An Interview with Josh Plotner

2:16 Luke F. Walton What's good everybody, I'm Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with Josh Plotner. Welcome to the show.

2:23 Josh Plotner Thank you very much glad to be here

2:25 Luke F. Walton So the question that I have highest on my mind. Where'd you start and how did you learn so many freaking instruments, dude?

2:34 Josh Plotner um so i started on alto saxophone uh actually my my mom will back this up and uh hi mom if you're listening so i wanted to play saxophone since i was three years old and i remember i remember it that way too i remember like walking down some street like at night and like hearing a saxophone player like in some live music venue or something and being like that's the coolest thing ever and

2:56 Luke F. Walton Sweet!

2:56 Josh Plotner i like and then when i was like three until ten because my mom mom thought it was just a phase she didn't

3:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:02 Josh Plotner really she didn't truly believe me and also like three-year-olds can't play the saxophone because they're physically too small like i think like

3:08 Luke F. Walton Your lungs are like this big.

3:09 Josh Plotner yeah like as a parent but it's like it'd be like it's so hard to get

3:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:13 Josh Plotner a really talented kid playing saxophone anyways uh but she yeah but she was like it's just a phase um and uh so like we waited until like fourth grade band you know when i was 10 years old to start playing spoiler alert it turns out it wasn't a phase um i was playing saxophone and then i really wanted lessons and i got like the the school lesson teacher who was a bit of a curmudgeon to say the least and he had a thing and he was a clarinet

3:39 Josh Plotner clarinet player at heart but he taught flute and saxophone and he was like saxophone players have to play clarinet or and or flute and like he wasn't wrong like i mean that's the the big band tradition uh you know like in in jazz you kind of have to play what like usually you know like if you're like playing the least amount of instruments possible like alto saxophone players play flute tenor saxophone players play clarinet

4:02 Josh Plotner but like these days especially it's like probably both unless you end up being like the craziest most amazing artist and getting the luckiest break like you really do like to just like play with other people you need those instruments so i you know i did that and i i took a liking to it because uh we could go right into hot takes because uh we

4:19 Luke F. Walton Yes, please. This is a podcast, sir. Yes.

4:21 Josh Plotner want to go right into hot takes so the thing about concert band for the most part is that the saxophone parts are terrible i mean

4:30 Josh Plotner i'm sure there's some newer stuff or something written but like mostly like the most of the writing for saxophone in concert band which is what you do from basically like you know fourth grade all the way through high school and sometimes into college right is like really poorly written things where they're like not really thinking about the sax not good saxophone writing it's usually doubling the french horns and it's usually boring like that like boring tennery alto

4:56 Josh Plotner true kind of voice that just does the harmonies and is so unsatisfying and the flute and clarinets are going wild in the meantime like doing all the cool stuff all the cool flashy stuff that's fun and saxophone's a cool flashy instrument and so when i started playing flute and clarinet which also opened up the world of playing in orchestras then again it's like yeah sure you can play saxophone in orchestra with all five pieces that are in the repertoire again an exaggeration but uh not much of one um

5:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:22 Josh Plotner and so like i uh like really fell in love with flute and clarinet in high school i really love that they opened up orchestra to me because i started to see how cool orchestra stuff was and then yeah i was like and it was cool in jazz too so i was like pretty serious about those going into college and then once i got into college and i'm thinking about what what's my career gonna look like i thought like the first thing i want to do that seems it seems like a really good gig and it is a really good gig is like playing on broadway

5:49 Josh Plotner way um

5:49 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

5:50 Josh Plotner playing on broadway is one i mean i don't have the the union rates in front of me but i think the base salaries around 95 grand a year if you were doing it full time like if you have a if you have a show that runs for a year which is actually not super common but um it's like 95 grand a year health care pension like

6:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:07 Josh Plotner that seems so i was like that seems like a stable goal that would be a good thing and then you can do other it's all it's so like broadway's like you know it's about 50 percent of the shows so you'd only be making half your salary

6:17 Josh Plotner but you have a stable job and you have to be there 50% of the time so i was like let me aim towards this people in college were telling me it's like oh oboe helps a lot like oboe sets you apart as a broadway musician adding oboe uh so then i was like let me do that and with oboe quickly comes english horn english horn should be called alto oboe uh it's

6:37 Luke F. Walton I didn't

6:38 Josh Plotner like yeah

6:38 Luke F. Walton know that.

6:38 Josh Plotner it's it's such a that another another thing like another hot take of mine is like English horn is an alto oboe and there is nothing more complicated to it at all like I guess they like it's like the tradition that the bell is like a like this like kind of egg shape at the bottom but that doesn't affect the playing really at all it's like in

6:58 Luke F. Walton Right.

6:59 Josh Plotner the chain

6:59 Luke F. Walton That's

6:59 Josh Plotner it just

6:59 Luke F. Walton actually

6:59 Josh Plotner comes

7:00 Luke F. Walton something to hop in this story. I feel like that would be an interesting thing just to spotlight really quickly. So alto saxophone versus flute this direction okay

7:11 Josh Plotner oh yeah uh so off the video is very uh it goes off to your right side unless you have a very weirdly built yeah

7:19 Luke F. Walton okay which we'll get to uh but uh fingering differences when you're going from one instrument to the next versus clarinet and alto sax are fairly similar if

7:30 Josh Plotner they're all so

7:31 Luke F. Walton i'm not mistaken

7:31 Josh Plotner yeah this like the the spoiler alert for how i play so many like woodwind instruments and it's really my specialty is that um

7:39 Josh Plotner um physics doesn't really care about your traditions or anything like it's like the the physics of how woodwinds work combined with the human anatomy which yeah spoiler alert is the same across the globe like everyone has the basically the same skeleton and definitely the same physics they're a bunch of holes in a tube and they have to be covered in order it's a little bit of an oversimplification but that is essentially how the physics work so like if

8:08 Josh Plotner if you have eight holes it's not like whatever like it's like um eight factorial is this a math

8:13 Luke F. Walton podcast Yeah, yeah there it is now it is

8:15 Josh Plotner the combination of things you could do most of those won't really get you a note or a lot of them will get you kind of the same note it's really just putting your fingers down in order away from where you're blowing in gets you all the different notes yeah

8:28 Luke F. Walton It's like the rocket scientists say at least it's not music theory

8:31 Josh Plotner yeah yeah it becomes pretty easy

8:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah Yeah.

