Blaising onto the music scene

He’s a multi-instrumentalist, prolific songwriter, and only a few months past 18. Now he has the music industry knocking on his front door.

“I’ve been playing piano since I was six years old,” Eldred said.

He is able to play complex classical pieces, learn music by ear, and write intricate original works. On top of that, the senior is an extremely proficient drummer and taught himself to play the guitar relatively recently – and in a highly unusual way.

“I’m a lefty, but I learned on my friends’ guitars, so I play upside down,” Eldred said. “When I got my own guitar I bought a lefty but reversed the order of the strings so I could keep playing that way.”

Eldred’s playing style is unconventional, especially now that left handed guitars are easier to find and cheaper than they were in the past. The playing style leads to unique sounds and strange techniques for voicing chords and notes. Eldred said that he’d have to relearn a lot of what he knows if he were to switch to the standard way of playing.

“I think I might have ‘perfect pitch’, so I can listen to what other people play and learn it quickly. It helps a lot when I have a song idea in my head and need to make it real,” Eldred said.

Perfect pitch is the ability to hear a note and identify its name, a skill usually acquired when a person is exposed to playing and listening to music at a very young age. It’s likely that Eldred has perfect pitch, which would explain why he can learn songs so quickly just by listening and figure out how to play new instruments with relative ease. His focus has always been a catchy melody over squeezing as many notes into a riff as possible.

“It’s not like I can shred or anything, but I know how to play the style of music that I like,” Eldred said.

Eldred tends to focus more on catchy hooks, rhythm, and melody over elaborate solos. He also hasn’t used a professional recording studio for any of his songs, instead opting to record using the garageband app on his phone for everything from recording to mixing and mastering.

“A lot of recent music has influenced my songwriting. My favorite band is probably Homeshake, and I think Connan Mockasin is tight too,” Eldred said. “Mac Demarco and Tame Impala were who really got me into writing and recording my own music. My earlier songs sound a lot like them.”

Eldred’s music could be described as a mixture of dance, pop, funk, and other genres, sometimes drifting into surf territory. He was also recently approached by a manager from Fort Worth who was interested in representing him.

“I taught some friends of mine how to play my songs so that this guy could see I had a full band ready to play shows,” Eldred said. “He liked the music a lot but I think he was more interested in another band I was drumming for, even though that didn’t work out.”

The manager went on to pursue representing Eldred’s other project. Eldred’s songs have also aired on college radio.

“Yeah, I had one song get played on radio UT, and another college station up in Washington that my friend DJs for,” Eldred said.

The internet has changed the dynamics of the music industry, allowing anyone with the ability to record themselves to get their work out there. It’s now key for artists to stand out of the crowd in such an over-saturated market. However, you’d be hard pressed to find a pessimistic bone in Eldred’s body.

“I like the idea of challenging myself to stand out from the crowd,” Eldred said. “I think I’ve been doing a good job so far, and it’s been the time of my life. Hopefully I can study music in college so that I can make music a career.”

You can listen to Blaise’s music here.