Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ryan Buchanan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ryan, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
I have always been very fortunate to have parents that supported me in music since the day that I started playing the trumpet. While neither one of my parents are working musicians, both have a love and appreciation for it. My mom was a pianist when she was younger and that helped her get an understanding for what my early days in my career would consist of. Both my parents helped support me financially whether that meant buying me a horn, paying for lessons, or even buying me small things like valve oil.
When it came to joining the elementary school band program, my parents were there for every concert and always got me to and from rehearsals. They were there to push me to practice when I didn’t want to because they believed in seeing where my talent could take me. In Junior High School, I began taking music much more seriously. This was a time in my life where I making decisions of what I wanted my future to look like. I got to the point where I decided between playing baseball or the trumpet because things were beginning to get hard to manage financially with both of those happening simultaneously. I eventually decided the latter and never looked back. I started taking trumpet lessons in Junior High and even joined the Jazz Band that met before school twice a week. I credit my band director of the time Mr. Stephan for really showing me that I had what it took to make my dreams come true if I stayed disciplined and worked hard. He was the first person that showed me Jazz literature and the plethora of recordings and artists that it had to offer.
After finding some early success in Junior High, I was now transitioning into High School. This is probably where my parents got the most involved in helping me out with my passion for music. When I started out with Marching Band during my freshman year, it immediately became a major time consumer during the fall semester. Both of my parents got heavily involved with the band booster program. My Dad was a prop builder for the 4 years I was there and also towed the band trailers to all of our competitions. My Mom was treasurer of the band program and was always there to wash and fit uniforms along with countless other things. Everyone in the band program knew my parents. They were always around to help when they were free. This trend continued along when my siblings were in the band program as well for a total of 10 years straight.
Once I got to college, they still tried their best to come to every performance that I had and helped me in ways I can’t even begin to list. I have always felt so grateful to have such caring and supportive parents who supported me no matter what. Still to this day, they will show up to a good amount of my gigs and even to the concerts that I direct with my High School and College students. They always go above and beyond and that is what I plan to do for my kids one day. I feel that it is only right because that’s what they would do for me and my siblings.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My career in music started out when I was 9 years old. I heard about my elementary school’s band program through a school assembly where they had live performers demonstrating the instruments on stage. I was immediately drawn in to the trumpet when I heard the guy on stage playing songs that I loved like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I convinced my parents to rent me a trumpet from the music store and after three months we purchased the horn and I never looked back. I was extremely fortunate to have amazing band directors in the early stages of my career. I credit both Scott and Roxanne Jeppesen for setting me up on the right path when I started out. I had no clue about anything music related until I worked with them. Today I am so fortunate to still be learning from them and working alongside them in the professional field.
After three years of band in elementary school, I transitioned into Junior High School and met my new band director Jeffrey Stephan. Mr. Stephan left a huge impact on me that put me on track to consider music as a career path at the age of 13. Mr. Stephan had a reputation around town for being this amazing, yet intimidating band director. He always pushed his students to their highest potential and wanted them all to achieve greatness. This excited me coming into his program, but I still wasn’t sure of what to fully expect. Shortly after joining the program, I had joined the before school Jazz Band Ensemble in addition to the Advanced Band. This opened up a world of new opportunities to how I looked at my future. I fell in love with Jazz and worked hard during my short time there. When the district honor band auditions came around in the spring semester of my 7th grade year, I made it my goal to get first chair in the Advanced Band. Mr. Stephan had a system set up where everyone would be reseated based on how their auditions went. On the first day of school, I was completely nervous for my audition and ended up placing 8th out of the 9 trumpet students. This frustrated me at the time and knew when honor band came around that I would be able to move back up to where I wanted to be.
When those auditions concluded, I returned to school the next day eager to find out the results. I was ecstatic to find out that I had placed first chair in the district as a 7th grader in the honor band. I was shocked, but so glad to see that my hard work had paid off. This was a true wakeup call for me at the time. I wasn’t sure if I was capable of achieving what I had sought after, but after working hard on my first audition and getting the result that I did, I realized that there was more potential to be unlocked. After finishing Junior High School, I was able to achieve the same goal my 8th grade year with the honor band. I was also beginning to get recognized at local Jazz festivals and awards ceremonies for my musical ability. Now it was time to see if I could continue this going into High School.