8:34 Josh Plotner uh just and there are definitely differences and there are definitely i'm sure is the way your mouth is on the instrument it's french it's fancy uh ombushua

8:43 Luke F. Walton The reason why I'm asking this is I'm trying to picture your kind of like your brain chaining from one to the next being like, OK, I see how this fits in with what I understand about like in the same way that these people that learn a whole bunch of languages like they start to be able to see the patterns and languages that other people just can't see and they're like, oh, it's just like another.

9:00 Luke F. Walton I just plug this in over here. It's kind of like Turkish in this part, but it's kind of like Swedish in that part. And then they learn it like 10 times faster than they ever possibly could. And I feel like I'm seeing those connections happening in your musical journey here.

9:12 Josh Plotner yes absolutely also side note i really like i mean it's more of a hobby for me but i like picking up languages and i can't that's like another thing i like to do yeah it's uh it's exactly like that it's exactly the same thing of just like it's you're building on similar things and it's and it's easier to learn more once you know more um

9:30 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

9:30 Josh Plotner and and that might not sound that intuitive but it really is because if i told you i play a hundred instruments and you're like wow that's so many if i tell you i play 120 instruments which is 20 more instruments you're like not you don't feel that different right 100 instruments wow 120 instruments wow like but like the same basically

9:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:50 Josh Plotner uh

9:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:51 Josh Plotner the difference is 20 instruments um and like but like like but it does kind of work that it's like once you like are kind of that high up it's easy to to keep going it's a wonderful thing about how our brains work i guess the fun thing and about the name of the english horn uh because it's not english and it's not it's funny apparently the story goes that uh because oboe and english horn are french instruments and uh

10:20 Josh Plotner the oboe by the way in french is obois which is spelled h-a-u-t-b-o-i-s which means high wood and obois sounds a lot nicer than oboe which is like i feel like because like if no one no one's going to name a thing oboe but obois is nice right

10:34 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes.

10:35 Josh Plotner uh so they were calling it cor angle which would mean the angled horn because there's an angle at the top of it because like if it was if it was straight it would just be too big and hard to play so they angled the top the top of it to make it more nice for uh you know for

10:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

10:51 Josh Plotner holding throughout history i feel like english people like they they have this thing where they like picking up bits of french but maybe it's not always 100 fluent um and they yeah they heard cor anglaise and like the anglo anglais they thought anglaise was english and it stuck so and so now i mean even french people call cor anglaise is you know also british people call cor anglaise more than they call english horn

11:14 Josh Plotner horn which translates to english horn but yeah they they um they misunderstood angla versus anglais and so we have the english horn instead of the angled horn neither of which are alto oboe and it should be alto but like anyway so i started playing alto oboe

11:29 Luke F. Walton yeah

11:29 Josh Plotner um uh and uh that got me out of college i might have like had a tin whistle or something in college

11:37 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

11:38 Josh Plotner So I got out of college with all that and then I was you know And the idea was like let me get this Broadway gig it'll be like a stable way to like have a career

11:47 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

11:47 Josh Plotner So I walked down to Broadway and I was like one Broadway gig, please and they were like no

11:55 Josh Plotner hard no turns out if you want to play on the um the entire industry is based on who you know um i mean kind of almost if you really think about almost every industry at all based on who you know but um broadway is special like there's absolutely not auditions you're actually not supposed to audition because they don't like the idea of like the kind of system that that could create like the against the idea of broadway auditions um yeah you just have to know people and i didn't know anyone because i went to school at

12:23 Josh Plotner at berkeley college of music uh in boston and i just didn't know new york people so i was like going around and people were like no

12:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:30 Josh Plotner no no it's like and also like i was getting the i was very frustrated and i was getting like oh you're so young you have so much time like you don't need this

12:36 Luke F. Walton Yes,

12:36 Josh Plotner like

12:36 Luke F. Walton right.

12:37 Josh Plotner i don't want this right now and also like i'm i'm 23 i'm so young but my bank account balance is also so low and like if you guys could help

12:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

12:45 Josh Plotner um but anyway uh so couldn't couldn't get into broadway but my thought because i wasn't just gonna

12:52 Josh Plotner give up right away i i found out after some trial and error that like you don't ask people to sub for them they'll always say no because they don't because if you think about it from their perspective if like they don't know you they can't give you such a big gig not knowing you because it looks bad for everyone if you're not amazing and they can't even let you like substitute for them because same problem and like unless you start taking lessons with them which is like a huge long-term commitment but uh so my thought was uh if like in like usually that this being a substitute musician is kind of

13:21 Josh Plotner kind of the way to start to break in i was like who has the hardest book on broadway who needs a sub like because like certainly like there's like you know saxophone flute clarinet books like there's like so many people who can do that so much competition uh so i was like who who really has like something that's so hard that like they can't find people and i came to the conclusion that it was the lion king flute book because i learned that like on lion king there's this flute book where you play like

13:47 Josh Plotner 13 flutes and

13:49 Luke F. Walton Wow.

13:49 Josh Plotner it's like all these you know world flutes and i was like i can't you know it's like i can figure that out that sounds interesting and i like i i got to like watch watch the book and i sat in the pit like not playing but just just observing like during a show i looked into it and i was like okay so buying all these flutes that i don't have and they were a bunch of indian flutes a couple pan flutes and then like a really big pan flute i was like that is gonna cost me a thousand dollars which is a lot of money but like not crazy for 10 instruments um

14:21 Josh Plotner um because the thing about a non-western flute yeah non-orchestral and non-jazz like

14:27 Luke F. Walton yeah

14:27 Josh Plotner instruments

14:28 Luke F. Walton in like in that canon like that you would normally expect to go to the symphony and see like that

14:32 Josh Plotner but

14:32 Luke F. Walton kind of flute yeah

14:33 Josh Plotner like so all of these flute like basically all these flutes are hollow sticks with holes um and that is way less expensive to make and it's way easier to make so these like flutes cost like 100 maybe it's for the really really nice ones like It's like $200, $250. So

14:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

14:51 Josh Plotner it's like if yeah I get it. um if i if i buy a 250 flute and i get a gig on it i have a free flute forever that's

14:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:59 Josh Plotner a dangerous thinking

15:00 Luke F. Walton Uh huh.

