We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taiwo Heard a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Taiwo , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

**How did you learn to do what you do?**

First, I had to learn time management. Coding and writing music are both time-consuming endeavors, learning to balance the two and still have any sort of life took some deliberate consideration. I took an online time management class that helped a lot. I use anything to help me learn faster; I’m into different types of learning technology and memorization techniques. But no matter what you’re doing, it always takes a lot of practice—that’s where you really learn the most. I’ve been playing music my whole life, so I already understood the value of regular practice when I was teaching myself to code in Python and SQL over the pandemic.

**Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process?**

While I loved being in bands when I was still learning my craft, I didn’t balance it out with enough solitary practice. I initially developed some sloppy habits that I had to unlearn later. If you’re a beginner and you play while you sing, you should learn instrumental part pretty well before adding vocals. When I perform, I’m mainly focusing on the guitar part and keeping my voice in pitch with it. Most of the singing comes from my subconscious. That’s not the same as phoning it in; I’ve practiced it a lot!

There are some pretty amazing apps and tech devices that I wish were around when I was learning. For instance, it’s great to know how to tune a guitar by hand, but when you’re backstage or on stage and it’s loud with distractions, it just kind of sucks. Now I have an amazing automatic string tuner called a Roadie that turns the string for you and beeps when it’s in tune—this would’ve saved my butt so many times. For learning these days, you also have YouTube videos, Coursera and Udemy-type websites, and online games that teach you music theory or how to code.

**What skills do you think were most essential?**

Writing songs is a good way I internalized music theory. I would learn a term or a new type of chord interval and think, “That’s that thing from that song I wrote!” Then it would stick. With music, coding, or any other skill, time management the patience to be bad for long enough to get good are both crucial. With coding, I would say adaptability is also crucial. You should get good at testing ideas and libraries quickly, tossing them if they don’t work for you. I strongly feel that proficiency in working with AI is already a necessity for staying competitive as a coder, a recent Github study shows over 90% of U.S.-based developers are already using AI coding tools both in and outside of work.

**What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?**

I was dragged through formal classical and jazz theory starting from when I was ten. I was impatient and resisted it a lot, but I did eventually learn it pretty well. I still prefer to play by ear, which is what I’m best at.

With coding and machine learning, my biggest obstacle is probably imposter syndrome, I started that journey less than five years ago and there’s still a lot to learn. I work past it by constantly improving, even small breakthroughs are great confidence boosters. I also listen to machine learning podcasts, hearing top AI experts discuss their challenges and mistakes, I realized that it always takes many failed experiments to create any type of worthwhile or useful application, the best thing is to see the obstacles as an opportunity, and also have patience with yourself.

Taiwo , 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 grew up in the Washington DC area, where my love for music was nurtured by my parents despite their limited resources. They always found ways to support my musical interests, starting with piano lessons and later encouraging my passion for the guitar. This early exposure to music, combined with my academic interest in science, eventually led me to Berklee College of Music. That’s where I discovered Music Synthesis—a field that perfectly combined my technical and creative passions. It’s extremely fulfilling artistically to experiment with the waveforms and layers of individual sounds, but in a way that elevates the overall composition.

After Berklee, I moved to Los Angeles and became involved in the indie rock scene, playing guitar, bass, and singing in various bands. This experience not only honed my performance skills but also gave me extensive studio experience, I began recording and producing other indie musicians. My background allows me to approach recording bands with a unique perspective, blending in modern technology and indie rock sensibilities. I’ve also done a lot of work in sound design for film, TV and various other media. I’m proud of my recent collaboration with San Francisco Pocket Opera for a children’s adaptation of “The Magic Flute,” I’ve also been writing music for an upcoming video game and editing some fun podcasts for iHeart Radio.

One of my main strengths is my ear. I can pick up most pop songs after one listen, it also helps for working out the small details with audio tracks or when crafting sound design. My ear was further developed at Universal Music, I worked for a couple of years developing new ways to classify and enhance music data for machine learning models. Besides maintaining my team’s large SQL database and giving lots presentations, my job also involved critically listening to songs from all different musical genres, and thinking deeply about what makes the styles so special and different. I discovered many new artists with fantastic musical visions and approaches, also I learned about cool musical instruments from around the world. I recently drew on this when composing for a video game that uses a wide range of different music genres. My decades of experience with music technology give me the flexibility to develop new workflows quickly, this combined with my passion for coding and machine learning allows me to provide a broad range of creative services, from straight forward music composition to nearly any type of sound media collaboration imaginable. That includes music production, multimedia art collaborations, app development, and audio post production. I’ve even done sound design for stage plays!

Moving forward, I aim to continue exploring my passions for composition and integrating technology with music. My goal is to have fun while collaborating with visionaries and creatives to craft unique and innovative sound experiences and musical applications.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Collaboration is one aspect of being an artist I find deeply satisfying, I like combining different people’s perspectives to create something astonishing. Also I’d say the ability to impact others through my work is very rewarding, Whether it’s producing music that resonates with listeners, creating immersive sound experiences, or just sharing my knowledge with others in the industry, knowing that my creative output can inspire, entertain, or inform others is truly gratifying.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

There are a lot of grant opportunities out there that creatives could be made more aware of, and they should be publicized more. Furthermore, applying to these grants should be simpler. They seem to filter for people who are great at paper pushing, which doesn’t always overlap with creativity, artistic talent, or passion. Also there have been many promising experiments all over the world with universal basic income, this would go a long way towards giving artists the financial breathing room needed to pursue their passions. Also I think affordable work spaces, access to technology, and public art programs would provide artists with the tools and environments they need to create and collaborate. Lastly, community engagement through creative hubs, events, and festivals could help artists network and also showcase their work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://home.taiwoheard.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taiheard
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taiheard/
• Twitter: https://x.com/taiheard
• Other: Spotify:http://bit.ly/Heartsinthewild