High School came with lots of new music opportunities for me. I was able to play in more ensembles at school and meet all sorts of new lifelong friends and people. This was a pivotal time in my life where I worked hard to prepare myself for college. During my 4 years at Canyon High School, I was able to make both the district Honor Band and Honor Jazz Ensemble many times. Towards the tail end of my time there, I was also one of the only students in school history to make both the All-Southern SCSBOA Honor Ensembles, and the All-State Honor Band. I credit my private trumpet teacher, Dontae Winslow for molding my fundamentals on the horn into what they are today. If it weren’t for his guidance as a mentor and as a trumpeter, I would not be where I am today. When it came down to auditioning for music schools, I only had one school on my mind. That school was California State University, Northridge.
After auditioning into CSUN, I was able to study under my trumpet hero, Wayne Bergeron for my undergraduate studies in the Jazz program there. These were some of the most treasured years of my life. CSUN taught me so much about the music business and left me with so many lifelong relationships that I could not have gotten anywhere else. Working with Wayne, was an experience like no other. I will never take for granted the years that I had to pick the brain of one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. I am so thankful that I will be able to pass down all of the knowledge that I gained to my current and future students. There were so many countless experiences working alongside some of the world’s finest musicians at CSUN and I am forever thankful.
After receiving my Bachelors Degree in Jazz Studies, I later made the decision to return to CSUN for my Masters Degree in Trumpet Performance. This time I would be studying classical trumpet under Dr. Erick Jovel. Erick played a crucial part in helping develop my abilities on the Piccolo Trumpet and Eb Trumpet in grad school. I told him on day one that it was one of my biggest goals going into my studies with him and he wasted no time teaching me everything that I needed to know on that side of my playing. The Piccolo Trumpet even ended up being the topic of my lecture recital. Erick pushed me in ways that forced me to battle my lazy practice tendencies to get ready for the real world. He was always supportive of me working around town while I was school, but never let me get completely sidetracked from putting in the work that I needed while I was his student.
As grad school came to a close, I was hired to teach at Valencia High School as the Jazz Band Director, and at College of the Canyons as Professor of Trumpet. These teaching jobs have kept me busy since graduating my Masters program at CSUN, and I am so thankful to be able to freelance as a trumpeter alongside teaching my wonderful students. I have made it my mission to bring a high level education to all of my students and bring in quality masterclass guest artists to work with them every semester.
I am now enjoying life as a musician touring the country, playing around Los Angeles, and teaching music to students of all ages. I am very excited to see where my career path takes me next and what future endeavors await me in the near future.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
When I think about some of the most rewarding things that come with being a musician, I immediately think about the audiences that I get to bring music to. I think we as musicians tend to get caught up with practicing and critiquing ourselves so much, that we forget what we bring to society as a whole with our music. Music is a gift that I feel so fortunate to be able to share with groups of people from all sorts of different cultures, ethnicities and age groups. I believe that music is the one universal language that we share as a human race. That’s what makes this gift so beautiful.
I think the next big thing that comes with my job that I love is the fact that I have gotten to work alongside so many of my heroes in the music industry. If you had told me that blowing spitty noises into a long brass tube would have led me to all of the places that I have performed at as a kid, I wouldn’t have believed it. I have been so fortunate to get cross off performance venues like Disneyland, Dodger Stadium, and Lincoln Center off my list over the last couple of years and I am so excited to see what my future holds.
Recently I got the call to tour alongside one of my trumpet idols, Jens Lindemann, for three weeks across the midwest. When I got the text from Jens, I responded as fast as I could and moments later he asked me to help contract the remainder of the band. I immediately called four of my friends and they jumped on the opportunity as fast as I did. When the time came to go on the road, we all had a blast traveling across parts of the country that we had never seen before. Learning from a modern mastermind like Jens for three weeks in the field was an experience that I will never take for granted. After our many shows on the road came to a close, I was able to convince Jens to let the band tag along for his show in Los Angeles at Vibrato’s. Originally he had set the gig up as a small group thing, but after some reworking of some people’s flights we were able to bring the tour to LA for one final show. This was a night that none of us will forget and its gigs like this that make it all worth it.