15:01 Josh Plotner logic

15:02 Luke F. Walton I see how this is going. Yep.

15:04 Josh Plotner um and so long story short it took it did take over it might have taken like two years but eventually like the lion king thing happened started playing on lion king and i still do actually i was just talking to the guy today i think i'm gonna come in and sub next week maybe so i like fell down this rabbit hole

15:21 Josh Plotner like whole new like other worlds of music through like woodwinds um all these other genres and i started getting i started like finding out like all this cool stuff that kind of college never taught me um

15:32 Luke F. Walton yeah and what a great time to be like alive on this journey because you know if it was 50 years ago you'd be like going to music school libraries and like trying to find a book and it'd be yeah field research and like field recording that'd be all you'd have yeah

15:48 Josh Plotner yeah and now i mean

15:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:49 Josh Plotner nowadays like i've gotten some very kind comments from especially some like chinese musicians on my chinese flute

15:56 Luke F. Walton Cool.

15:56 Josh Plotner playing and they're like who's your teacher like where'd you learn i was like youtube like music from around the world the way that people make music is like super different individual interesting but the physics of the instrument not only is the technique not that different but like the specific once you start learning ornamentation go through all your classical and jazz stuff you've learned very little ornamentation

16:17 Josh Plotner compared to any sort of traditional folk music from anywhere um like once you start to learn those little like ornamentation tricks tricks that like the traditional japanese guys use you find in irish music and it's like they weren't talking

16:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

16:30 Josh Plotner they weren't hanging out like but it's

16:32 Luke F. Walton Yes.

16:33 Josh Plotner like it's like oh that really clever way that you like kind of like bounce off of the whole it's like the irish guys and the japanese guys are doing that and

16:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:40 Josh Plotner like blue from the andes called the the canine which is very similar from the andes called the the kena which is very similar to the japanese shakuhachi and they're really hard i don't know how anyone ever invented this flute at all it's doesn't it's like super unintuitive it takes a week to make noise out of it like it's just like the way that that

16:56 Luke F. Walton Cool.

16:56 Josh Plotner doesn't like get this out because it's impossible to learn and yet like two again very different cultures that weren't hanging out

17:08 Luke F. Walton I've got some big news, everybody. My vinyl record is out. We didn't make a ton of these, so these guys are going to sell out and I'd love for you to get your hands on one of them because they're so dope. And it comes with a whole bunch of like liner notes and pictures and special stuff, the things that really went into making this record.

17:24 Luke F. Walton And I want you to get your hands on it. So go to scoobertdoobert.pizza or check out my Instagram for a link or click the link in the show notes or the...

17:34 Luke F. Walton the bio wherever you're watching this to pick up your copy you know they're going to sell out we really did not make very many of these and i want you to have it it's it's like a collector's item so thank you thank you for supporting my music and i can't wait for you to hear it actually on physical vinyl enjoy the rest of the episode

17:51 Josh Plotner ended up kind of doing something that I started to call my like unofficial masters where I never did a master's I only did an undergrad but I started just kind of taking lessons with like amazing teachers of different instruments and musical styles and it's so much cheaper than

18:07 Luke F. Walton a Yes.

18:07 Josh Plotner master's like I don't have a piece of paper

18:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

18:08 Josh Plotner but like you know taking weekly lessons for like you know like and you know the teachers ranged in like thing that's like somewhere between like 60 to maybe like 120 dollars an hour once

18:20 Luke F. Walton Mm

18:20 Josh Plotner a

18:20 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

18:21 Josh Plotner week which is like an expense but it's nowhere near a master's

18:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:24 Josh Plotner degree and i'm

18:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:25 Josh Plotner like such a better player than i would be if

18:27 Luke F. Walton Yes.

18:27 Josh Plotner i had been done a master's

18:29 Luke F. Walton Great

18:29 Josh Plotner but

18:29 Luke F. Walton point.

18:30 Josh Plotner my unofficial master's which was just like and it's cool too because it's like my own curated thing but

18:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:35 Josh Plotner during weekly lessons i still do have someone holding me responsible no piece of paper and i guess like one day if i ever tried to become a professor like you can't demand as much money i think that's a thing like you can demand more money when you have have shiny or pieces of paper

18:47 Luke F. Walton Right.

18:48 Josh Plotner i'm okay with that i'm not as interested as in teaching maybe maybe future josh will hate me for

18:53 Luke F. Walton Like,

18:54 Josh Plotner that

18:54 Luke F. Walton I love the idea of, yeah, curating for yourself, holding yourself accountable through.

18:59 Luke F. Walton interpersonal means and also i mean there's been study after study that one-on-one education is the best education doesn't matter the subject especially for something that i feel like is so personal as combining your your fingers but also your breath your ombre tree your mouth shape um one thing that i'd love to talk to you about is the overtone series because i was watching a one of your videos it was like the the biggest possible uh flute that only had like three holes on it i'm just trying to look up which which the what the name was

19:28 Josh Plotner We got the soft J F U J A R A It's a Slovakian shepherd's flute.

19:34 Luke F. Walton amazing amazing but it sounded so cool and it was great how you're talking about like how you're able to get these different tones out of it with only three holes and i feel like just general musical audience they even like see a trumpet like how does that work there's not a lot going on in the guitar i can see the notes yeah please

19:52 Josh Plotner Guitar on secret hidden notes. I mean, yeah, so the overtone series woodwinds, what's happening is that... um i mean it's always easier to explain with strings because with strings

20:03 Luke F. Walton Okay.

