Getting on Track

Track was born from the personal experience of becoming a musician, and realising with hindsight how scarce opportunities are and how hard it can be to take the first steps towards making music.

Everybody working on Track knows how rewarding and empowering music making can be. The aim of the projects was to get young people to experience this, to support people to explore their voice who might not have done so before, to collaborate with others, including experienced musicians, and to make something that meets their expectations and that they can feel confident about sharing.

In this work young people go through all production steps for real: they write music, they record songs and they release them. They get time in studios and work with musicians and producers to realise a vision in a frighteningly short space of time. It is a steep learning curve and everyone is thrown in at the deep end, but hopefully, everybody gets the bug and sees how writing, recording and releasing actually works. 

Too often access to studios, musicians, producers, and distributors is exclusive, murky and daunting, but by the end of Track, young people should feel experienced, and like they can do this for themselves. The songs produced during Track have surpassed our expectations, and are a testament to the artistic and creative voices of the young people who made them.

Graeme Smillie, Track - Lead Artist