Marza Panther Interview
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: Hi yes, thank you. My dad was a jazz pianist, he played by ear, and my mother was tone-deaf, which led to some cacophonous lullabies. However my mother's father was a successful Jewish songwriter in the 1940's. I wanted to play the drums, but it was decided on a quieter instrument, the cello. I chose it when I was seven because it looked the same size as me, a friend. I went to a hippie arts grammar school, and we had to play the recorder and sing four-part madrigals. I ate that stuff up. I listened to a lot of my parents' vinyl, and in high school I used to come home and transcribe the piano solo from Thelonious Monk's “Hackensack,” I think was the one. I ended up going to performing arts high school for cello, where I got to do a lot more nerd stuff like sight singing and rhythmic dictation.
I went through a lot of musical phases trying to find myself. I've made folk, metal, dance, hip hop, all kinds of genres. I still have some tracks somewhere of my screamo experiments. Eventually I found a sound that I felt was most “me.” I went back to music school late in life for cello performance and commercial composition, and took arranging, orchestration and commercial harmony classes. About three years ago I decided to make an actual record and get organized. It was slow going and took a lot of patience. Now I'm mainly focused on my Marza Panther project, but I have some side projects -- an acoustic album and cello looping. Here and there I've done production for other artists. I have a new EP coming out in about six months called Katabasis. A katabasis is defined as a descent to the underworld, but it isn't about decay. It's more about exploring what is under the surface.
Q: I’ve always been a fan of Matthew Herbert and his philosophy of finding sounds. It seems like you have a similar philosophy to sound design and creation. Can you go into some of the details?
A: Sure. I think the first time I got interested in found sound was in college, I was taking some 20th century composition classes. We learned about this composer Joseph Bertolozzi who was field recording sounds from a bridge and other city structures. It was cool to imagine that music was everywhere just waiting to be captured and loved. I ended up writing a piece for three bags of potato chips and piano, which we got to perform in class. (We ate the chips after.) A while later I was learning about Jon Brion's production techniques, his use of broken instruments and the like, and I got really excited and bought a Tascam. I went around recording everything for a few years. There was this invention by Toshio Iwai - the Sound Lens - a device you could use to listen to objects and that really blew my mind, this idea that everything in our environment whether organic or man-made was humming, making its own music. I've never been the same, in the sense that I listen critically, actively, to sounds all the time. I was in an MRI once, a feast. The best thing I recorded was my dog Jesse. He ended up on two of my songs on the record, panting and slurping water. He died before I finished the record sadly, but got immortalized through his noises. He could also sing “Blue Christmas” by Elvis.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: For a process, any process, to be creative, I think it has to be fun. So I try to make it fun. When I was in music school at LACC, I was really struggling with playing the cello because I had a lot of negative associations from childhood with the instrument. I grew up with a lot of old school classical musicians who could be brutal. One lady crushed my hand around a walnut to improve my bow hold, stuff like that. So this LACC teacher suggested I change the name of the cello to the mello. Once I played the mello instead of the cello, practicing became fun. So when I'm making music now, I go towards the good feeling I have. If I feel bored or l'm heavily laboring, then I move away from that energy and try to find something that interests me, a sound, a rhythm, an instrument, a synth, a lyric, a melody, and then I take that as a starting point. There are a thousand ways into a song I feel. It just has to be your way. And it has to feel nice.
I have never been a gearhead or anything like that. I believe that outstanding music can be made with objects found in one's home, as the blues was back in the day. I knew a guy who used to live in my building, and he on his three-string guitar could mesmerize me. I really believe that it comes down to heart. All the gear, production, plugins, mixing and mastering in the world won't make up for a lack of heart. So I try to let my heart lead me in the creative process, and then do everything I can to support what comes out of my heart.
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: Hi yes, thank you. My dad was a jazz pianist, he played by ear, and my mother was tone-deaf, which led to some cacophonous lullabies. However my mother's father was a successful Jewish songwriter in the 1940's. I wanted to play the drums, but it was decided on a quieter instrument, the cello. I chose it when I was seven because it looked the same size as me, a friend. I went to a hippie arts grammar school, and we had to play the recorder and sing four-part madrigals. I ate that stuff up. I listened to a lot of my parents' vinyl, and in high school I used to come home and transcribe the piano solo from Thelonious Monk's “Hackensack,” I think was the one. I ended up going to performing arts high school for cello, where I got to do a lot more nerd stuff like sight singing and rhythmic dictation.