20:04 Josh Plotner like if the whole string is vibrating it's a pitch if you cut it exactly in half it's that pitch an octave up and then if you cut that in half it goes up a fifth and then if you cut that in half it goes up a fourth to the third octave now

20:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

20:18 Josh Plotner then

20:18 Luke F. Walton yeah.

20:19 Josh Plotner like you can keep cutting in half uh woodwinds has that same phenomenon except what happens is a little different because woodwinds have a vibrating column of air inside

20:29 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

20:29 Josh Plotner basically you're just changing the standing wave it ends up being the same like halving or doubling thing as like cutting a string in half and half again again and again but uh with a column of air where you're changing the frequency of the standing wave which is much less intuitive and harder to understand but yeah same principle

20:50 Luke F. Walton How much does that require like individualized skill? instrument to instrument like across the woodwind family do you have to like rethink the way that the harmonics are kind of working in obviously these huge shapes that probably is very difficult but like how long does it take you to crack that nut or how much is applicable from like you know say a buncery over to um you know okay

21:15 Josh Plotner Um, that's a good question. It's that might be one of the things that's more instrument specific.

21:21 Luke F. Walton Okay.

21:21 Josh Plotner it's really interesting too because like a lot of these more traditional instruments are not as standardized so

21:28 Luke F. Walton Okay.

21:28 Josh Plotner you

21:29 Luke F. Walton Okay.

21:29 Josh Plotner find that it's not even like instrument to instrument where it's like this is a shakuhachi this is like a shakuhachi in d uh it's like this is a shakuhachi in d they won't have the same rules of playing them because they're just not standardized enough

21:46 Luke F. Walton Yes.

21:46 Josh Plotner uh whereas you know like your buffet clarinet's gonna act act exactly the same like all the fingerings will be the same so you know it's also tricky sometimes with like a fingering chart where it's like you could put like you could make a fingering chart but it would need like a lot of like little explanations be like maybe this one works for your flute but maybe try this one for your flute uh um and yeah and you find and then yeah going across instruments you do kind of have to relearn but i will say you start to get a sense like once you you

22:16 Josh Plotner play enough different flutes you start to get a sense like oh it'll probably be this or like you

22:20 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

22:21 Josh Plotner get to make up fingerings which is a cool

22:23 Luke F. Walton Cool.

22:23 Josh Plotner thing that feels very advanced it

22:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:25 Josh Plotner becomes intuitive you're just like oh if that one didn't work let me try this one yep that one worked um kind of doing that all the time uh also like i'm a really a fan of not being brittle with your knowledge and what i mean by that is that like someone whose knowledge is brittle just like like has memorized a bunch of facts but doesn't

22:44 Luke F. Walton Yep,

22:44 Josh Plotner understand any sort of through line if you're if your knowledge is more malleable you understand why things are and so instead of necessarily knowing every knowing 10 000 facts you understand how things work and you can just make up facts on the spot not make up facts that's

23:02 Luke F. Walton I know

23:03 Josh Plotner not what but

23:03 Luke F. Walton you're saying.

23:03 Josh Plotner like you can you can uh kind of do the do the experiment invent things instantly right that is just so much more useful and i think that's a skill that like i guess you could call me like a woodwind generalist Yeah.

23:19 Josh Plotner and i think that's the the kind of things that generalists like just like that interdisciplinary thing when you pull from so many different places you're able to keep pulling easier sometimes in specialists that often Specialists will go like really far, but they'll have like a very brittle kind of thing where as soon as you ask them to bend It can be dangerous.

23:39 Luke F. Walton Yes. That plays into something I've been talking a lot about with some of my friends who are very analytical people who are like PhD type people, you know, they're very much we specialize, we push the brink of human understanding on this one little thing and we just kept going further. And they find people like me fascinating who like just, you know, play a bunch of music and whatever.

23:59 Luke F. Walton And I try to describe to them the embodied creativity, like the stuff that doesn't even seem like it's completely going on in your mind analytic.

24:06 Luke F. Walton politically it just kind of is happening or flowing through you or you're borrowing from two distinct places and it's just kind of or you're letting your fingers surprise you or you're borrowing from like that embellishment tradition where I feel like So much of that is an intuitive understanding,

24:22 Luke F. Walton an embodied understanding rather than an analytical understanding. And I like the idea of a physicalized instrument that is non-standardized, is non-industrial.

24:33 Josh Plotner Hmm. Yeah.

24:34 Luke F. Walton Because I feel like that puts you even more in that headspace of you are constantly in conversation with this tool, with this instrument rather than it is like subservient to you, you know?

24:44 Josh Plotner what what you're talking about it's it's when when you're all the way analytical and all of your actions are coming from kind of that you know stereotypical left brain space i would

24:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:55 Josh Plotner argue it's a little slower than kind of having things be intuitive the problem with things being intuitive is that they're harder to analyze and they're harder to sometimes reproduce every time but like literally like just you know having i'm i'm gonna pretend i'm not a brain scientist but i'm gonna pretend for

25:14 Luke F. Walton Yes.

25:14 Josh Plotner a second there's a more elegant way to say but if you've programmed your fingers to kind of do the quick motions instead of thinking i'm putting down my finger like that's how you need to play music music is art that is time plus sound right and like the time element is really the the biggest element like everything about music is is work is playing with time

25:36 Josh Plotner with time and if you are using your brain in a slower way and the analytical way is always slower than sort of a reflex right like when you like do the knee reflex you know the

25:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:48 Josh Plotner electrical pulse doesn't even go to your brain like it just like hits your spine and your spine's like i know what to do don't worry about it

25:53 Luke F. Walton Yes.

25:54 Josh Plotner those kind of reflexes that you like build up in your fingers work so much better music because they are literally faster with the electrical impulses flowing through your body it can be frustrating if you're if you're an analytical type but you in an art form like music that is time-based you need it yeah

26:12 Luke F. Walton Yes. And it's so I think it's really valuable. Then you can analyze it later, but you can step outside of yourself or step into a different place. I think that music and trance has been interrelated across so many of these different traditions. And I think a lot of that part has been stripped away when you go into the concert hall, the fancy.

