Category: News

On feedback, encouragement and art

24.06.2022

It’s been almost one month since Missa Innominata came out, and I feel like writing a short summary on this exciting period of time.

In contrast to the previous one, I decided to promote this release on various online platforms like Facebook or Instagram, and this little promotion campaign resulted in a rise in numbers of streams, listens and followers. I, however, seriously think that there is one single thing, which is even more important than the numbers regarding the reception of my album(s): the direct feedback of the community – family, friends, music enthusiasts, followers, and in general everyone, who feel like connected in any way to me or to my music. Therefore, first of all I would like to thank all of you who dedicated your precious time to my previous and recent albums and gave them a listen – I really appreciate your support! I’m extremely grateful for your comments, likes, reposts or any kind of your feedback: please, always be aware that without this constant encouragement it would have been very hard for me to maintain my original impetus and stay focused and motivated. Thank you for being here and walk this path with me!

Also, (as many of you know) SoundCloud provides a great opportunity to comment, repost and numerically rate songs for everyone – so besides the aforementioned “direct” ways of getting feedback from people visiting my website, subscribing to my Spotify or YouTube channels, or checking my Bandcamp page, this is a great opportunity for getting further feedback from random listeners, too. And I must admit that reading these comments was also a heartwarming experience – not to mention the overall scores of my songs that are currently varying between 8.5 and 8.9 out of the maximum 10. All in all – at least based on these initial reactions from supporters and random listeners – Missa Innominata performs well; and this is something that makes me feel grateful, happy, and – I must admit… – proud, too.

Art (at least how I see it…) is a bi-directional process: l’art pour l’art (at least in its purest form) is something unacceptable for me. Painting a picture or writing a sonata just for the sake of the creative process itself seems to me somewhat insufficient, somewhat out of focus. Without doubting the fundamental value of finding joy in creative processes, I see art basically as a powerful tool to transfer feelings, emotions and messages from person to person: a channel connecting people in a very intimate and emotional way. When words fail, music speaks – and in this context it can sometimes be the only chance for us to transcend our limitations and finiteness. Music gives us a chance to fight a heroic struggle against the separation of human from human, and a weapon to combat the sometimes so evident overall sadness of the mortal human existence. That’s why it’s always so touching to see your visits and likes on my pages and read your comments: these simple and very important signs of your presence are those momentums that constantly remind me that I’m not alone on this journey of transmitting feelings through the channels of metal music. There are always people “on the other end of the line”, and my messages (it may sound weird to mention “messages” in the context of instrumental music, but still: my messages are my feelings that I try to express in my musical creations) are heard.

Thank you for being here in our little, but constantly growing community. Thank you for inspiring me and giving me the chance to create and transmit musical messages that would otherwise remain pointless, locked inside the hard drive of a computer in my home.

Two songs, one chart

17.06.2022

That moment, when two of your songs (Kyrie, Gloria) reside on a chart at the same time…! It’s a great feeling, tbh.

Impressions

03.06.2022

Missa Innominata has already been out for two days.

It took an incredible amount of work to compose, practice, record, mix and master that 52 minutes of original music completely alone – but it was absolutely worth doing it. I never imagined that I’ll get so far on my journey to become an independent musician, but things are evolving seemingly by themselves, without the urge to force or push anything. Still, as the brilliant J. R. R. Tolkien once wrote shortly before the first issue of his monumental saga, The Lord of the Rings: “I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at.” While it’s really always terrifying to wait for the first reactions, I hope that you guys like what you’ve heard so far.

And as always, I want tell you again and again: thank you for being with me and supporting my work!

Of song lyrics and instrumental music

29.05.2022

Why I ended up playing instrumental music? This is another good question that I used to get quite often from my friends – and at the same time this is a tricky one that’s pretty hard to answer. The music I make is just a snapshot of a quite long “evolutionary process” – so I think it’s better to go into details, if I want to formulate a reasonable response.

In the beginning – similarly to most of the musicians in the rock/metal scene – I wanted to write and play traditional songs with vocals. However, I’ve never been sure about the exact nature of the vocals that I wanted to incorporate. At the beginning I felt like slightly harsh but still melodic (let’s say, “Nevermore-style”) vocals would fit well to my music. Then I started to experiment with classical harmonies and fell in love with polyphonic choirs and female vocals. Still, somehow I always felt that writing melodies for vocals is not my business: it never went so smoothly than working with guitars. I think this kind of hesitation was the first momentum that suggested me to express my thoughts with sounds rather than with words.

I wrote numerous song lyrics, nonetheless. However, neither the rhytmicity nor the topics of my texts fitted well to the medium/fast tempo and the impetus of my thrash metal-based musical creations: they resembled more to poems than to song lyrics and fitted better to the textual world of gothic or doom metal songs. Therefore, as time passed by, I became increasingly uneasy with the idea of incoprorating my texts into songs. It also felt somewhat unnatural for me to synchronize the tight and fast thrash tempos with the unique accentuation of the Hungarian language. When it comes to songwriting, I basically think in guitar harmonics and melodies, rather than the characteristic sound of the human voice – therefore I felt like I can express myself better via the possibilities of instrumental music than through some enforced marriage of poem-like, gloomy Hungarian texts with my thrash metal-based rhytmical constructions.

