Episode 6 - Zoe Cutler
Episode 6 features Zoe Cutler, composer, creator, and performer based in Detroit, Michigan. We talk with Zoe about her journey as a musician, her experience in both the classical and jazz fields, and how she can become an entire brass quintet while playing on one instrument!
To learn more about Zoe, check out the links below!
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:01
Welcome to Diversify the Stand, the resource centered around listening, learning and promoting diverse musical voices in music, through our podcast, website, commissioning projects, and more. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:15
And I'm Ashley Killam. Join us on our journey as we speak with composers, creators, performers, historians and music educators about the topics important to them, and musics betterment.
Our next guest is possibly the coolest composer I have ever had the honor of meeting. Zoe Cutler is a multimedia composer based in Detroit, Michigan. Her work has been described as 'itchy and scratchy meets James Bond.' And "Can you write something easier for once?" Her primary instrument is the trombone, but during the pandemic, she prefers to be a whole brass quintet on YouTube. She publishes her compositions on her Zoe Sound's Publishing website. And they are all available through her website, which is listed in the description of the podcast. So thank you for joining us, Zoey, and we are so excited to talk to you today.
Zoe Cutler 1:13
Thank you for having me.
Carrie Blosser 1:14
So we wanted to just start off and ask how you got into composing and arranging?
Zoe Cutler 1:19
Yeah, so I started playing the trombone and fifth grade, like a lot of people. And I, at the, at the same time, was also playing the drums, which was my first instrument. And I was like, these are cool instruments, but neither of them get the melody. And that really sucked. So I actually quit the drums, started guitar for a little bit, that did not last for very long, that didn't really, didn't really pan out. But I was like, here I am playing the trombone. And in fifth grade, it's fine. You play Mary Had a Little Lamb. And you know, you're like lead, lead trombone on Mary had a Little Lamb, while everyone else, I guess. And then I was like, how, how can I like make more interesting music?
My dad who was an engineer, plays jazz piano. And he could just, you know, come up with beautiful things. And I think jazz pianists are the most amazing musicians and they piss me off because you can ask them to play an intro on something and they'll just play some like music, music, music, you know, and it's amazing. It's like 20-part harmony, however many fingers they have, you know, and it's, I was really jealous of that. And just people in general who, you know, who played piano and guitar and those types of instruments where you can you can play a lot of stuff and even string instruments, you can play a couple notes. And so I was like, Okay, how can I do this? And I started seeing, you know, some people on YouTube doing this kind of like acapella style videos, then now everyone is doing because it's a pandemic, but but you know, back in back in, whenever this was the the aughts, this was or No, probably not the aughts, the teens, this was this was this is pretty novel, you know, this was like, oh, wow, somebody is really doing something cool that recording themselves four times. So I had iMovie, on my computer, shout out to iMovie. And back in the day, iMovie was not so hot, but it was like I would record one part. And like, then I would have to like add the next part to it as a screen within screen and then export it. And it was it was great. I mean, it was functional. And I started like doing these little arrangements. So I would find like sheet music for like the Mario theme, or for like Internet meme songs, like, you know, like shout out to like, Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat, and all that sort of stuff. And I would just record myself in four parts playing these. And luckily, I recently have deleted all these videos from YouTube, because it was really impressive for a ninth grader to be recording in four parts on recording. But I think that some people don't understand how years work, and they probably would think that, that this is me currently. And this is my artistic portfolio. So yes, I've removed those watching. I've unlisted them. So if you're really lucky, you know, you can reach out to me and ask to see my my Tetris, my Tetris theme song videos from ages ago.