26:30 Luke F. Walton fancy place like we're all going to sit down in suits and watch like this you know rather than like dance to the music or communicate with the music i

26:37 Josh Plotner i have a problem with with that

26:38 Luke F. Walton yeah please

26:38 Josh Plotner that whole

26:39 Luke F. Walton please

26:39 Josh Plotner thing oh

26:39 Luke F. Walton yeah

26:39 Josh Plotner um well i mean it's just a little rant but i feel like classical music the way that classical music is presented these days drives me absolutely not like the fact that what you're describing is drives me nuts the the whole like thing it's like don't you have to know that you don't clap between movements certainly don't make any noise during the thing and like if something moves you

26:58 Josh Plotner keep it inside even the way that these concerts are lit like

27:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah

27:02 Josh Plotner the lighting and the way that people come out on stage it's just i think classical musicians often maybe this will get me in trouble i'm trying to get in trouble with as many different people as possible on this podcast um but i think like classical musicians they're trying to be to present this like music perfectly neutral and so they're trying to make no sure it's like we're having neutral lighting we're having neutral staging we're having neutral everything and it's just the music there's no such thing as that like and this goes for anything when you're

27:32 Josh Plotner doing music what you're wearing what you're coming out on stage doing how the lights are how the sound is they're all choices and if you

27:41 Josh Plotner like try to do the most like boring like a museum exhibit with white walls kind of thing that's still a choice like

27:49 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

27:50 Josh Plotner and i mean it's a thing in the art world too it's like oh you're putting like this portrait of someone on a white wall that would have been in like a wood paneled home like the portrait looks different on a like stark white wall as compared to like in a warm home full of wood and carpets you

28:04 Luke F. Walton know Yeah.

28:04 Josh Plotner it's gonna feel different and like the same thing with classic music music and like when and i i would just argue it's a bad choice like the the boring lighting the boring staging the boring like we're presenting this music that we're passionate about and we love in the most boring dry pure quote-unquote pure way possible but i'm like you just made all the bad production choices and i disagree

28:28 Luke F. Walton And I think that's part of what makes it cold, because the music is not cold.

28:32 Josh Plotner yeah yeah not not at all the music is fine

28:34 Luke F. Walton And so much of the compositions were not actually, obviously when you have an orchestra, you have to have like some rigidity because you got a lot of people on stage, you got to get them all together.

28:46 Luke F. Walton But there was a lot of improvisation. I feel like, you know, like Beethoven, that was one of his things. He'd sit down at the piano and just like, well, he'd

28:53 Josh Plotner Yeah, I

28:54 Luke F. Walton take you on a journey.

28:55 Josh Plotner mean, it was Vivaldi, right? Where women were like throwing their underwear

29:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, right. Exactly. Yep. Yep.

29:04 Josh Plotner where like i'm not

29:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:06 Josh Plotner saying that we should do specifically that but where's that vibe like

29:08 Luke F. Walton Totally. Stravinsky, like Firebird, where there's this whole provocative dance that's going with this provocative music and it is just this like big F you to the entire establishment, but it pushes it forward. And then you go and watch it and you're like, pretend that never happened. This is just part of the Western canon now. It just becomes like subsumed.

29:29 Josh Plotner tchaikovsky was shooting cannons like why

29:31 Luke F. Walton right exactly

29:32 Josh Plotner what what possible excuse is there for your classical music concert to be boring like you're just it's honestly like it's it's so disappointing and i you know and i get like i i see why it happens you know conservatory is kind of like kill that like dangerous creative spirit and they're like do it exactly this

29:48 Luke F. Walton and

29:49 Josh Plotner way

29:49 Luke F. Walton you get like government funding involved and like old rich people that want to feel important like you know i feel like it yeah it creates It's

29:55 Josh Plotner but

29:55 Luke F. Walton a kind

29:55 Josh Plotner but

29:55 Luke F. Walton of feedback loop.

29:56 Josh Plotner where is it the where's the orchestral light show like like

29:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:59 Josh Plotner like

30:00 Luke F. Walton yeah.

30:00 Josh Plotner do beethoven fans like it should be like spot spot spot spot like epic colors changing like No

30:09 Luke F. Walton i

30:09 Josh Plotner one.

30:10 Luke F. Walton want it too i want it too fun a fun way to re rethink about ourselves especially in the whole age of ai and all this stuff i'm finding more and more opportunities to be introspective and think about like okay what makes us human versus this tool that i'm using that is getting better and getting more and more powerful and it is able to learn in much the same way that you're able to learn where it can be wide and expansive and see

30:37 Luke F. Walton inferences in between different languages and stuff that the human would have a harder time doing but the it lacks the embodied that embodied wisdom that intuitive wisdom some of the things that I think the future dealing with these artificial collaborators or whatever they end up being I think it'll incentivize the people That can get out of their minds a little bit more.

30:57 Josh Plotner yeah well you know that brings to mind is i heard someone say that if you're talking about the difference between art and entertainment uh entertainment is when uh you kind of get what you want and what you ask for and art is when you get what you didn't know that you wanted and didn't didn't know that you needed maybe and honestly i see the value in both and also like the value

31:21 Luke F. Walton Me too.

31:21 Josh Plotner are

31:21 Luke F. Walton I do.

31:21 Josh Plotner doing like 60

31:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:22 Josh Plotner 40 80 20 but

31:24 Luke F. Walton Absolutely.

31:24 Josh Plotner i will say that it's much harder like with with these definitions of art and entertainment which aren't the definitions but i like these definitions much harder to get art out of ai because ai will just give you exactly what you asked for the art is this thing that you didn't know that you needed right so ai will make entertainment very easy to mass produce right just be like you

31:47 Josh Plotner give me a show where batman fights all mickey mouse and all vip fight themselves and just can make it you Yeah. know yeah it's hard to get the art and that is the thing that i think like it doesn't make because you can't prompt it to give you something that you don't know you need like and that's that's

32:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:05 Josh Plotner where like art will still have forever value um

32:08 Luke F. Walton Great.

