We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zalen Cigainero a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Zalen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Generally speaking, everything I learn is by proxy of something else. Every skill you’ve ever learned in every field has aspects that can be applied elsewhere. Patterns are very recognizable if you look hard enough.
The most essential skill I have in my arsenal is observation. Just watch. The more you pay attention, the more you can learn right off the bat. Second to that is watching people make mistakes. I make plenty, sure, but don’t take the learning curve others have had to go through for granted.
The only obstacles that really stand in the way are money and time. I think that’s mostly true for everyone unfortunately.
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?
I started in my bedroom in a town called Texarkana. I still remember listening to albums as a kid and being able to hear the edits and overdubs in the music, and I could never escape wanting to learn how it worked from the inside out.
I got my first guitar from my sister when I was around 13~14 when she was about to throw one out that she never used. After I learned my first chord, everything went off the rails. It started with, “How do I record?”, which turned into, “How do I make it sound better?”, which fell right into everything else that comes with making any form of art you can imagine.
Unfortunately for my wallet, I do everything. Graphic design, cinematography, photography, audio engineering, songwriting, 3D art, live performance, drawing, painting, yada yada. If it’s a medium of art, I probably dabble in it, or am getting ready to, one way or the other.
At this point in life, I’m most proud of the recent work my band Dispositions has been able to put out. We’re pushing our own boundaries as songwriters, and I have the fortune of being able to take control of the vision and create what I see in my head (as long as it’s not too off base obviously). They don’t just let me go buckwild with everything, but there’s a substantial amount of trust they place in me to just grab the reins and run off with things.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Pure blind obsession. Nothing matters except for my dog, and creating things. If I can’t create, I will completely lose my mind.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I do not generally express feelings in a healthy way. I have to put it somewhere. So it goes to the music. I don’t know where it came from, or why it’s here, but there has always been a deep and impermeable sadness that will not lift. The music lets it be somewhere besides me. Somewhere outside of my bones for once. My main goal with all this is just to not let that sadness win. If it did win, my dog wouldn’t understand, so I can’t let that happen. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dispositionstx.com
- Instagram: @zalencigainero
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spontaneousman/
- Twitter: @DispoZalen
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dispositions
Image Credits
@ashotofbaileysphoto