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You're listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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Hello and welcome back to the PianoPod.
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I am Eric Hunter.
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I'm Yukimi Song.
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I'm Clara Zhang.
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Today our guest is Claire Marie Lim, otherwise known as Doll Trick.
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A professor in Berkeley's Electronic Production and Design Department, she specializes in
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instruction for live electronic performance, production, and programming, and is an advocate
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of women and Asian representation in music technology.
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She is an Ableton certified trainer, Bitwig certified trainer, and Apple certified pro.
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In music education and arts activism, Claire collaborates with the Girls Rock Campaign,
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Beats by Girls, and the Queens Public Library Network, and has received support from the
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New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Queens Council on the Arts.
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She develops curriculum for various ages and experience levels, having consulted for the
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International Center of Photography, Queens College, Coursera, and the Berkeley Network.
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Claire also independently runs the Doll Troop, a mentorship experience where K through 12
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girls can shadow her in electronic songwriting sessions and live shows.
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Hi, Claire.
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Thanks for joining us today.
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Hi, thanks for having me.
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You're welcome.
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Excited to be here.
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Thank you.
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Yes, we are so excited to have you.
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We interview a lot of classical pianists for this show.
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We're all classical pianists, the three of us.
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But we're also very interested in music technology and the future of music.
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And when we saw what you were doing on YouTube, we were just blown away.
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We're like, ah, we have to have her on the show.
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So we're very, very excited.
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Now you describe yourself as a music technologist, right?
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Yes, that's right.
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Yeah, I love that term.
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Can you explain what you mean by that exactly?
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Yeah, totally.
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And I think before I start, I'll also kind of jump in.
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The classical music is still very much in me too, because I'm a classical trained pianist
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too.
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So it was very weird.
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I think my parents didn't really expect that.
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It's like, oh, let her go get her diploma and whatever and then turn into this electronic
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music weirdo.
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Sorry, mom and dad.
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But anyway, yeah, so music technology.
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I think it's a term that I like using a lot and that a lot of my colleagues who also call
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themselves music technologists use as well.
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Especially because oftentimes when you're in the field of music tech, you're not just
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in say only production.
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There's a little bit of overlap with say live performance or in my case, for example, or
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sometimes there's a little bit of overlap in programming and sound design.
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So I think using the term music technology kind of encompasses that because that's actually
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pretty much what I do all the time.
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Sometimes my clients who I work with will come to me through the lens of wanting to
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look for a producer to help them with their music.
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So they might be say a songwriter or a composer and it's like, hey, Claire, can you help me
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make this, you know, put it into some kind of digital form, like in a software computer
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program and then other clients that I work with will be like, hey, I'm doing a live performance.
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Can you help me put together a live show or put together my stage setup?
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So it really kind of runs the gamut.
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It's very much, you know, kind of being like a jack of all trades, I guess, and having
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to go between different sorts of things.
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But ultimately, I love doing all of it.
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So that's why I like it.
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Yeah, that's amazing.
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I know you wear so many hats.
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I mean, just going through the materials on your website, you're like, oh my gosh, she's
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performing and she's producing and she's educating activism as well.
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Right.
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And technology running through it.
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It's amazing.
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But it's so interesting to me that you grew up with classical training and then found
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your way into technology.
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I've got a bit of that myself.
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So can you tell us what drew you to music technology originally?
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Yeah, totally.
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I'm so glad to hear that, Eric.
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I think like for me, it was very, very much an accident.
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Up until college, just for a little bit of background also, I went to a school where
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you had different options for majoring in different parts of music.
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So sometimes a couple of people would major specifically in electronic production or people
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would do engineering or people would do like commercial writing.
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And that was initially what I kind of wanted to do.
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So when I first got to the college that I attended, like my mind was really more set
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on being just like a writer or a composer because I didn't know about the possibilities
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of a lot of the electronic music stuff.
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But it just so happened that a lot of my friends who I met in my very first semester at college,
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I got very close to them and a lot of them were into electronic music stuff.
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And at that time still, I was a little bit of a purist.
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So people would bring up electronic music and you kind of think like one of two things,
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either the electroacoustic tradition kind of in classical stuff or you think of like
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a doom, doom, doom, doom, which it kind of is.
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Yeah, I know.
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I joke with my students now that like that's all that electronic music is, partially being
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facetious, but it kind of is also.
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So I thought of that and it was really a lot of my own prejudice that was preventing me
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from being open to a lot of the creative possibilities.
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So I started going to a lot of these live shows and for me, coming from the lens of
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or the background rather of being a performer, because I used to do lots of like competitions
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and lots of on stage stuff as a pianist and a flute player too, right?
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So it's like stage performance experience.
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Coming into that sphere and watching all of these live performances, I was totally blown
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away.
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So I went to a concert once by a group called Disclosure and it was actually in New York,
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it was at Madison Square Garden.
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And I saw them there and that was the night that very much changed my life because they
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do a completely live electronic setup.
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So the brothers are also actually a little bit of classical and jazz trained.
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One of them plays the drums, the other plays the bass, but they do this really cool live
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electronic setup.
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And I was totally mesmerized and I said, okay, if I do get into electronic music at all,
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it's probably going to be through the vein of performance.
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And that's what happened.
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So that was down the rabbit hole.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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So I think that's a great segue to your current project, which is Doll Trick, right?
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Can you tell us what is Doll Trick and what do you do as Doll Trick?
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Totally.
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Doll Trick is interesting because she's kind of like, first of all, I refer to her a lot
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in third person, mainly because when I first started doing electronic music, I personally
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felt very scared about it for a number of reasons.
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Mostly because I, first of all, really didn't know what I was doing at the time.
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So it was just like, what is going on?
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Second of all, because I didn't really have the courage to do a lot of the more performative
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things that I saw either the peers or the idols that I had, not idols, but the inspirations
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that I had doing.
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And it's partially because they were mostly white men.
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So it was a very weird situation.
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Like you look around and there's no one who looks like the same as you until later on
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in my story, which is what I'll get to.
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But yeah, so I created Doll Trick in college when I was still in college after I took a
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turntable class.
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Actually, I took a class on turntablism and the first assignment was to come up with a
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DJ name and it stuck.
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I didn't think it would stick, but I just thought of it and it stuck and ended up becoming
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my artist project name.
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So I stuck with that name and it's kind of my avenue of having some kind of platform
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to just really be free with music and a little bit of an unfiltered type of sense.
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I feel like if I went into the music creation process as Claire, it would come out very
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different.
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But Doll Trick gives me a little bit of that freedom.
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And it's because of that that I usually kind of have her very separate.
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I like to think of her as like maybe like 10 or even 20 years younger than me in terms
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of like the freedom that she has to do stuff.
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She's very much just a lot more liberal in a lot of the choices that she makes.
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And I think of the Doll Trick project as really being, yeah, it's totally separate from what
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people will hire me for.
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My clients won't necessarily be like, I'm hiring Doll Trick.
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Sometimes they are.
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But let's say they're looking for an engineer on their tour or something.
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They're not hiring Doll Trick, they're hiring Claire.
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Or if they're looking for lessons, they're looking for lessons from Claire and not Doll
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Trick.
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So that's a little bit of her on the side.
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That is so interesting to me.
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I think that's like a really ingenious solution to a problem that I frequently run into, which
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is like how to get started and get over my own creative anxieties.
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Do you have other kind of personas or do you like compartmentalize differently for all
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the other different projects that you do?
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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I do actually have one other persona.
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It hasn't been active for a while, but I used to do a lot of live modular synthesizer jams.
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And my artist name for that would be CableWrapper, which is funny, because sometimes there will
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be spoken word stuff also.
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But yeah, mainly Doll Trick is the main one, I think.
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Sometimes even when I do a lot of performance stuff, and my students and also my audience
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who have seen me perform live will notice this too, but I'll do a little bit of a switch
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out sometimes.
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So I'll be like, hey, this is Claire.
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And then I'll go back and be like, hey, this is Doll Trick right now doing the performance
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stuff.
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And it's a little bit like a split personality thing, but it's not that crazy yet, I hope.
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Yeah.
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Well, I think a lot of performers, I hesitate to say all performers, but a lot of performers
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certainly have a certain separation between their public life and their private life,
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right?
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What they put on performance versus what they create on their own.
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When you do the tour, are you doing as Doll Trick and by yourself or do you have a team
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or group of musicians to go along with?
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Yeah, that's a great question, Nikiumi.
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So what usually happens for my case, it kind of depends.
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If I am touring as Doll Trick, then I usually go on my own.
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I've done it enough at this stage that I can pack everything into a suitcase and I just
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like go around.
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But that said though, most of the time if I'm getting hired to work with other people,
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like if I'm on their teams, then yeah, that is with a team of people.
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So I'll be like one out of, I don't know, a crew of like 50 or something people on like
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a bus or depending on the size of the tour.
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Sometimes it's smaller too.
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So it really depends on the situation.
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I've done both before.
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Wow.
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And I've seen your YouTube clips and also listened to some of your original songs on
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music streaming services.
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By the way, one of your songs is on our full playlist on Spotify.
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Oh, thank you so much.
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I know that our viewers and listeners can really enjoy your song.
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Anyway, so I've seen some cover songs, like you are doing covers, but also you have your
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original.
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So when you're touring, do you do both or are they all original, maybe not songs, but
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music?
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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Sometimes I try to do a mix of both, mainly because also for myself, like I love doing
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covers.
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I think it's so fun.
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And also because this is like it partially is because of this, but like sometimes I like
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doing covers that not just are for my main audience, which are mainly around a certain
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age range, but to like appeal to other folks too.
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Like sometimes when I do a Fleetwood Mac song, for example, my parents get very excited.
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I love Fleetwood Mac.
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Me too.
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Yeah.
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So I love doing Fleetwood Mac stuff and I'll send them like funny clips of like, hey, I
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want to hear your favorite rock song in an electronic fashion.
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My parents will like laugh a little bit, which is fun.
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So sometimes it's a little for them.
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Sometimes a little bit of jazz as well, because my grandparents, my grandfather especially
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is a big fan of like Sinatra and stuff like that.
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So I used to do some like weird flips that would make him laugh as well.
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So there's a little bit of that too.