32:09 Josh Plotner yeah

32:09 Luke F. Walton Great. And I think that there's something missing in the conversation of that. that thing is the imperfect wooden flute that thing is the unindustrialized and that's not to like make uh things that are non-western like a higher pedestal it's not like trying to do that it's not trying to make it exotic and it's therefore it's interesting like i've heard a lot of my friends do with like non-christian religions which is another rabbit hole but the idea of

32:36 Luke F. Walton Like an instrument that works with you and against you, that is not that perfect product that was machine tooled, that opening up doors for that which is imperfect in yourself, that is the kind of feedback loop that I think. We're going to need more and more of, just

32:56 Josh Plotner yeah

32:57 Luke F. Walton as people.

32:58 Josh Plotner well you know i since i've like i've kind of you know developed this perspective of like i went to school for jazz and stuff i was like i almost went to school for classical music i was playing like the ebert flute concerto like i was like doing i've like really you know classical and jazz in my background but like kind of being more open to these non-western worlds it is interesting that like we feel like this stuff has been around for forever but it

33:20 Josh Plotner but it hasn't and it's

33:21 Luke F. Walton Mm

33:24 Josh Plotner way it's like when you're like making indian flutes for instance indian indian flute music is actually not as old as you might think it is uh it got popularized by a couple guys less than 100 years ago like the indian music has been around for a lot longer but there were a couple guys who started like really seriously playing flute in ways that like popularized it and like lately like

33:46 Josh Plotner people have started putting in like a new hole that lets them do things that like violins like do certain ornaments that like violins could get that you can't really get on like a normal bonsai

33:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

33:56 Josh Plotner almost

33:57 Luke F. Walton yeah.

33:57 Josh Plotner like people start adding and like when we industrialize and standardize things so much it becomes resistant to change in a very negative way like i think a perfect example that is like oboe hasn't uh developed or changed kind of because of the way capitalism works like

34:13 Josh Plotner it's just like uh the supply and demand equation for oboe is bad not a lot of people want to play it not a lot of people learning it it's expensive and it just like attracts a certain kind of usually more like conservative musician not like politically conservative but just

34:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

34:28 Josh Plotner like someone

34:28 Luke F. Walton I understand.

34:28 Josh Plotner who wants to play classical music instead of free jazz conservative you

34:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

34:32 Josh Plotner know yeah, so

34:32 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah.

34:32 Josh Plotner the oboe hasn't developed as much like the the modern flute is actually like much more like playable like the modern oboe is falling apart constantly That's every oval player you've ever met is a repairman.

34:42 Luke F. Walton Write it for this. Write the most sadistic instrument.

34:46 Josh Plotner It's a bad, it's a badly designed instrument and it's badly designed because it's not that different than it was 300 years ago. And this like yeah change has slowed down on certain things unnecessarily because of standardization which

35:03 Luke F. Walton interesting

35:03 Josh Plotner is a bit of a shame so yeah standardization is useful but also only if you're sure that you want to stop progress a little bit because it really makes it hard to keep progressing once you set up the factory

35:15 Luke F. Walton that makes sense yeah you fix it in place there's some interesting influences i know that you've been a part of it like the the live performances is i think uh avatar um you like there's there's kind of is it right back there heck yeah awesome well

35:28 Josh Plotner Right there, yeah.

35:29 Luke F. Walton i think that i think that's a really there's a really cool moment in terms of popular media popularizing you know different instruments and different styles of music and different scales and things like that um i'd love to hear a little bit about your experience how you ended up working on some of those touring performances and just a little bit about kind of that that side of your world world.

35:49 Josh Plotner that that's actually something i'm doing right now that i'm really excited about so what happened was kind of out of the blue i've been doing like remote recording since 2016 i started i started earlier than the pandemic for sure uh and you know just like kind of building up that thing i started recording just kind of everywhere and eventually i connected to uh jeremy zuckerman who's the um composer of avatar the last airbender and

36:13 Luke F. Walton That's awesome.

36:13 Josh Plotner yeah and basically they were doing they were coming out with an album an album of

36:18 Luke F. Walton Okay.

36:18 Josh Plotner the original show's music but um the original show was like a 2000s nickelodeon show which is to say they didn't have a budget for orchestra uh so the original show has like two or three live musicians and most of them are jeremy zuckerman himself uh and then it's all just midi right um And so they're like, let's put out an album where it's not just MIDI, let's replace all these with real people.

36:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:44 Josh Plotner And I ended up being the woodwind section.

36:47 Luke F. Walton Amazing. Whole section. Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go onto the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify.

37:08 Luke F. Walton Under there it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars. If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithms and all that stuff to share it out with the world. I know that it's a lot to ask, but if you could please, please, please, just please just hit those three dots and a five star would really help us out and helps us, you know, get the get the word out and spread the love of music.

37:26 Luke F. Walton So thank you. If you're listening on YouTube, you know what to do. Like, subscribe, all that good stuff. Thank you so much. And here's the rest of the episode.

37:33 Josh Plotner flutes flutes through bassoons i didn't do any of the uh the fun soloist flutes that was a guy named uh hong wong who's amazing yeah but so i got connected with jeremy that way and um basically after like uh i recorded everything for him i was like saying so nice to work with you and by the way and like i think i basically said maybe a little less cool than this but it was basically like um hey so i like compose and arrange and i can uh

38:00 Josh Plotner the contract people and i can do anything or copies or can i be can i be your friend i think i came up about that cool um

38:08 Josh Plotner and yeah and uh basically he ended up calling me to do the uh the tour of uh they were doing like a north american tour of avatar last airbender and uh and i also contracted it too i hired the rest of the orchestra and uh yeah and i can't believe i'm so glad that he like trusted me to do that it it was great it was a really great group of people it was a really fun tour and then i got connected with the company that was putting on the tour that puts on a lot of these like live and concert

38:35 Josh Plotner That's

38:35 Luke F. Walton Sweet!

38:35 Josh Plotner like the thing that's

38:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:37 Josh Plotner kind of happening

38:37 Luke F. Walton Oh yeah.

38:38 Josh Plotner and

38:38 Luke F. Walton Totally.