But anyway, yeah, so I was just like, I was like, I just really want to play multiple notes at a time. And this is how I could figure out how to do it was like, record myself a bunch of times and do it. And so I've been doing this for so long. Now. In my bio, you mentioned that I'm doing like brass quintet sort of things. And so it's just something that I like figured out, like, oh, wow, I can play, I can sound like I'm playing a whole piece, even if at that time, it was like, a really meme-y internet video game song, but but it was still like, Oh my gosh, I'm making real music. I'm playing chords, harmonies, which was just like such a novel thing for a trombone player. Around the same time, I started doing a bunch of multiphonics because, same deal. I was like, can I, can I manage to play more of a piece and just one at a time? And yeah, I feel like that's one of my favorite like trombone things to do.
Ashley Killam 4:48
We actually heard these secret multi-tracking tapes, and they are awesome. And we were wondering, with being a student that was in both the jazz and the classical fields kind of just what was your experience like with that, and how that was being in both areas. Since that isn't usually the case.
Zoe Cutler 5:09
It was really fun and a really great experience. I almost got discouraged out of it, because in high school, this I was in this community High School in Ann Arbor has a jazz program. And it's a jazz combo program. And it has a lot of really talented alumni. And a bass player came in and said, I'm double majoring in jazz and classical music. And both of my professors want me to practice four hours a day for their music. And they always tell me that I'm practicing more of the other music and I'm too much in that world instead of in this world. And I was like, that sounds horrible. And I was already feeling you know, like, even in the high school space, I was feeling like, some of the misogyny that's present in jazz spaces, and I was just not enthused about it. And so I was like, Okay, I will just apply for classical programs, I'll make it easy on myself. And I got to Oberlin for my undergrad and within like, the first few days, I went and like auditioned just to play in the jazz combos. I was like, Okay, I'm not gonna major in this was playing the jazz combos, and the professors were like, why aren't you in the jazz program? Like, you should really just, you should really get into this. And I was like, okay, and so I would show up to some events. And they'd be like, Here, let me introduce you to the department head. Let me introduce you to this person. And so great, really, really great jazz faculty, at Oberlin. I appreciate them all. And yeah, they just were kind of like, you should really do this. And I was like, okay, so I started a semester behind. And I was kicking myself because I was like, man, they could have given me more money, maybe if I auditioned for, for jazz programs. Which yeah, pro tip, if you're a, you know, high school student, and you're thinking about auditioning for jazz programs, definitely do. Because every jazz program is strapped for students, and really trying to bring people in, and they will give you big scholarships. So my mistake.
Yes, I showed up for that audition, I played, and then I liked it a sort of informal audition. I got into the program, and it was great. I do think that I wish, I always wished I was more in the jazz program's community. The jazz department just had like a great community of students. Every Friday, there was a jazz forum where combos would play. And people would give comments, it was really interesting. I mean, people would clap I was in this little like, sort of coffee shop space at the college owned and, but then people would raise their hands. And they would say, like, I like this, I didn't like this. It was a constructive space for people to play their music and, and get feedback and everything. But because I had that first semester where I was in the classical program, and I was surrounding myself with, with those students, I always felt like my friends in my home was kind of, was kind of in the classical department. So I do think it is hard to maintain place in the community. And I felt that I had a lot of fun, but I definitely got the most recognition for those in between sort of spots. Like my sophomore year, some of my friends started a Brazilian choro band, and they were like, Zoe, you should play in this. This is totally your type of skills, you have to read this complicated music, you have to improvise, you have to do all these different things. And I was like, great, right? So something that's like between jazz and classical, and I ended up starting, like, a different iteration of that choro band a couple years later, because it was so much fun. Choro music is great. Definitely. So yeah, so so it has to do this. And I think that part of the reason I was asked is because as between these worlds, right? So it's like, they're like, Oh, you can do both of these things. But then when it came down to like, you know, I needed some number of jazz ensembles to graduate and I need some number of like brass quintets to graduate, those were a little harder to form because I always felt like I was kind of stuck between the worlds and there's always, there is always a little bit of a feeling where people are kind of like, yeah, well, Zoe kind of really does that other stuff, right? Regardless of which side they're on, you know, which is great. I'm glad that they recognize me for that. But, but there's always going to be a little bit of being stuck in like, the world where somebody's like, Oh, yeah, I mean, she knows how to play classical music, but she really knows how to play jazz. And then the jazz majors are like, Oh, she you know, she knows how to play jazz, but she really knows how to play classical.
