Hey, Cola here, and I'm back for my second 50/90! Last year I finished 6 songs, so this year I'm aiming to double my output and write 12 (roughly one song per week).

My background in music is mostly as a vocalist, first just singing at church on Sundays as a kid, then getting involved with choir and musical theater in school. Through watching anime, I got into Japanese music, which has had a huge impact on my musical tastes as a whole - the scene in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya where Haruhi sings her heart out to "God Knows" had me star-struck at first watch, and I still tear up a little from nostalgia whenever I hear that guitar solo. For several years I was also an active member of the online vocal synthesis community, using the UTAU program to make covers with virtual singers. While I'm not so active about producing Vocaloid/UTAU covers anymore, there are a lot of great artists in that community (or who came from it and have since moved onto other musical pursuits) who I still follow. Pursuing songwriting is relatively new to me; while I've dabbled a bit in the past, I only started making serious progress in developing the skill since 50/90 of last year.

While I'm strongest in my ability as a singer, I also play a little guitar, which I've been learning on and off for a few years (mostly "off", though in the past several months I've picked up a good rhythm of consistent practice and progress). Every once in a while I get the itch to acquire a new instrument, and as a result I've started to slowly grow a collection, mostly of fun percussion instruments. My favorite of these is the kalimba (also known as the thumb piano), and the newest is a glockenspiel, which I hope to use at some point during this 50/90. Besides these, you can also expect to hear liberal use of piano MIDIs and other synthesized instruments.

Good luck to everyone this 50/90, and I'm looking forward to writing alongside all of you again this year!