My name is Natalie and i turned 31 in 2007. I was born in France and i currently live in London, England.

I don’t think i am more important than you, which is why i type “i” and not “I” when referring to myself.

I love music, and i’ve always done from an early age.

At the age of 15, i got my first electric guitar and i started covering songs like The Breeders, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. I also wrote a lot of songs. In fact, i had written my first song at the age of 12, on the family farfisa keyboard, but it wasn’t until i got my first electric guitar than my songwriting really took off. I’ve lost that first song but i remember it was about Michael Jackson, and how he was in danger of going crazy because he was isolating himself. Yes, i was a big fan of his back then lol

My early 20s were blighted by a family tragedy and i stopped writing songs altogether, though i was still very much involved in my local indie music scene, by running a record label and co-organising gigs.

Cue forward a few years and i’m in my late 20s, writing songs again and solo performing at various gigs and festivals. By the tender age of 30, my performances have somewhat evolved into a post punk style (www.natjm.co.uk ), but my songwriting displays my love for good pop & rock music. In fact, the tracks i record with myself as a performer only represents a mere 10% of my songwriting output. I love writing songs for others - my ideal performer would be Pink but i haven’t managed to get my songs to her yet

Why “songwriting and music recording for the creative mind”?

I started dabbling with a home studio aged 15, when, along with  my guitar electric, i got a Roland keyboard hooked up to my mother’s PC running Cakewalk. It was very basic but it got me hooked. I’ve been through various set-ups, from a 4 track cassette recorder to my current setup based around Cubase and my PC. I’ve tried both Windows and Linux. I’ve also tried some hardware digital recorders.

Along the way, i’ve read numerous music recording magazines and participated on many forums. However, i have grown frustrated with the rift between tech/gear heads and musicians/songwriters.

Go to many songwriters forums and people will ask simple questions such as how to hook up their keyboard to their computer. Go to any music recording forum and people will question whether they can hear the difference between 96kHz and 192kHZ sampling rates. Go to any specialist computer music forum and people will talk about where to find beats and samples.

I am a songwriter and i know how to use my home studio - my home studio is in no way very advanced but it does its job well. I have recorded, mixed and mastered some CDs in it, and i’ve had them released by a handful of indie record labels.

I can get technical but i don’t like to do it when it comes to writing and recording music; i know i’m far from being the only one like this.

Quaxle is here to reconcile the creative mind with the technology and craft that can help musicians and songwriters push their art to the next stage. 

The site focuses both on songwriting and music recording; i believe all aspects of the creation and performance of a song are important, but if there is one aspect you should never ever ever neglect, this is songwriting. Without a song, you are just a kid playing with his/her new guitar toy (or whatever it is you are playing with).

For me, songwriting is where it all starts - however, i hope this is not where it all ends, hence the need to understand a minimal amount of home recording technology to do something with your songs. Songwriters and musicians also need to understand about the music business around them, whether it is the majors or the online marketing tools, because a great song without an audience is a bit of a sad song.

You might disagree with me about the importance of songwriting, and you might be right, but hey, this is my blog and i write what i want

You can contact me at info (a) quaxle dot com 

I also run a blog called “I love technology”, which you can find at www.ilovetechnology.org