Hi! My name is Kyle Samuel. I’m a professional musician from Austin, Texas. I recently got married and moved to Alexandria, VA with my wife. We are living with my sister-in-law and our four-year-old niece. I am in a band called All Get Out. We are on Equal Vision Records, currently working on a new album, and waiting out the pandemic along with everyone else!
2020 started out with a month-long tour of the country followed by a beautiful honeymoon in Thailand. Upon landing back in the States, our expectations of the year were subverted. Suddenly, my profession was shut down, with no gigs available due to COVID-19 closing anything that would resemble a venue. I always knew I wanted to do music for a living, and I picked up the guitar at 13 with that in mind. So, having gone straight out of high school into the life of a working musician, I was initially confused about how to proceed. Continuing to hone my craft proved satisfying for a season, but the good feelings would not last long, and I settled into a depression borne from losing my “thing” in life.
Fortunately, depression turned to introspection, which led me to think about all the interests I had prior to music, particularly computers. I made myself very familiar with my family’s Macintosh (and later, PC) from a very early age, probably four or five. My brother and I built our own computers in middle school, and would relentlessly tinker with the BIOS and other files in the pursuit of the ultimate framerate on Counter-Strike. It was a passion that ultimately got left behind because of my other passion.
Mulling this over, I finally landed on coding as the perfect harmony of my interest in music and computers. Music in its composition resembles coding in its arrangement of form, theory, and art; The left and right brain cooperating to a much larger end. It also often involves collaboration, a consensus on what any given song or project “is”, and, of course, communication. I felt that same passion start to ignite in my chest that drove me to music at 13.
Fast forward to now, today is my first day at Flatiron School. I’ve spent months preparing for today, and thankfully, I’m feeling confident and ready for whatever comes.
Kyle Samuel
Aspiring Coder, Musician
Top comments (1)
Hey Kyle - I'm a musician too and had a similar journey when Covid hit. I went through a path of self-discovery during quarantine and pursued coding more. I had previously tinkered with it, but did not have as much time to dive into it. Ultimately, I decided to pursue a post-bacc degree (my bachelor's is in music performance) in computer science. I hope someday to be able to combine the two - maybe help create new music software. Good luck on your journey!