There is no better feeling than when your hard work and years of dedication to a craft finally pays itself off. This is a concept that I try to instill with all of my students. It is so rewarding for both them and myself when we are able to set out goals for them and knock them out successfully. I cannot wait to see where all of them go with music in their lives. While implementing this into my teaching philosophy, it is important that I use these strategies myself to set a good example for my students. I am always happy to share my experiences with them in order to help them understand the way the music industry operates.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
As I navigate the early stages of my career outside of grad school, I have a good idea of what I want my future to look like. I am fortunate to have a number of mentors who have set the standard for me. They have all inspired me in countless ways to mirror their careers and lifestyles both as human beings and musicians.
To start, I will begin with Dontae Winslow. Dontae was not only one of my first trumpet teachers, but he was my first true mentor. He still jokingly uses the term “padawan” with me to this day. Dontae has worked alongside some of the modern industries finest like Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kamasi Washington and more. He is an inspiration to me in so many ways, combining his love for rap and hip hop with his mastery of the Jazz language. I have a deep love for both of these genres and would love for my career to emulate his working alongside the big modern artists of today like Tyler, The Creator, or Travis Scott. Dontae has even landed three opportunities to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. This may be at the top of my list for bucket list gigs!
The next big mentor that comes to mind is one of the trumpet players who I have taken the most inspiration from. That being my former teacher, none other than Wayne Bergeron. In High School, Wayne was the lead player who I listened to the most and tried my best to model my sound after. Wayne lives a career that is filled with studio work and traveling all across the world working with anyone and everyone you can think of. It has always been a dream of mine to make a living as a studio musician like him. A big part of the reason why I applied to Cal State Northridge in the first place was because it was the only school Wayne taught lessons at. Fortunately enough for me, his student graduated right when I was coming into CSUN. His student spot was open and I was able to work alongside him as his only student for my four years of undergrad. I credit Wayne for really helping me craft my sound into what it is today. He helped me get my time feel back on track and developed me into a good sightreader as well. Wayne was always so generous with his time and resources during our lessons. He was even gracious enough to provide me with some upgraded equipment over the years and gave me one of his prototype horns and some mouthpieces. This was truly the most valuable experience that I got from CSUN. Being able to call one of my biggest inspirations on the horn a friend now is something that I will never take for granted.
My other mentors on the trumpet consist of my graduate teacher Dr. Erick Jovel, Jens Lindemann, and Rick Baptist. I am very lucky that all of these monster players are a simple text or phone call away when I have questions regarding the horn or my career. Erick pushed me in ways as a student that I hadn’t had to deal with before in years past. He refused to let my laziness takeover in my two years studying under him and always wanted me to be the best player that I could be. I credit Erick for being able to develop my chops on the Piccolo Trumpet and Eb Trumpet. We worked a lot on orchestral and classical solo trumpet repertoire and it was definitely a challenge. Erick is a versatile trumpet player who I see myself modeling my career after in many ways. He is not only an accomplished studio and classical trumpeter, but he is able to teach at multiple universities on the side producing amazing results in his trumpet studios. I would love to be able to split my time up as a musician and professor at the level that he does in the near future.
Jens and Rick are two of the more recent mentors that I have been fortunate enough to work with over the last year or so. As I talked about earlier, Jens was kind enough to call me for his tour after Erick recommended me for the gig. After spending three weeks on the road with Jens we now have a great relationship and I am excited to see the next time we cross paths on stage. My story with Rick is very unusual to say the least. A couple of years ago my grandpa would occasionally mention to me that there was this really great trumpet player that lived down the street from him in his retirement community. I kept asking for a name and he never knew, so I would brush it off. Eventually he gave me the name Rick Baptist and I couldn’t believe it. After all these years his neighbor was one of the most accomplished studio musicians of all time. Soon after finding out, Rick announced to the community that he was doing a presentation of his life story for his neighbors at the clubhouse. I immediately jumped at the opportunity to go and meet him and went as the only non senior citizen at the whole event. Rick was nice enough to talk to me before and after the event for about an hour and then asked me to get breakfast with him a few times after. It was so great getting to pick his brain about his career and learn all of the unbelievable stories that he had to tell. Recently Rick came in to work with my students at Valencia High School and even donated some equipment to the program after the class ended. My students took away so much from this experience and still bring it up to this day.
If I could summarize and come up with an ideal goal career for myself, it would have to be a combination of all of the names mentioned above. All of these trumpeters have accomplished countless things that I see myself doing before all is said and done. While I don’t know exactly what my future holds, I can only hope that it can make up even a fraction of what all of them have brought to the world of music.
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: $75 per hour
Image Credits
@rm_photosss