TRANSCRIPCIÓN 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:14.079 --> 00:00:15.039
Hi everybody, this is Keith MuzikMan Hannaleck with the Final on Vinyl Podcast.
00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:29.679
And today we have Joshua Zimmerman, a wonderful piano player who sent me his music back in June, and I had the pleasure of hearing that and covering it.
00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:31.839
It's called Finding Peace.
00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:34.399
And uh he's quite a story.
00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:46.160
A child prodigy, really, um started playing piano very early and was playing weddings by the time he was 12, and he has his own business and just a lot of different things going on for this man.
00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:49.840
It's quite amazing, and I'll let him take it away.
00:00:50.480 --> 00:00:52.640
Hey, I appreciate it, Keith.
00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:54.480
Thanks so much for for having me on.
00:00:54.480 --> 00:01:02.800
And yeah, and for the the kind words you you wrote months back or so about the album, and that definitely means a lot.
00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:07.920
Um yeah, I I started playing, it was it's actually a funny story.
00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:10.719
Um I wanted to take piano lessons.
00:01:10.719 --> 00:01:14.000
I had to beg my parents, and they just kept saying, no, no, no.
00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:30.400
They've seen that they grew up with all in big families, and they saw their their parents spend tons and tons of money on piano lessons, and every one of their siblings quit quit early, and so they just thought they were gonna pour a bunch of money into piano lessons and and uh the same same story.
00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:37.120
And uh eventually one of my cousins who played the piano a little bit was you know was young enough where she was babysitting me.
00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:39.599
And she taught me a pretty tough song.
00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:48.879
So I showed it to my dad, and he said, you know what, you you make your left hand your right hand and and cross your right hand over and make it your left hand, you you learn it, I'll I'll get you piano lessons.
00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:51.359
And I had it figured out by the next day.
00:01:51.359 --> 00:02:16.479
You know, I practiced it and he couldn't believe I could figure that out and got me piano lessons for uh for Christmas that year, and then told me I could have lessons for a year, and if I was practicing every year at Christmas, he'd renew my my piano lessons and uh and and really just got obsessed with it and and was within a couple years was playing for weddings and and teaching you know neighborhood students and and things like that.
00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.199
So so it was it was it was a lot of fun.
00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:29.439
So your first album came out in 2017 called Crossroads, and then in well another seven years passed before you released Finding Peace.
00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:35.280
So you must have been very b busy with your the piano cottage, your private music academy.
00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:37.039
Yeah, yep, yep.
00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:48.719
I uh um released crossroads and uh really that that in 2017 I was it was kind of a transitionary year.
00:02:48.719 --> 00:03:17.199
I moved from uh Mount Pleasant, which is a couple hours north of where I live now, and I was a band instructor there, um, and taught a lot of a lot of private piano lessons on the side, and moved to uh uh where I am now Grand Rapids area, and wanted to spend a year just just writing music, releasing music, uh played in tons of different gigs and weddings and and and you know dinner parties, stuff like that.
00:03:17.199 --> 00:03:42.240
And ended up having I was this idea like gonna release an album, make a bunch of money on it, and and uh show uh this was very early on in my my my uh my marriage and um wanted to show my wife that I could earn an income making music, and I got burnt out really, really, really quickly.
00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:49.919
Um ended up getting an offer from uh the piano cottage to come in as a as a teacher and and to work there.
00:03:49.919 --> 00:04:04.400
And I've been teaching lessons for years, so I knew I could do that and could continue to in in my mind pursue the the music on the side and uh like the the solo piano writing and things like that.
00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:18.479
And within six months, the the owners at the time they said, Hey, we really didn't plan on getting into business where we owned this this big company, we just wanted to teach piano lessons.
00:04:18.479 --> 00:04:20.000
We think you'd be a great owner.
00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.879
Do you want to you know think about purchasing a company?
00:04:22.879 --> 00:04:28.559
And long story short, purchased it in uh um December of 2019.
00:04:28.559 --> 00:05:05.439
And uh a couple months later, the um we were in the hospital uh with um my my first daughter was was being born on on March 12th, and then 2020, next day the the world shuts down, and I thought losing the company with it, but uh ended up ended up uh being pretty busy throughout the next couple of years waiting through the the pandemic and trying to figure out how to teach lessons online and and uh yeah it wasn't until recently that things settled down and and really started getting to writing again.
00:05:06.559 --> 00:05:07.199
Wow.
00:05:07.199 --> 00:05:13.919
So you survived the pandemic, and a lot of people just I didn't, you know, and some unfortunate souls lost their lives.
