An Introduction - Music & Literature, Combined!

Hi,

My name is Ivan, I'm a 24 year old musician/writer from Croatia,
studying literature and making art!

(this is me after not getting much sleep, but it's still probably the best photo I have of myself)

I'm not really sure how this works because I am new in the Steemit community,
so I guess I'm just gonna wing it and see what happens.

As long as I've been old enough to actually do things that interest me, I've been doing music.
To be honest, I'm not really sure if I can remember a time when
I thought I want to be doing something else.
I started as a piano student learning classical music but
I dropped out after two years of music school because
my professor took away the joy of playing and learning music
and made it a living hell instead.
Now I'm glad it happened that way because
I'm making my own music instead of just learning how
to interpret somebody else's work and I'm enjoying it more than ever!

(this is me playing bass (my all time favorite instrument), although I'm also playing the guitar and know my way around some other instruments such as piano, drums and other percussion and just about anything with keys or strings)

I've been playing in many bands in my life (both bass and guitar)
but I currently have 3 projects:

1. Moskau - an art/core, noise band, working as an all around art collective
2. Bubblegum - my electropop solo project, using a laptop, a MIDI keyboard and my voice
3. Ivan Grobenski - my latest singer/songwriter project with
   a debut album recently (self)published

(this is Moskau)

(this is Bubblegum)

(and this is me as me (Ivan Grobenski), recording an acoustic guitar
with a microphone duckt taped to my lamp)

I work at home in my improvised portable studio with not much equipment
but enough to record and produce all my work.
I am fine with that kind of approach because I have total control
over how my music will sound like in the end and because
I simply can't afford to go into a real music studio and record.
Luckily, if you have a laptop, and external USB sound card,
a decent condenser mic and a good recording software
and a lot of time on your hands, you're pretty much good to go!

(this is my improvised working area)

(and this is what music LOOKS like)

I'm excited to share my music here on Steemit community
and to receive some feedback from people all over the globe,
but more about that later.

And now a word or two about literature.
As a literature student, I enjoy books almost as much as music
and I also aspire to combine the two as much as possible.
I enjoy poetry the most and I try to make my lyrics
as ''poetry like'' as possible to try and distinguish
them from the borderline meaningless pop lyrics
people are mostly writing nowadays.
I also enjoy writing short stories (I've written a few
and I'm excited to share them with you as soon
as I get them translated) and poems and I am
currently working on my very first novel!

(here's a glimpse at what sketching a short story looks like)

And that's about it.
As I've said before, I'm looking forward to sharing my music
and my writing with the Steemit community, as well as my
thoughts on art, the creative process and how to improve
yourself in your DIY art production.

Also, I'm a big fan of coffee, cigarettes, Woody Allen and Lou Reed!

See you around!