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I mean, like I grew up listening to a lot of bands, like older stuff that I think a
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lot of my students right now wouldn't know also.
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So in that regard, like sometimes I'll do stuff that's really popular with them.
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Like whatever is like on the, you know, the billboard charts now or whatever they might
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like.
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So there's always a mix of things.
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I love covers.
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So yeah, but with your, you know, electric music background, it's going to sound much
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different.
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Yeah, totally.
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Yeah.
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I think that's also something that I like to really think about as one of the powers
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of doing electronic music stuff, just cause a lot of the time when we think of covers
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or when a lot of people think of covers, sometimes they think of just, you know, a person sitting
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with their guitar and like singing into a mic.
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It's like an acoustic version or something.
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So that's why sometimes a lot of people will call it, you know, a remix instead.
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Although, you know, technically if it's a remix, sometimes there's original material
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from the song.
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So it's still a cover that I'm doing.
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It's just like an electronic version of a cover, but yeah, lots of cool opportunities
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with sounds.
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Yeah.
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And you know, while I was watching YouTube, one of your videos and you were playing a
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flute and with a keyboard and even a keyboard that I have never seen it before.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm really, really old fashioned classical pianist.
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So I'm very boring in that way.
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I only know black and white keys or 88 keys.
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Yeah, anyway, so what does it take to be you?
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I'm very curious because, you know, I have students of so much potentials and I want
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to give them as much as I can, you know, and I'm very curious.
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I mean, not only you have this, it sounds like you've done, you know, traditional music
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lessons and but also you have the knowledge of technology, the computer software to because
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you are also a DJ, right?
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So I am very curious what it takes to be Miss Claire Lim.
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Tell us.
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Yeah, I think to be honest, I think it's just a lot of nowadays, especially since you mentioned
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your students and I tell this to my students too.
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It's about taking advantage of whatever resources you have.
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And I think they're in a very different position from us because even like I'm I know I look
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very young, but like I'm I didn't grow up like with I'm not from the generation that
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grew up with like smartphones.
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Right.
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But now they do.
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And even for a lot of them, like as when they were like five year olds using an iPad or
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something on that iPad, you can put a lot of stuff.
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You can put things like music software.
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You can put little things like music games that a lot of like the younger students I
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work with, like K through 12.
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They use a lot too, and that develops a lot of their musical sense as well.
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So oftentimes for a lot of the students that I work with who are interested or even just
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people in general who are interested in getting into music technology, I often joke.
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It's not a joke, but it's very serious.
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Like the biggest asset that you have is your phone.
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Just because you can put so many things there, like even off the top of my head, a really
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good one to get started with is if you have an iPhone, the GarageBand app that's native
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to the iPhone lets you do so many things.
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And the cool part about it is that you can save your projects also and you can send them
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to yourself so that then you can use it on your computer.
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So there's a lot of stuff that goes on in between that.
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And that's often like a really important step, I think, that a lot of people take on too.
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And especially for the folks who are coming from a more classical background, like even
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myself, thinking back to when I first got into this, the best part about having a little
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bit of a piano background is that most types of music technology software nowadays have
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a piano interface.
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So it's kind of like you already know the language.
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The only main thing that might be different is when you press a key, you won't hear a
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piano sound, but you'll hear like a bass sound or you'll hear like a synthesizer sound.
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And that also takes, you know, a little time to wrap your head around because it does get
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surprising.
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It's like, wait, this should be a, this should sound like a piano, but it doesn't.
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So you have to kind of like adjust your head a little bit around that too.
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But that's one of the benefits of having a little bit of keyboard background too.
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So that's actually why I often encourage people, like even if you don't see yourself as like
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a full out concert pianist, getting a bit of a keyboard background, if you're interested
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in production or interested in electronic music is like really, really good.
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So do that.
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Thank you for saying that.
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I mean, you're saving our jobs as a piano teacher.
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I mean that really seriously too, just cause I think a lot of the strongest folks that
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I've worked with, like be it artists or students or even just like my own mentors too, right?
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They've had a really wide range of knowledge, not just in the Western sphere as well with
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like classical music theory, but even just going beyond into like, you know, Indian Hindustani
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music or Kanatak music or like different parts of, you know, Chinese music, like different
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regions of China, being able to be aware of the different music styles and Western classical
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music being a good foundation for, you know, understanding harmonic concepts.
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I think that's one of its main strengths as a system.
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So big advocate of like learning something as a secondary instrument.
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Wow.
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Thank you.
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That's great to know.
316
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Now, so I know I'm asking too much, so, but this will be the last one.
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Now, so as you were growing up, who or what was the influence?
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Like was it your music teacher or maybe family members who were in the industry or maybe
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you were interested in gaming or computer classes at school?
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I'm very curious.
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Yeah, as far as the gaming goes, cause a lot of people for an interesting like anecdote
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is that a lot of the folks that I meet think like I play like a lot of video games and
323
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something, but I don't.
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I grew up with like zero video games.
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Mom and dad were like, no.
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I did watch a lot of TV though.
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So in terms of music exposure, I would really say it came from my grandparents, I think
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on both sides of the family.
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My parents themselves, they aren't like super into music at all or really no one in my family
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is a professional musician actually.
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There's that and I guess coming from my background, for a bit more context, I grew up in Singapore
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but half of my family, my dad's side is actually from the Netherlands.
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So it's a little bit odd, but yeah, even on both sides of the family, no one was very
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much into like, you should do this as a living.
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Cause the idea was like, it's not a living going into it.
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And also like I'm the only child.
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So it was a lot of like pressure and the only grandchild for my mom's side, which is a little
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crazy also.
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So there's a lot of kind of like music is cool.
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We'll let you be exposed to a lot of it to be cultured, whatever that might mean.
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And then you can do whatever you want.
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That's not music.
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So that's, that was the main line of thinking.
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But I grew up listening to a lot of different ranges, types of sounds.
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So my dad's side would do a lot of the classical stuff.
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And actually my grandma, my paternal grandma, she bought me my first piano, which I still
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have now.
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I have so many similar stories.
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Totally.
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And it's great.
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It was like, I still remember it's like the, it was like a mini 1.5 meter tall, kawaii
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piano.
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We still have it at home.
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So she bought that and she was really amazing as a pianist.
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She never really had any formal training, so she would only play by ear, but she was
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brilliant.
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So she got me that.
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And then I got started with piano lessons, I think when I was like five or six around
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there.
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Got started on flute later, I think when I was 10 or 11, I think when I was 11.
361
00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:08,520
And then on top of that, though, listening to a lot of the stuff that my parents like,
362
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even just on the radio, we would listen to a lot of like older stuff.
363
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I grew up on The Beatles, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac.
364
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What else would they listen to?
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A lot of Chicago.
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So these like 80s and 70s types of things.
367
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But I loved it.
368
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I loved all of it, would absorb it in.
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And then my grandparents on my mom's side will listen to a lot of, you know, the crooners
370
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like Sinatra, Engelbert Humperdinck, which is Louis Armstrong, which was really fun.
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And yeah, so kind of growing up into up until like college, that was pretty much most of
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the music I would listen to, maybe a little bit of like billboard stuff here and there.
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But yeah, that was mainly it.
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And the hope was that I would just come to enjoy music and appreciate art and hopefully
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not go into it as a career.
376
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:01,640
So when did you come here to America from Singapore?
377
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:06,520
And I assume if you're Singapore, you have some Chinese influence as well.
378
00:21:06,520 --> 00:21:07,520
Yeah, totally.
379
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:08,760
That's a great question, Clara.
380
00:21:08,760 --> 00:21:12,480
I came here like around when I was about like 19 or 20.
381
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So it's a good number of years at this point.
382
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:19,560
But I came here specifically for college, because I wanted to do college and I ended
383
00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:22,200
up going to a college in Boston called Berklee College of Music.
384
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:24,840
And that's where everything happened.
385
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:27,000
But yeah, so I came here for that.
386
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:32,160
Prior to that, interestingly enough, most of my influences at the time were actually
387
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,760
from classical music or like random pop stuff.
388
00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:41,200
But that said, though, I did grow up with a couple of, you know, Chinese songs and stuff
389
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:43,640
from that my grandma would sing from time to time.
390
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:47,200
Like I don't know if anyone knows this song, like Moon Represents My Heart.
391
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:48,200
Yes, yes.
392
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,200
Yeah, you're the only one that I want to sing.
393
00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:52,200
Yeah, cool.
394
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:53,200
There we go.
395
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:54,960
That's the only song I still remember.
396
00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:55,960
Yeah, totally.
397
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,440
So my grandma would like sing that all the time, like Ni-Won-Wai.
398
00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:02,360
So she'd sing that all the time.
399
00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:07,320
And that was like one of my probably like my only like Teresa Tang songs that I still
400
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:08,320
remember.
401
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:10,480
So there was a little bit of that.
402
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:15,200
But actually, speaking of like different influences, one thing that I did listen to a lot of growing
403
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:19,840
up or not so much growing up, but really as a teenager was a lot of Korean pop.
404
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:21,800
And that kind of stuck with me through up until now.
405
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:27,240
Like I still listen to a lot of Korean pop as well, mainly because at the time I had
406
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:31,320
a few friends who were Korean in school and they were listening to a lot of it.
407
00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:34,880
But also a lot of my non-Korean friends at the time were listening to it too.
408
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:38,160
And this was really more of like the older school bands.
409
00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:42,760
So bands like, you know, H.O.T. and a little bit of like Super Junior and stuff like that.
410
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:46,440
So it was really, really quite a while ago.
411
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:50,840
But yeah, that was another influence that kind of brought me a lot of the, I guess,
412
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:55,760
palette of pop and electronic production before I actually knew that I wanted to do electronic
413
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:56,760
stuff.
414
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:00,120
Because by the time I did the electronic stuff in college, like years later, it was like,
415
00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:03,720
hey, I heard that in that K-pop song from 10 years ago.
416
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:07,600
So then a lot of the bridges started to form.
417
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:08,600
Yeah.
418
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,920
But you also did like dance and DJ culture.
419
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,840
But you also combine that with classical music, right?
420
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,640
Yeah, I try to do a little bit of that too.
421
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,400
But for a lot of the DJing that I do as well, it's really a different paradigm from when
422
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:24,640
I do the live electronic music performance stuff.