00:05:13.919 --> 00:05:16.719
It just it it changed everything, didn't it?
00:05:16.719 --> 00:05:18.399
The whole world's changed.
00:05:18.719 --> 00:05:19.599
Yeah, it sure did.
00:05:19.599 --> 00:05:20.879
Sure, it sure did.
00:05:20.879 --> 00:05:35.839
And we we we went from I mean it was it was uh from from you know just uh owning a private music school where where you'd you sit in a small everyone's been in one of those small music studios where eight by eight room.
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:38.239
You can't you can't do that in the middle of a
Load full transcript
pandemic.
00:05:38.239 --> 00:06:06.879
So we went from about 300 students um company wide that would come in every week and went to completely remote lessons and and uh had about lost about a third of our of our um student body uh just where they they didn't want to do the the remote lessons and uh um after the pandemic uh had grown back to to uh probably be even stronger than we were beforehand, just for our community's awesome.
00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:13.359
Um really, really, really cool community of teachers and and students and families that are part of the piano cottage.
00:06:13.759 --> 00:06:14.719
Oh, that's great.
00:06:14.719 --> 00:06:17.599
So what was your process behind finding peace?
00:06:17.599 --> 00:06:20.639
Do you have a studio there at the business or at home?
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:31.599
And just wondering how all that took place and what was the jumping off point for you to to write all this beautiful music and have all this emotion tied into it?
00:06:32.239 --> 00:06:41.839
Yeah, well, um it actually started back and rewind really quickly back to 2017 when I when I first released Crossroads.
00:06:41.839 --> 00:06:47.759
Um I submitted the album uh like a physical copy of the CD.
00:06:47.759 --> 00:06:51.759
I sent it to uh David Nevew, who owns Whisperings Radio.
00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:56.159
And uh didn't hear back from him, didn't hear back from him, didn't hear back from him.
00:06:56.159 --> 00:07:01.839
Um uh figured he'd you listen to it and wasn't wasn't good enough to to be on the broadcast.
00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:08.559
And and uh he's uh I don't know if you're familiar with that whisperings or not, but a bunch of gorgeous piano music on it.
00:07:08.559 --> 00:07:26.159
So I I went on, went through you know, business ownership, all that, and then I got on whisperings and saw that that they no longer were accepting physical copies, and it got so backlogged, and I convinced myself, oh he never saw the physical CD.
00:07:26.159 --> 00:07:31.279
Maybe he'll listen to the the um digital, you know, this album.
00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:37.759
Uh so I resubmitted it digitally, didn't hear back from him for you know six months, completely forgot about it.
00:07:37.759 --> 00:08:09.439
And uh last year in the summer of the spring coming into to to let to to summer, um he emailed me and told me my music got accepted, and it really just encouraged me to start writing again and and it was like you know, more than just family and friends are listening to to my piano music and um the things that I'm composing and started um yeah, at that point started started writing uh music for uh uh for the album that eventually became Finding Peace.
00:08:10.159 --> 00:08:14.959
So what what are some of the equipment that you use to record your music?
00:08:15.599 --> 00:08:33.440
Uh I actually traveled to uh uh Sedona, Arizona, um, and recorded with Joe Bongiorno at uh at Piano Haven and uh a beautiful, beautiful um uh Shigeru Kwai um
piano and and uh really, really, really cool experience.
00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:35.919
He's uh I've listened to his music for years.
00:08:35.919 --> 00:09:08.319
He's a he's a very accomplished solo pianist and uh was as impressed, if if not more, impressed just with his professionalism, and and I felt when I first got there I felt unworthy to be playing in front of him, and and by the end of it I felt so comfortable and and he uh he he he was it was really, really, really cool recording experience and then the the you know the quality of the audio recording, um you know, anything record at recorded at at Piano Haven is just top notch.
00:09:09.199 --> 00:09:11.759
And there's a reason it's called Piano Haven, right?
00:09:12.079 --> 00:09:14.879
Yeah, yeah, no kidding, no kidding.
00:09:15.839 --> 00:09:17.199
So what are your plans now?
00:09:17.199 --> 00:09:39.120
You've got two recordings behind you, um, you know, besides doing the regular promotion of your work for months and months and getting the word out and um you know, are you taking a break from from you know from recording, or is is that just a continual thing for you now?
00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:43.839
Because I know a lot of artists just constantly record regardless of what they have going on.
00:09:43.839 --> 00:09:46.559
Just wondering what your plans are.
