Journey Through The Music Industry

An exclusive interview with eighteen year old British Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) student, Jack Salter on his long and changing journey through the music industry. Starting from a metal guitarist to guitar/vocalist in jazz fusion among other genres, Jack shares his journey with us!

Jack Salter attending Download Festival 2018

Jack Salter currently studies Professional Musicianship in Guitar at BIMM University, he has a Grade 8 in guitar and also practices singing, screaming, keyboard, drums, and hopes to improve further on his guitar. He answered questions based on his journey through the music industry:

How long have you been actively involved in the music scene?

I started playing music back when I was eleven, kind of just as something to fill my time with. When I started going to shows was when I really started to take Guitar seriously. I’d say that’s probably when I became involved in the scene, I attended as many shows in the area as I could, I played guitar as much as I possibly could, invested all my money into gear and show tickets. Going to so many shows has really inspired me to stay active within the musical community for as long as possible for here on out really.

What type of music are you interested in and why?

I started off as just metal really, kind of following the reason I picked up Guitar to begin with and exploring that as I improved as a Musician. That exploration has sort of naturally progressed into prog and jazz fusion and avant-garde music now, getting really weird with harmony and the concept of what a song can be really.

You mentioned you played guitar, how did you go about learning to play and where would you say you currently are in your guitar skills, specifically in comparison to where you were when you started?

Jack Salter playing Guitar at The Joiners, Southampton

For the first few years I was ‘self-taught’, which really just means that I didn’t have lessons. I still learned from the internet and from learning full albums from the bands I loved at the time. I still do that from time to time but my practice now is more composition than anything technique related. I’m miles better than I was a few years ago, but I don’t think I’m the person to measure my level of ability really, everyone has a skewed opinion on where they are, and it all depends on how much people have really looked around to find the truly incredible guitar players that are playing right now. I think the more you play, the more you realize how far there really is to go as to skill level, and that warps your view on how capable you are.

Referring back to your mention on how your music taste has changed, would you say that your interest in metal influenced your current music taste?

Oh definitely, I’d never have reached this state of listening to odd music if I hadn’t explored traditional styles of metal to the extent I had. I also wouldn’t say my interest in metal has diminished, just that my taste within the genre has gotten really weird comparative to most sub-genres of metal, so it seems like I’m uninterested, since I’m not a fan of any of the huge bands within the scene anymore.

How would you say it influenced the change?

I think it was to do with the way my favourite bands evolved, it slowly went from traditional metal to more experimental angles on the genre, I’m not really sure on why that is but it’s what my tastes gravitated towards at each time getting a little more outside the world of popular metal. It’s definitely been a natural progression, I never actively set out to listen to different music to what I was listening to, I just sort kind of stumbled across different stuff while exploring what I already loved.

Has your area/s of expertise changed?

Jack Salter singing at The Joiners, Southampton

Honestly I don’t really consider myself an expert at anything, I’m not sure I ever will be to be honest. I’m definitely more capable at guitar and songwriting, and I’ve recently started vocals, mainly harsh stuff like you’d hear on a Dillinger Escape Plan of a Make Them Suffer record more than conventional singing, although I’d really love to become capable at that soon as well.

How did you go about advancing your songwriting and vocals?

Both were mostly trial and error, I never had the money for private songwriting tuition, so I used the internet coupled with trial and error and trying to figure out what my favourite bands are doing. Vocally was definitely trial and error, especially as far as safe technique goes. With vocal styles like that you’re in some real danger of hurting yourself if you don’t have proper technique, and no one really teaches it super well, so I just had to go through the process of doing it in different ways until it didn’t hurt to do. Once that was done I just practiced lots until it sounded better.

Where do you see your future going now?

Hopefully just making money within music anyway I can, just enough to not starve and still be able to create music that I want to create. Teaching and function work is something I’d 100% like to do in a professional capacity, that sort of stuff I’d rather avoid touring and create music more than perform my own stuff on stage I think. I’m writing all the time and the creation process is so much more important to me than performing it is. I’m writing now with the intent on releasing a couple of projects over the next few years, an avant-garde project that I’m doing guitars and co-vocals for, and a prog release that I’m doing completely solo. I’ll be doing all the instruments and vocals for it. I’m really excited to see how my best efforts turn out.