I went through a lot of musical phases trying to find myself. I've made folk, metal, dance, hip hop, all kinds of genres. I still have some tracks somewhere of my screamo experiments. Eventually I found a sound that I felt was most “me.” I went back to music school late in life for cello performance and commercial composition, and took arranging, orchestration and commercial harmony classes. About three years ago I decided to make an actual record and get organized. It was slow going and took a lot of patience. Now I'm mainly focused on my Marza Panther project, but I have some side projects -- an acoustic album and cello looping. Here and there I've done production for other artists. I have a new EP coming out in about six months called Katabasis. A katabasis is defined as a descent to the underworld, but it isn't about decay. It's more about exploring what is under the surface.
Q: I’ve always been a fan of Matthew Herbert and his philosophy of finding sounds. It seems like you have a similar philosophy to sound design and creation. Can you go into some of the details?
A: Sure. I think the first time I got interested in found sound was in college, I was taking some 20th century composition classes. We learned about this composer Joseph Bertolozzi who was field recording sounds from a bridge and other city structures. It was cool to imagine that music was everywhere just waiting to be captured and loved. I ended up writing a piece for three bags of potato chips and piano, which we got to perform in class. (We ate the chips after.) A while later I was learning about Jon Brion's production techniques, his use of broken instruments and the like, and I got really excited and bought a Tascam. I went around recording everything for a few years. There was this invention by Toshio Iwai - the Sound Lens - a device you could use to listen to objects and that really blew my mind, this idea that everything in our environment whether organic or man-made was humming, making its own music. I've never been the same, in the sense that I listen critically, actively, to sounds all the time. I was in an MRI once, a feast. The best thing I recorded was my dog Jesse. He ended up on two of my songs on the record, panting and slurping water. He died before I finished the record sadly, but got immortalized through his noises. He could also sing “Blue Christmas” by Elvis.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: For a process, any process, to be creative, I think it has to be fun. So I try to make it fun. When I was in music school at LACC, I was really struggling with playing the cello because I had a lot of negative associations from childhood with the instrument. I grew up with a lot of old school classical musicians who could be brutal. One lady crushed my hand around a walnut to improve my bow hold, stuff like that. So this LACC teacher suggested I change the name of the cello to the mello. Once I played the mello instead of the cello, practicing became fun. So when I'm making music now, I go towards the good feeling I have. If I feel bored or l'm heavily laboring, then I move away from that energy and try to find something that interests me, a sound, a rhythm, an instrument, a synth, a lyric, a melody, and then I take that as a starting point. There are a thousand ways into a song I feel. It just has to be your way. And it has to feel nice.
I have never been a gearhead or anything like that. I believe that outstanding music can be made with objects found in one's home, as the blues was back in the day. I knew a guy who used to live in my building, and he on his three-string guitar could mesmerize me. I really believe that it comes down to heart. All the gear, production, plugins, mixing and mastering in the world won't make up for a lack of heart. So I try to let my heart lead me in the creative process, and then do everything I can to support what comes out of my heart.
Q: Cello is an integral element to these songs. Can you describe your relationship to the instrument and perhaps your thoughts on melding aspects of classical music into your own?
A: I was a classical music reject. I dropped out twice from a cello performance major, and I really felt bad about myself the second time, which was more recent. I eventually ended up switching my major to composition, but during that lonely time when I was between majors I happened to discover the avant garde cellist Arthur Russell. It was a really beautiful experience listening to “Soon to Be Innocent Fun,” and just feeling like everything was going to be okay for me, that I hadn't failed, I had only just started my music journey. There was such a softness and gentleness to Russell and his music, and it was the first time I thought about singing and playing at the same time. It had just never occurred to me before. Later I saw the Arthur Russell documentary, and I found the reason for his unique sound: he held the bow in the middle at the wrong place! It put a big smile on my face. I think that got me thinking about how not knowing an instrument can be a source of innovation rather than a handicap. I play guitar, piano, bass all rather poorly, and I think it works in my favor because it cuts down on excess notes. It's harder for me with cello to not over-play, because I've had much more training and experience with the instrument. I would like to unlearn all that and play more experimentally. Of course, there are some times when you need the real lush legato cello in songs, and I like to provide that to myself as well.
