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Inside the Creative Mind of Noah Keesecker

In today's episode of Composer Quest, I interview Noah Keesecker about everything from the perils of grad school to making musical ping pong tables. Along the way, I discover that Noah is on the "spectrum of synesthesia" as he calls it. For example, he often experiences smells when he hears things (bassoons smell like mossy logs), and he strongly associates visuals and sounds, which has led to some really cool multimedia works like Tonegoblin. Noah shares some great tips on being both a creative and professional artist.

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Composing a Symphony with Musicologist Michael Dodds

Composer and Baroque music specialist Michael Dodds is the subject of an upcoming documentary called Blessed Unrest (currently being Kickstarted) about the personal challenge of creating a 40-minute choral symphony. Michael joined me on Composer Quest to talk about the techniques he used in writing his symphony, like borrowing from the beautiful Romantic harmonies of Richard Strauss. Michael also explains how Baroque composers are like jazz musicians, and how music theory is linked to the history of map-making.

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How to Layer Guitars Like a Delicious Cake

This week I've been working on a 30-second track for a contest hosted by UniqueSound. A music supervisor at the ad agency TBWA will be taking a listen to each entry, and one person will win $200. The challenge is basically to write music that could be used in a commercial, with the following style guidelines: indie pop, dreamy, electro, and ambient. Oh, and the track also has to "start mind-blowing" and have an "emotional explosion" ending. Since there was no video element to this challenge, I just had to picture blobs of brain and heart flying everywhere to capture the feelings they suggested.

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Game Music so Sweet it’ll Make Your Teeth Hurt, with Lisa Walkosz-Migliacio

Lisa Walkosz-Migliacio is a video game designer who also specializes in composing sparkly "tingy tingy" music that perfectly complements her games like the cute, bunny-filled Usagi-chan. With about 350,000 downloads of that game, she's clearly found a niche: young girls who don't have many games designed with them in mind. In today's episode of Composer Quest, I talk with Lisa about her creative process as both a composer and game designer. We also get to hear about her first ever game, a floppy-disk Joan of Arc adventure.

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Composer Secrets with Ian Dicke

Ian Dicke has secrets, but not the scandalous kind. In this episode of Composer Quest, we talk about his tricks of the trade when it comes to structuring his compositions and developing musical ideas. Ian also shares his approach to teaching post-1940s art music, which usually only gets about a week of attention in undergraduate music programs.

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Music from the Director’s Chair with Jason P. Schumacher

Jason P. Schumacher has made a name for himself as a filmmaker in the Twin Cities, but he's also had songwriting in the background of his life since high school. In this episode of Composer Quest, we talk about Jason's first official EP, Dumpster Baby, which is kind of a retrospective of his melodies and guitar riffs from his earliest songwriting days. Jason also shares some great advice on freelancing, and we talk about some of our favorite film scores.

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Arranging Pop Songs with Producer Andy Thompson

Andy Thompson is the guy who's made Jeremy Messersmith's albums sound incredibly good. He has also collaborated with Dan Wilson of Semisonic, Belle and Sebastian, and he even added some instrumental parts to Taylor Swift's record Red, which earned him a Grammy nomination. In this episode of Composer Quest, Andy shares his ideas on arranging strings, mixing pop music, and making generative music.

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Song Exploder’s Hrishikesh Hirway on Songwriting

Hrishikesh Hirway removes as much of himself as possible from his interviews with musicians in Song Exploder. In today's episode of Composer Quest, we get to hear from this mysterious podcaster about his own songwriting process. He also shares what he's learned from all the talented songwriter guests on Song Exploder.

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Merry Podmas: 7 Composition Podcasts

Welcome to this special Christmas episode of Composer Quest! Since I'll be taking a break from interviews (until I find a few more patrons...wink wink), I thought I'd share a few of my favorite music composition and music production podcasts. If you've been listening to Composer Quest, you've heard from many of these podcast hosts before.

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