Carrie Blosser 9:03
Speaking of Zoe's playing. Zoey has written a collection of Personality tests for brass quintet. We're going to listen to Doody Daddy, the first movement, all performed by her!
Back to more questions with Zoe! I was gonna say what was your, like during this time? Like while you're majoring both jazz and classical? Are you doing arranging and composition then as well?
Zoe Cutler 11:51
Yeah. So so the arranging, of course started when I was like in eighth grade or something. But I slowly, slowly built up the confidence to be able to compose from scratch, I always felt that I was like, oh, I could take some, somebody else's music and take the melodies from it and write some counter melodies and random accompaniment. I was like, that is all easy. Like, I can totally do all of that. But then I was like, starting from scratch, like how the heck do people do that, you know? So it took me a long time to be able to come up with the, the process of being able to sort of find a really small idea, or maybe borrow a really small idea, and then do like, some sort of computational process on it, you know, in my brain to like, expand it out into all these different things. Because I found that you can take this one little tiny idea and like really run with it. And I was just really having trouble imagining like, oh, my gosh, if you're writing a whole piece, you have to come up with like 10 minutes of melody, you know. And that was that was really daunting to me. So I slowly, slowly moved into it. And on my junior recital, I had like, one piece that I had written for jazz ensemble and strings. I was pretty proud of it. I was like, this is pretty great. And then on my senior recital, I had like, it was like 70% of the pieces l had written, right. So it was just like, there was some serious growth where I was like, I really can do this.
Carrie Blosser 13:11
A little bit more with your composition and arranging with COVID. And with ever being stuck at home, I've seen some of your new projects that you've been doing and some pieces that you've been working on. So you recording yourself as a brass quintet, which I listened to the recordings and if I didn't know what you did, I would think that was a trumpet. So I'd love for you to talk about that recording and to doing those quintets. And then also kind of like, if other people are like, this is super cool. And I want to learn how to do this, what would you kind of recommend for them to try some some new things?
Zoe Cutler 13:46
Yeah, so of course, everything changed really rapidly in like the first couple weeks of like, Coronavirus in the US, right? So I was, I had just written this new piece called Personality Test, which I have now recorded a couple movements of, pretending to be a brass quintet. And I was gonna it play with my brass quintet, Salmon-tet, and we were so excited. And we were like, we're gonna play this great new piece. And, like, we got some grant money to like, pay for me writing it. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm such a real composer. Here I am, you know, getting paid to write a piece with grant money, you know, which is like, Yeah, when does that happen? I know.
And, anyway, so then, of course, it's like, okay, schools are closing down. And of course, at that time, we were like, what does that mean? You just shouldn't be in large crowds. And so we were like, We can get together, we can record this piece. And then like, you know, a couple days later, we're like, nobody should be getting together ever. And then we were like, crap, like, what am I going to do? And so I was supposed to perform a recital. I'm finishing up my masters at the University of Michigan, in like May of 2020. And I'm like, What the heck do I do? Do I play, you know, etudes in my basement to no one and I was like, that's horrible. So I was like, What if I recorded all of this music that I have that I don't have reference recordings of because my brass quintet now we can't record like Personality Test. And I was like this is I just wrote like a 13-minute piece or 12-minute piece. And I was like, Oh my gosh, when do I do that? Like, usually I write two minute pieces. And here's the whole 12-minute one, like, this is great. We I need to record this. And I was like, What if I just like recorded it in my house?
