Meet Mark Muszynski, an MA Electronic Music Production student who has used his Master’s to develop innovative music production practice and set himself on a path towards a portfolio career.
Mark Muszynski, who is studying MA Electronic Music Production at dBs Institute, is a 'portfolio artist' who works as a music producer, performer, Max for Live developer and sound designer. Find out more about him and his career here!
Hey Mark! Introduce yourself.
My name is Mark Muszynski - aka FlowerGrylz - and I'm studying the MA in Electronic Music Production at dBs. I'm an electronic music producer and a portfolio artist.
What projects have you been working on recently?
One of the tracks I've worked on recently is, ‘You Don't Want This’. It's a double single EP featuring Liv Charley on vocals. For this track, I've tried to mix a lot of different instrumental and technical skills. The vision behind it was that, as artists, we often think, “We shouldn't release this,” because we have self-doubt. It might be healthy to an extent because it pushes us to improve our skills, but at a certain point, it also stops us from sharing our art with the world. The other theme was AI. That's the technical theme; exploring how I can make the best use of AI synth sounds.
Another project I’ve been working on recently is Symnarr, which is a Max for Live call-and-response synth. There was quite a gap in the market for it. There aren't many call-and-response synths and I wanted to make something that had a bit of a mind of its own because I think that's really fun. With Symnarr, you make some of your sounds and then you let the synth generate its sounds and the results are unpredictable. I will definitely be making more Max devices in the future. Symnarr is just the start, I will probably update Symnarr, and I want to keep making other devices.
What do you enjoy about being a portfolio artist with lots of projects on the go simultaneously?
What I like about having so many projects is it gives me the chance to take a break from some of them and I think that's a very powerful creative tool. It also allows me to explore several things I'm interested in instead of just one. You never know what's gonna come next. People approach me out of the blue and I don't expect it and that's always quite fun.
How has your Master’s helped you with this work?
For my Master’s, I did a commercial plan and as part of that plan was exploring portfolio careers. I learnt a lot about the business model of a portfolio artist and how you can function as a sole trader in the UK. That's given me a really clear vision of how I'm going to make money after I graduate.
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