Being a high school artist by caxynews

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Brede Baldwin, a senior from Lake Bluff, is one of the most talented musicians at Lake Forest Academy. Along with playing for varsity soccer and hockey, Brede has performed for Co-Ax, Vox and the Caxstreet Boys during his four years at LFA, while also singing in concerts solo.

Brede has been captivated by music since he was little. When he was four, he started playing piano, his main instrument. In his lifetime, Brede has played a wide variety of instruments, but the two he says he’s most comfortable with are piano and bass. Baldwin has also been involved in music, but not just in concerts at LFA.  From the ages of 8 to 14, he played in the School of Rock program in Highwood, a program similar to Co-Ax, but with many more people of a younger age.

In total, Baldwin has played over 30 concerts in front of a varying amount of people. His biggest concert was playing in front of 3000 people when opening for the Steve Miller Band. Another one of his biggest shows was a crowd of 1000 people, when Baldwin opened for OK-GO.

“What is the process of writing and creating your own music?”

“I usually create music by writing things on piano. Occasionally I write things on the guitar or my bass, but a lot of the times I start with piano melodies and core progressions. After that, I write lyrics and melodies based on those things. Once I get to the studio I’m surrounded by instruments or other people that help me with it.”

“When was your first concert?”

“My first concert was with the school of Rock when I was anywhere from 9-11 years old. I was tiny (I had a bowl cut), and I was covering some U2 songs. One of the older kids there, who couldn’t have been more than 13, gave me his sunglasses to make me look like Bono, the lead singer of U2.”

As an artist, Brede has released songs on both Soundcloud and Spotify, something no one else at LFA has done.

“As a young artist, how do you go about self-promotion?”

“Self promo is pretty difficult, but there’s a lot of ways to go about it. You can just put out your music and hope someone listens to it, or you can try to give it to a label or a company.”

“Is there any kind of desire to earn money from this music?”

“Making money off of websites like Itunes and Spotify is virtually impossible. For example, ‘Happy’, by Pharrell Williams, got millions upon millions of plays and made around 2,000 dollars from it. That’s an issue for me, because I obviously have much less plays. If you’re ever gonna make money from music, live shows and advertisements [are the most profitable].”
After graduating LFA this spring, Baldwin will attend New York University and will study composition.