About Me

Hello, I'm Basil Breen. I'm a singer-songwriter and software engineer from Ireland.

For a long time, I've wanted to marry these passions together, but I never felt sufficiently motivated to do so.

Then I had an idea; what if I could build tools and systems around my own songwriting process?

And thus, Root Notes was born. I hope my efforts here will prove useful to other songwriters and contribute to the proliferation of music around the world.

My vision will be realized with time. Like any artistic endeavour, this will be an iterative process.

My guiding philosophy is simple: build tools that inspire.

Every songwriter possesses a voice that no one else has. Why do you prefer one word over another? One chord progression over the next?

Songwriting is the process of applying your taste over and over until you are satisfied. It is the small and deliberate adjustments that give rise to songs that only you could have written.

In the end, it is your taste that makes a song uniquely your own.

Root Notes exists to help you discover the songs you hold within, one deliberate choice at a time. It is not here to automate your entire songwriting process.

I believe in the necessity of honest artistic work, but I also believe there must be ways of increasing the frequency of inspired moments.

Imagine walking down the road when suddenly, a stray piece of paper hits you in the face. Peeling it off, you are greeted by a word that just so happens to fit perfectly into the song you are working on.

Or what if you could hire a world-class pianist for a day? You direct their playing with subtle instructions here and there until suddenly, they stumble upon a sound that pulls a melody out of your spirit.

Root Notes is here to facilitate moments of real inspiration. It is not an automated song machine; it is an instrument of inspiration.

I invite you to join my effort to protect the difficult and beautiful process of human creation.

Feel free to reach out at hello@rootnotes.me