423
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:30,520
So for example, if I did a more DJ style type of gig, I wouldn't necessarily bring my keyboards
424
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:31,520
along.
425
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,420
I might leave that at home.
426
00:23:33,420 --> 00:23:34,880
But I might bring some more music.
427
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:39,160
Yeah, it's more like a mixing type of style between different songs.
428
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,040
But I try to use the way that I DJ as a little bit of...
429
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:46,080
What's a good way to frame this?
430
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:53,440
Yeah, I use it a little bit of an ethnomusicological type of vein as well, mainly because this
431
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,480
is thinking also back to when I first got into electronic music.
432
00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:01,080
But when I first started doing a lot of it, really a lot of the figures that I would see
433
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:07,480
in electronic music were just these white male DJs on stage pumping their fists.
434
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,320
And I was very curious about the history of it.
435
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:16,560
So I went a little bit deeper into that and discovered just everything was appropriate.
436
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,760
Or not everything appropriate, but a lot of it came from a different culture that isn't
437
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:22,080
really acknowledged right now.
438
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,800
So for example, when I do DJ sets, I'll use it as a little bit of a chance to inform my
439
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,820
audience or share a little bit more with my audience about, hey, here is a little bit
440
00:24:30,820 --> 00:24:33,560
of a historical house DJ set.
441
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:38,320
And we go back to the founders of house in New York with Frankie Knuckles and Larry LaVann
442
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:39,320
and stuff like that.
443
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,840
And having that as a teaching tool or a tool to show people's history, I think, is one
444
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,720
of the most beautiful parts of music.
445
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,400
Because you don't always have to stand in front of a chalkboard or a whiteboard and
446
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:51,400
draw stuff.
447
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:56,760
You can play music and be like, hey, listen to how the sounds are changing over time.
448
00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:01,720
And in a way, it kind of speaks a little bit to music in the classical sense too.
449
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:05,920
Whenever I talk about Baroque music going to classical stuff, going to romantic stuff,
450
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,320
here's the path that we draw through music.
451
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,000
How do we also do that in different genres also?
452
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:16,080
So you do actually teach a lot of students too as well?
453
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,800
Yeah, it's a little crazy right now.
454
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,480
But yeah, most of my students at the moment are from Berkeley.
455
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,160
So they are my students up in Boston.
456
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:29,800
But I still teach also at a couple of other places now and then as an adjunct.
457
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,280
For example, at the City University of New York.
458
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:38,600
Because I run a class in the MFA program over there that's called, it's not called this,
459
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:43,840
but it focuses on using a program called Ableton Live to do a lot of sound design and composition
460
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:44,840
and stuff like that.
461
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:50,000
So those students will do a little bit more of studio comp work compared to a lot of my
462
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:54,760
students at Berkeley who do a little bit more of the live electronic performance types of
463
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:55,760
things.
464
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:56,760
Got it.
465
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:57,760
Yeah.
466
00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:58,760
Well, you mentioned this earlier.
467
00:25:58,760 --> 00:25:59,760
So I don't want to interfere.
468
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:03,360
But you do look very young.
469
00:26:03,360 --> 00:26:05,600
So we weren't really sure.
470
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,920
And you're in all this university.
471
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,720
And I was just curious.
472
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:15,960
But you said you only moved here when you were 19.
473
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,320
So I assume you've been here for a little while.
474
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:19,320
Right?
475
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:20,320
Totally.
476
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,400
It's funny that you mentioned that because a lot of my students will also kind of like
477
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,560
guess that I'm very young.
478
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:26,560
But it's okay.
479
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,800
At this point, they know that they have seen my...
480
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:35,800
I think one of the things that I try to think about a lot also as far as my own prejudices
481
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:41,680
go is that a lot of people who, even if they look young and even if they are young, a lot
482
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,920
of the people who are younger than me even, they've done the work.
483
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,560
And that's why they're so famous.
484
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:49,740
So I think about that a lot.
485
00:26:49,740 --> 00:26:53,440
It's a little different also, I think, compared to a lot of traditional academia types of
486
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:59,280
spheres, because you'll often see older people, again, from that kind of white male professor
487
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,480
type of generation that you see a lot.
488
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,560
Honestly, when I was in college, all of my professors, I didn't have a single woman professor
489
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:06,560
at all.
490
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,520
And none of my professors were people of color.
491
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:10,520
So it was very much...
492
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:11,520
Oh, really?
493
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:12,520
Yeah.
494
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,920
It was very much still, even in electronic music, that's supposed to be forward thinking
495
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:18,360
and whatever, innovative.
496
00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:21,520
It was still very much anchored in that academic type of sphere.
497
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,000
But now things are changing a lot.
498
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:28,080
I think even out of my department, I don't think I'm the youngest at the moment.
499
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,320
I think there's people who are younger than me teaching.
500
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,480
And it's great, because that's what the students need.
501
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,360
They don't need someone who hasn't been active.
502
00:27:36,360 --> 00:27:38,000
Sure, there's a lot of experience there.
503
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,760
And there's a lot of value in classes that come from these folks.
504
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:46,400
But there's also value in classes that come from the younger people who are in the field,
505
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:51,440
and very active, some more active than me even, who are doing stuff.
506
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,800
And it's good, because then students have these many options.
507
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,680
You get to learn from the OGs, and then you get to learn from the newer folks too, who
508
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,720
are taking the new level.
509
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:03,040
So I like that a lot, about Berkeley at least.
510
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,920
So I was actually asking about how did you actually lend your agent?
511
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,080
So have you had it for a long time?
512
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,600
Oh, my agent?
513
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:20,040
As far as my artist stuff goes, for a long time, I was actually just doing my own stuff.
514
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,120
Like it was just me, and it was stressing me out a lot.
515
00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:24,120
I'm sure.
516
00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:29,800
So I had a time where I thought, okay, I should get someone to help me a little bit out.
517
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,720
And I used to do a lot of these events, or I would not do a lot of them, but I would
518
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,320
go to a lot of these events for women in music.
519
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:42,800
And at one of these particular events, I met my current assistant or agent, Liz.
520
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:49,200
And she was a music business student at NYU.
521
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:50,200
And she was really great.
522
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,240
And we kind of just met at this one event because we both went there.
523
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,880
We didn't know anybody, so we ended up chatting.
524
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,640
But I found out that she was helping a couple of her friends at the time, who are now also
525
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,120
artists and touring actively.
526
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:07,080
She was still a student at the time, and I think I had just graduated or something.
527
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,480
But she was saying, hey, why don't we maybe touch base a little bit?
528
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,040
If you ever need help with anything, let me know.
529
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:17,520
And yeah, so we've been working together for about a year or so at this point, but she
530
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:19,640
helps me a lot with admin stuff.
531
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,760
Thanks, Liz, and putting things together.
532
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:23,760
And I think it's important.
533
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:28,360
Maybe this also goes back to what Yumiko said just now about having a team.
534
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,880
At the moment, it was just previously, it was just me.
535
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:32,400
Now at the moment, it's me and Liz.
536
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,220
And sometimes I have another friend also helping me with social media stuff.
537
00:29:35,220 --> 00:29:36,220
So it's like three of us.
538
00:29:36,220 --> 00:29:39,800
But maybe down the road, if things get bigger, I might need a bigger team.
539
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:44,400
And then eventually it'll get to the stage where instead of me touring on other people's
540
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,000
teams, I'm also doing the same thing with me, but it's like with my own team.
541
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,040
So maybe that also goes a little bit back to just being able to make connections with
542
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:59,000
people and ask for help when you need to and don't die under the weight of everything that's
543
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,360
crumbling when you have to manage so many things at once.
544
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:03,360
So yeah.
545
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:04,960
Yeah, totally.
546
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:09,680
Asking for help is certainly a very necessary skill in our field.
547
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,840
I wanted to circle back to songwriting.
548
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,200
Can you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
549
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,400
What is it like for you starting a new song?
550
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:18,840
Yeah, totally.
551
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,280
As far as songwriting goes, and this is something interesting that I was actually just talking
552
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:28,120
to one of my other colleagues about, but a lot of people who do electronic music, they
553
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,800
often think of themselves as producers mainly, which I do as well.
554
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,880
But for me, it's very much a merger of writer and producer.
555
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,520
So I'm so glad that you mentioned songwriting, Eric.
556
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:40,840
It's a big part of the process for me.
557
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:44,200
And I think really, there's nothing...
558
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:50,040
If a production sounds good, but it has a bad writing style or bad song, it's totally
559
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,200
destroyed from the get-go.
560
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,720
So for me, the process for writing often is centered around a concept.
561
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,480
And I like to think about...
562
00:30:58,480 --> 00:30:59,480
Not so much very...
563
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,800
Sometimes it is very specific, but sometimes it's also broad.
564
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,120
So it could be an example.
565
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:06,120
What's a recent example?
566
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:10,560
So it could be something like the idea of being defeated, right?
567
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:15,520
Maybe you've tried to do something and you've failed, or it could also be you've had a conversation
568
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,360
with someone and they keep trying to shoot you down.
569
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:21,080
There's a lot of ways that you can experience defeat.
570
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:25,040
And I then try to create some kind of song that's related to the emotions associated
571
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:26,040
with that.
572
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,720
So not so much the actual topic itself, but a lot of the time, the emotions.
573
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,240
And the reason I bring up Defeated is because that's actually the name of my next song that's
574
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,640
coming up.
575
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:38,720
So that's a little bit of my process for that.
576
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:44,200
I created the song based on this idea of you've tried your best at doing something, but you
577
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,520
keep on falling flat on your face.
578
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:53,360
And in this particular context, it was through the eyes of looking at a relationship, but
579
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:54,360
it doesn't have to be.
580
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:56,880
It could be even dealing with your daily life, right?
581
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:58,440
You try to do something, you keep failing.
582
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,960
You try to practice something on your instrument or whatever, and you keep failing.
583
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,400
Just keep getting defeated.
584
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,280
So I like thinking of that a lot.
585
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,040
And related to that, and this goes back to the process itself, I do a lot of these things
586
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,160
called word pools, where it's like, I'll think of the word defeat, right?
587
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,160
And then what's related to that?