00:09:46.959 --> 00:09:53.919
Yeah, I I uh um tried to to find time um to to record.
00:09:53.919 --> 00:09:58.959
I've got you know three three kids, five and under, and and and oh wow, only business.
00:09:58.959 --> 00:10:04.799
And so it it it's just tough to find that quiet space um with uh little ones running around.
00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:07.039
So get up every every morning at 5 a.m.
00:10:07.039 --> 00:10:11.439
and that's my that's the one time I have a quiet house to to to compose.
00:10:11.439 --> 00:10:25.120
So I actually um just got back from uh pianohaven and I I so I have just recorded all the music for my next album, which which uh um hasn't hasn't even been been announced yet.
00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:35.600
So so I'm still working on tying tying up all the loose ends with that and still got to go through the mastering process and uh haven't even named the songs yet.
00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:48.399
So so so I do have another one that's set to probably release really uh early next year, and um the goal is to um can continually release one or two one or two albums a year um from here on out.
00:10:48.959 --> 00:10:49.519
Wow.
00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:56.159
Well, I hope you remember me then and get in touch with me so I can hear that.
00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:57.919
Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:57.919 --> 00:10:58.879
Absolutely.
00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:06.959
I I I uh you'll you'll uh be uh for sure one of the first uh first emails and then uh uh send send my music your way.
00:11:06.959 --> 00:11:10.079
I'd I'd love to hear what you uh what you have to say about it.
00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:12.079
Oh, great, thank you.
00:11:12.079 --> 00:11:17.279
So listening to music, uh are there any favorite artists?
00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:18.720
Do you have a vinyl collection?
00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:31.839
No, you know, I I uh it's a it's a I I started you know, go way, way, way back to when I first started started playing piano.
00:11:31.839 --> 00:11:36.799
Um there was a a local pianist and uh his name's Eric Skrontenbour.
00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:46.399
He he would travel to area churches, and uh he came to our church once and and played, and it was uh first time I I really felt music.
00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:51.199
I always heard music, but I remember listening to him play, and it was just gorgeous.
00:11:51.199 --> 00:12:46.240
And I bought all his CDs, and as I started taking piano lessons, um my teacher would give me an assignment, and then I would go home, listen to all this music that that uh um from Eric Strobenbourne, and I'd I'd sit on it with a CD and try to rewind it, you know, a few measures, and I would sit and learn his songs note for note, and I'd show up to you know my piano lessons and be like, I didn't practice anything you gave me, but I did learn this song, and and uh so that was that was when I uh I've listened to a lot of a lot of that piano music and and recently I've been listening to um a lot of the the whispering artists that uh um I listened to a lot uh a lot of Joe Bond Journal, David Nevew, um uh Zachary Bruno, I really like his music.
00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:48.559
Um but uh yeah.
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.360
So when you were growing up, uh were your parents spinning vinyl?
00:12:54.319 --> 00:13:04.480
No, uh just they were they were kind of in that um I I remember record player really, really early on.
00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:13.360
Um my my dad listened to a lot of uh Styx, um, Boston, Little River Band, so I remember a lot of that growing up.
00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:16.240
Um and I'll I'll listen to that kind of listen to it.
00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:17.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:18.079
Oh, he loved it.
00:13:18.079 --> 00:13:19.439
And so I'll listen to that a lot.
00:13:19.439 --> 00:13:21.120
That to me is like summertime music.
00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:25.919
It makes me feel just uh you can't be in a bad mood when you're listening to Little Little River Band.
00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:32.559
So a lot a lot of that growing up, and and and I still I still listen to uh um to some of that.
00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:38.079
All right, well, I really appreciate your time today, Joshua.
00:13:38.079 --> 00:13:51.439
And for all you listeners out there, remember Joshua Zimmerman, finding peace, wonderful piano music to relax or meditate to, and we look forward to hearing from you early next year with your new album.
00:13:51.759 --> 00:13:52.720
That sounds great.
00:13:52.720 --> 00:14:06.240
I appreciate the time and uh um yeah, really appreciate all you do and and putting independent artists and and um really on the map and giving them a a voice and a place to be heard.
00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:12.079
So thank you so much for for all the work that you've done for for years and years and years, and it's been a it's been a pleasure.
00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:14.079
I appreciate that, Joshua.
00:14:14.079 --> 00:14:15.519
Well, thanks so much for your time today.
00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:16.319
You take care.
00:14:16.319 --> 00:14:17.279
Yep, you too.
00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:17.839
Bye.
00:14:17.839 --> 00:14:18.480
Bye bye.