful.

The first track I posted on Domelgabor's YouTube page was "LN Days" in November 2020. It was a sort of Deep House track made in homage to LN's teaching. I liked it but was not too crazy about it. However, I was happy enough to have created it by mixing loops and sounds and putting them together solely by ear, and I was eager to post my first track.

The second track I posted was 明天见 (míng tiān jiàn), A sort of homage to Hong Kong, with a video made of pictures I took of the Man Mo Temple and walking around Hollywood Road. There was nothing exciting about this one either, yet I was happy to have made it, so I posted it, too.

The third one was (and still is) sentimental for me. I titled it "Sine Qua Non (Ethereal Clouds)" because it means "an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary." This track refers to this trip to France, learning new things like making music, making friends, and rediscovering myself, as well as the combination of emotions and feelings this experience brought me physically and mentally (in so many ways).

A few years have passed, yet I continue to nurture these emotions and feelings, which are still essential to me. They helped me reflect and better understand myself: who I am, what I can do, learn from the past, become a better person, be more adventurous, and push the limits on how far I can go for certain things.

In fact, "Sine Qua Non (Ethereal Clouds)" is a very intimate track that triggers many great memories of that summer of 2020 every time I listen. It is one of my favorite tracks I made.

With time, I learned to be better, correct my mistakes, ease the transitions between the loops and sounds, and make the track flow. I put my mind, heart, time, feelings, and emotions into it and created a few more tracks. And then, in February 2021, it hit me.

YouTube is great, but it usually forces the person to watch it, as watching a video and doing something else simultaneously is challenging. So, I wanted to find another way for my family and friends (and people in general) to listen to my music tracks in the background while doing something else without looking at the screen.

Having my music available on Spotify was the most ideal. So, I went on a quest to find an online distribution company that would distribute my tracks automatically to YouTube and Spotify.

It was a bit presumptuous of me to think that anyone would want to listen to some of my crappy music tracks, and yet, I did not care. I like my tracks and wanted to find and listen to my music everywhere, for me first, then for whoever would want to listen to it.

After a few days of searching and comparing, I decided to go with "Distrokid" as they are well-priced, their T&C seems fair, and they distribute directly to YouTube and Spotify + around 20 other music platforms (e.g., Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer, Beatport, Boomplay, etc...)

I created track covers from pictures and illustrations I took, then downloaded the first few tracks I made to Distrokid, and the rest is history! I was creating music and made it available to the whole world.

It was incredibly satisfying, even if I knew that hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of people were (and are still) doing the same thing, meaning posting their music to make it accessible to everyone. Therefore, my music would be drawn into an ocean of tracks that most people won't listen to as recognized artists do not make them, and consequently, it will only gather little to no interest whatsoever. And yet, I was really happy to do it.

I continued creating, learning, and improving along the way, posting on Distrokid to make my music available.

Since November 2020, I have created and released 44 tracks (so far...) That's roughly 1 to 2 tracks per month, which is a good pace, as I do not force myself to create; I only do it when I feel like it and when the inspiration knocks on the door of creativity and imagination.

Music is a flow of feelings and emotions, which usually reflect the moment and the artist's state of mind at the moment of the track's creation. Thus, feelings and emotions inspire the mood, ambiance and atmosphere of the track, and one cannot force himself or herself when it comes to creating with feelings and emotions. It has to come naturally.

All my tracks are available on most music platforms around the world.

You can find them under "Domelgabor-topic" on YouTube. YouTube automatically created this Channel, and I have no control over it. And because all my tracks are licensed with Distrokid, I can no longer post them on my original YouTube Channel, Domelgabor.

All my tracks are available under "DOMELGABOR" on Spotify and most music platforms worldwide.

Thank you for listening to my music; much appreciated.

Take good care of yourself and your loved ones.

Peace!

Dom

PS: In each of the coming posts, I will embed one of my tracks and explain the inspiration behind the track.

Here is my number one track on Spotify for now: SUNRISE by @domelgabor 2024