588
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:17,160
Defeat.
589
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,380
Battle is related to that.
590
00:32:19,380 --> 00:32:23,600
Maybe the concept of getting hurt is related to that.
591
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,840
Like if you fall down, you get hurt, you're defeated.
592
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:31,400
So I do a lot of these word pools, and that ends up helping me with my lyrics in the songwriting.
593
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:37,480
So I'll kind of like bring them back in and have them tie back into the theme of the song.
594
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:38,880
But yeah, it always starts with the theme.
595
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:44,280
It kind of goes out a little bit more general, and then it comes back and is more specific.
596
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:45,280
Yes.
597
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:46,280
Yeah.
598
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,780
So I do something similar myself sometimes when I'm composing.
599
00:32:49,780 --> 00:32:57,200
So once you have your word pool or your associated emotions, how do you start with the musical
600
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:58,200
ideas?
601
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,360
Do you improvise on a piano or sing or what?
602
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:02,400
Yeah, I'll be honest.
603
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:07,320
Most of the time, if I am doing a very song based type of idea, it's always piano and
604
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:08,320
vocals.
605
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,480
So that's where really a lot of the training has helped in.
606
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:17,240
Because now I can just walk over to my keyboard and be just like, those are the chords.
607
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,240
That's the song.
608
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,280
Versus if I didn't have that, I'd probably be struggling a little bit more, poking around
609
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:24,280
in my software.
610
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:29,560
But yeah, pretty much it always is just piano and lyrics or piano and melody.
611
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:30,760
I sing on top of it.
612
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,960
And I'm honestly not a good singer, but I've trained myself to sing in an acceptable way.
613
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,000
That's what I try to see.
614
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,440
I mean, you sound great on everything I've heard.
615
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:40,440
That's very nice.
616
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:41,440
Thank you.
617
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,040
But yeah, sometimes I'll play stuff and I'll experiment with it.
618
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:45,240
I'll sing it with my own voice.
619
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,100
And it's like, that sounds a little odd.
620
00:33:47,100 --> 00:33:51,320
But if it sounds good, then I probably know that I'm onto something.
621
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,920
Just because I feel like, again, going back to the songwriting process, if it doesn't
622
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:59,080
feel like a compelling idea on the piano, I feel like it probably won't be a compelling
623
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,280
idea even if I produced it out.
624
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:02,280
And that's for me.
625
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:07,160
I know some people will manage to take a very mediocre song and polish the hell out of it
626
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:08,160
and it will turn out great.
627
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,960
But at least for me, coming from the place of, again, the more compositional side, if
628
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,920
I have confidence in the composition, I know that I'm going to have confidence in the production
629
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:17,920
too.
630
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:18,920
So yeah.
631
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:20,880
Yeah, that makes sense.
632
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:25,360
I want to ask you, how do you balance that?
633
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,880
Playing on an acoustic instrument and then when it comes to the electronic production,
634
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,960
there's so much work, right?
635
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:36,320
Finding your sounds, samples, mixing.
636
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,000
Sometimes I have trouble integrating those two worlds, which seems so very, like one
637
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:41,800
is kind of like organic from nature.
638
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:43,800
It feels like playing acoustic instruments.
639
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:48,280
And then when you get into your DAW, you're kind of locked into a lot of little boxes,
640
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:49,280
right?
641
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:50,280
And loops.
642
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:51,720
How do you manage that balance?
643
00:34:51,720 --> 00:34:52,720
Yeah, absolutely.
644
00:34:52,720 --> 00:34:56,200
To be honest, Eric, I sometimes still struggle with it too.
645
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:57,200
It's so hard.
646
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,720
And mainly it's because, I don't know, I feel like for me, and maybe y'all might feel the
647
00:35:00,720 --> 00:35:04,640
same way too, but when I think about some of these acoustic sounds, like thinking back
648
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:09,600
to the flute, for example, or even the piano, like a really nice Steinway.
649
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,440
Nothing beats a really nice Steinway, right?
650
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:16,320
Something about the sound of the instrument is so powerful.
651
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:20,520
And that's why sometimes I end up recording these things, like just recording them instead
652
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:21,520
of programming things in.
653
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:25,440
But yeah, that's a challenge that I always have.
654
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:31,240
Sometimes my solution in a weird sort of way is to run in the total opposite direction.
655
00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:36,480
So if it starts off with a piano type of sound, I'll purposely choose a really obscure kind
656
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,480
of, I don't know, synth pad or something, synth key sound that sounds very different
657
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,720
to put me into a totally different frame of mind.
658
00:35:43,720 --> 00:35:49,400
And it's a little bit of like forcibly removing me from the piano sound a little.
659
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,400
Sometimes I'll inevitably end up returning to it, for example, like if I do record the
660
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:53,760
sound like I mentioned.
661
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,520
But sometimes when I'm just trying to get something into my DAW, I'll purposely pick
662
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:02,360
something that isn't acoustic and see where that takes me.
663
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,280
But otherwise, yeah, it's always a struggle.
664
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:09,160
And in terms of like the loop situation, which you mentioned, I get so stuck in that too.
665
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:13,600
So sometimes what I found myself doing is for a lot of the production stuff, especially
666
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,880
if it tends to be a song that I've written out the chorus for and then I want to produce
667
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,760
after that, I will work on, say, four bars.
668
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:25,920
But then I'll set myself a timer, again, going back to like the phone as the best tool you
669
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:26,920
could ever have.
670
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:31,080
I'll use my phone and set myself a timer of like 10 minutes or something.
671
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:36,280
And it's like, Daltrik has got 10 minutes to figure out how to put this into a three
672
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:37,280
minute arrangement.
673
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:38,800
And then I'm just like, go.
674
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,240
And I'll do all of that.
675
00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:43,680
So I kind of force myself to do a little bit of structuring.
676
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:44,740
And it's tough.
677
00:36:44,740 --> 00:36:46,000
It always is, I think.
678
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:50,360
But it's one part maybe about the production process that I still love very much because
679
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:51,460
it's tough.
680
00:36:51,460 --> 00:36:55,560
And because it challenges me, I think probably the day where I've failed and I have nothing
681
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:59,720
else left to do in the world of electronic music production is when I feel like I can't
682
00:36:59,720 --> 00:37:03,480
do anything exciting or I don't feel challenged to do something.
683
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:05,720
So I kind of like that a little bit.
684
00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:07,840
A little bit masochistic, I guess.
685
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,200
But I don't know.
686
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:10,400
I love it.
687
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:11,400
It is a challenge.
688
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,080
And you've given us so many wonderful solutions.
689
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:18,400
There's that whole theme of limitations inspiring creativity, right?
690
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,760
That's our biggest trick we've got in the bag.
691
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:23,360
Can I jump in just a little bit?
692
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:24,360
Sure, go ahead.
693
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:25,360
Yeah.
694
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:32,880
So you're now a sound engineer, sound designer, not only a composer and musician.
695
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,960
That's just beyond my understanding.
696
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:37,600
I mean, it's awesome.
697
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:42,160
I've encountered so many different artists living in New York City, obviously.
698
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:46,800
And then I met this lighting artist and that was just that blew my mind.
699
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:51,200
It's like the concept, new concept of art.
700
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,560
And then that's exactly what you're doing.
701
00:37:53,560 --> 00:38:01,580
So were you interested in like because as a classical musicians, we talk about harmonies,
702
00:38:01,580 --> 00:38:05,680
we talk about tone color, right?
703
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:13,760
But let's say we turn the clock backwards and go back to where Beethoven was, right?
704
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:21,040
And probably at the time he was somewhat close to, you know, maybe sound engineer.
705
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:26,280
You know, he was experimenting with the sound because the biggest sound in his time would
706
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:27,280
be what?
707
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,160
A big, big old ship, right?
708
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:36,640
Or I don't know, or cannonball, cannon, you know, the big sound.
709
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:43,280
And that I know he was deaf at the end, but maybe that's some kind of a as a young Beethoven,
710
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:44,480
he was inspiring.
711
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,200
And how can I have this big sound in orchestra?
712
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,200
Right.
713
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,460
So he was doing his sound engineer.
714
00:38:50,460 --> 00:38:55,200
So were you as a growing up, were you interested in sound?
715
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:59,280
I mean, you know, I didn't think of that concept until.
716
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:00,280
Yeah, totally.
717
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:05,640
I mean, growing up, you hear me in terms of like sounds, I don't think I was necessarily
718
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,760
interested in like, oh, that sounds like it's not a piano.
719
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:09,760
What is it?
720
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,080
I wasn't really that focused yet when I was growing up.
721
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:18,000
But absolutely, I did think a lot about like, how do we use existing sounds to paint pictures?
722
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,000
And I think that's one of like the biggest takeaways that I had from like maybe my study
723
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,720
of like programmatic music, like back when I was my god, so many years ago now, over
724
00:39:26,720 --> 00:39:27,720
a decade ago.
725
00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:31,600
But yeah, even just going back to since you were talking about Beethoven, like this just
726
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:32,600
came to mind, too.
727
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:38,520
But the idea of, you know, painting pictures even through a limited number of colors, like
728
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:42,080
I think a lot about the the Pastoral Symphony and stuff like that.
729
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,420
And it's like, how is he creating that kind of atmosphere?
730
00:39:44,420 --> 00:39:47,160
Like what what instrumentation is he using to do that?
731
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:51,200
And I feel like it's kind of the same thing, like much like you would have, say, in that
732
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:56,120
context, the woodwinds representing a bird, maybe an electronic that's not necessarily
733
00:39:56,120 --> 00:40:00,440
woodwinds, but maybe you've got some kind of synthesizer sound that's very high up in
734
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:02,880
the frequencies that's doing a lot of like, you know, bird stuff.
735
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:08,200
And if it's, you know, a drone thing for a pastoral kind of like, you know, very idyllic
736
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:14,120
sort of atmosphere, then maybe it's not, you know, a low kind of held out note on whatever
737
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,200
instrument like cello or something.
738
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:20,900
But maybe it's like an actual drone where you play a note on your instrument and it's
739
00:40:20,900 --> 00:40:23,200
just held out for a super long time.
740
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,760
So I think a lot about of I think about a lot of orchestration like that, too, when
741
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:31,280
I'm doing production stuff.
