Composer Quest: A Songwriting and Music Compositio 24684q

Anton Torres has been an electronic music hobbyist for over 20 years, using the very earliest incarnations of Apple's Logic and Ableton Live. In today's episode of Composer Quest, Anton shares some wisdom on living a creative life, even if you only have 15 minutes to spare each day. We also hear why Anton decided to leave his suit and tie job in New York to pursue his creative dreams, and how he ended up working at the board game company Asmodee North America.

A few weeks ago, I got to participate in a very fun live composing event at GlitchCon, called Game Music Melee. Three of us composers got up onstage to write video game music on the spot, based on game suggestions from the audience, in JUST 30 MINUTES. Not a lot of time. Emily Reese of the Level with Emily podcast hosted, and after two rounds of composing, she interviewed us about our process. It turned out so cool, I wanted to post it as this week's Composer Quest episode.

Musician, neuroscientist, and author Daniel Levitin has brought music psychology to the masses with This is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs. For today's episode of Composer Quest, I got to interview Dan about why humans evolved to be musical. Dan also shares songwriting tips he's learned in talking with Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Stephen Stills, and Victor Wooten. In the second half of the episode, you'll hear Dan perform a couple of his own songs, including an exclusive debut of his new song "The Hole Inside My Head."

Crystal Grooms Mangano recently scored the documentary Asperger’s Are Us, which follows a comedy troupe of four autistic guys. In this episode of Composer Quest, Crystal shares her process in deciding how to score this comedic documentary. I also ask Crystal about scoring the trailer for the Patrick Steward film Match, and we talk about the merits of flute in film scores.

When I called up Sage Lewis on Skype, I didn’t realize he was a fellow Minnesotan. He’s now out in LA, composing for films like Operator, starring Mae Whitman and Martin Starr, and a VR film called The Surrogate. In this episode of Composer Quest, we talk about what it takes to move to and find connections in LA. I also ask Sage about his score for the short film Caterwaul, about an old man and his mutant lobster wife.

Are you a "gardener" composer or an "architect" composer? My new (almost) neighbors Michael Maiorana and Mandy Fassett came over to talk about their different composing styles for today's episode of Composer Quest. They decided that Mandy is usually the "gardener" and Mikey is usually the "architect." In other words, Mandy uses her jazz improv background to grow a musical "seed," not knowing where her composition will end up, and Mikey approaches many of his compositions with a clear structure in mind. But they've come together to create improv looped music with violin, bass, and rubber bands in the project Snak Atak. Also, I got to learn about Faygo, the soda from Mikey's home state and the Insane Clown Posse's drink of choice.

I’m happy to announce that we’re bringing back MNKINO Film Score Fest this year! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s an awesome challenge where filmmakers and composers are paired up to create short films, and the Composer Quest Orchestra plays the scores live at the screening. Sign up below if you want to participate this year as a composer or filmmaker!

For the Season 6 Premiere of Composer Quest, I asked aspiring podcast producer Jenny Handke to guest produce the episode. Jenny was interested in gaining some podcasting knowledge, so I thought we could record our conversation and post it as kind of a Composer Quest behind-the-scenes. We talk about everything from interviewing techniques to the ethical question of editing conversations to make people sound smart. I also ask Jenny about her own podcast, which will either be infinitely fascinating or intensely cringeworthy.

Ethnomusicologist Colleen Bertsch is in Romania right now through a Fulbright grant to study Transylvanian violinists. I got to Skype with Colleen for this episode of Composer Quest, and we talk about her faithful recreation of Romanian folk music with her band Szászka, and the crazy time signatures (22/16!) she's played with her Balkan band Orkestar Bez Ime.

Tommy Kraft has been “living under a bridge” in order to finish his ion project, the feature-length Star Trek film Horizon. He’s doing almost everything himself: directing, writing, editing, composing, visual effects, and even making the costumes. The film is Tommy’s ode to the Enterprise TV series, which played an important role in his life by helping him sort through his struggle with depression. In this episode of Composer Quest, I talk with Tommy about his approach to scoring Horizon, and he shares words of wisdom on running a Kickstarter and producing a large creative project.

