We were lucky to catch up with Greg LeGette recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Greg thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

Am I happy as an artist? I wouldn’t say happy is the right word. Any job as a creative is going to be a difficult road. We don’t do it because it’s easy, we do it because it gives us fulfillment. For me that’s more important than just being happy. For me, I can feel sad or angry or any other emotion and still have a sense of fulfillment.

What would it be like to have a regular job? I think about that a lot lately. I wonder if it would be easier to just go and collect a paycheck. And I’ve tried other paths in my past and one thing you hear a lot of as an artist of any kind is “you need to have a real job so you can make money”. In my 20s I listened to that advice, and worked a few different jobs from aerospace to telecommunications. I even worked on motorcycles for a bit, but I was always willing to drop everything if a music gig came up. So I think that having a “normal job” was always out of the question. Most artists would probably say the same thing and have the same struggle. It’s not an easy path, but I can’t see myself doing anything else and in a way, it’s what I think I’m meant to do.

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, musician, vocalist and producer. For the beginning of my career, I performed as a trombone player in the US Navy Band for 8 years. During that period, I toured and performed in over 14 countries in genres from classical to jazz and pop. I loved everything about performing on stage and really got the opportunity to gain perspective and experience parts of the world that I never would have had the opportunity to see without military music. After military music, I had the privilege of working at a world renowned recording studio in Seattle Washington. I really got to know the ins and outs of the recording process and gained a different perspective into the music industry and also really rekindled my love for writing.

As a child, I fell in love with film music. I was a Batman fanatic and remember watching Tim Burton’s version of Batman and thinking to myself how amazing Danny Elfman’s score was. Jurassic Park was released a few years later, and all I could think was how amazing it would have been to just sit in the room and hear this music come to life. I didn’t realize until rather recently how pivotal these films were to my life and my journey as a musician. It planted a seed that has been slowly growing and developing ever since.

Today, I’ve taken all of my experiences from playing around the world, performing and life in the studio and combined them into a new course for myself and the music that I write. I always loved the orchestra, especially in film. I love experimentation and the style that comes from a great film score, especially when it comes to using traditional orchestral instrumentation alongside more current tools and recording methods as well as modern distribution and marketing methods.

While I’ve put film music on the back burner, I still have that same approach when writing a piece of music. I absolutely love combining different instruments in new ways and coming up with sounds that are totally original. And while I love classical music, I think we need to remember that music, especially in the classical sense, needs to be given room to evolve and move with our society and culture. So I do everything I can to include instrumentation that still seems to only be utilized for classical compositions. I focus on using the same recording and distribution methods used by current artists and I really try to allow my music to grow and move with all other forms of art.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I always thought it was kinda strange that when we talk about composers, we have to specify whether or not they are a “living composer”. Rock from the 90s is now considered classical, but when it comes to orchestras, string quartets etc etc, we’re stuck over a hundred years in the past. That’s not to say the music written then isn’t relevant, in fact it’s absolutely necessary, but there’s not alot of room out there for new ideas and ways of performing. That being said, one of my goals is to normalize experimentation with traditional ensembles and writing new material that will create more opportunities for musicians. I love the idea of creating projects that really utilize all of the tools we have at our disposal, while still including ensembles like orchestras, string quartets and all those instruments that are seen only as “Classical” instruments. It’s pretty crazy to see how much resistance there is to contemporary and modern composers in orchestra halls and in the “classical” landscape, but I really hope to start changing that perception.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being an artist is a tough cookie. Your work is completely subjective and up to another’s interpretation. You have to just hope that there are others that are as moved by your art as you are. I tend to just focus on myself and not really worry about what happens after I release a project. Honestly, after all is said and done, I have a really hard time listening to previous projects. There’s so much time spent focusing on how to make things look and sound as good as possible that I get pretty burned out by the time all is said and done. But there’s always a point in the process when I sit back and think, damn, I can believe I just made that. And I think that’s the peak for me and that’s the feeling that I’m constantly trying to recreate, and for me, it’s like I’m on a different planet for just a few minutes. Time slows down and you forget where you are, and for me, that’s the most rewarding part of the process. So the reward is experiencing those feelings, if only for a moment, and learning more about how to recreate that not only for myself, but for others as well. It’s like falling down the rabbit hole with every project, and that’s a very rewarding process for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.greglegette.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/composergreglegette/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ComposerGregLeGette/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-legette-0abb8665/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GregLeGetteVEVO

Image Credits
Sequoyah Images