We were lucky to catch up with Donny Knotz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Donny, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I was curious about the recording and song arrangement process from a very early age, so I always gravitated towards musical things. Whether it was guitar lessons, joining school band and church choir, or passionately trying to convince any friends that would listen that we should start a band, I was always trying to find my “in” to a studio, or a mentor who could show me the way. It wasn’t until my mid teens that I met a circle of friends that had similar aspirations and we started to push each other to find the answers and figure it out. With the help of a donated Korg Triton keyboard and miscellaneous studio gear that we scrounged together, we put together our first home studio. From there my curiosity grew, and I ended up attending Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL, and receiving my bachelors degree in recording arts. Learning from both aspects has always been key to my process, but my most valuable learning experiences have come from really just digging in and learning everything I can, and always striving to learn more. Music is amazing, there is no right or wrong, end all be all answer; the more you know, the more possibilities you have at your fingertips, quite literally.

If I could do anything differently to speed up my learning process, I would’ve opened my recording studio sooner and really just jumped in head first instead of waiting for the right time to come. I have learned an astronomical amount in a very short time, and it truly makes me think that if I would’ve started sooner I would be a lot further along. Not to mention, things don’t have to be perfect right out of the gate. You can upgrade as you grow, and in my opinion that has been the best path, at least for myself.

I think the most essential skill you can possess is consistency. You gotta show up every day, and you gotta keep working no matter what. There are great weeks, and then there are not so great weeks, but as long as you keep pushing forward the progress will continue.

The biggest obstacle standing in the way of learning more was quite literally myself. If I’m not learning, that means I’m not trying, and I can only blame myself for that. You can’t move forward if you stand in your own way. Once I learned how to just go for it, all my other obstacles kind of disappeared.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Donny Knotz, and I have been a rap/hiphop producer and engineer for almost 20 years now, located in Toledo, OH. I currently run a small recording studio called “Glass Roots” and sell my beats online. I truly love music down to its most basic core, and creation has always been my passion. I’ve been on quite the journey over the past several years of redefining myself and sharpening my skills, and through Glass Roots a lot of my dreams have started to come to fruition. On top of production and engineering, I also consult and teach what I know to up and comers who have the same questions I had, in an effort to be the mentor that I never really had. I think the thing that sets me apart most from others is my work ethic and vision. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m a curator of amazing things that get lost or buried by other things, and a magnet for things that may be considered counterculture. I’m forever on the hunt for other creatives like myself.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think as a society, we could offer more services and institutions that support the arts and offer a place for artistic curiosity to grow and thrive for the youth. Here in my hometown, we are very fortunate to have a place like Toledo School for the Arts, a school that’s curriculum is more driven towards the artistic interests of its students. Places like that, at least for me, would’ve been a refuge and place of hope for a kid like myself who just wanted to make music. But it shouldn’t just stop there, we should have more community centers that offer that same refuge. Everyone should be able to experience the arts, and to have the ability to immerse themselves in it, especially if it’s their passion. on top of all that, we need to start thinking more locally about art and culture, and to do that we need to focus on what is happening around us. If we could uplift each other on a local, even regional, level, big things could happen. In my opinion, gone are the days of the international superstar – the village artist is much more important to a sustainable ecosystem.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

One of the things I come across all the time is people seeing what I do and thinking that they could somehow manage to also do it, even possibly better, with no prior knowledge or training. The truth is, with any art, at some point after you have been doing it for so long, you start to make it look easy to other people, but they have no idea the amount of practice and dedication it took to make something look so second nature. Outsiders can never understand the commitment to learning and the countless hours of practice it takes to get to a certain level. A lot of people who are not creatives have a hard time connecting the dots. They just see the finish line, they don’t understand the marathon.

Contact Info:

• Website: Beatstars.com/donnyknotz
• Instagram: @donnyknotz
• Other: Tiktok: @donnyknotz