38:39 Josh Plotner I'm super i don't know i'm really optimistic about it because i my most optimistic to the point of maybe even being a little bit wrong it's like i feel like this can help bring back orchestras a little bit because it's so many new orchestra gigs that wouldn't that didn't exist before like

38:55 Luke F. Walton Love

38:56 Josh Plotner outer

38:56 Luke F. Walton that.

38:56 Josh Plotner live in concert lord of the rings live in concert any any video game tv movie just live in concert barbie live in concert it's all happening now and uh and it's a lot of new gigs for orchestra people and then a lot of new people who i because i did this tour right and i was going to cities like we went to 40 out of 50 states in the u.s and i

39:18 Luke F. Walton Huge tour.

39:19 Josh Plotner think at least once a week someone came up to me and was like you know they're like a 30 40 year old person being like this is the first time i've ever been to symphony hall in the city that i've lived in my whole life it's so amazing i brought my kids there first time

39:33 Josh Plotner and it's like it's kind of you know there's probably like oh it's a bummer that you haven't been here to your own symphony hall and you're like this old but like i'm so happy that you're here and i'm so happy that this is the kind of thing that's drawing you in because actually to tie this all back to the the kind of world music thing

39:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah

39:50 Josh Plotner uh i've always found that i get into a genre of music not from the super old black and white out of tune traditional stuff recorded on like a terrible micro grainy microphone like that stuff i i check that stuff out now but the only reason that i'm into it is because i heard a super modern and clean well-produced version like

40:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:14 Josh Plotner like uh best example would be like for irish music like there's a band called fluke f-l-o-o-k and

40:21 Luke F. Walton Okay.

40:22 Josh Plotner it's

40:22 Luke F. Walton I'm listening

40:22 Josh Plotner like

40:22 Luke F. Walton to that tonight.

40:23 Josh Plotner uh epic irish but

40:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:26 Josh Plotner really like it's like fast but there's also like really interesting harmonic concepts but it's it's fun and it's it's like so satisfying that got me into irish music and then i started being like well what are there who else like what else is like fluke and then i started

40:39 Josh Plotner like pulling and expanding and like so coming from like well-produced modern into traditional as i feel like in that i keep finding like that's always what like grabs me it's like something

40:48 Luke F. Walton Yes.

40:49 Josh Plotner new pulls me into something old and i feel like you want people to listen to beethoven like you could try just giving him beethoven but give him john williams and be like hey do you like the harry potter score of course you do because you have ears like let me let me show you like his john williams influences because they're also just just as cool

41:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

41:08 Josh Plotner and there's so much good music coming out in video games and tv and film so like i feel like that's the pathway to bring people more into the music world in general and uh yeah i'm really into it but so i got connected with this company and i was like i will work for you guys and help make all this stuff reality so uh we just put up i think the naruto tour uh is

41:29 Luke F. Walton I saw that.

41:30 Josh Plotner ending

41:30 Luke F. Walton I saw

41:30 Josh Plotner soon

41:31 Luke F. Walton that.

41:31 Josh Plotner we

41:32 Luke F. Walton It's

41:32 Josh Plotner which

41:32 Luke F. Walton gonna be so cool.

41:32 Josh Plotner is coming up which the witcher

41:34 Luke F. Walton The

41:34 Josh Plotner live

41:34 Luke F. Walton witcher, cool. Wow.

41:36 Josh Plotner And then, oh, Demon Slayer is

41:39 Luke F. Walton demon

41:39 Josh Plotner happening

41:39 Luke F. Walton slayer nice

41:39 Josh Plotner right

41:40 Luke F. Walton i

41:40 Josh Plotner now.

41:40 Luke F. Walton love i think it's

41:40 Josh Plotner You

41:41 Luke F. Walton good gotta get a good Shyamalan player for the Naruto and the demon slayer stuff because they like they're wailing it's like shred guitar

41:48 Josh Plotner Let me tell you something about that. I've got a story about that. I could be wrong, but I think I might know every single Shyamalan player in the U.S. Every pro Shyamalan player in the U.S., I might know all of them. And the reason why is because I called them all for Naruto.

42:04 Josh Plotner and the problem the reason i had to call them is there was like one stretch of dates that no one kept being available and the reason no one was available is that there was a there a world shakahachi festival happening in texas shakahachi often plays with shamisen shakahachi japanese flute shamisen japanese guitar let's call it not really but sort of and yeah they were all going there to play with ensembles for the world shakahachi festival and like they all know each other it's like it's not the biggest community i like

42:31 Josh Plotner and like all the people in on the west coast all the people on the east coast i was trying to contact some people in chicago too like like all the pro and it's also it's tricky too because right like if you're a professional shamisen player at what point do you need to be able to read sheet music and

42:44 Luke F. Walton right no they have like they have their whole own notation system it's super cool but yeah different

42:50 Josh Plotner but like i needed to hire it's like it wasn't just pro shamisen players pro shamisen player who speaks english also required on our naruto tour u.s tour speaks english and country and reggae music and hopefully kind of knows how to play with a click like

43:04 Luke F. Walton oh yeah

43:04 Josh Plotner because again like a lot of traditional musicians just don't like working with click takes a little practice

43:10 Luke F. Walton exactly and also like where the shamis and kind of the no theater and the the whole like you know the where it's interactive it's it's like not it's not the kind of music that yeah is is like this gridded groove based music is far more like an emotional call and response kind of music yeah yeah

43:27 Josh Plotner yeah so i think i think i called all of them long story short like work visas were too hard to work out for this the situation so it was like it had to be a u.s person and i got really lucky that i found one guy who was primarily a guitar player who had studied chameleon with uh this amazing uh uh chameleon player who also kind of did part of the tour for me and like he he was just like a really good and i was like oh

43:51 Josh Plotner perfect like he's like he's a great show me some player but not enough of a show me some player that he was going to the world choco pachy festival so

43:58 Luke F. Walton right next

43:59 Josh Plotner it was like like oh

43:59 Luke F. Walton tier

43:59 Josh Plotner like yeah it's like oh yeah it's like they need the guitar player who picked up show me

44:04 Luke F. Walton exactly

44:04 Josh Plotner said i'm the guy who's gonna do it yeah show me since the whole it's so cool though it's

44:08 Luke F. Walton it is so cool so they were all talking about you i'm sure at the festival

44:12 Josh Plotner who knows maybe

44:12 Luke F. Walton they're like i had to turn out this gig oh funny story i had to turn out

44:16 Josh Plotner i honestly maybe and but also shami sin's crazy like if you haven't people listening to this podcast if you haven't heard shami sin it's basically it sounds like traditional metal that was developed 200 years ago like start listening to like again these like songs that people were playing like geishas were playing 200 years ago and it's like kind of epic it's like super it's like it's like metal but acoustic and twangy but they're like

44:44 Josh Plotner like doing like bendy stuff that

44:46 Luke F. Walton Totally.