And so I started recording some things. And I started recording, like, some pieces for trombone choir that I had written. And those went really well. And it was, you know, pretty easy to, to like, I have like a simple setup with like one microphone and a little interface. And I could record all six parts of it and add reverb and all sorts of stuff. And I was like, great, this is great. But then I was like trying to record these brass quintet. And so I was trying to figure out, how can I make the trombone sound like other brass instruments. And if you think about it, the trombone already kind of sounds like other brass instruments, like if you listen to like Ride of the Valkyries, or something. Anyway, if you're listening to, and you hear the way the melodies passed, around the brass section, it's so seamless and you can't even tell who's playing. They're all just playing loud. And it's just like brass. And when it starts becoming trumpet instead of trombone, you have no idea. I mean, it's just like, it's just all this sort of, like, you know, sawtooth wave vibrate-y sound, and I was like, okay, so there has to be a way to edit, to edit it with with effects so that I can make the trombone sound like other instruments. And I was first experimenting just with kind of like some simple octave changed things where they, you know, I use logic, and they have like algorithms where you can just say, I want it up an octave, and it'll play it at the same speed you're playing. And we'll use some algorithms to make it sound like up an octave. Those sounded impressively like trombone playing really high notes, which I thought was really cool, because my high range is horrible. So I was like, Oh my gosh, if I play this note, and then I like make logic kick it up an octave, it literally sounds like a trombone playing that note that I can't play and I was like, that's great on its own. And then you can adjust sort of like the formant, which is the vowel basically. So I was adjusting the vowel and making the sound more trumpety. And I got to a place where like, it was kind of like somewhat trumpety, and I was like, okay, you know, this is not, this is not perfect, but it'll at least be good enough for me to have a reference recording.
And I'm going through Personality Test and the first movement, which you can listen to on my website, and YouTube has a really, really hard technical trumpet part. And I'm going through it and I'm trying to play it at speed, you know, at full speed. And a lot of it I'm getting together. But the problem is, if you don't play it perfectly, well, then the algorithm doesn't know what note you're playing. And trombone, you can kind of get by like just tonguing really fast and moving the slide around. And to most people, it sounds kind of like you're you're playing the right notes, but you're not really and the algorithm knows you're not playing the right notes. So it would just be kind of airball lying, right, just just just playing a bunch of random crap for a while. When I was like, okay, but but but I got a lot of licks down, you know, and I'm not doing a video. So I'm just like, literally recording, like, two, you know, two quarter notes at a time, or like, eight 16th notes at a time, which is the beautiful thing about digital, right? Like, like all the recordings I do from home, I can record them in like tiny, tiny, little snippets and make it perfect. So finally, I was like, Okay, what if I slowed down what I'm playing, and I played it at half speed. And then I did a true speed change. like as if you have an LP, and you make it play twice as fast, it changes both the tempo and the pitch.
And I tried that and suddenly, the trumpet sound was like, huge and fat and like, way better than, way cleaner, because I play it a half speed. And I was like, this is it! So immediately, I was like, Oh, my gosh, you can make the trombone sound like a trumpet, just by playing the thing at half speed makes it super easier, except for the breathing part. And then just compress it to two times. And then suddenly, it's like, perfect trumpet. So I'm sure that nobody's going to be able to play that those lines cleaner than me playing them at half speed with the algorithm because, yeah, it sounds, it sounds great. But also, yeah, so people want to do this at home, just experimenting with like, what other instruments does your instrument sound like. So, so, in addition to the trumpet to make a horn sound, I boosted like certain middle frequencies, and lowered some sort of like, middle, well, I think I boosted mid-lows, lowered mids, and then boosted mid-highs. And something about that curve makes the trombone sound more like a horn. And then I use the like the formant adjuster which is like the vowel content to make it like a darker sort of vowel. And that makes it sound more French Horn-like because they have their hand at the bell rather than just playing with my hand on the bell the whole time. The algorithm can do that for you and I think that's pretty convincing, too. And the tuba parts some of actually the tuba parts I did play on this really crappy tuba I have that is tiny. It's like euphonium size but it's an E-flat tuba probably from some like twinkie British Brass Band. I also had to make that tuba sound a lot better. So I did have to change the formant to be a little darker and I boosted all the low frequencies so that it sounds more like a C tuba but but also some of the tuba parts I just played on trombone and use the octave adjuster and use like different different ways. So there's a lot of things you can do.
