If you've ever thought about moving to Los Angeles to pursue a creative career, today's episode will give you a glimpse into that world. I talk with six creators about what it takes to turn art into your job, while staying motivated and creatively fulfilled.
Take a peek behind the scenes of the Composer Quest Olympics in today's episode. I also talk with video game composers in Chicago about career advice, rhythmic composing tips, and silly six-second Vine melodies.
From pig racing to public-access TV, this three-hour episode chronicles my adventure around New England. I talk with four different songwriters about their process, and I co-create two songs from scratch along the way.
This episode, I'm in Philadelphia and New York to chat about music theory, film scoring, and slot machine composing.
50 composers participated in the Composer Quest Olympic Games, a series of six Olympics-themed composing challenges: National Anthems, Table Tennis, Weightlifting, Hurdles, Relay Race, and Composer's Choice. If you're in Minnesota, join us at the American Composers Forum on Monday to find out who won the gold, silver, and bronze medals, and stick around to hang out with some of the composers who participated.
This second episode of the Composer Quest World Tour is all about school. Should you go to undergrad or grad school for an artistic field? What do you learn in school that you couldn't on your own?
For the final season of the Composer Quest podcast, 110 Kickstarter backers decided it would be fun to send me on a two month trip around the world, interviewing composers and songwriters. I'm thrilled to announce that the first episode of my Composer Quest world tour is here!
Since I'll be on my Composer Quest World Tour this fall, I decided we had to do something worldly and big for the final composing quest. In the spirit of the 2016 Rio Olympics, I'll be hosting the official Composer Quest Olympic Games!
How does a composer write music that doesn't draw attention to itself? How can a director convey scoring ideas if they're not a musician? Why is temp music important for an editor? When should sound design reflect the real world, and when should it be from a character's psychological perspective? Will the dialogue editor choose the lavalier or boom mic recording, or both?
These are just a few of the conversation-sparking questions we discuss in today's Composer Quest podcast episode (the season six finale!), featuring the team behind the upcoming film Twin Cities. You'll get to hear perspectives on film sound from a director/writer (David Ash), producer/editor (Jason P. Schumacher), sound designer (Mike Hallenbeck), and composer (me). We dissect the entire post-production sound process, from a spotting session with all four of us, to our experimental on-the-spot scoring session, which was very productive and slightly nerve-racking for me as the composer.
St. Thomas professor Dr. Vanessa Cornett-Murtada specializes in teaching piano, creativity, and performance anxiety reduction techniques. In this episode of Composer Quest, Vanessa shares some tips on getting past mental blocks as a composer, and she explains how hypnotherapy can be helpful in reducing stress, increasing productivity, and sparking creativity. She also explains why Brahms is her favorite composer.