Garrett Hope has drawn composing inspiration from spider mating calls, Joan of Arc's trial transcript, oil spills, and rape survivor stories. In this episode of Composer Quest, I ask Garrett about these composing projects, and I ask what he's learned from his podcast Composer on Fire. He shares some words of wisdom from his interviewees, and things he's learned through his own composing journey.

Bubba Hollenhorst is a songwriter friend who I often only chat with during loud concerts or on the dance floor. In this episode of Composer Quest, I get to know Bubba a little better. He shares stories from his albums Enter the Enchanted Whiskey Forest and Space Love, along with tips on writing a post-apocalyptic space-themed musical. I also ask him about the dozen or so hilarious jingles he's written for segments on his podcast The Weekly Awesome.

Video game composer Lena Chappelle worked her way into the game business by starting as a quality assurance tester. Now she’s both deg and writing music for games like Guild Wars 2. In this Composer Quest interview, Lena shares some of her music and creativity tips, including her method of composing songs during her bus rides. She shares how to write a good melody, and how her experience as an author has influenced her musical storytelling. I also ask Lena about her perspective as a transgender woman in the video game industry.

Cyriak Harris has wowed the internet with his weird YouTube animations, which often feature dancing, mutating animals, like his 34-million-views video "cows and cows and cows." But he's very rarely asked about his soundtracks, which are equally intricate and wild. In this episode of Composer Quest, I interview Cyriak about his composing methods and creativity tips.

I’m excited to announce our next composing quest, courtesy of Tim Cheesebrow and his forearm. Tim has been looking for a way to commemorate his family tree through music, and he’s decided to leave it to Composer Quest listeners to write a “Cheesebrow family” melody. Tim will then choose his favorite composition, and TATTOO IT ON HIS ARM.

Jonathan Rundman’s songs have appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show, the CBS Morning News, and NPR. He realized the success of these songs have been due in part to their narrow topics, like insomnia and wearing glasses. But Jonathan has recently shifted to writing songs with more “heart” than his journalistic lyrical past, after somewhat of a mid-life crisis and a purifying experience playing ancient Finnish music. In this episode of Composer Quest, Jonathan shares words of wisdom from his 25 years as a touring musician. We also talk about his podcast Creativity Drill, which he co-hosts with his wife Dawn.

Sam Matla its that his hometown of Wellington, New Zealand doesn’t have a big electronic dance music scene. But he’s been hard at work producing EDM tracks and educating people about electronic music through his blog and podcast at EDMProd.com. For today’s episode of Composer Quest, I interviewed Sam about his production techniques and advice for new producers.

Reel spins, rollups, symbols, celebrations, underscores - they're all different sound ingredients that go into a slot machine. In this episode of Composer Quest, I interview three guys in the sound department at High 5 Games about their unique challenge of making music for casino slots. We talk about the composition techniques they use to hook players into these elaborate slot machine story worlds. I also ask them how they feel ing their musical skills to get people to throw down money and press that button again "like a monkey looking for that frickin' shot of espresso," as Aldo describes it. It's a fun and quirky interview, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

If you’ve been to an indie film fest, you’ve probably seen Kevin MacLeod in the credits. Or maybe you’ve heard his music in a cute cat video, or a Minecraft video, or in a department store, cab ride, or on hold. By writing an enormous amount of music and giving it away for free, Kevin has built his reputation as the single biggest royalty-free music composer.

Tomb Raider, Until Dawn, and the Dead Space series are some of the big-name video games Jason Graves has been scoring recently. In this episode of Composer Quest, Jason shares a ton of great composing, production, and music business advice, along with lessons he learned from his in-depth study of John Williams scores. We also get to hear his apples-to-apples comparison of the Skywalker Sound studio and the Abbey Road studio.