My main advice for just recording in general outside of the brass quintet spectrum is that you cannot take out reverb but you can always add reverb. So I've had the most success with getting a okay microphone, you know, like $100 microphone or something and putting it very close to the trombone Bell and adjusting the gain so that it doesn't clip playing everything really dry right there. Because even if your room is fairly live, if you record really close to that microphone, you're mostly going to be picking up sound from the microphone and not from the room. And then adding reverb and adding a couple different layers of reverb and adding compression and all that stuff. And then you can add just add a few effects and it's going to sound great. I also over the pandemic help like my, my trombone choir from the University of Michigan record some pieces and that was much more challenging because everybody had recorded on their phones in their rooms and in order to get video their phones are 10 feet from them and it sounds like a bedroom and you can't undo the sound of a bedroom. So if you're recording from 10 feet away, there's not much you can do you can kind of try to EQ out some really horrible frequencies and you can like try to add just a little bit of more tasteful reverb but but it's it's never not going to sound like you're you're playing in a bedroom. So closets are great if you really want to be dedicated, all those clothes absorb the sound you know, that's like the old NPR trick. But yeah.
Carrie Blosser 21:44
Yeah, since before the pandemic, people just go into their closets. And and I think people most people don't know this. But like YouTubers, typically when they're recording, their voiceovers will just go in their closet.
Zoe Cutler 21:55
Yeah!
Carrie Blosser 21:56
Anytime people do voiceovers, I've seen more people like say, like, I go and I go into my closet. And I get really close to my microphone. And like, yeah, this goes on for a long time. But I think people weren't like giving away the secrets just yet.
Zoe Cutler 22:10
Totally.
Carrie Blosser 22:10
But yeah.
Zoe Cutler 22:11
Now the secrets are free. I do feel like this is this has really opened some doors for me in terms of recording as a composer because I found that by playing one instrument out of the brass quintet, one and a half, maybe, if you count tuba, I can record a really clean version of my piece quite easily. Because if I don't want there to be video, I can record it in like one measure segments, make it perfect, and I go and I tune everything. You know, there's there's, there's, there's algorithms that will tune in automatically. And Logic has this amazing built in feature called flex tuning or flex tune or something like that, that you can like go in and you can like adjust how wide the vibrato is. And you can like literally just mess with the whole thing. And it sounds perfect. And it's just like so amazing. Because it doesn't totally just reduce it to a like a flat note, you know, it'll like have those minute things you, those like minute waverings you had on the note but you can tone them down so it's a little more in tune, you can put it on the right spot. And yeah, that helps so much. I just think it's like it's a game changer.
I don't have to like get an ensemble together, pay people, or buy them beer and hope that they play the notes perfectly in one take. And it's hard, you know, and I of course I'm not trying to write such hard music that people like literally can't play it unless they're robots like me, but it's nice to be able to make a reference recording that's really clean. I asked my professor I was like, is there, is there something is there too clean? Like it? Is it? Is it possible for it to be too fake? And he was like No, I mean, it's a reference recording. Like if you can make it clean, like do it. It's not a live performance. So if it's not a live performance, you know, tune the heck out of it like, what do you have to lose?
Carrie Blosser 24:02
I think competition judges are gonna have such a hard time from here on out.
Zoe Cutler 24:06
I do think every time you make an edit it does leave some audio artifacts but it would take a pretty professional ear to notice that and I don't mean professional musician I mean like professional audio engineer, so unless they have those people on the panel like who knows, but I already think that like that sort of recorded send to the tape and wait for the man to tell you whether you got the gig is just kind of like not the greatest system in the first place because you know, you're gonna have some people who are using the most expensive hall ever and some people have to be at an institution that has the best hall ever and some people who have unlimited time in that hall and some people who only got to use that hall for a second and somebody who like all they got was their bedroom and how, you know, like how's that fair? How's that going to help people like have a chance when you when you like, cause I think even beyond even beyond like blatant things like tuning and combining multiple, multiple takes together there are totally people submitting to competitions who have had their tapes subtly mixed in EQ'd and compressed, you know and like it's. I mean, when you're going to compare that to somebody who just like hit record on their, like little zoom audio device. I think there should be like, implicit bias training for, for recording quality in addition to a lot of other things in the music field.
