We were lucky to catch up with Julian Parke recently and have shared our conversation below.

Julian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I started by learning how to produce and make the music. I would come home from high school 3/4 into my junior year and all of senior year and just make music. I never sampled at first, I don’t even know why. It took me months to sample, I was always just playing chords with the little music knowledge I knew but was definitely learning. I would always play 7ths and pretty much stuck to the white keys because I didn’t know how to incorporate the sharp and flat keys, but I kept going and going, and that is why I’m here now. I have grit. Grit is something I believe to be so crucial and needed. That passion and that grit drove me to keep learning and I was starving to learn more. Day in day out, just improving at such a rapid rate, especially during the summers. I’ve changed now in ways the me from that time wouldn’t even begin to believe, it’s crazy. I will say there was a point where I stopped watching the tutorials on how to play and music theory videos and just went off what I knew. I have a mixed feeling about that, because on one hand I taught myself how to move with what was available to me in my head, but if I continued learning music theory while practicing it in my music, I think I would be even stronger than I am now. The biggest obstacle was myself but even then I don’t consider that to be an obstacle in a way.

Julian, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an artist. I make music and make short films to express the music visually. I always try and create the song to have its own world and soundscape that differs from anything I’ve done before, and the same with the films. My songs all have strong bits of me poured into them and all feel like extensions of me for real, haha. I really believe in speaking your truth and being yourself and that involves doing whatever you like however you like, and that’s something I’ve always done.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think NFTs are a funny concept. Especially when it was the picture of the monkeys and people were going crazy about them. Like what haha. I think at one point, all the pictures just completely depreciated in value because people started to see how stupid it was. At the same time though, the world is in a digital era and it is just going to keep delving into that further, so it is pretty important and worthwhile to know about cryptocurrencies and maybe NFTs. Unless NFTs are just the portrait of the monkey, in that case, the shit isn’t worth it.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I feel there is so much negativity in the area, there feels like there’s a lack of love for shit now too. I am still so young, but I feel old in what I appreciate and value. Aspects of life that make life run whole and make life something to experience are just underappreciated by whatever is looming in the air to ruin it. It’s chaotic and music has always been essential to the experience of life. With that, I just want to make things that people resonate with on an entirely different level. I want to see people moving their feet whenever they hear my stuff and I want that to transpire even after I’m long gone. It’s important for us to all become something bigger than what we see in the mirror and I just hope that with every day and step, I can inspire someone to see something about themselves or the world that they never saw before.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://realdominsquis.bandcamp.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dominsquis/
• Twitter: https://x.com/dominsquis
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@dominsquis?si=2NixuIPB_wclh7zu
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/DpYLDHRDYpqHmgUQ9

Image Credits

Gyasi Tsarnas
Stacy-Anne Parke