We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andrew Esquer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Andrew thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
A lot of what I do, what I’ve learned, has just been life experience—trying things out, and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I went to school for music education originally, then pivoted to a focus in composition. All of those studies complement each other really well, but there’s still only so far you can get. I originally started out recording music in GarageBand way back in 2006, and a couple years later, I was able to get started in Logic Pro. The great thing about technology these days is that there are so many opportunities to learn, to create, and to share your creations. Really, anyone can do that today, and I think that spirit of self-driven exploration is the most important weapon in one’s arsenal. Finding a creative community is also really helpful., especially because I think that helps stave off what I feel are the worst obstacles: self-doubt and a premature editorial mindset. I see a lot of people sharing work online for feedback, and sometimes they may have a lot to learn still, but they’re putting their work out there, they’re taking up their space as an artist, and they’re getting feedback to grow and develop. If you don’t do that, if you feel like you’re never ready to release your work into the world and become open to opinions, you really limit yourself and the power your artistic voice can have. That’s definitely something I’d go back and change if I could.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a composer who specializes in music for stage and screen. Over the years, I’ve been a music educator, music director (primarily for musical theatre), and composer, but I’ve also done work as an arranger, orchestrator, producer, songwriter, performer, conductor, synth programmer, and music engraver (the folks whom prepare the sheet music for the performers to use). I’ve always been interested in creating music—at age eight, I was trying to transcribe music from the Mario video games, and wrote my first original song at age nine—and I was always really interested in the music associated with the media I consumed. Listening to the radio was great, but I was always more drawn to the soundtracks to the movies and shows I watched and the games I played.
Through a lot of different events that would be too much to talk about here, I came to realize that what I loved about the types of music that inspired me was that it all told stories in one way or another. Ultimately, I don’t think of myself as a composer, but as a storyteller whose chosen medium to tell (or help tell) stories is music. Whenever I’m working on a project where my contribution has a direct impact on the story or influences the story, it’s a very story-focused approach I bring to the table. This may sound like a really “duh” thing to say, but in fact, it can be hard for film composer types to do effectively—I’m talking all the way down into the mechanics of what’s being written. Staying out of the way of dialogue, having the music react to facial expressions or other nuanced actions, asking, “is this the right time to revisit that melody?”, finding the right perspective for the music to address to emphasize or undercut what’s being seen—these are the bread and butter considerations film composers have to account for, but doing it while still crafting music that’s enjoyable when divorced from the picture is something I’ve worked really hard at getting good and fast at executing. Beyond that, I don’t know what else to say. In a lot of ways, artists are reflections of their own influences, so I’ll leave it to other people to decide who my style “sounds like.”
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I think a lot of folks may not recognize how much collaboration really goes into a lot of performing arts. I don’t want to diminish the work that solo artists do—that’s every bit as challenging, every bit as culturally informed, and every bit as emotionally vulnerable as ‘ensemble’ artists’ work—but it can be significantly different. The first layer, you need to be able to talk shop with your collaborators. For example, to write for dance performance, I really ought to know some basics about dance. For film, I ought to know some things about storytelling, writing, direction, acting, editing, you name it. Every decision will reflect in some fashion or another on the work of others, and it can aid or inhibit their jobs in service of the final product. Which brings me to the next layer: you really have to be a good team player. Again, that emotional vulnerability needs to be there to accept feedback, to come together to find the middle ground as much as possible where everyone is happy with the final result and feels like, “yes, this is the best this can be.” This isn’t exclusive to the performing arts, of course, but it is an area in particular, I feel, where if you can’t do this, you aren’t long for that career.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Right now, I really just want to find a part in telling stories that stimulate somehow. If they move me, thrill me, make me think, or are passionate about something that I’m passionate about, I trust that they’ll find an audience that will be similarly affected, and I want to help contribute to that. There’s plenty of existentialism that runs through me, so there are times where I think about bigger, loftier concepts like what it means to leave a legacy, but I feel like it’s the little moments that make life worth it all, so if I can affect people the same way some of my favorite media has affected me, I’ll feel like a success. It’ll be a bonus if people are able to connect together multiple experiences like that and recognize my name as a throughline. But, you know, one step at a time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://andrewesquer.com
- Instagram: @TVsAndrewEsquer
- Facebook: facebook.com/andrewesquermusic
- Twitter: @lookatthisguy