742
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,920
This concludes part one of our interview with Claire Marie Lim.
743
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,880
Tune in next time to find out how Claire learned music production, hear about her career as
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00:40:38,880 --> 00:41:01,440
an activist, and more.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,020
You're listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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Hello and welcome back to the PianoPod.
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I am Eric Hunter.
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I'm Yukimi Song.
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I'm Clara Zhang.
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Today our guest is Claire Marie Lim, otherwise known as Doll Trick.
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A professor in Berkeley's Electronic Production and Design Department, she specializes in
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instruction for live electronic performance, production, and programming, and is an advocate
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of women and Asian representation in music technology.
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She is an Ableton certified trainer, Bitwig certified trainer, and Apple certified pro.
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In music education and arts activism, Claire collaborates with the Girls Rock Campaign,
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Beats by Girls, and the Queens Public Library Network, and has received support from the
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New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Queens Council on the Arts.
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She develops curriculum for various ages and experience levels, having consulted for the
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International Center of Photography, Queens College, Coursera, and the Berkeley Network.
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Claire also independently runs the Doll Troop, a mentorship experience where K through 12
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girls can shadow her in electronic songwriting sessions and live shows.
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Hi, Claire.
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Thanks for joining us today.
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Hi, thanks for having me.
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You're welcome.
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Excited to be here.
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Thank you.
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Yes, we are so excited to have you.
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We interview a lot of classical pianists for this show.
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We're all classical pianists, the three of us.
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But we're also very interested in music technology and the future of music.
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And when we saw what you were doing on YouTube, we were just blown away.
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We're like, ah, we have to have her on the show.
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So we're very, very excited.
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Now you describe yourself as a music technologist, right?
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Yes, that's right.
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Yeah, I love that term.
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Can you explain what you mean by that exactly?
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Yeah, totally.
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And I think before I start, I'll also kind of jump in.
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The classical music is still very much in me too, because I'm a classical trained pianist
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too.
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So it was very weird.
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I think my parents didn't really expect that.
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It's like, oh, let her go get her diploma and whatever and then turn into this electronic
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music weirdo.
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Sorry, mom and dad.
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But anyway, yeah, so music technology.
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I think it's a term that I like using a lot and that a lot of my colleagues who also call
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themselves music technologists use as well.
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00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:28,560
Especially because oftentimes when you're in the field of music tech, you're not just
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in say only production.
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There's a little bit of overlap with say live performance or in my case, for example, or
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sometimes there's a little bit of overlap in programming and sound design.
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So I think using the term music technology kind of encompasses that because that's actually
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pretty much what I do all the time.
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Sometimes my clients who I work with will come to me through the lens of wanting to
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look for a producer to help them with their music.
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So they might be say a songwriter or a composer and it's like, hey, Claire, can you help me
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make this, you know, put it into some kind of digital form, like in a software computer
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program and then other clients that I work with will be like, hey, I'm doing a live performance.
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Can you help me put together a live show or put together my stage setup?
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So it really kind of runs the gamut.
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It's very much, you know, kind of being like a jack of all trades, I guess, and having
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to go between different sorts of things.
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But ultimately, I love doing all of it.
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So that's why I like it.
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Yeah, that's amazing.
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I know you wear so many hats.
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I mean, just going through the materials on your website, you're like, oh my gosh, she's
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performing and she's producing and she's educating activism as well.
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Right.
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And technology running through it.
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It's amazing.
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But it's so interesting to me that you grew up with classical training and then found
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your way into technology.
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I've got a bit of that myself.
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So can you tell us what drew you to music technology originally?
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Yeah, totally.
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I'm so glad to hear that, Eric.
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I think like for me, it was very, very much an accident.
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Up until college, just for a little bit of background also, I went to a school where
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you had different options for majoring in different parts of music.
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So sometimes a couple of people would major specifically in electronic production or people
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would do engineering or people would do like commercial writing.
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And that was initially what I kind of wanted to do.
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So when I first got to the college that I attended, like my mind was really more set
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on being just like a writer or a composer because I didn't know about the possibilities
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of a lot of the electronic music stuff.
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But it just so happened that a lot of my friends who I met in my very first semester at college,
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I got very close to them and a lot of them were into electronic music stuff.
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And at that time still, I was a little bit of a purist.
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So people would bring up electronic music and you kind of think like one of two things,
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either the electroacoustic tradition kind of in classical stuff or you think of like
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a doom, doom, doom, doom, which it kind of is.
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Yeah, I know.
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I joke with my students now that like that's all that electronic music is, partially being
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facetious, but it kind of is also.
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So I thought of that and it was really a lot of my own prejudice that was preventing me
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from being open to a lot of the creative possibilities.
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So I started going to a lot of these live shows and for me, coming from the lens of
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or the background rather of being a performer, because I used to do lots of like competitions
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00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:22,920
and lots of on stage stuff as a pianist and a flute player too, right?
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00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:25,840
So it's like stage performance experience.
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Coming into that sphere and watching all of these live performances, I was totally blown
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away.
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So I went to a concert once by a group called Disclosure and it was actually in New York,
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it was at Madison Square Garden.
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And I saw them there and that was the night that very much changed my life because they
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do a completely live electronic setup.
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So the brothers are also actually a little bit of classical and jazz trained.
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One of them plays the drums, the other plays the bass, but they do this really cool live
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electronic setup.
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And I was totally mesmerized and I said, okay, if I do get into electronic music at all,
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it's probably going to be through the vein of performance.
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And that's what happened.
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So that was down the rabbit hole.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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So I think that's a great segue to your current project, which is Doll Trick, right?
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Can you tell us what is Doll Trick and what do you do as Doll Trick?
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Totally.
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Doll Trick is interesting because she's kind of like, first of all, I refer to her a lot
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in third person, mainly because when I first started doing electronic music, I personally
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felt very scared about it for a number of reasons.
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Mostly because I, first of all, really didn't know what I was doing at the time.
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So it was just like, what is going on?
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Second of all, because I didn't really have the courage to do a lot of the more performative
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things that I saw either the peers or the idols that I had, not idols, but the inspirations
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that I had doing.
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And it's partially because they were mostly white men.
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So it was a very weird situation.
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Like you look around and there's no one who looks like the same as you until later on
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in my story, which is what I'll get to.
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But yeah, so I created Doll Trick in college when I was still in college after I took a
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turntable class.
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Actually, I took a class on turntablism and the first assignment was to come up with a
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DJ name and it stuck.
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I didn't think it would stick, but I just thought of it and it stuck and ended up becoming
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my artist project name.
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So I stuck with that name and it's kind of my avenue of having some kind of platform
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to just really be free with music and a little bit of an unfiltered type of sense.
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I feel like if I went into the music creation process as Claire, it would come out very
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different.
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But Doll Trick gives me a little bit of that freedom.
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And it's because of that that I usually kind of have her very separate.
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I like to think of her as like maybe like 10 or even 20 years younger than me in terms
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of like the freedom that she has to do stuff.
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She's very much just a lot more liberal in a lot of the choices that she makes.
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And I think of the Doll Trick project as really being, yeah, it's totally separate from what
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people will hire me for.
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My clients won't necessarily be like, I'm hiring Doll Trick.
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Sometimes they are.
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But let's say they're looking for an engineer on their tour or something.
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They're not hiring Doll Trick, they're hiring Claire.
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Or if they're looking for lessons, they're looking for lessons from Claire and not Doll
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Trick.
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So that's a little bit of her on the side.
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That is so interesting to me.
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I think that's like a really ingenious solution to a problem that I frequently run into, which
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is like how to get started and get over my own creative anxieties.
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Do you have other kind of personas or do you like compartmentalize differently for all
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the other different projects that you do?
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00:08:41,680 --> 00:08:43,400
Yeah, that's a great question.
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I do actually have one other persona.
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It hasn't been active for a while, but I used to do a lot of live modular synthesizer jams.
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And my artist name for that would be CableWrapper, which is funny, because sometimes there will
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be spoken word stuff also.
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But yeah, mainly Doll Trick is the main one, I think.
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Sometimes even when I do a lot of performance stuff, and my students and also my audience
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who have seen me perform live will notice this too, but I'll do a little bit of a switch
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out sometimes.
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So I'll be like, hey, this is Claire.
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And then I'll go back and be like, hey, this is Doll Trick right now doing the performance
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stuff.
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And it's a little bit like a split personality thing, but it's not that crazy yet, I hope.
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Yeah.
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00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:32,880
Well, I think a lot of performers, I hesitate to say all performers, but a lot of performers
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certainly have a certain separation between their public life and their private life,
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right?
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What they put on performance versus what they create on their own.
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When you do the tour, are you doing as Doll Trick and by yourself or do you have a team
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or group of musicians to go along with?
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Yeah, that's a great question, Nikiumi.
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00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:55,480
So what usually happens for my case, it kind of depends.
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If I am touring as Doll Trick, then I usually go on my own.
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I've done it enough at this stage that I can pack everything into a suitcase and I just
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like go around.
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But that said though, most of the time if I'm getting hired to work with other people,
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like if I'm on their teams, then yeah, that is with a team of people.
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So I'll be like one out of, I don't know, a crew of like 50 or something people on like
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a bus or depending on the size of the tour.
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Sometimes it's smaller too.
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So it really depends on the situation.
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I've done both before.
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Wow.
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00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:36,120
And I've seen your YouTube clips and also listened to some of your original songs on
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music streaming services.
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By the way, one of your songs is on our full playlist on Spotify.
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Oh, thank you so much.
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I know that our viewers and listeners can really enjoy your song.
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Anyway, so I've seen some cover songs, like you are doing covers, but also you have your
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original.
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So when you're touring, do you do both or are they all original, maybe not songs, but
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music?
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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Sometimes I try to do a mix of both, mainly because also for myself, like I love doing
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covers.
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I think it's so fun.
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And also because this is like it partially is because of this, but like sometimes I like
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doing covers that not just are for my main audience, which are mainly around a certain
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age range, but to like appeal to other folks too.
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Like sometimes when I do a Fleetwood Mac song, for example, my parents get very excited.
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I love Fleetwood Mac.
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Me too.
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Yeah.