Nowadays, I'm doing a lot of cello looping. I think that I'm going to be volunteering in a local hospital lobby doing cello looping for patients this fall (with mask). I'm really excited about it, because it's a good situation to experiment in without being held to the higher standards of an actual performance. My cello looping is kind of ambient stuff, it's very meditative for me and a nice change from my other music.
As far as melding in classical music, I feel like I was most affected by Eastern European composers and their works. My family on my mother's side were Russian Jews so that style resonates. It's grand, angry, dark, dramatic, turbulent music with beautiful, introspective moments. I think there's also an influence of French composers - magical, dark, rich, mysterious.
Q: The mixing stage is very different when you are working with found sounds and disparate elements. What was that process like?
A: Well I actually don't do much mixing myself. It's the one thing I'm poor at. I do most production, arranging, tracking, but mixing is its own art form best left to people who excel at it, I feel. My producer Jason Lowrie mixed the record and did a lovely job. I think it was difficult to get the tracks to be as loud as I wanted them without losing subtlety.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: I always quote the composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, friend of Shostakovich, who said, “Music is a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.”
I have a new EP coming out soon, and I've been posting teasers for the rough demos on my instagram account @marzapanthermusic, would love your feedback on the new music. It's a bit heavier with more drums and percussion, and a lot of the songs deal with the environment and climate change and losing the natural world. I'm also hoping to release my acoustic album next year.
A: I was a classical music reject. I dropped out twice from a cello performance major, and I really felt bad about myself the second time, which was more recent. I eventually ended up switching my major to composition, but during that lonely time when I was between majors I happened to discover the avant garde cellist Arthur Russell. It was a really beautiful experience listening to “Soon to Be Innocent Fun,” and just feeling like everything was going to be okay for me, that I hadn't failed, I had only just started my music journey. There was such a softness and gentleness to Russell and his music, and it was the first time I thought about singing and playing at the same time. It had just never occurred to me before. Later I saw the Arthur Russell documentary, and I found the reason for his unique sound: he held the bow in the middle at the wrong place! It put a big smile on my face. I think that got me thinking about how not knowing an instrument can be a source of innovation rather than a handicap. I play guitar, piano, bass all rather poorly, and I think it works in my favor because it cuts down on excess notes. It's harder for me with cello to not over-play, because I've had much more training and experience with the instrument. I would like to unlearn all that and play more experimentally. Of course, there are some times when you need the real lush legato cello in songs, and I like to provide that to myself as well.
Nowadays, I'm doing a lot of cello looping. I think that I'm going to be volunteering in a local hospital lobby doing cello looping for patients this fall (with mask). I'm really excited about it, because it's a good situation to experiment in without being held to the higher standards of an actual performance. My cello looping is kind of ambient stuff, it's very meditative for me and a nice change from my other music.
As far as melding in classical music, I feel like I was most affected by Eastern European composers and their works. My family on my mother's side were Russian Jews so that style resonates. It's grand, angry, dark, dramatic, turbulent music with beautiful, introspective moments. I think there's also an influence of French composers - magical, dark, rich, mysterious.
Q: The mixing stage is very different when you are working with found sounds and disparate elements. What was that process like?
A: Well I actually don't do much mixing myself. It's the one thing I'm poor at. I do most production, arranging, tracking, but mixing is its own art form best left to people who excel at it, I feel. My producer Jason Lowrie mixed the record and did a lovely job. I think it was difficult to get the tracks to be as loud as I wanted them without losing subtlety.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: I always quote the composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, friend of Shostakovich, who said, “Music is a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.”
I have a new EP coming out soon, and I've been posting teasers for the rough demos on my instagram account @marzapanthermusic, would love your feedback on the new music. It's a bit heavier with more drums and percussion, and a lot of the songs deal with the environment and climate change and losing the natural world. I'm also hoping to release my acoustic album next year.