This is basically the reason, why I ended up writing and playing instrumental music.

Long post about personal stuff

28.05.2022

People keep asking me, how is it that a neuroscientist with a satisfying 9-5 job unexpectedly decides to become an independent/self promoted guitar player and composer at a certain point of his life. Well, there are no short answers to this question, but I cannot deny that it may look strange from the viewpoint of someone who doesn’t know me in person since my childhood.

The main point is that it wasn’t unexpected at all. As a music enthusiast, I’ve been playing the guitar since my childhood and I even participated in ad hoc formations earlier – but to be honest, these efforts never succeeded, due to the lack of motivation, dedication and time. I always had various other duties and playing the guitar in a regular metal band was never a real option for me. Not that I’m antisocial or something like that (I’m an introvert, but I do love the company of like-minded people…) – it’s just I never had the chance (or courage…?) to come forth with my own compositions, and ended up losing my interest in the process of realization of someone else’s musical ideas. Anyway, it was hard for me to believe in my own musical imagination so much as to push my ideas through those brick walls that probably I myself had built around me. Also – stepping out from the personal side towards the technical aspects – playing in a band on a regular basis would have put such a burden on me that I simply wasn’t prepared for. Working on my own professional career rendered my “hobbies” like music or rock climbing as second priority.

It was actually intentional that I put the word “hobbies” between apostrophes. All my life I’ve been primarily and above all a music maniac: I listen to music six-eight hours a day and play the guitar also on a regular basis, following a quite strict schedule. Whatever I became later was (and is) of course also an integral part of my personality: my job is great, satisfying and full of intellectual challenges – still, music has always been there in my life behind everything I did and became the backbone of my identity. It’s definitely not “just a hobby” for me. For those who know me it’s not a surprise that I’m a dedicated metalhead, but besides being a music fan I’m also someone who’s always been full of musical ideas. On one hand, I’ve always wanted to bring them forth, work them out and show them to others, but at the same time I’ve – of course – always been full of doubts, insecurities and fears, too. It’s amazing and terrifying at the same time that the world is full of excellent artists who compose excellent music and play the guitar in a virtuoso way – and in this context it needs some explanation, why I finally came to the decision to start composing and recording music.

The question is always somewhere around one’s identity. Oscar Wilde once wrote: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” – and I think, this is the basis that I built this little musical experiment on. I slowly realized that I don’t need to compose songs that are more complex than everyone else’s – I am simply unable to do so, and I don’t even want it either. Also I don’t have to play faster than the iconic guitar heros in the vast rock/metal scene – it’s also impossible and I also don’t intend to. I just want to be myself, and I want my music to reflect the person who I am. During the lockdown I had plenty of time to think about these questions, and I came to the conclusion that there will always remain a place for genuine music and genuine musicians in the music market. I simply don’t want to put my decade-long need for self-expression aside: in a world full of insecurities the best thing that one can do is to avoid any further delays.

To cut a long story short, this is the reason, why I started to realize this project.

Album release countdown starts!

25.05.2022

Missa Innominata will be available in one week (from 01.06.2022) on both Bandcamp and the main music sharing platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer or Amazon Music.

When two or three years ago I first thought of recording and releasing my musical ideas, I had no idea on how long and how much effort will it take to put an album together. I definitely didn’t think of creating two full-length records (and also remixing one of them). Still – despite all the “logical considerations” – here I am now: my second album is coming out next week, and I’m already working on the third one. It’s been a long journey, full of challenges, efforts, learning and fun. Some say that the basis of every creative processes is self-motivation, but I only partly believe it’s true. I agree that there is no creative process without a motivated creator, but at the same time, there is no motivation without inspiration.

Thank you so much for your inspiring presence in my life. Thank you for traveling with me on this never-ending journey: without support, feedback and encouragement I’d definitely be less motivated to come out with something meaningful. It’s an awesome feeling to create songs and play the guitar, but it would be devastating to know that there was nobody on the other end of the line. Thank you for listening to my songs and giving me constant inspiration and support.

The countdown starts – see you on the 1st of June!

Album release in 10 days!

22.05.2022

I created a short video with excerpts from each songs of the new album, just to give you guys a quick overview on what to expect from Missa Innominata.

I hope you’ll enjoy this small compilation! Please don’t forget: album release is on 01.06.2022!

Rhytm guitars for a new song

15.05.2022

Here’s a short excerpt from the first track (Introitus) of the new album – just to give you guys an overview on how playing the rhytm guitar for this song looks like. Introitus is one of the fast songs of Missa Innominata, and I always find it fun to fool around these quick staccatos.

Also, please don’t forget: Missa Innominata will come out on the 1st of June! I’m very excited to hear your feedback, so please stay tuned and get back here often, as I’ll post further parts from the new stuff.

Thank you for supporting me and staying by my side on this fascinating journey!

Album release in one month!

30.04.2022

Just a friendly reminder: my second album, Missa Innominata will be released in one month, on the 1st of June, 2022!

As a small teaser, I included all my previously recorded videos in one big file, just to give you guys an impression of how the solos and riffs evolved, and what to expect from the upcoming release. Of course, these videos were recorded simply as parts of the songwriting/practicing process, but I hope you will like them, despite the obvious weaknesses!