Sutton Music Trust hosts three Work Experience placements a year for students who are interested in learning more about potential careers in the creative industries. For their recent placement, June wrote an article about their passion writing and producing music.
Writing music has been a passion of mine since last year, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world!
When I started producing music around November 2025, it mainly came from my interest in music. I don’t usually make music using MIDI and when I do it takes ages. When I do use MIDI, I do not use the traditional format where you play the keyboard, as I do not know how to play piano. I usually work by arranging the notes individually and seeing what works, although I do that less now. I usually now collect free samples online from different websites, and now see what works together. I mainly use Bandlab as my source of making music and samples and arranging them in a way that works.
My main inspiration is PinkPantheress and Charli XCX with my genres. PinkPantheress is my main inspiration because of how well she samples music, taking her main inspiration from songs from the 90s and the 2000s in the UKG scene. My main inspiration for genres I personally produce comes from Charli XCX, I am also mainly inspired by hyperpop influences from artists such as SOPHIE and Charli XCX’s EP Zroom Zroom.
My main challenge lies in not being able to think of ideas from the get-go. Sometimes when you have too many ideas, you end up having none and are just stuck on a blank page for the longest time, and that can frustrate me a lot. Despite the challenge it causes, I find it’s best to get a vocal sample, chop it up, and see what instrumental would go best with it, by having a sample already there, you end up having more of a foundation to start on. For example, I was making an interlude, and I had no idea what to do for an interlude. I decide to get a vocal sample from Imogen Heap’s song Headlock, that proceeded to help a lot with what I could shape with this interlude and then helped me land on a genre for this interlude.
The main skill I developed as the musician was finding songs to sample. I feel like many people do struggle with finding an already good source material to then build on. Overtime I realised I can and could just look at my favourite songs and see what I can sample or look at old classics to sample. Headlock by Imogen Heap came out 7 years before I was born, and at the time I had sampled it became a resurfaced hit. Sometimes I just google “free samples music” and see what I can find.
My advice to anyone who wants to enter the music scene is that practice makes perfect, it’s very cliché to say, but you cannot learn a skill in a matter of minutes, I eventually learnt this as well. My other advice is googling tutorials, a simple “how to make [insert genre] type beat in [insert DAW here]” on YouTube can go a long way if you really are unable to learn, and/or are more of a visual learner. Whenever you do search for these tutorials, always go to the older ones, they are more likely to give you the material you need, and certain hacks that could only be applied at the time due to older technology. Alternatively, just google “how to make a [insert artist here] type beat” and you’ll land on a goldmine.
Want to learn more?
Our Work Experience placements for 2026-27 are now full. Contact us for any opportunities in the next school year.
Find out about SMT, the Charity and how to support us.
Read about our first Post-16 Opportunities in Music Fair for students interested in a career in Music.
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