Q&A with Interdisciplinary Musician Joshua M. Loell | Arts Collective
The COUNTERCLOCK Arts Collective is an online, 4-week fellowship program that allows creative writers, visual artists, and musicians to explore, illuminate, and grow through collaborating on interdisciplinary projects. Learn more about the Arts Collective here.
Each week, we hosted live-streams featuring guest performers in writing and music, and allowed fellows to ask them questions about their experiences. We’re now publishing the transcriptions of these interviews on our blog. This is Week 2, featuring composer and musician Joshua M. Loell.
Joshua M. Loell is an award-winning composer for the screen and concert hall from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Music with a dual concentration in Music Composition and Music Education from Westfield State University, and his Master of Fine Arts in Media Scoring from Brooklyn College. Joshua's works have been featured in masterclasses and concerts all across Massachusetts, and his film scores have been heard in theaters around the world. Apart from composing, Joshua is also an avid trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. His musical influences span far and wide, across time and genre, from Bach to Bernstein, Copland to Coldplay, and everything in between. Joshua’s other musical interests include music technology and playing in pit orchestras for musical theater.
CAC: How are you doing today?
JL: I’m doing well! Thank you so much for having me, it’s an honor and pleasure to spend some time with you today!
The Third Movement from 3 Simplicities for Cello and Piano with score, by Joshua M. Loell.
CAC: Firstly, could you talk us through your several of the pieces you just played? What were some of the inspirations and what were you trying to tackle with these pieces?
JL: The music you just heard is one of my most recent works, “3 Simplicities for Cello and Piano.” The focus for this 3-movement piece was to embrace simple harmony and let the instruments really sing. I was inspired by an improvisation session I had with the cellist on the recording, my good friend Alyssa Jackson, and from that I said “I’m going to write something, just for music’s sake.”. During graduate school, it was tough to find time to write for the sake of writing, so this work was born out of desire to fill that need. It was really a form of meditation and relaxation – just hitting the reset button!
CAC: When did you begin composing? Why did you choose composure over performance?
JL: I don’t really have a “start date” for when I began composing, but I remember writing little pieces and playing around with notation programs when I was just starting to really learn music. I’d say late middle school and early high school, but professionally, I’d comfortably say around 2013. That’s when I really knew I wanted to do something with it.
Composing vs. performance… don’t get me wrong, I love to play, but I love to play in groups – the larger the better – or in a behind the scenes kind of role, like a pit orchestra for musical theater. So career-wise, I knew that my strengths were elsewhere.
There’s a proverb I’ve recently adopted and started using more because I firmly believe it applies to any artist out there: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
CAC: How do you begin new projects?
JL: New projects either start from an internal place, like “3 Simplicities” and “Head Space” did, but others are sometimes born from necessity! Many of the smaller film projects I took on were taken because I needed the practice and experience! In terms of composing process, I usually start at the piano. It serves as a great blank canvas for me to explore melodic and harmonic possibilities.
CAC: You recently began the independent, crowdsourced project VESTIGE with your friend and composer Travis Devin which was shown at the Feinstein Film Festival in Brooklyn. Your site calls VESTIGE a multimedia experience and “will combine visual, musical, and sound design elements to tell the story of one lone adventurer investigating a forgotten planet shrouded in mystery.” This kind of project really resonates with us because we’re really interested in multi-disciplinary ventures, and finding those spaces where disciplines can connect and bolster each other. Can you tell us a bit more about the project in general, and why you chose a collaborative project rather than an individual one?
JL: VESTIGE came from Travis’s suggestion that we work on something together. We’d been roommates and friends since our undergraduate days, and we have many similar musical interests and people we’re inspired by. At this point, we both needed a capstone project for our degree, so we said “Why not! Let’s go for it.” Travis came up with the story and concept, while I handled a lot of the music, like booking musicians and score preparation. I was also another set of eyes and ears for the editing process. For us, we were glad we got to write music that we wanted to write. Working on films, that usually is never the case. We wanted to create something that was based off of the music we wrote rather than the other way around. As a musician, it’s important to collaborate. There’s a proverb I’ve recently adopted and started using more because I firmly believe it applies to any artist out there: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
CAC: As previously mentioned, VESTIGE was crowdsourced, specifically by INDIEGOGO, and I think a lot of young artists find crowdsourcing alluring, especially because of the independence it brings. Can you talk a little bit more about how you chose to go the crowdsourcing route? How might one best go about it if they were considering crowdsourcing as an option? And what have you found are the benefits and drawbacks?