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So I love doing Fleetwood Mac stuff and I'll send them like funny clips of like, hey, I
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want to hear your favorite rock song in an electronic fashion.
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My parents will like laugh a little bit, which is fun.
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So sometimes it's a little for them.
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Sometimes a little bit of jazz as well, because my grandparents, my grandfather especially
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is a big fan of like Sinatra and stuff like that.
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So I used to do some like weird flips that would make him laugh as well.
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So there's a little bit of that too.
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I mean, like I grew up listening to a lot of bands, like older stuff that I think a
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lot of my students right now wouldn't know also.
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So in that regard, like sometimes I'll do stuff that's really popular with them.
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Like whatever is like on the, you know, the billboard charts now or whatever they might
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like.
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So there's always a mix of things.
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I love covers.
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So yeah, but with your, you know, electric music background, it's going to sound much
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different.
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Yeah, totally.
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Yeah.
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I think that's also something that I like to really think about as one of the powers
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of doing electronic music stuff, just cause a lot of the time when we think of covers
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or when a lot of people think of covers, sometimes they think of just, you know, a person sitting
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with their guitar and like singing into a mic.
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It's like an acoustic version or something.
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So that's why sometimes a lot of people will call it, you know, a remix instead.
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Although, you know, technically if it's a remix, sometimes there's original material
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from the song.
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So it's still a cover that I'm doing.
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It's just like an electronic version of a cover, but yeah, lots of cool opportunities
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with sounds.
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Yeah.
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And you know, while I was watching YouTube, one of your videos and you were playing a
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flute and with a keyboard and even a keyboard that I have never seen it before.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm really, really old fashioned classical pianist.
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So I'm very boring in that way.
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I only know black and white keys or 88 keys.
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Yeah, anyway, so what does it take to be you?
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I'm very curious because, you know, I have students of so much potentials and I want
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to give them as much as I can, you know, and I'm very curious.
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I mean, not only you have this, it sounds like you've done, you know, traditional music
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lessons and but also you have the knowledge of technology, the computer software to because
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you are also a DJ, right?
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So I am very curious what it takes to be Miss Claire Lim.
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Tell us.
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Yeah, I think to be honest, I think it's just a lot of nowadays, especially since you mentioned
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your students and I tell this to my students too.
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It's about taking advantage of whatever resources you have.
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And I think they're in a very different position from us because even like I'm I know I look
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very young, but like I'm I didn't grow up like with I'm not from the generation that
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grew up with like smartphones.
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Right.
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But now they do.
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And even for a lot of them, like as when they were like five year olds using an iPad or
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something on that iPad, you can put a lot of stuff.
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You can put things like music software.
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You can put little things like music games that a lot of like the younger students I
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work with, like K through 12.
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They use a lot too, and that develops a lot of their musical sense as well.
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So oftentimes for a lot of the students that I work with who are interested or even just
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people in general who are interested in getting into music technology, I often joke.
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It's not a joke, but it's very serious.
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Like the biggest asset that you have is your phone.
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Just because you can put so many things there, like even off the top of my head, a really
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good one to get started with is if you have an iPhone, the GarageBand app that's native
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to the iPhone lets you do so many things.
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And the cool part about it is that you can save your projects also and you can send them
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to yourself so that then you can use it on your computer.
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So there's a lot of stuff that goes on in between that.
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And that's often like a really important step, I think, that a lot of people take on too.
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And especially for the folks who are coming from a more classical background, like even
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myself, thinking back to when I first got into this, the best part about having a little
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bit of a piano background is that most types of music technology software nowadays have
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a piano interface.
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So it's kind of like you already know the language.
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The only main thing that might be different is when you press a key, you won't hear a
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piano sound, but you'll hear like a bass sound or you'll hear like a synthesizer sound.
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And that also takes, you know, a little time to wrap your head around because it does get
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surprising.
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It's like, wait, this should be a, this should sound like a piano, but it doesn't.
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So you have to kind of like adjust your head a little bit around that too.
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But that's one of the benefits of having a little bit of keyboard background too.
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So that's actually why I often encourage people, like even if you don't see yourself as like
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a full out concert pianist, getting a bit of a keyboard background, if you're interested
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in production or interested in electronic music is like really, really good.
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So do that.
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Thank you for saying that.
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I mean, you're saving our jobs as a piano teacher.
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I mean that really seriously too, just cause I think a lot of the strongest folks that
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I've worked with, like be it artists or students or even just like my own mentors too, right?
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They've had a really wide range of knowledge, not just in the Western sphere as well with
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like classical music theory, but even just going beyond into like, you know, Indian Hindustani
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music or Kanatak music or like different parts of, you know, Chinese music, like different
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regions of China, being able to be aware of the different music styles and Western classical
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music being a good foundation for, you know, understanding harmonic concepts.
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I think that's one of its main strengths as a system.
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So big advocate of like learning something as a secondary instrument.
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Wow.
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Thank you.
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That's great to know.
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Now, so I know I'm asking too much, so, but this will be the last one.
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Now, so as you were growing up, who or what was the influence?
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Like was it your music teacher or maybe family members who were in the industry or maybe
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you were interested in gaming or computer classes at school?
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I'm very curious.
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Yeah, as far as the gaming goes, cause a lot of people for an interesting like anecdote
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is that a lot of the folks that I meet think like I play like a lot of video games and
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something, but I don't.
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I grew up with like zero video games.
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Mom and dad were like, no.
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I did watch a lot of TV though.
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So in terms of music exposure, I would really say it came from my grandparents, I think
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on both sides of the family.
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My parents themselves, they aren't like super into music at all or really no one in my family
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is a professional musician actually.
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There's that and I guess coming from my background, for a bit more context, I grew up in Singapore
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but half of my family, my dad's side is actually from the Netherlands.
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So it's a little bit odd, but yeah, even on both sides of the family, no one was very
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much into like, you should do this as a living.
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Cause the idea was like, it's not a living going into it.
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And also like I'm the only child.
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So it was a lot of like pressure and the only grandchild for my mom's side, which is a little
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crazy also.
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So there's a lot of kind of like music is cool.
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We'll let you be exposed to a lot of it to be cultured, whatever that might mean.
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And then you can do whatever you want.
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That's not music.
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So that's, that was the main line of thinking.
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But I grew up listening to a lot of different ranges, types of sounds.
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So my dad's side would do a lot of the classical stuff.
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And actually my grandma, my paternal grandma, she bought me my first piano, which I still
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have now.
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I have so many similar stories.
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Totally.
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And it's great.
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It was like, I still remember it's like the, it was like a mini 1.5 meter tall, kawaii
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piano.
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We still have it at home.
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So she bought that and she was really amazing as a pianist.
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She never really had any formal training, so she would only play by ear, but she was
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brilliant.
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So she got me that.
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And then I got started with piano lessons, I think when I was like five or six around
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there.
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Got started on flute later, I think when I was 10 or 11, I think when I was 11.
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And then on top of that, though, listening to a lot of the stuff that my parents like,
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even just on the radio, we would listen to a lot of like older stuff.
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I grew up on The Beatles, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac.
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What else would they listen to?
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A lot of Chicago.
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So these like 80s and 70s types of things.
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But I loved it.
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I loved all of it, would absorb it in.
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And then my grandparents on my mom's side will listen to a lot of, you know, the crooners
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like Sinatra, Engelbert Humperdinck, which is Louis Armstrong, which was really fun.
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And yeah, so kind of growing up into up until like college, that was pretty much most of
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the music I would listen to, maybe a little bit of like billboard stuff here and there.
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But yeah, that was mainly it.
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And the hope was that I would just come to enjoy music and appreciate art and hopefully
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not go into it as a career.
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So when did you come here to America from Singapore?
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And I assume if you're Singapore, you have some Chinese influence as well.
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Yeah, totally.
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That's a great question, Clara.
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I came here like around when I was about like 19 or 20.
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So it's a good number of years at this point.
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But I came here specifically for college, because I wanted to do college and I ended
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up going to a college in Boston called Berklee College of Music.
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And that's where everything happened.
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But yeah, so I came here for that.
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Prior to that, interestingly enough, most of my influences at the time were actually
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from classical music or like random pop stuff.
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But that said, though, I did grow up with a couple of, you know, Chinese songs and stuff
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from that my grandma would sing from time to time.
390
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Like I don't know if anyone knows this song, like Moon Represents My Heart.
391
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Yes, yes.
392
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Yeah, you're the only one that I want to sing.
393
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Yeah, cool.
394
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There we go.
395
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That's the only song I still remember.
396
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Yeah, totally.
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So my grandma would like sing that all the time, like Ni-Won-Wai.
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So she'd sing that all the time.
399
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And that was like one of my probably like my only like Teresa Tang songs that I still
400
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remember.
401
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:10,480
So there was a little bit of that.
402
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:15,200
But actually, speaking of like different influences, one thing that I did listen to a lot of growing
403
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:19,840
up or not so much growing up, but really as a teenager was a lot of Korean pop.
404
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And that kind of stuck with me through up until now.
405
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Like I still listen to a lot of Korean pop as well, mainly because at the time I had
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a few friends who were Korean in school and they were listening to a lot of it.
407
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But also a lot of my non-Korean friends at the time were listening to it too.
408
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And this was really more of like the older school bands.
409
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So bands like, you know, H.O.T. and a little bit of like Super Junior and stuff like that.
410
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So it was really, really quite a while ago.
411
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:50,840
But yeah, that was another influence that kind of brought me a lot of the, I guess,
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palette of pop and electronic production before I actually knew that I wanted to do electronic
413
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stuff.
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Because by the time I did the electronic stuff in college, like years later, it was like,
415
00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:03,720
hey, I heard that in that K-pop song from 10 years ago.
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So then a lot of the bridges started to form.
417
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Yeah.
418
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,920
But you also did like dance and DJ culture.
419
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,840
But you also combine that with classical music, right?
420
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,640
Yeah, I try to do a little bit of that too.
421
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,400
But for a lot of the DJing that I do as well, it's really a different paradigm from when
422
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:24,640
I do the live electronic music performance stuff.
423
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:30,520
So for example, if I did a more DJ style type of gig, I wouldn't necessarily bring my keyboards
424
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along.
425
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,420
I might leave that at home.