44:46 Josh Plotner again like like like the stuff that's obvious to shammy and this is what's cool about like picking up music from all around the world like the stuff that's obvious to shammy sim player is like top level guitar stuff that's like you end up like finally picking up this guitar stuff once you're like all the way a professional and shammy sim players are like that's kind of lesson number three like

45:04 Luke F. Walton Totally.

45:05 Josh Plotner oh you know no like all this like bendy stuff like that's the whole thing like like the reason i got into traditional well japanese music is obviously anime i was just

45:14 Luke F. Walton totally

45:14 Josh Plotner watching anime

45:14 Luke F. Walton yes

45:15 Josh Plotner and i was like and hearing some of the japanese traditional this is cool and then you just hold all the way in but like i if you showed me like a really stiff traditional concert where everything's kind of slow and serious i would have fallen asleep right away like how would i how would that grab me unless i had the other stuff first you know

45:33 Luke F. Walton really really good point find out the people you love and then find out their influences so it's like not starting from the root of the tree start from like the cool leaves and then work your way in yeah

45:40 Josh Plotner yeah because i mean also the leaves are usually cooler than the trunk but the trunk's cool once you're interested in trees like

45:45 Luke F. Walton right right yeah you got like trees

45:46 Josh Plotner it works

45:46 Luke F. Walton yeah

45:47 Josh Plotner all the way

45:47 Luke F. Walton before you're hugging the tree yeah it's like it's a little serious so i want to ask you my last question this is the question i ask every guest the show is called love music more segment's called love music why it's a very simple question sometimes a difficult question Why do you love music, Josh?

46:04 Josh Plotner let me let me think about this for a

46:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

46:07 Josh Plotner second uh

46:07 Luke F. Walton you can take your time.

46:08 Josh Plotner why do i love music yeah

46:10 Luke F. Walton The listeners can ponder your

46:12 Josh Plotner i mean

46:13 Luke F. Walton answer.

46:13 Josh Plotner i think it's because honestly the way that it has changed me as a like i obviously can't know the person that i would have been without music

46:26 Josh Plotner but i since i mean there's so many studies that back it up too like music has made me like a calmer more intentional more intelligent person like i'm able like

46:38 Josh Plotner especially like i think one a big thing you learn music that works in life and this really i don't even think is a metaphor like uh in music if you make a mistake you can't go back and fix it right like that's it's always the intention when you're first learning it's like oh no no let me let me like it's like no no like the tempo is going like like the you have to get over making a mistake and just like keep going and see how you can fix it in time and the more you try to scramble back the worse

47:05 Josh Plotner it is and the more you draw attention to the mistake and that kind of thing works so well in your whole life and just that like being like like something is wrong and my trained learned reaction to when i make a mistake or something happens wrong is calm like and i think you only get that from

47:26 Josh Plotner practicing music or another time-based art form i guess like maybe i don't know maybe there's something like athletes or something that could have something

47:34 Luke F. Walton Dancers,

47:34 Josh Plotner like that but like

47:35 Luke F. Walton maybe dancers.

47:36 Josh Plotner dancers sure yeah but it's like when there's an emergency the way to make it better is to be calm and analyze and like pivot as fast as possible that's how you learn that playing music any music that's in tempo you kind of have to do that yeah that's like the such valuable thing for everything in life i do sincerely think that it's like improved me as a human being in in a way it sounds so cheesy uh but it really like

48:05 Josh Plotner it's cool to make music too it feels good it's like it's very satisfying it's like i really i really like that i can do something with my life that's like it's not very taxing on the environment right like a lot of times you know it's like i buy my gear and that's my gear i'm not using supplies i'm not necessarily traveling all the time when i can do like remote recordings and stuff being able to

48:26 Josh Plotner make people happy for a living being able to make you know the art that makes life worth living i'm definitely not a doctor but i uh hopefully you know can help improve people's lives it's just like it's a very satisfying thing and even if you're not doing it professionally like you know improving your own life uh like the life of people around you like yeah music it's good stuff

48:49 Luke F. Walton It is good stuff. It is good stuff. And I love all of the... of the people that you've been able to connect with like every shami sim player in the united states you know like that's a hell of a network man that's

49:00 Josh Plotner but

49:00 Luke F. Walton crazy that's

49:01 Josh Plotner honestly if you're a shomiesome player listening to this i hope i didn't call from the north dakota like get in touch like i you know i my list isn't big enough apparently

49:10 Luke F. Walton yeah no shame no shame that that's an invite to dm josh speaking of which where can people where can people get in touch where can people hire you what's what's the best way to get you

49:20 Josh Plotner yeah so let's say either my website joshplotnermusic.com or my instagram instagram.com slash joshplotner um super easy way to find me i'm pretty i'm pretty googleable i think say hi and uh yeah i'm always happy to work on stuff i wear so many hats it's ridiculous we could uh maybe maybe in the next one we'll talk about like kind of going horizontal versus vertical like as you can imagine i've gone a lot more horizontal than vertical

49:46 Josh Plotner Uh, but uh, yeah, like I'm always happy to do cool new things. So yeah,

49:53 Luke F. Walton love that. Well, hire the man and go to one of these orchestral concerts coming near you. Be it Naruto Airbender, Avatar Naruto or anything in between. Awesome. Thanks so much for chatting, Josh. Really appreciate it.