JL: We went through IndieGoGo simply because we needed additional funds to pull off this project. Our school provides thesis funds to filmmakers for their thesis films, but unfortunately not for students in the media scoring track – but you’ve gotta adapt! We wanted to work with ETHEL, a phenomenal world-class string quartet based in New York, as well as pay the people involved! It’s good practice to support the industries you are a part of, and it goes back to the rule of “treat others the way you want to be treated.” We compared our options for crowd sourcing like Kickstarter, but we found that Indiegogo didn’t take as much of a percentage and allowed us to keep our funding if we didn’t reach our goal. Anyone out there doing this, keep this in mind! To anyone considering this, know your budget’s needs and don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s truly humbling.
CAC: Beyond your independent work, you’ve also written the film score for the film “I May Regret” which has won numerous awards at many festivals, and you yourself received best film score for your work at the Sydney Indie Film Festival. What was working on a film like? And specifically, how does composing for a film differ from composing for the stage?
JL: Working on a film is a much different process than just composing for fun/for concert halls. Every film is different in what it may need musically and every director has a different process. Usually you can count on music not being involved until the end, but with I May Regret, I was involved from the beginning of the editing/assembling process. I received a script to get an overview of the narrative structure and characters, and with this film in particular, the director was very intentional with the music and knew exactly what he wanted. He even sent me a “vocab list” of abstract ideas for character themes like for example Paul’s character he wanted, dark, tension, unresolved. So I would write according to these ideas and send the music to him for him to place as he desired. For some films, the composer would sit and spot the film with the director, meaning go through each scene and place the music, but for this, everything was up to the director, I was able to suggest ideas for placement, but the final decision was up to the director. Some composers wouldn’t be okay with that, but the film isn’t about the composer, it’s about the film, the characters, the story. I always approach this process as a form of service; in what way can I serve the scene best? I’ve heard it said that the best composers for film know when not to put any music.
The trailer for “I May Regret,” an award-winning film scored by Joshua Loell.
CAC: Looking back after your success, there must be many moments where you felt pushed toward where you are now. When you were young, what kind of guidance did you see yourself wanting and what did you receive? If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self?
JL: For me, I never thought this was something I could do, like scoring films was this grand elusive thing only for people who move to LA. Granted, I did move to New York for a short bit, which is the next best thing, but I would not have done so if my mentors didn’t suggest that I go. My undergrad composition professor showed me the listing for the new graduate program in media scoring in Brooklyn, my trumpet professor told me I should go to grad school immediately, only because the job market for being a band director was really low. A family friend sent me the job posting for I May Regret, just cause she “heard I was doing that kind of thing”. These are things I didn’t really realize I wanted or needed, but I had and have people looking out for me who sincerely care about what I am going to do with my life, for that I’m extremely grateful. Advise for myself would be to trust that everything is gonna be okay, don’t be afraid, and if you really want it, go get it.
The best thing I can tell you is to create first, adjust later; done is better than perfect, and your work can only benefit by being seen, heard, and experienced by other people!
CAC: Is there anything new you are working on at the moment?
JL: I’m currently working on my second feature film, with the same film company that made I May Regret! So that is taking up most of my time, but otherwise I’m in the post grad school phase looking for teaching positions at colleges, trying to put more of my music out in the world and preparing for marrying my fiancee next June!
CAC: Is there anything else you would like for everyone to know?
JL: For composers or just artists in general, the best thing I can tell you is to create first, adjust later; done is better than perfect, and your work can only benefit by being seen, heard, and experienced by other people!
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Woody Woodger lives in Lenox, Massachusetts. Her first chapbook, “postcards from glasshouse drive” (Finishing Line Press) has been nominated for the 2018 Massachusetts Book Awards and her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, from DIAGRAM, Drunk Monkeys, RFD, Exposition Review, peculiar, Prairie Margins, Rock and Sling, and Mass Poetry Festival, among others. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net. In addition, she has a regular column with COUNTERCLOCK Literary Magazine.
Sarah Feng is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a 2018 Foyle Commended Young Poet of the Year and the runner-up for the Adroit Prize for Prose. Other organizations which have recognized her work include Teen Vogue, the New York Times, the Critical Pass Junior Poet Prize, the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Scholastic Press Association, and more. She was Kenyon Young Writer's Workshop '18 and the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship '17. She plays piano and dabbles in charcoals, and she thinks rhythm and light and lyric pulse in every field of the creative arts – if you can call them distinct fields at all. In other words, she has faith in the power of the interdisciplinary arts and their persistence in our memories and minds. She is the founder and program director of the COUNTERCLOCK Arts Collective. You can find her here.