426
00:23:33,420 --> 00:23:34,880
But I might bring some more music.
427
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:39,160
Yeah, it's more like a mixing type of style between different songs.
428
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,040
But I try to use the way that I DJ as a little bit of...
429
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:46,080
What's a good way to frame this?
430
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:53,440
Yeah, I use it a little bit of an ethnomusicological type of vein as well, mainly because this
431
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,480
is thinking also back to when I first got into electronic music.
432
00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:01,080
But when I first started doing a lot of it, really a lot of the figures that I would see
433
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:07,480
in electronic music were just these white male DJs on stage pumping their fists.
434
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,320
And I was very curious about the history of it.
435
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:16,560
So I went a little bit deeper into that and discovered just everything was appropriate.
436
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,760
Or not everything appropriate, but a lot of it came from a different culture that isn't
437
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:22,080
really acknowledged right now.
438
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,800
So for example, when I do DJ sets, I'll use it as a little bit of a chance to inform my
439
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,820
audience or share a little bit more with my audience about, hey, here is a little bit
440
00:24:30,820 --> 00:24:33,560
of a historical house DJ set.
441
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:38,320
And we go back to the founders of house in New York with Frankie Knuckles and Larry LaVann
442
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:39,320
and stuff like that.
443
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,840
And having that as a teaching tool or a tool to show people's history, I think, is one
444
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,720
of the most beautiful parts of music.
445
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,400
Because you don't always have to stand in front of a chalkboard or a whiteboard and
446
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:51,400
draw stuff.
447
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:56,760
You can play music and be like, hey, listen to how the sounds are changing over time.
448
00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:01,720
And in a way, it kind of speaks a little bit to music in the classical sense too.
449
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:05,920
Whenever I talk about Baroque music going to classical stuff, going to romantic stuff,
450
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,320
here's the path that we draw through music.
451
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,000
How do we also do that in different genres also?
452
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:16,080
So you do actually teach a lot of students too as well?
453
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,800
Yeah, it's a little crazy right now.
454
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,480
But yeah, most of my students at the moment are from Berkeley.
455
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,160
So they are my students up in Boston.
456
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:29,800
But I still teach also at a couple of other places now and then as an adjunct.
457
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,280
For example, at the City University of New York.
458
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:38,600
Because I run a class in the MFA program over there that's called, it's not called this,
459
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:43,840
but it focuses on using a program called Ableton Live to do a lot of sound design and composition
460
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:44,840
and stuff like that.
461
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:50,000
So those students will do a little bit more of studio comp work compared to a lot of my
462
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:54,760
students at Berkeley who do a little bit more of the live electronic performance types of
463
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:55,760
things.
464
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:56,760
Got it.
465
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:57,760
Yeah.
466
00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:58,760
Well, you mentioned this earlier.
467
00:25:58,760 --> 00:25:59,760
So I don't want to interfere.
468
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:03,360
But you do look very young.
469
00:26:03,360 --> 00:26:05,600
So we weren't really sure.
470
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,920
And you're in all this university.
471
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,720
And I was just curious.
472
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:15,960
But you said you only moved here when you were 19.
473
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,320
So I assume you've been here for a little while.
474
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:19,320
Right?
475
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:20,320
Totally.
476
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,400
It's funny that you mentioned that because a lot of my students will also kind of like
477
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,560
guess that I'm very young.
478
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:26,560
But it's okay.
479
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,800
At this point, they know that they have seen my...
480
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:35,800
I think one of the things that I try to think about a lot also as far as my own prejudices
481
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:41,680
go is that a lot of people who, even if they look young and even if they are young, a lot
482
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,920
of the people who are younger than me even, they've done the work.
483
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,560
And that's why they're so famous.
484
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:49,740
So I think about that a lot.
485
00:26:49,740 --> 00:26:53,440
It's a little different also, I think, compared to a lot of traditional academia types of
486
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:59,280
spheres, because you'll often see older people, again, from that kind of white male professor
487
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,480
type of generation that you see a lot.
488
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,560
Honestly, when I was in college, all of my professors, I didn't have a single woman professor
489
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:06,560
at all.
490
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,520
And none of my professors were people of color.
491
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:10,520
So it was very much...
492
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:11,520
Oh, really?
493
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:12,520
Yeah.
494
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,920
It was very much still, even in electronic music, that's supposed to be forward thinking
495
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:18,360
and whatever, innovative.
496
00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:21,520
It was still very much anchored in that academic type of sphere.
497
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,000
But now things are changing a lot.
498
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:28,080
I think even out of my department, I don't think I'm the youngest at the moment.
499
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,320
I think there's people who are younger than me teaching.
500
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,480
And it's great, because that's what the students need.
501
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,360
They don't need someone who hasn't been active.
502
00:27:36,360 --> 00:27:38,000
Sure, there's a lot of experience there.
503
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,760
And there's a lot of value in classes that come from these folks.
504
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:46,400
But there's also value in classes that come from the younger people who are in the field,
505
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:51,440
and very active, some more active than me even, who are doing stuff.
506
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,800
And it's good, because then students have these many options.
507
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,680
You get to learn from the OGs, and then you get to learn from the newer folks too, who
508
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,720
are taking the new level.
509
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:03,040
So I like that a lot, about Berkeley at least.
510
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,920
So I was actually asking about how did you actually lend your agent?
511
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,080
So have you had it for a long time?
512
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,600
Oh, my agent?
513
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:20,040
As far as my artist stuff goes, for a long time, I was actually just doing my own stuff.
514
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,120
Like it was just me, and it was stressing me out a lot.
515
00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:24,120
I'm sure.
516
00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:29,800
So I had a time where I thought, okay, I should get someone to help me a little bit out.
517
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,720
And I used to do a lot of these events, or I would not do a lot of them, but I would
518
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,320
go to a lot of these events for women in music.
519
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:42,800
And at one of these particular events, I met my current assistant or agent, Liz.
520
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:49,200
And she was a music business student at NYU.
521
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:50,200
And she was really great.
522
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,240
And we kind of just met at this one event because we both went there.
523
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,880
We didn't know anybody, so we ended up chatting.
524
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,640
But I found out that she was helping a couple of her friends at the time, who are now also
525
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,120
artists and touring actively.
526
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:07,080
She was still a student at the time, and I think I had just graduated or something.
527
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,480
But she was saying, hey, why don't we maybe touch base a little bit?
528
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,040
If you ever need help with anything, let me know.
529
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:17,520
And yeah, so we've been working together for about a year or so at this point, but she
530
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:19,640
helps me a lot with admin stuff.
531
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,760
Thanks, Liz, and putting things together.
532
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:23,760
And I think it's important.
533
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:28,360
Maybe this also goes back to what Yumiko said just now about having a team.
534
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,880
At the moment, it was just previously, it was just me.
535
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:32,400
Now at the moment, it's me and Liz.
536
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,220
And sometimes I have another friend also helping me with social media stuff.
537
00:29:35,220 --> 00:29:36,220
So it's like three of us.
538
00:29:36,220 --> 00:29:39,800
But maybe down the road, if things get bigger, I might need a bigger team.
539
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:44,400
And then eventually it'll get to the stage where instead of me touring on other people's
540
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,000
teams, I'm also doing the same thing with me, but it's like with my own team.
541
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,040
So maybe that also goes a little bit back to just being able to make connections with
542
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:59,000
people and ask for help when you need to and don't die under the weight of everything that's
543
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,360
crumbling when you have to manage so many things at once.
544
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:03,360
So yeah.
545
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:04,960
Yeah, totally.
546
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:09,680
Asking for help is certainly a very necessary skill in our field.
547
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,840
I wanted to circle back to songwriting.
548
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,200
Can you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
549
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,400
What is it like for you starting a new song?
550
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:18,840
Yeah, totally.
551
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,280
As far as songwriting goes, and this is something interesting that I was actually just talking
552
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:28,120
to one of my other colleagues about, but a lot of people who do electronic music, they
553
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,800
often think of themselves as producers mainly, which I do as well.
554
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,880
But for me, it's very much a merger of writer and producer.
555
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,520
So I'm so glad that you mentioned songwriting, Eric.
556
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:40,840
It's a big part of the process for me.
557
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:44,200
And I think really, there's nothing...
558
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:50,040
If a production sounds good, but it has a bad writing style or bad song, it's totally
559
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,200
destroyed from the get-go.
560
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,720
So for me, the process for writing often is centered around a concept.
561
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,480
And I like to think about...
562
00:30:58,480 --> 00:30:59,480
Not so much very...
563
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,800
Sometimes it is very specific, but sometimes it's also broad.
564
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,120
So it could be an example.
565
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:06,120
What's a recent example?
566
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:10,560
So it could be something like the idea of being defeated, right?
567
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:15,520
Maybe you've tried to do something and you've failed, or it could also be you've had a conversation
568
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,360
with someone and they keep trying to shoot you down.
569
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:21,080
There's a lot of ways that you can experience defeat.
570
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:25,040
And I then try to create some kind of song that's related to the emotions associated
571
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:26,040
with that.
572
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,720
So not so much the actual topic itself, but a lot of the time, the emotions.
573
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,240
And the reason I bring up Defeated is because that's actually the name of my next song that's
574
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,640
coming up.
575
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:38,720
So that's a little bit of my process for that.
576
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:44,200
I created the song based on this idea of you've tried your best at doing something, but you
577
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,520
keep on falling flat on your face.
578
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:53,360
And in this particular context, it was through the eyes of looking at a relationship, but
579
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:54,360
it doesn't have to be.
580
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:56,880
It could be even dealing with your daily life, right?
581
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:58,440
You try to do something, you keep failing.
582
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,960
You try to practice something on your instrument or whatever, and you keep failing.
583
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,400
Just keep getting defeated.
584
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,280
So I like thinking of that a lot.
585
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,040
And related to that, and this goes back to the process itself, I do a lot of these things
586
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,160
called word pools, where it's like, I'll think of the word defeat, right?
587
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,160
And then what's related to that?
588
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:17,160
Defeat.
589
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,380
Battle is related to that.
590
00:32:19,380 --> 00:32:23,600
Maybe the concept of getting hurt is related to that.
591
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,840
Like if you fall down, you get hurt, you're defeated.