And I don't really think that's happening. I think that when hirings happening at the orchestral level, it's just, you know, the people who they are deemed to are the right people to interview the job candidates, interview the job candidates, and they're given no, like guidance on what you should be thinking about. And it's like, there's so many resources now, you know, like, there's, there's so many organizations you can go to that are going to have documents and ideas about how to like fairly interview candidates that it's applicable to music and people are still just like, yep, we're just pick the white dude, cause the we didn't think about it at all. And also the white dude who recorded in Carnegie Hall for their solo and ensemble audition tape, you know,
Carrie Blosser 26:03
Yeah, I think there's gonna be some definite ethics and equity conversations going forward related to home recording and access and auditions in general. Okay Zoe, one more question for you.
Ashley Killam 26:16
And the question we ask everyone, what's on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying your stand?
Zoe Cutler 26:24
So like every week, mostly what's on my music stand, is my own music because I still have pieces that I need to record in my basement. And second to that is nothing because it's a pandemic, and it's hard to play the trombone all the time. But I get my most enjoyment actually, when I go over to my my parents house and play jazz with my dad. Yeah, I recently discovered that I that I can sing, which was a fun realization. So I've been doing a little, a little singing of jazz standards with my dad, too. And you can find me singing a song I wrote called Real Song dot JPG on my YouTube and it's, go check it out and make a, make a, make a fool of me. Yeah, as for diversifying my stand, I think that, again, music is not is not happening as much as I wish it would. And I'm not in school and ensembles right now.
But I totally have been doing some things outside of music that I think are good, like giving up on my Instagram follower count, which I think is like something that we should all be doing. And hopefully you did this in like June. But if you haven't done it, how many followers you have, versus how many people follow you like right now, if you're a white person, you need to go follow black thinkers, black radical thinkers and black thinkers in your field, like black musicians, for example, if you're a musician, listening to this podcast, which you probably are, and yeah, just like, there's no reason to be holding on to the artificial standards, social media now is information. And you should be, you should be following people who are going to give you good insight about the world, not just to post the best pictures and who get most people to your account so that you look really good. And I've also been, you know, donating to organizations and looking up local organizations, looking up national organizations that support people in general, and also supporting individual people, especially individual black people, there's so many Instagram accounts, and I'm sure it counts on other platforms, where people are just posting their cash app saying they need money for this and this and it's just like, it is so easy right now, to cash out people, to Venmo people and just to like, help somebody out.
And if you're a white person, you probably, you know, 9 times out of 10 are going to have some serious intergenerational wealth and that hundred bucks is not going to mean as much to you as it is to a black queer person. So I think that that's that's definitely some ways we can we can diversify our stands in a larger way than just music and also start your own cool project. Like, you know, like Diversify the Stand or whatever else it is, you know, I mean, my current, my current thought is I kind of want to plant like a heirloom fruit orchard and grow some, some weird pears and you know, live off the land or something.
Carrie Blosser 29:11
Thank you so much for joining us, Zoey. It's so great to spend some time with you.
Zoe Cutler 29:15
Thank you for having me. This has been really fun.
Ashley Killam 29:18
To learn more about Zoey and hear her pieces, check out the link in the podcast description for her website!
Thank you so much for listening to Diversify the Stand. I am Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 29:37
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/diversify_the_stand. Also, the link is in our podcast description.
Ashley Killam 29:53
And a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet Fanfare for Changes, and the ending music is Whitney's Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composer's websites are also listed in the description.
Carrie Blosser 30:11
Until next time, what's on your stand?