On a dark, blustery winter’s evening, I’m sitting at my computer, listening to one of my favourite songs, ‘My December’ – the only motivation I need to write about how I finally found the courage to share my writing, how that evolved into making music, and how this year has shaped my artistic identity. Thank you for joining me, “this is my December; this is my time of the year…” (I hope you know the reference!)
If you have followed my work for a while, you will know I revived my love of writing poetry over the summer, after leaving it untouched in a Google Drive folder titled ‘Random Poetry Projects’ for almost seven years. As I read back through those buried poems in early July, I was reminded of the quiet joy I once felt placing words on a page in my own strange, specific way.
Over the following days and weeks, I began redrafting the remnants of my old pieces and soon found myself writing entirely new work. Some poems almost wrote themselves – I couldn’t believe how inspired I had become after abandoning my writing for so long. I had never shared my work before; it wasn’t until October this year that I finally gathered the courage to read one of my poems, ‘Shadows of Autumn’, in a small writing group in London. I was genuinely moved by the feedback I received. For someone who had always feared judgment, it was an unexpected and affirming moment.
That experience gave me a confidence boost I did not know I needed. In the autumn, I began reflecting on what else I could do with my writing besides posting poems on my website and letting them drift into the ether. That is when I rediscovered my love of making music, also after nearly seven years.
I have never considered myself a good singer. In fact, even hearing a recording of my speaking voice is usually enough to make me cringe. I stopped trying to sing after a painfully embarrassing attempt at a solo in a production of ‘Les Misérables’ at my local community college when I was eighteen. But something shifted this year – I cannot quite pinpoint it, but somewhere between my obsession with Hybrid Theory, singing along to From Zero, and becoming absorbed in Keith Richards’ autobiography, I started to explore the idea of making my own music, encouraged by musicians I admired.
Instead of treating my voice like something that needed to be perfect, I started treating it as another creative instrument – raw, imperfect, expressive. That feeling, combined with the momentum from my poetry revival, naturally pushed me toward songwriting. What started as little melodies hummed quietly in my room grew into structured lyrics and riffs (after dusting off my guitar), and eventually full tracks.
By November, I released my first single. In December, the second. And somewhere between experimenting with MPC Beats, distorted guitars, metal vocal techniques, Spotify canvases, and late-night self-taught production sessions, where I often felt like I was going in circles, an unexpected realisation became clear to me: I had created not just songs, but an identity and a voice I thought I’d lost. Themes which, fittingly, formed the basis of my first single, ‘First Signs of Rain’…
I am continuing to make music and continually teaching myself more about production in MPC Beats. I am planning to start a series of YouTube tutorials aimed at complete beginners – people who want to start making music from scratch, the same way I did. While there are some good tutorials out there, many seem to assume the viewer already has prior knowledge. For a true novice, the MPC Beats interface is overwhelming to say the least. I’m fortunate that I had some understanding of music theory (I achieved Grade 6 piano many years ago), but without it, creating music by drawing lines on the on-screen keyboard would have taken far longer. That’s why I want to share my learning journey – to show that you do not need to be an accomplished musician, trained singer, or qualified production specialist to make your own music.
I hope you will continue to join me as I take this creative journey into 2026. Please check out my music on Spotify and follow me on my social channels via the links below to stay up to date. Thank you for reading – and for listening!
Logan Darkwoods 