592
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:31,400
So I do a lot of these word pools, and that ends up helping me with my lyrics in the songwriting.
593
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:37,480
So I'll kind of like bring them back in and have them tie back into the theme of the song.
594
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:38,880
But yeah, it always starts with the theme.
595
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:44,280
It kind of goes out a little bit more general, and then it comes back and is more specific.
596
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:45,280
Yes.
597
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:46,280
Yeah.
598
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,780
So I do something similar myself sometimes when I'm composing.
599
00:32:49,780 --> 00:32:57,200
So once you have your word pool or your associated emotions, how do you start with the musical
600
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:58,200
ideas?
601
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,360
Do you improvise on a piano or sing or what?
602
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:02,400
Yeah, I'll be honest.
603
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:07,320
Most of the time, if I am doing a very song based type of idea, it's always piano and
604
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:08,320
vocals.
605
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,480
So that's where really a lot of the training has helped in.
606
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:17,240
Because now I can just walk over to my keyboard and be just like, those are the chords.
607
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,240
That's the song.
608
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,280
Versus if I didn't have that, I'd probably be struggling a little bit more, poking around
609
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:24,280
in my software.
610
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:29,560
But yeah, pretty much it always is just piano and lyrics or piano and melody.
611
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:30,760
I sing on top of it.
612
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,960
And I'm honestly not a good singer, but I've trained myself to sing in an acceptable way.
613
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,000
That's what I try to see.
614
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,440
I mean, you sound great on everything I've heard.
615
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:40,440
That's very nice.
616
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:41,440
Thank you.
617
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,040
But yeah, sometimes I'll play stuff and I'll experiment with it.
618
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:45,240
I'll sing it with my own voice.
619
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,100
And it's like, that sounds a little odd.
620
00:33:47,100 --> 00:33:51,320
But if it sounds good, then I probably know that I'm onto something.
621
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,920
Just because I feel like, again, going back to the songwriting process, if it doesn't
622
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:59,080
feel like a compelling idea on the piano, I feel like it probably won't be a compelling
623
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,280
idea even if I produced it out.
624
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:02,280
And that's for me.
625
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:07,160
I know some people will manage to take a very mediocre song and polish the hell out of it
626
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:08,160
and it will turn out great.
627
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,960
But at least for me, coming from the place of, again, the more compositional side, if
628
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,920
I have confidence in the composition, I know that I'm going to have confidence in the production
629
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:17,920
too.
630
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:18,920
So yeah.
631
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:20,880
Yeah, that makes sense.
632
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:25,360
I want to ask you, how do you balance that?
633
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,880
Playing on an acoustic instrument and then when it comes to the electronic production,
634
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,960
there's so much work, right?
635
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:36,320
Finding your sounds, samples, mixing.
636
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,000
Sometimes I have trouble integrating those two worlds, which seems so very, like one
637
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:41,800
is kind of like organic from nature.
638
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:43,800
It feels like playing acoustic instruments.
639
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:48,280
And then when you get into your DAW, you're kind of locked into a lot of little boxes,
640
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:49,280
right?
641
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:50,280
And loops.
642
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:51,720
How do you manage that balance?
643
00:34:51,720 --> 00:34:52,720
Yeah, absolutely.
644
00:34:52,720 --> 00:34:56,200
To be honest, Eric, I sometimes still struggle with it too.
645
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:57,200
It's so hard.
646
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,720
And mainly it's because, I don't know, I feel like for me, and maybe y'all might feel the
647
00:35:00,720 --> 00:35:04,640
same way too, but when I think about some of these acoustic sounds, like thinking back
648
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:09,600
to the flute, for example, or even the piano, like a really nice Steinway.
649
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,440
Nothing beats a really nice Steinway, right?
650
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:16,320
Something about the sound of the instrument is so powerful.
651
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:20,520
And that's why sometimes I end up recording these things, like just recording them instead
652
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:21,520
of programming things in.
653
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:25,440
But yeah, that's a challenge that I always have.
654
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:31,240
Sometimes my solution in a weird sort of way is to run in the total opposite direction.
655
00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:36,480
So if it starts off with a piano type of sound, I'll purposely choose a really obscure kind
656
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,480
of, I don't know, synth pad or something, synth key sound that sounds very different
657
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,720
to put me into a totally different frame of mind.
658
00:35:43,720 --> 00:35:49,400
And it's a little bit of like forcibly removing me from the piano sound a little.
659
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,400
Sometimes I'll inevitably end up returning to it, for example, like if I do record the
660
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:53,760
sound like I mentioned.
661
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,520
But sometimes when I'm just trying to get something into my DAW, I'll purposely pick
662
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:02,360
something that isn't acoustic and see where that takes me.
663
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,280
But otherwise, yeah, it's always a struggle.
664
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:09,160
And in terms of like the loop situation, which you mentioned, I get so stuck in that too.
665
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:13,600
So sometimes what I found myself doing is for a lot of the production stuff, especially
666
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,880
if it tends to be a song that I've written out the chorus for and then I want to produce
667
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,760
after that, I will work on, say, four bars.
668
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:25,920
But then I'll set myself a timer, again, going back to like the phone as the best tool you
669
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:26,920
could ever have.
670
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:31,080
I'll use my phone and set myself a timer of like 10 minutes or something.
671
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:36,280
And it's like, Daltrik has got 10 minutes to figure out how to put this into a three
672
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:37,280
minute arrangement.
673
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:38,800
And then I'm just like, go.
674
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,240
And I'll do all of that.
675
00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:43,680
So I kind of force myself to do a little bit of structuring.
676
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:44,740
And it's tough.
677
00:36:44,740 --> 00:36:46,000
It always is, I think.
678
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:50,360
But it's one part maybe about the production process that I still love very much because
679
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:51,460
it's tough.
680
00:36:51,460 --> 00:36:55,560
And because it challenges me, I think probably the day where I've failed and I have nothing
681
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:59,720
else left to do in the world of electronic music production is when I feel like I can't
682
00:36:59,720 --> 00:37:03,480
do anything exciting or I don't feel challenged to do something.
683
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:05,720
So I kind of like that a little bit.
684
00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:07,840
A little bit masochistic, I guess.
685
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,200
But I don't know.
686
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:10,400
I love it.
687
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:11,400
It is a challenge.
688
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,080
And you've given us so many wonderful solutions.
689
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:18,400
There's that whole theme of limitations inspiring creativity, right?
690
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,760
That's our biggest trick we've got in the bag.
691
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:23,360
Can I jump in just a little bit?
692
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:24,360
Sure, go ahead.
693
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:25,360
Yeah.
694
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:32,880
So you're now a sound engineer, sound designer, not only a composer and musician.
695
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,960
That's just beyond my understanding.
696
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:37,600
I mean, it's awesome.
697
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:42,160
I've encountered so many different artists living in New York City, obviously.
698
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:46,800
And then I met this lighting artist and that was just that blew my mind.
699
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:51,200
It's like the concept, new concept of art.
700
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,560
And then that's exactly what you're doing.
701
00:37:53,560 --> 00:38:01,580
So were you interested in like because as a classical musicians, we talk about harmonies,
702
00:38:01,580 --> 00:38:05,680
we talk about tone color, right?
703
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:13,760
But let's say we turn the clock backwards and go back to where Beethoven was, right?
704
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:21,040
And probably at the time he was somewhat close to, you know, maybe sound engineer.
705
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:26,280
You know, he was experimenting with the sound because the biggest sound in his time would
706
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:27,280
be what?
707
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,160
A big, big old ship, right?
708
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:36,640
Or I don't know, or cannonball, cannon, you know, the big sound.
709
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:43,280
And that I know he was deaf at the end, but maybe that's some kind of a as a young Beethoven,
710
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:44,480
he was inspiring.
711
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,200
And how can I have this big sound in orchestra?
712
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,200
Right.
713
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,460
So he was doing his sound engineer.
714
00:38:50,460 --> 00:38:55,200
So were you as a growing up, were you interested in sound?
715
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:59,280
I mean, you know, I didn't think of that concept until.
716
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:00,280
Yeah, totally.
717
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:05,640
I mean, growing up, you hear me in terms of like sounds, I don't think I was necessarily
718
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,760
interested in like, oh, that sounds like it's not a piano.
719
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:09,760
What is it?
720
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,080
I wasn't really that focused yet when I was growing up.
721
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:18,000
But absolutely, I did think a lot about like, how do we use existing sounds to paint pictures?
722
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,000
And I think that's one of like the biggest takeaways that I had from like maybe my study
723
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,720
of like programmatic music, like back when I was my god, so many years ago now, over
724
00:39:26,720 --> 00:39:27,720
a decade ago.
725
00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:31,600
But yeah, even just going back to since you were talking about Beethoven, like this just
726
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:32,600
came to mind, too.
727
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:38,520
But the idea of, you know, painting pictures even through a limited number of colors, like
728
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:42,080
I think a lot about the the Pastoral Symphony and stuff like that.
729
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,420
And it's like, how is he creating that kind of atmosphere?
730
00:39:44,420 --> 00:39:47,160
Like what what instrumentation is he using to do that?
731
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:51,200
And I feel like it's kind of the same thing, like much like you would have, say, in that
732
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:56,120
context, the woodwinds representing a bird, maybe an electronic that's not necessarily
733
00:39:56,120 --> 00:40:00,440
woodwinds, but maybe you've got some kind of synthesizer sound that's very high up in
734
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:02,880
the frequencies that's doing a lot of like, you know, bird stuff.
735
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:08,200
And if it's, you know, a drone thing for a pastoral kind of like, you know, very idyllic
736
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:14,120
sort of atmosphere, then maybe it's not, you know, a low kind of held out note on whatever
737
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,200
instrument like cello or something.
738
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:20,900
But maybe it's like an actual drone where you play a note on your instrument and it's
739
00:40:20,900 --> 00:40:23,200
just held out for a super long time.
740
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,760
So I think a lot about of I think about a lot of orchestration like that, too, when
741
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:31,280
I'm doing production stuff.
742
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,920
This concludes part one of our interview with Claire Marie Lim.
743
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,880
Tune in next time to find out how Claire learned music production, hear about her career as
744
00:40:38,880 --> 00:41:01,440
an activist, and more.
