Getcha Some Productions Podcast Episode 67
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A podcast covering all things related to music production: from the first note to the last fan and everything in between. We create music and inspire others to do the same. Every episode is a live business meeting between me and Dan (me and Keith) as we build this media empire right before your very eyes/ears.
In this episode we discuss:
Special guest Patrice Ryan
Patrice is from Suffolk County, Long Island. Both of her parents are artists. They met at Pratt Institute. Patrice is from the Village of Northport in Suffolk County.
Growing up, she had a piano in the house. Her parents said that she would play a lot on the piano by ear when she was very young (like one or two years old). She grew up listening to her parents music which was Frank Zappa, the Beach boys, the Kinks and the Beatles.
She also had an older sister, so she was exposed to Britney Spears, N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. According to her dad, she would pick the notes out on the piano by ear as young as one or two years old.
Patrice is identified as the musician who loves dogs. As a kid she always wanted to be a veterinarian.
Patrice remembers having very intense separation anxiety from her parents at a young age. Perhaps around three years old when she started going to school.
A major turning point in her anxiety was when she started out playing the cello. She says that even though the anxiety never really went away she was able to interact much better with other kids through the sharing of the musical relationship. She was able to form an identity around that. The downside was that she actually broke 12 cellos in one year. They nicknamed her The Cello Eater.
Middle school was the toughest time for her in terms of her awkwardness and trying to fit in etc. Music really helped her through that. I think we all have that experience.
During high school, Patrice’s mom got very sick and it was a particular tough time in her life. Listening to music really helped her a lot as a form of escape and comfort. In particular she calls out the song Hey Jude as being particularly comforting to her and resonating with her.
That was when she started to pick up Guitar. She highlights the difficulty in switching from cello because of the enhanced polyphony a guitar versus cello. On cello it’s very common to just play one note at a time though you can play several notes at a time. Guitar is explicitly polyphonic and she highlights that as one of the hurdles. She did have a teacher named Warren Slater who is a former Australian rockstar who lived nearby. That was about when she was 14 years old. Her teacher’s band was called Electric Panda. And I guess they opened for Men at Work or vice versa.
Patrice attended five towns college for Music. It was there that she was exposed to all different types of music which broadened her horizons beyond the pop and rock that she had been listening to for her younger years. This college attracted many diverse students and they exposed her to hip-hop, Rap and jazz. She said that there would be rap battles in the hallway. She calls out the Nas Illmatic album in particular as one that she was very fond of. She was still very shy about performing at this point. She actually wanted to be a music producer at the time. She wanted to be the next Quincy Jones.
After she graduated from college she started working in a law firm just because she didn’t know what she wanted to do and she’s still working there today and has been working there for about seven years. But for most of the time she wasn’t really doing music. She was just kind of existing.
Her therapist said, look I’m not gonna keep seeing you anymore if you keep coming here and saying you want to do music and then you don’t do music. You’re not trying.
People need to listen to this interview. Patrice really opens up about her struggles in music in a really beautiful way I think we can all relate to some extent. And hopefully find it inspiring like we do.
Her therapist said, you have to either try to play music or get out of my office.
If you feel like you suck, do it anyway. You have to act “as-if.”
She started performing professionally during the pandemic believe it or not.
The story of how she started writing music very recently it’s pretty hilarious. She was forced to quarantine in her cello student’s family’s camper because her parents got Covid and she had to get out of their house. She was sleeping in the camper and she would wake up in the middle of the night with melodies in her head. So she would get up and write them down or play them on guitar and record them so she wouldn’t forget them and that’s how she started composing music. There was something about that camper lifestyle or maybe just a change of scenery or perhaps having some rubber between her and the electrical current of the earth or who knows what.
She only has a few songs finished but she has about 30 songs started. This is all around the end of 2021 the beginning of 2022 where she started writing music. Her goal is that she will have an EP recorded by her 30th birthday. She’s 29 now.
It wasn’t until she crossed the threshold of the Winnebago sleeper coach that she was finally hoisted above the grounding of this earth and onto the springy ethereal suspension of the majestic cabin of this amazing vehicle/home. Once she released her connection to the grounded world she was able to receive a message from the universe, providing her with messages from afar.
We talk a little bit about Frank Zappa. Her dad liked Frank Zappa, but she would cry when he would put it on. Then she tells the story about how, when she was five, she had to go to the record store clerk and ask them for a Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
Her current music teacher is named Frank Doyle. He’s worked with Weird Al, Julian Lennon, Madonna, Leonard Bernstein. When was the keyboard player for meatloaf.
Patrice says that Pet Sounds is elementary Experimental music. If I want to expose my kids to weird music I’d make them listen to Pet Sounds.
She likes to do acoustic version of the Spice Girls Yes I Swear.
She says that Dave Matthews is one of her biggest influence is the biggest one right now that she can highlight.
We talk a bunch about Dave Matthews and his songwriting and his guitar technique. Even highlighting specific chords to challenges of specific songs.
Patrice talks about how learning Dave Matthews songs improved one specific aspect of her technique which was her strumming. She used to use a more forearm-heavy strumming technique more like Neil Young. After learning more Dave Matthews songs she was able to convert a lot of the rhythm to the wrist.
Who would’ve known that the person who couldn’t speak her mind when she was young would be able to give such a robust interview. But I guess it makes sense.
And look for Patrice’s first ever recording coming out soon. Probably 2022 if you are 2020 through the latest.
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