We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ian Cahill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Ian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.
As a music producer I am always interested to hear what the young artists are up to. With the intention to create a professional relationship with them, which I then assume the role of a mentor. The years that it took me to achieve what I have thus far were long and difficult. I started perusing music with a professional mindset in 2003. Over the years I had tried so many different ways to learn how to be successful in this industry. Many of which were beneficial as well as distractions that was unnecessary. So I feel a undying sense of urgency with a strong passion to help these young artists get to where they want to be faster. I recently have taken on 3 young artists as their mentor. Offering my time, experience, knowledge. I’m reluctant to give up my own personal resources and relationships however. To hand over the keys to the castle would leave them with the lack of knowledge discipline and correct mindset needed to maintain the castle. So I guide them through this process as I let them make mistakes to which we can discuss them. I find so much gratitude and find so much inspiration working with my students.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
“How may I be of service”
This is the first question I’ll ask when a client reaches out to me. The service I provide is vast and wide within the world of music. I have many skills that can help my clients achieve their goals. My main service would be as a music producer. The advantage competitor would be in a simple mindset of the duties that a producer would provide. As for myself, I have had the opportunity of studying the role of the producer in many aspects of the title. Overall the main objective of a producer should always be,” How can I make this song reach its full potential, and how can I manage the budget to achieve this objective by staying under the budget.”
Throughout my entire career I have worked on building relationships first. I’ve always seen relationships as the foundation of the success of a producer. My relationships are my resources. My resources consist of musicians, songwriters, vocalist, engineers of all aspects of the music industry, publishers, music supervisors, agencies, educators, marketing professionals, graphic designers, etc etc. if there is a specific need for any particular skill set that is relevant to music I can provide my clients with that. Inside of this my resources range from each side of the spectrum of their own skill level and their financial value that they would charge for their services.
Another side of my skills as a producer is being a composer, songwriter, sound designer, musician. So not only do I have the external resources but I also have them internally. I do also dabble in graphic design and video editing and production. Which is a great bonus. I can either provide the next step once a music production project is completed or outsource to my network.
Music comes first, and along side of that is the clients vision. I have been asked to do many projects that I have “this isn’t the best fit for me” and have always been transparent with this and will turn away a project that doesn’t fit my style and I’ll provide a reference to the best possible fit for the project.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Music has been a passion as early as my first few memories since birth. Growing up in my home we had the classic upright family piano. I had a constant draw and need to play it. I was never interested in playing it how it was designed to be played mind you (Haha) I had a love for the sounds that I could make from it. However this was not to much music to the ears for my parents. (Hahaha) So being supportive of my interests at age 6 they had me take private piano lessons. I retained where middle C was and a really basic understanding of reading sheet music. I could very slowly read the notes. But would instantly get lost in translation to my brain. That frustrated me on a few levels. One level was my teacher and parents constantly over my shoulder and constantly saying I needed to practice the song assignment and learn the song to be able to play it by sight and eventually by memory.. on another level I had no interest to play how they wanted me to. I found so much more joy in just seeing where a note would take me, I had no interest to write or remember the progression I had just made. I just wanted to keep going forward with it. So after two short years my teacher gave up, I threw a hissy fit and refused to take lessons. Which was the same time that I was now in fourth grade and was able to join the school band. I wanted to to play percussion. The idea of creating a melodic sound through rhythm was so intriguing to me. But i froze up for auditions and couldn’t carry a basic rhythm. So the band teacher suggested Saxophone. I fell in love with it. Played it day and night. But still very stubborn about playing the required music and still got lost when trying to follow sheet music. But by this time I was also developing my taste for listening to rock and hiphop music. And I discovered that I could play along to my audiocassette tapes. So rather then practice the school band songs for the winter concert I jammed to cypress hill, Wrex and effect Jimi Hendrix the Beatles. During the school concerts I would pretend to play (hahaha)
By the 6th grade is where my story starts to show my resilience.
My 6th grade band teacher turns to me in the middle of the fall and says “listen I know you like to play music but you can’t play along with the band you can’t read music, you don’t know a thing about the theory that I’ve tried to teach you this year. Perhaps music is just not for you.”
Sold my saxophone to a guitar shop and bought myself an electric guitar and amplifier…. Spent the next years playing my heart out. But could never find a drummer to play with. So by 21 I got a Mac G4 duel processor and GarageBand and said “I’m going to master this and have my own band…
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
As a young adult I had this mindset about having a steady income. I had this idea that if I had a steady job that I would miss out on opportunities that I would lose my drive or become stuck in a job and miss out on achieving my dreams and goals with music. This mindset was double sided. On a positive level it forced me to be resourceful, it forced me to think outside of the box in order to achieve certain objectives. For example, I needed a logo, had no money to hire a graphic designer. So I taught myself how to make a logo which I still use to this day. However when technology advances and you can’t afford the new model and the old model becomes obsolete… then it’s time to start thinking about the importance of a steady income. But nope not me. I went through my 20’s and 30’s with this mindset. It wasn’t until I reached the age of 40 that it finally clicked in my head. “You can’t build a business with nothing and if you’re business actually has a profit you can’t use that money to buy dinner. You need to reinvest it into your young business” so I pivoted and got a day job at 40 years old and miraculously at the same time my business started growing and growing into something that makes me proud and is a very attainable business a year before I made this simple little change in my mindset I set up a 5 year plan. I’m in year 3 and have achieved hitting every goal I set watching milestones be a memory rather then a desperate wish.
Contact Info:
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