Manu

I started my music journey at 8 years-old, playing classical guitar and learning music theory in a private academy. At 12 years-old, I decided all the rules were too much for me and I quit music altogether, only to inevitably come back to it only 2 years later, this time on my own terms, since I taught myself to play electric guitar, following the steps of my favourite bands and artists then, until I reached the age of 17, when I started my first band (stoner/progressive rock) as the lead guitarist and decided to join Rockshcool to expand my technical abilities on the instrument and my musical knowledge. I also enrolled on singing lessons during that time.

At 19 years-old I enrolled in a Music Production course at Teesside University, where I learned general music production and studio recording techniques, more extensive music theory, audio physics and engineering, electronic production and music business. During that time I taught myself to play various instruments as well, such as the beautiful Shkuhachi & Shinobue (and other folk flutes), Drums, Keys and others. By the end of my studies I specialized in Music Composition & Sound Design for Video Games (and film, although games were my main interest). While studying there I worked on various indie short-films and video games as a music composer, sound designer and audio engineer and was able to finish the course in 2022, achieving First Class Honours on my Bachelor Of Arts in Music Production degree.

Later that same year I enrolled on Harvard Online's CS50's Game Development course to expand my game development and programming knowledge, while simultaneously learning about audio implementation and programming for video games.

Now I have been doing freelance work since the start of 2023, mostly as a session musician through different instruments, music composer, producer, orchestrator & arranger, audio engineer or sound designer. I've participated in more gaming titles such as The Value Of A Moment by DevRoom Games or The Deepfall, which was made by my own indie game development studio FoggyRain Studios. I've also produced tracks for other artists and brought to life various personal projects, most importantly, Archivemonger with a full-length album debut in October.

Right now I'm looking to expand my musical and game development knowledge, continue to release music through my projects and create video games I'm passionate about through my indie studio and explore other avenues of knowledge, such as teaching, since I believe is the ultimate test of my abilities and will ultimately improve them, while of course spreading the information I've been able to put together through my years of experience and hopefully bring other people the right tools for their musical development and journey.

I focus on musicality over technique and I try to convey and explore creativity first as an alternative to more traditional methods of composition.

I also try to mirror that in my playing, no matter the instrument, where I think of technique as a mere tool to get your hands to follow the speed and creativity of your brain, which ultimately is where real music comes from.