We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Samuel Gunawan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Samuel, 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 introduced into playing music from a very young age. Growing up, I learnt classical piano through private lessons. But slowly, I noticed that there are other style of music that are very different compared to classical music. Once I got into high school, I started to learn how to use a Digital Audio Workstation, where people usually make and record music. At first, I only do some acoustic & orchestral stuff since that is what I am comfortable with for the longest time. But slowly, I started to experiment with other genres, especially electronic music. With the help of taking courses and YouTube Tutorials, I started to produce my own music and share it for the world to see.

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?

To introduce myself, my name is Samuel and I go by Ryuzen as my artist name. As I’ve mentioned before, I started learning music by playing classical piano. Then slowly as I grow up, I began venturing on other genres. Some prominent style that I am heavily influenced are J-Pop, J-Rock, Kawaii Future Bass and many more. Anime and Japanese culture has a big impact to me growing up and it also influence how I make music. I tend to make things that are more towards cute, exciting and energetic. The simplest way I can describe it is that I usually make stuff that you hear at arcades and rhythm games. Those are my main things that I do.
Besides that, I also study jazz piano at Berklee College of Music, where I try to expand my harmonic language and incorporated it through my arrangement and music production. Making arrangements for bands and orchestra are also something that I do. I always love the idea of re-arranging a song that is well-known and repurpose it by arrange it into something exciting and more suited towards live performance. On the sides, I am also slowly trying to get into mixing and mastering since those skills are very important as a producer.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Artists need a lot of support in order for them to sustain their career. There are multiple ways for how society can help artist to live. Getting things through legal means is the simplest way. By listening music through proper streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc. will definitely help artist to grow. Other methods also includes supporting artist by donations or buying merchandise and buy tracks. Sites like BandCamp and Patreon can definitely allow artist to grow and create more art without having to worry on their financial landscape. Last but not least, sharing and commenting will allow artist to grow a lot, especially for those who are heavily rely on social media and digital presence.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Absolutely. I always want my voice to be heard by a lot of people. I may not be good at words, but I try to express myself through music. There are many stories that each person wants to tell, so other than expressing my own voice, I would also like to express other people’s voice so that it reaches many people. Last but not least, I wish that my music can be used as a way to express cuteness and warms people’s heart. Making cute music has always been one of my favorite things to do and I want people to enjoy them too!      

Contact Info:

• Website: https://samuelarmando99.wixsite.com/ryuzen
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryuzenmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/RyuzenMusic/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryuzenmusic?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ryuzen
• Other: https://linktr.ee/RyuzenMusic
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/intl-id/artist/45irj5RR0dE4AhdpxaWZK5

Image Credits
Krishna Dinata