I was 3 years old when my parents got me an electronic toy keyboard. It had a really digital sound and it was also able to play a melody that was hard-wired into that toy’s memory. It was really small and red, but I remember to this day the day I got it. I don’t remember if it was for my birthday or for Christmas but it was some time in 1992 or 1993. I had to pick up between a version with and a version without a microphone. I actually liked watching Elton John on TV and I liked how he plays the piano and sings in the same time, so I was imagining doing the same, but the one with the mic was almost double the price so I picked the other – I thought I don’t actually need a microphone to sing.
My father showed me how to play the melody of “Мила моя мамо” (My dear mom – a popular Bulgarian song for children). So I learnt how to play it. The next thing I learnt to play was actually my own composition.
Later I got a vibraphone toy and when I was 8 a friend of my dad gave me his 2,5 octaves keyboard and taught me a little bit more about playing. He also left me a booklet with note sheets of Michael Jackson songs.
I never took any formal education for music, although I really wanted to go to piano lessons, but we couldn’t afford them.
We had music classes in school where I learnt how to sing by notes and I used that skill to play melodies on the keyboard by notes, but only single-handedly.
I also had an old tape and vinyl player so I was able to record what I was playing on tape. I was also able to get that recording on one tape and while copying it to another one I added a new layer of playing a different instrument from the patches of the keyboard. It was really a basic way of making music and I really wanted a better keyboard and a computer, because I knew that music is made with better keyboards and computers.
It was 1997. The same year Auto-Tune was initially released.
That was the only equipment I had up until late 2006 or the beginning of 2007 when I got my first computer.
For me, it was just a child play. I enjoyed playing and recording after school and I was fantasising that when I grow up I’m gonna be a big star like Jean-Michel Jarre.
Even when I got the computer and started playing with the software I still considered it my cool hobby, but nothing more.
Anyway by the time I got my computer I was listening to a lot of club music, since I was going a lot to clubs, so then my main influences were house and rap.
The first song I put on the internet was called “Prefecture”. Here it is: