Daily Inspiration: Meet Robin Sedivy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Robin Sedivy.

Hi Robin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As GrayBeat, I am a grateful and independent musical soul. I believe music artistry and production are my life’s true callings. I’ve come to believe that it’s my humble mission to infuse the world with a legacy of artistic passion, peace, tranquility, diversity and technological harmony. To do this, I believe that I curate an internal vision of my musical passion and use it to project a positive energy back into the people around me. I intend to make the world a better place each and every day, with each and every personal interaction.

A better place means more colors, music, visual art, emotion, community, comforts, family, friends, drums, powerful rhythms, entrancing melodies, new sounds, new textures, and new forms of expression. It means more laughing, loving, traveling, learning, thinking and wondering. It means innovation. It means engaging in intellectual discussions, as well as engaging in digital, computer & audio technologies. It means that people of all backgrounds, shapes, sizes, races, gender identities & sexual orientations benefit.

In my formative years, I was a precocious, young drum set and percussion player. I got into classic rock drumming and jazz drumming. I co-produced and played drums in an experimental rock album in high school under the moniker, The Magic Mushponies. I loved listening to some of the all-time greats behind the drumset, and I capped off my secondary education playing live drums nightly for the first off-Broadway performance of The Who’s, “Tommy.”

I soon found myself looking toward a degree in either Neuroscience or Music at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. I managed to settle on a BA in International Studies with a focus on Political Science and Spanish. I also spent a bit more than a semester abroad in Buenos Aires working on an independent study project where I chose to write a detailed report about the regional cultural, political and economic alliance called the MERCOSUR. During the stay, I met great people, got to travel South America and learned to speak fluent Castellano.

The best part of my college experience was Sowah Mensah’s Macalester College African Music Ensemble. I was one of the many lucky benefactors of his unparalleled musical wisdom and his ability to articulate Ghanaian cultural concepts about, and through, music. If it sounds wonderful, it was, and I’m happy to report that it’s something he’s been doing since the 1980s.

After nearly seven years learning, traveling and performing with the group under Sowah, I went on performing, recording and composing drum parts for jam bands, reggae bands and jazz fusion bands.

Ultimately, the experience playing in the aforementioned African Music Ensemble made the biggest impact on my musical career. This is because it deconstructed my internal creative musical framework in very profound ways. I would later lean heavily on this new musical understanding in order to overcome the mental challenges I would face as a would-be music producer.

My learning of contemporary music production began in late 2016. This was after a more than seven-year musical hiatus, where I was not playing drums and not involved in creating music. I suddenly felt unusually depressed and degraded about myself generally, and that’s when I naturally gravitated toward music again.

During the malaise, a MIDI controller, specifically, the Maschine Studio by Native Instruments enticed me with its sleek design and colorful lights. My only other in-house musical equipment at the time was a collection of drums and percussion, a didgeridoo and a berinbow. So, I did some research and found that, not only was this thing cool looking, it inspired a sense of creativity in successful music producers when they were writing new songs.

I envisioned myself composing cool percussion-based music using the knowledge I’d learned as an instrumentalist and very soon thereafter went and bought a used model from Guitar Center. To make it work, I hooked it up to a laptop I’d originally purchased earlier that year in an attempt to start my own web development business.

Within a couple of weeks of creating music and whiling away many hours in the pursuit of learning and creativity, my depression was completely gone. In fact, it was gone for good.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
After discovering my therapy was producing music, I soon discovered that it was also my passion. The road to success has definitely not been smooth. Without the texture of challenge, my art would not be nearly as interesting to make, the journey would not seem nearly as real, and the wins would not seem nearly as humbling. Here are four categories of challenges that I am always tackling in the course of my artistic endeavors.

1. New Technical & Conceptual Music Skills

I taught myself to mix audio, design sounds and run a Digital Audio Workstation. I didn’t know how to produce music when I started working with audio using my newfangled MIDI controller, but over the course of months and years, I eventually figured out a considerable amount, at least enough to feel comfortable releasing my first EP, Whaelstrom in 2018. I really enjoy learning about the world of sonics and audio composition.

When I started creating music, I mostly learned by accumulating experience behind the controls and getting feedback at all stages of song development. I would research using written articles and some paid recordings.

Very recently in late 2021 and early 2022, I’ve been privileged with the ability to get real-time feedback on my productions by top-notch, award winning producers. Getting this type of feedback has allowed me to express myself more clearly, and that has fueled my creativity in new and profound ways.

2. Identity

Honestly, just figuring out who I am and what makes me tick was not easy. I’m not necessarily who I thought I should be. However, now that I’m here identifying my passion and running with it, I’m finding that my life feels in balance. I feel a sense of higher purpose, and my mind is in tune like never before.

I often struggled with my identity, as expressed through other academic and vocational pursuits. During and after college, I diversified my academic studies and found various odd jobs. I was still very involved in music, but despite having moderate success in most other pursuits, it took many years before I settled into my new identity as a music producer.

Gladly, I no longer feel I am accessing just a part of my unique skill set, I’m harnessing all of my unique potential, and I’m a much happier person overall.

3. Contemporary Social Issues

Inequality, climate change, militarization vs. diplomacy, short term profit vs. long term planning, racism, hate, segregation, zero sum thinking all play a challenging role in every-day life.

To a degree, I address immigration in Whaelstrom and Climate Change in Elemental Rhapsody. If you didn’t know, you can find the lyrics to these stories online and determine whether or not you see their subtle moral undertones.

4. Artistic Challenges

Media conglomerates, competition, diminished perception of artistic value, blatant mimicry, flakiness, money/moral double standards and lack of minimum health or housing protections for artists have all no doubt made their marks on our collective artistic landscape.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Since August 2018, I’ve released three self-produced albums and a few additional singles.

-> Whaelstrom: My first EP, released in 2018, is an instrumental electronic release that tells the story of Graylien, how Graylien leaves its home planet of Xul, gets swallowed up by an intergalactic wormhole, is discovered by humans and brought to Earth.

-> Elemental Rhapsody: released in 2020, is my first full length album. It is a highly symbolic and intricate work that also serves to continue the Graylien saga 100 years after Whaelstrom. Its nine songs are divided up into four symbolic elements: earth, fire, water, air and spirit.

-> GrayBeat LIVE: I figured out a way to create a live audio/visual online series of performances during the pandemic. The songs and videos on this album are fully mastered and hand-picked from my live performances between December 2020 and February 2021. I developed my own set of innovative real-time rendered graphics that uniquely follow my every move, as I perform live, entrancing the audience with live audio remixes of each of my records.

-> By the Hand, Sad Song & Paper Shoes (coming soon in 2022). These are my first ever vocal releases. They feature me and my wife on vocals.

-> Live shows: I take my audience on a unique journey every week on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, Thursdays at 8:30PM Central Time. You can find all of my performance times, current releases, and merchandise at https://graybeat.com

-> the Grayliens: I have a fun and engaging private online community called the Grayliens. It’s free to join and the link is https://go.graybeat.com

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
-> Stay positive. Find people that can help you discuss your plans and make decisions. Look at challenges as opportunities. Embrace the value of artistry. Find the creative spark that fuels you and spend as much time as possible feeding that spark and invoking its energy in your craft and in your search for opportunity.

-> I’m methodical, but not dogmatic. I have developed a keen ear for audio production, and I appreciate and enjoy many aspects of music and many different types of musical expression. I have decades of experience in structured and improvisational instrumental and vocal performance, both live and recorded. I’m a good communicator and try to remain humble at all times. I’m a sponge for knowledge and I use inductive reasoning to help me develop and start my own pathways to greater knowledge and tie them together in comprehensive ways. I’m not afraid to do the work. It fuels me.

-> Music production provides me with a feeling of comfort and fulfillment like nothing else. It helps me connect to other people and inspire them.

-> I care about my audience, and I want to use my artistry to share positive experiences with them. They want to see me keep making more music, and they want to keep experiencing personal journeys through GrayBeat. I’m always super prompt. I always put their concerns over mine, and I will always take the time to address their questions and needs. They are the reason I’m here and they are always at the top of my list each day. In return, I come to them to get feedback about what types of experiences they want to have and what type of music they like. I also give them a chance to get to know me on a personal level.

Contact Info:

• Email: robin@graybeat.com
• Website: https://graybeat.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/graybeatmusic
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/graybeatmusic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/graybeatmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMbXV4U7zVcpwU01al3rFdw
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/graybeat-107061980
• Other: https://linktr.ee/graybeatmusic

Image Credits
Mike Madison (Bump Opera | @bumpopera)
Mike Sedivy  (Elemental Rhapsody & Whaelstrom cover art)