We recently connected with Jeff and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jeff thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
My brother Mychael is a frequent collaborator with myself and we have been doing music together in various ways since we were children growing up in Burlington ,Ontario ,Canada. When I was 13 and he was 19 our father passed away suddenly. He had been involved in music all his life as a singer and when we were kids he was still doing jobs around town, singing for weddings, little theater, churches, etc. The music that filled our house as children emanated from our parents and their lifetime involvement with it. Fast-forward three and a half decades and Mychael and I are sitting in the foyer at Pixar Animation Studios , listening to a story breakdown from the brilliant director Dan Scanlon as he describes his own family tragedy that inspired the movie he is making. This movie features two brothers about 13 and 19 years old ( who happen to be elves ) whose father dies when they’re young . As the film opens , they discover that he has left them a secret wizard staff in their attic and if they fulfill a quest exactly right , they can actually bring him back to life for a day ( ! ) I’m describing of course, the Pixar movie ” Onward ” . My brother and I sat there stunned , wondering if Dan had somehow known about our own family tragedy, A month later, we were surprised and excited to hear that we would be writing the music to this weirdly biographical Elf Story. And what followed was a funny, inspiring and occasionally heartbreaking period of writing our score for Dan’s film – which sadly , was waylaid by the Pandemic and the closing of the country, only 2 weeks into the film’s theatrical run.
Jeff, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I had been a reluctant piano student at age 8, begging my parents to let me quit music, when someone left a guitar in our living room. I wandered over and picked it up. Shortly thereafter I found myself able to play pretty well. At the time I didn’t know about my grandmother’s mandolin school in the 1920s in Winnipeg and some possible genetic assistance coming through the DNA chain. I set off on a course of playing in very young bands , trying to be a recording artist ( ok , ok , I wanted to be Rock Star ) However I had some childhood athletic injuries in my past at that point , and I found myself at age 22 unable to play the instrument that I had dedicated my life to. My older brother, the piano player and church organist had started to write film scores in Toronto by then and he said to me ‘ why don’t you come down and play on some of these scores? You won’t have to play eight hours in a row and we can put your hands in a bucket of ice if we have to, in between sessions ‘ That experience proved very intriguing to me and I realized that this was something I could do as another way into a career in music. A few years after that I had an offer to come to Los Angeles and work on a TV show, and I took the leap… and so far , I’m still here.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I think if we have artistic gifts of some sort, it’s our path to share them with the world in our own humble way if we can. In my case, I try and write music that is beautiful and hopeful for a world that is sometimes dark and despairing . Every day I get messages on my YouTube channel from listeners who have somehow been touched or inspired by something I wrote or some project that I worked on , and it’s a great reminder of why I get up every day and try and make whatever contribution that I can.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
We need the great minds of business and finance to make this world the most workable and civilized that it can be , in whatever the circumstances are , in our given time and place . But we also need the arts and the beauty therein to help nurture our souls and deepen our inner lives.
I sometimes think those two sides of the Life Spectrum would do well to better appreciate and understand the calling that the other side can feel as deeply as our own. We need everyone .
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jeffdanna.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffdanna1/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeffDannaMusic
Image Credits
Cover Photo by Rochelle Brodin