#just getting started

Back in 2025 Nottingham MC Afrodon dropped his seven track Just Getting Started EP. Switching between high energy bangers where his undoubted lyrical skill is shown with fire bars and more introspective and relationship based tracks. Produced by: Scott3Beats and…

☝🏼me at work this week! The greenhouse was full of annual (garden center) plants. The 3 days of freeze warnings had everyone scrambling to protect what had already bloomed by bringing everything outside - inside the greenhouse, or covering everything outside the store that could stand the cold so not ruin the blooms, which made my work inside impossible to get to. But that didn’t stop the distributors from delivering more! I spent most of Friday staging the racks of plants I received this week while trying to uncover and fill in the gaps on the tables at the front of the store.

There were 5 huge shippers of houseplants inside and by Friday there were 12 or so racks of perennials outside. And that was just my little piece of the actions.

I managed to get those shippers unloaded and on tables in the greenhouse. (no, that’s not me)

These ferns come wrapped in plastic- that was a lot of shucking! - tomorrow I’ll go in and replace those galvanized carts with the (red,white, &blue) Metrolina carts once I get some emptied off and product placement on tables.

I recently discovered that lofi music helps me focus. I always thought I was a no-noise person. If I’m writing, the lyrics of whatever I’m listening to get in the way. If I’m doing a task, music at first can make the task fun, but eventually becomes overstimulating.

And then I discovered lofi.

And naturally, I had not been listening to lofi very long before I thought, I want to try this.

I was in band and choir in high school, so I can read notation and know the basics of music theory, but I quickly discovered that I had a steep learning curve to make lofi.

How to use the notation software (I’m using MuseScore)

How drum notation works

Basic drumbeats, including hiphop, disco, motown

(Can you tell I wasn’t a drummer in high school?)

What makes lofi different from other music genres. (Reverb, grit, slow tempo, low and high pass filtering, nature sounds, vinyl crackle and intentional low quality)

Where to get and how to use plugins for reverb, grit, etc.

Where to get and how to add sound clips of nature

Soundfonts?!?!?! Okay, like technically I know what these are, but it’s slippery. I haven’t used a soundfont yet.

What keys and chord progressions have nuance–neither obviously happy nor melancholy. Lofi music tends to be pensive.

And then there’s the visual piece for uploading to YouTube. How do they make pictures move slightly, like the blinking cats and steaming coffee cups? (Ken Burns Effect might be involved) Can I hire someone to do this? (Looked around on Fiverr a little) IS EVERY LOFI CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE USING AI?!?!?!?!

Eventually, I went with Canva. I found animated images, added filters, layered them. I can’t guarantee AI wasn’t involved in the stock images, but I tried my best to avoid it.