Composer Quest: A Songwriting And Music Composition Podcast

I hereby challenge you to the 4th Composer Quest quest! We will be writing songs for a new Christmas musical, to be performed by the first, second, and third graders at KMS Elementary (in the rural town of Murdock, MN). I wrote music for their Christmas musical last year, and it was a blast hearing my songs performed by these kids, who were so excited about it. Maia Hamann, from episode 10, teaches music at KMS, and she’ll direct the musical. Her mom, Zita Hamann, taught at KMS Elementary for many years, and she has just written a fun story called Elfluenza.

Tinderbox Music’s Patrick Hertz specializes in promoting music to college radio stations. In this special episode of Composer Quest, I ask Patrick a bunch of listener-submitted questions about the music business. He shares advice on how to get noticed by music supervisors and get your music licensed for TV and film. He also explains how the artists he sees get ahead are (unsurprisingly) the most organized and business-minded. Although our conversation is geared more towards promoting recorded songs, I believe his commonsense advice is useful for classical composers, too.

MusicWorks MN Director Tim Cheesebrow (from Episode 19) is the mastermind behind the new Young Composer’s Contest here in Minnesota. Two talented White Bear Lake composers were chosen as the winners. It’s pretty impressive what these students were able to do with their string quartet pieces. In this special Composer Quest episode, Taylor Isberner and James Farrell share their insights for other young composers thinking about trying out this contest next year.

In this special episode of Composer Quest, I talk with entertainment lawyer Blake Iverson of Friedman Iverson Law Firm and entertainment law student Sarah Howes about how to copyright your music and make money from royalties. They provide a bunch of great tips and legal myth-busting for us composers and songwriters.

Join us for the third Composer Quest Quest! Write a classical aria for the Twin Cities Opera on Tap group to perform. For this special podcast episode, I talked with singer Eryn Tvete, who co-hosts the Twin Cities division of Opera on Tap, and opera composer Nick Mroczek. Nick shares some aria composing tips, and Eryn shares tips on getting your piece selected to be performed.

We recently had our first ever Composer Quest concert at Yoga Sol. The Twin Cities Trio performed some awesome listener-submitted arrangements of pop tunes and film/video game scores for bassoon, clarinet, and oboe. We also got to hear the indie pop duo Matt and Donna Schubbe, indie rocker Peter Frey of Kazyak, and indie folker Paul Spring. Here’s a special Composer Quest podcast episode with highlights from the concert.

Composer and Princeton professor Dmitri Tymoczko shares some excellent composing advice in this season finale episode of Composer Quest. Dmitri says that working on music theory as a composer is like lifting weights as a football player – it helps improve your intuitive composing. We also ponder the morality of exposing babies to only atonal music for experimental reasons.

Your composing quest, should you choose to accept it: co-write and co-record an original piece of music with a random Composer Quest listener, based on the theme “Conversation.” Your finished track will be part of the first ever Composer Quest album, a free-to-download online release. In this special Quest 2 announcement episode, I talk with musical comedy duo The Boffo Yux Dudes about how they record songs together exclusively over the internet.

A truly unique figure in the electronic music world, Torley describes himself as a “time-traveling, universe-crossing, autistic, cyberpunk monk.” I was drawn in by the (over 800!) videos on Torley’s YouTube page, many of which are thoughtful talks by Torley on music composition, creativity, and his life experiences. In Composer Quest episode 38, Torley talks with me about Asperger’s syndrome, his hearing disorder called hyperacusis, his job in the online world Second Life, and of course, his advice on making otherworldly sounds.

Theater, film, and video game composer Candy Bilyk shares the best piece of advice she ever heard from Katy Perry: “Follow your dreams!” Candy was happy to share her own (actually practical) advice on composing and the music business. In Composer Quest Episode 37, we talk about everything from “synthestration” to grant writing to her opera about a fairy-eating carp.

My cousin Joe Graves’ songwriting skills somehow flew under the radar in my family, until he finally performed some of his songs this past Christmas. In Composer Quest Episode 36, Joe plays and talks about the music he wrote for his band Goodnight Gorillas. He was inspired to make dark music by his older brothers Matt and Nate (Ep. 4), but he’s been developing his own singing and songwriting style. Joe shares some of his lyrical inspiration, including a story about a famine in North Korea that forced some people to dig up dead bodies for food.

Minnesota filmmaker Elliot Diviney taught himself to compose film scores to lighten the budget in his money-sucking filmmaking habit. In episode 35 of Composer Quest, Elliot and I talk about his newest political satire musical Problem Solving the Republic, inspired by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. We also talk about some famous movie scores.

For wordsmith Jenny Katz, writing lyrics feels like rolling marbles around in her chest. I can’t say I’ve ever had such a physical reaction to words, so it was fascinating talking with Jenny in Composer Quest Ep. 34 about how she approaches songwriting. For her, even the meaning of a song is subservient to the sound of words that feel physically right to her. Jenny also shares stories behind her new Kickstarter-funded album Galaxies.

Folk singer/songwriter Cameron Scott Boster posted his 24-song album on Reddit a few weeks ago and got a huge response from listeners. In Composer Quest episode 33, Cameron shares some of the stories behind his songs, and cracks me up in the process. He’s heading off to law school in Virginia, so music is going to have to be a side project for him. After hearing his incredible live performances, I think you’ll probably be with me in wishing that he continues on his songwriting path.

Cyborg percussion ensemble Jazari was created by "token human" Patrick Flanagan. He made a kind of robot drum circle that beats on acoustic bongos, cowbells, a djembe, and more. In episode 32 of Composer Quest, Patrick talks with me about his robot band, his day job creating musical iPhone apps, and his reasons for leaving the academic composing world to create dance music.

In episode 31 of Composer Quest, songwriter Matt Leavitt of the indie band Emot talks with me about his belief that the very first time you work on a song is often where the best ideas come from, and anything after that is just trying to recreate this spark of initial inspiration. We also get to hear Matt play a couple new tunes live from Emot’s upcoming album, which they’ve been working on with producer Brian Moen (of Peter Wolfcrier and Laarks).

Brooklyn experimental duo Brian Wenner and Matt O’Hare talk with me about their production process in episode 30 of Composer Quest. In the latest Prism House EP, Reflections, Brian Wenner’s beats are made from chopped-up field recordings of pop cans and squeaking doors. Matt O’Hare, the visuals man of the duo, is also a very talented musician. He explains how The Simpsons has helped him become an excellent throat singer.

I was thrilled to talk with Dr. Diana Deutsch, a pioneer in the field of music perception and psychology (she literally wrote the book on music psychology). Diana has discovered a number of famous musical illusions. Prepare to have your mind blown by the octave illusion, the scale illusion, the tritone paradox, the mysterious melody, and the speech-to-song illusion "Sometimes Behave So Strangely," made popular by Radiolab. Diana also explains how composers can benefit from studying these perceptual illusions.

Jazz Pianist George Maurer has been a working composer for over twenty years. In episode 28 of Composer Quest, George imparts his words of wisdom on making a living as a composer. He also shares tips on arranging music for orchestral instruments. George's latest project, Empire Builder, is a musical set on a time-traveling train, and we get to hear George at the piano, talking through his composition process for this musical.

Metal isn't for everyone, but guitarist Devin Earlywine is okay with making music 90 percent of listeners won't enjoy. In Composer Quest Ep. 27, Devin talks about how metal isn't all about doom and gloom. He even admits his band Idiopathic Necrotization started as a joke to have fun with the ridiculousness of the gore death metal genre. In most of his music, Devin tries to avoid thinking of his audience at first, so there are no roadblocks between the purest musical idea from his brain to the finished song.