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Hi everybody, this is Keith MuzikMan Hannaleck with the Final on Vinyl Podcast.
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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.
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It's called Finding Peace.
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And uh he's quite a story.
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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.
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It's quite amazing, and I'll let him take it away.
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Hey, I appreciate it, Keith.
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Thanks so much for for having me on.
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And yeah, and for the the kind words you you wrote months back or so about the album, and that definitely means a lot.
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Um yeah, I I started playing, it was it's actually a funny story.
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Um I wanted to take piano lessons.
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I had to beg my parents, and they just kept saying, no, no, no.
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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.
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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.
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And she taught me a pretty tough song.
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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.
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And I had it figured out by the next day.
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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.
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So so it was it was it was a lot of fun.
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So your first album came out in 2017 called Crossroads, and then in well another seven years passed before you released Finding Peace.
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So you must have been very b busy with your the piano cottage, your private music academy.
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Yeah, yep, yep.
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I uh um released crossroads and uh really that that in 2017 I was it was kind of a transitionary year.
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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.
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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.
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Um ended up getting an offer from uh the piano cottage to come in as a as a teacher and and to work there.
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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.
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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.
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We think you'd be a great owner.
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Do you want to you know think about purchasing a company?
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And long story short, purchased it in uh um December of 2019.
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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.
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Wow.
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So you survived the pandemic, and a lot of people just I didn't, you know, and some unfortunate souls lost their lives.
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It just it it changed everything, didn't it?
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The whole world's changed.
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Yeah, it sure did.
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Sure, it sure did.
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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.
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You can't you can't do that in the middle of a
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pandemic.
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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.
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Um really, really, really cool community of teachers and and students and families that are part of the piano cottage.
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Oh, that's great.
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So what was your process behind finding peace?
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Do you have a studio there at the business or at home?
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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?
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Yeah, well, um it actually started back and rewind really quickly back to 2017 when I when I first released Crossroads.
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Um I submitted the album uh like a physical copy of the CD.
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I sent it to uh David Nevew, who owns Whisperings Radio.
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And uh didn't hear back from him, didn't hear back from him, didn't hear back from him.
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Um uh figured he'd you listen to it and wasn't wasn't good enough to to be on the broadcast.
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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.
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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.
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Maybe he'll listen to the the um digital, you know, this album.
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Uh so I resubmitted it digitally, didn't hear back from him for you know six months, completely forgot about it.
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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.
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So what what are some of the equipment that you use to record your music?
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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.
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He's uh I've listened to his music for years.
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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.
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And there's a reason it's called Piano Haven, right?
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Yeah, yeah, no kidding, no kidding.
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So what are your plans now?
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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?
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Because I know a lot of artists just constantly record regardless of what they have going on.
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Just wondering what your plans are.
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Yeah, I I uh um tried to to find time um to to record.
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I've got you know three three kids, five and under, and and and oh wow, only business.
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And so it it it's just tough to find that quiet space um with uh little ones running around.
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So get up every every morning at 5 a.m.
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and that's my that's the one time I have a quiet house to to to compose.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Wow.
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Well, I hope you remember me then and get in touch with me so I can hear that.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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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.
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I'd I'd love to hear what you uh what you have to say about it.
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Oh, great, thank you.
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So listening to music, uh are there any favorite artists?
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Do you have a vinyl collection?
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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.
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Um there was a a local pianist and uh his name's Eric Skrontenbour.
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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.
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I always heard music, but I remember listening to him play, and it was just gorgeous.
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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.
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Um but uh yeah.
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So when you were growing up, uh were your parents spinning vinyl?
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No, uh just they were they were kind of in that um I I remember record player really, really early on.
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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.
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Um and I'll I'll listen to that kind of listen to it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Oh, he loved it.
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And so I'll listen to that a lot.
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That to me is like summertime music.
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It makes me feel just uh you can't be in a bad mood when you're listening to Little Little River Band.
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So a lot a lot of that growing up, and and and I still I still listen to uh um to some of that.
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All right, well, I really appreciate your time today, Joshua.
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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.
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That sounds great.
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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.
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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.
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I appreciate that, Joshua.
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Well, thanks so much for your time today.
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You take care.
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Yep, you too.
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Bye.
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Bye bye.