Music is known to invoke a lot of emotions as it can boost the creative side of people and give wings to their imagination. During COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety and stress have increased to such an extent.
Daily job is getting tougher and stressful due to this circumstance. Johan Wiratanto is a seasoned Credit Risk Manager in Corporate Banking. To take care of mental health, Johan set aside time to unplug from work and used the time to commit to side hustle which is music. Art can be therapeutic and plays an important role to balance daily life. As a side hustle, never forget the fun is in doing “me time”, feel fulfilled, and increase productivity in primary jobs.
His affinity for creating and producing music increased over time since high school. He used to head home straight from school and play the guitar every day. He follows rock, pop, and blues music ardently, and used to perform in several cafes in Bandung such as Score, Classic Rock back in 2002-2007 with his former bands. After completing the undergraduate program from School of Business and Management ITB in 2007, he went to Jakarta and entered the banking industry. His musical project was temporarily in limbo and only performed on special occasions.
Only until 2017, he compiled some old records with his disbanded music group (one of the songs collaborated with prominent musician Grace Sahertian as a singer and DJ Wira Discover) and produced new singles until finally released the first EP entitled “After Office Hours” in 2018 under the name “Johan & Partners”. This album consists of various genres from pop-rock, Britpop, and electronic music. Every bit of anger, happiness, angst, joy, pain, elation, or knowledge goes into the story as a song. Scouring over each note and word, then perfecting it for recording, mixing, and mastering.
During songwriting, some factors that are important are flow, theme, energy, and contour. Do the sections make sense together? Does everything contribute to the main message and overall story? Do the chord choices and storyline create a sense of forward motion? Does the song have clearly defined sections? Where is the emotional peak of the song? Those were the questions that are being used to evaluate the album songwriting.
Recently, in 2020, Johan & Partners released a second EP called “Goodness” featuring his wife, Ricca, who is also a make-up artist freelancer. The “Goodness” song tells about the One that lights the darkness and during this pandemic, we have to be grateful for whatever we have despite tough challenges and uncertainties. Discover the songs by visiting Johan & Partners at several music platforms such as Apple Music, YouTube, Joox, and Spotify
(link: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2gOryCJ4mMl9w5LExu8tJk?si=wmOgNo_ZT96_KIdjOT4VRA ).