SOUNDSWARM ARTIST PROFILE: JAMES COOPER

Introducing Access to Music with James Cooper

What is Access to Music?

Access to music is the leading innovator for music, media and creative education in the United Kingdom, with centers all across the United Kingdom. James, an ex student is now a Scholar of a Popular Music and music technology course who practitions throughout the Birmingham circuit and all across the United Kingdom as a performing musician, session musician, producer and mixdown engineer.

What do you define yourself as?

I’m a performing musician at heart, composing, writing and performing my songs but I’ve dabbled in a little of everything across the scene and quite enjoyed Producing, Mixing and live sound engineering alongside session musician opportunities.

What does that mean?

I’m a performing musician writing and performing genres such as; Classic Rock, Alt Rock, Indie Rock, Hip-hop, Grime, Metal, Black Metal, Thash, Urban, R&B and the list genuinely goes on. My roots found me growing up with Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin, so my inherent love for metal, rock and hip-hop span from there. The heaviest influence for my musicianship is 80’s rock and 90’s rap music. I find that these eras resonate with me the best and allows me to personify my ability when I’m in a drought of lyrics, song structuring and performing. Access To Music had open days and taster evenings around the country.

I found myself working at Access to music as an ex-student who was studying at the University of Wolverhamtpon.

The way in which I write my music is that of needing integrity, I enjoy popular music but feel that It needs to have a personal touch to it, else it’s nothing. Writing about life, experiences or events is paramount to me else when performing or attempting to market your music you’re not convincing enough.

What are you doing at SOUNDSWARM?

Songwriting and Lyric writing master classes.

 What does this mean?

Songwriting:

We will be listening to popular music and dissecting what made it so popular, delving down to chord sequences, instrumentation, lyrics and the purpose of the song attempting to look into making our own music. There are some certain formulas that musicians use to date and we’ll be taking a look at those and why. Don’t worry, it’s not a boring music theory lesson, it’s a practical lesson that’ll boost your ability or confidence when writing a song.

Lyric Writing;

We’ll be looking into what makes some of the greatest, most inspirational created songs available to date. The emotions conveyed, the subjects and why were they so effective? The genres wont be limited, we’ll be looking at things from Metal to Grime in this session and I’ll be giving you tips to write your own lyrics whenever you want to.

To book on to James’ FREE song and lyric writing master classes, click here to be taken to Eventbrite. Places are filling up fast, so don’t miss out!