We recently connected with Ryan Buchanan and have shared our conversation below.
Ryan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
Earning a full-time living while pursuing a career as a professional musician in Los Angeles is a constant challenge. With everything being so expensive in Los Angeles, it can definitely feel very stressful at times when trying to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. I believe that the only way for young musicians to survive in this city with a stable income is to make sure you have multiple sources of income at all times.
In my personal experience there have always been months where the work you get as a musician comes in high volumes. However, the same can be said about the months where there are less gigs that come your way. This is why I feel that it is in the best interest of all performers to never shy away from teaching opportunities. One of the big advantages of developing your own studio of students is that you get to pick the days and hours when you teach on a weekly basis. This makes it so that it is easier to say yes to last minute calls for gigs when they come up. In recent years, I used to have teaching jobs in addition to my private students as well as part time jobs to keep me on my feet financially.
The hardest part about keeping multiple jobs at once is not only the time commitment that they all require, but the challenges that come with staying organized with your schedule and time management. Currently I have three teaching jobs in addition to my private student trumpet studio that help keep me financially steady when there are months that tend to be more dry with performance work. Without the calendar and reminders apps on my phone, it would feel impossible to try and manage everything all at once while being a full time student. Fortunately, we live in a time where writing everything down and staying more organized is much easier because of technology.
This is definitely something that many young aspiring musicians don’t take into consideration before going into music school. I believe that most of us focused on practicing and having fun in high school knowing that we would leave it to our future selves to figure out all of the adulting aspects to life as a musician. Most of us never realized at a young age how crucial it is to be able to teach and have great time management skills in order to make it as a professional musician in this world. This might be one of the leading factors as to why so many aspiring performers give up on their dreams and pursue careers in other fields.
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 first began playing the trumpet in 4th grade at the age of nine with the after school band program at my elementary school. This started out as nothing more than me playing music from some of my favorite movies with friends after school. Little did I know that this would someday become part of my everyday life little over a decade later. I found my passion for music in junior high school after placing 1st chair in the William S. Hart District Honor Band in 7th and 8th grade. I give a lot of credit to my band director Jeff Stephan during those years for bringing the best of my potential out of me and showing me that this could be a viable career option going forward. In high school I made various other honor band ensembles and collected musical accolades all the way up until my senior year. Without the guidance of my first mentor, Dontae Winslow, these accomplishments would have never been possible.
At this point, the future was clear to me. I was going to do anything it took to accomplish my goals and dreams that I had set out for myself. I auditioned into California State University, Northridge’s prestigious music program as a jazz studies major. I got to study under my trumpet hero Wayne Bergeron for 4 years and gained a plethora of knowledge about my trumpet playing. After graduating from CSUN, I decided to go back for another 2 years and get my Masters degree in trumpet performance. I am currently studying under Dr. Erick Jovel and will graduate this upcoming spring semester.
Throughout my time at CSUN, I have made countless connections and have gotten to experience so many different playing opportunities through the people I have met at this university. I am so grateful for the many traveling experiences that I got to partake in with the CSUN ensembles. I was fortunate enough to travel to Monterey, CA, New York City, Seattle, New Orleans, Boulder, CO, and even Hawaii with the Jazz A Band and Wind Ensemble.
My playing experiences outside of school, continue to grow as the years go on. Some of my favorite performing opportunities come from working alongside the band Phat Cat Swinger. I have been a member of the band for almost 2 years now and enjoy every chance I get to play with them at Disneyland’s California Adventure Park. I am also happy to work with the Rocky Mountain Jazz Collective in Billings, Montana. These playing experiences always bring back a wave of nostalgia for me because my elementary school band director, Scott Jeppesen, is the leader of this jazz big band. It’s always a fun time to work with him and his wife Roxanne who is also a former teacher of mine each time I go up and visit.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
When it comes my career goals and dreams as a musician, I feel that it is critical that I write all of my short and long term goals down. I have found that when I write something down that I am much more likely to accomplish what it is I am going after in life. This ties back to even my daily tasks. I have everything that I need to do written down on my phone in the reminders app so that I never forget what I need to get done. I have heard from countless successful people, both in my field and outside of my field that writing your goals down is one of the best things you can do to attain them.
For this upcoming year I have set aside a few personal goals already. First and foremost, my short term musical goals that I would like to achieve this year would be to audition into the Disneyland Band and the Disneyland Toy Soldier Band. It was always a dream of mine to play professionally at the Disneyland Park and I am very grateful that Phat Cat Swinger has been able to provide me with such an amazing opportunity over these past two years. Now, I have my eyes set on working at the park with multiple other groups for the foreseeable future.
I am happy to say that, I have achieved one of my major goals already for this year. As I get closer and closer to my Masters graduation day at CSUN, I had been planning on applying to community colleges to work as adjunct faculty within their music departments as a trumpet instructor. I was fortunate enough to receive an email from College of the Canyons offering me a position to work with their trumpet studio starting this upcoming spring semester. I am very excited to see where this new journey of teaching takes me.
As for some of my longterm career goals within the music world, I have dreams of becoming a working studio musicians in the city of Los Angeles. I would love to follow in the footsteps of my teachers and work on major motion picture films and play for countless soundtracks, all while working alongside some of the best musicians in the world. I know that it will take lots of hard work to one day get there, but I am determined to make it happen. I would also love to tour with major artists and travel the world playing music. This is something that has always been a dream of mine. Having these goals set out for myself is what keeps me motivated to keep playing the trumpet. I have seen from my teachers where playing this horn can take you. It is simply up to me to pave my path into the music world and find out where my journey will take me.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Working as a musician has brought me so much joy getting the opportunity to do what I love each and every day. It is a true privilege to get to make music in this world. I feel very fortunate that I will be able to make a living surrounded by music, whether that comes in the form of teaching or playing. Nothing beats it. I believe that doing what you love is the easiest way to maintain happiness. I think that being an musician comes with its ups and downs, but at the end of the day you will never have to settle with being unhappy. I never wanted to work a normal 9-5 desk job in an office building doing mindless work. I’ve always felt like i belonged on stage performing and making others happy. There is such a rewarding experience that comes after you finish a show and seeing the reaction on the audiences faces. It is an inexplicable feeling that all musicians subconsciously relate to with one another. I think that this is the reason that most of us never put our instruments down. If there was never an audience to play for, most of us would feel that our musical ability had little to no meaning. The same can be said with teaching. When I am able to successfully get an idea across to a student and I watch them improve, it makes me feel very accomplished and proud. I really believe that I have the best job in the world and I cannot wait to see what lies ahead.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hornsnhalos11.wixsite.com/ryan-buchanan-music
- Instagram: @hornsnhalos11
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005693266316
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRuX8zUm9cyuAaTTYaHWBNQ
- Other: Private Lesson Rate: $60 per hour
Image Credits
Sarah H. Photography, Marco Palos. Jennifer Buchanan