NY Artist Q&A: Eddy Marshall

For this series of bloggy interviews, I’ve shared questions with young artists and musicians living in New York. This time: guitarist and singer-songwriter Eddy Marshall. I’ve met him through Berklee College of music and I’m excited that he wanted to be part of this little Q&A – couch session. In addition to the questions, we met up and played a few songs in my place in Brooklyn together. Next time I’ll make him sing too 🙂

Q&A with Eddy Marshall

* WHERE ARE YOU FROM, WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT HOME?

I’m from Falls Church Virginia. I miss my friend circle, my mom’s Steinway piano, and Super Chicken.

* FAVORITE PLACE IN THE CITY

The Williamsburg bridge late at night. I love walking home from gigs in Brooklyn and being able to see the whole skyline in front of me.

* FAVORITE NEW MUSIC

Lula Wiles has a new album coming out on January 25th that I’ve already listened to on NPR too many times. Scruffy Pearls just put out a new single that slaps and I THINK they have an album coming soon that I’m extremely excited for. I’ve also been listening to the GORILLAZ a lot and BOY is still a favorite.

* FAVORITE OLD MUSIC

As much as I think wailing guitar solos are meh, sometimes I still love shamelessly listening to classic rock at high volume. Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, etc. And I constantly listen to the Beach Boys and the Beatles so I can figure out fun ways to put absurd chords under singable melodies.

* WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE NON-MUSIC THING TO DO

I love reading and cooking.

* WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON MUSICALLY

I’m always writing new music and trying to build my cover repertoire. So basically, I’m writing the songs I want to play and learning the songs other people want me to play.

* WHAT’S YOUR GREATEST FANBOY MOMENT?

There is a band called Walk Off The Earth and they give away a free signed and drawn on a ukelele at every show. At Boston Calling in 2014, I was decked out in my WOTE gear and they came out into the crowd and gave me a uke! Still, have it on my shelf.

* CRAZIEST GIG EXPERIENCE

When I first booked a tour in 2015, I said yes to a three-hour gig and we probably had about an hour and a half of material. We just took so many endless instrumental solos and played so many different breakdowns and weird covers. We would take a song like “Take It Easy,” by the Eagles and make it 20 minutes long with sections of obnoxious swing and I don’t think the southern Virginia crowd of three was really feeling it.

* WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?

I hope I’m doing exactly what I’m doing now but at a much higher level. Playing gigs almost every night of the week with amazing musicians, cooking, baking, reading, and everything else, AND I will have a nine-year-old dog.

* YOUR WEBSITE

EddyMarshallMusic.com

* LINK TO A VIDEO OF YOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeW7746Eeds

Summer hang with Jernej & Tina

Here are just some pictures of my tour-week with Jernej Bervar from Slovenia. Jernej is a fantastic guitar player and he and his girlfriend stayed with us in Leiden, Netherlands. We had a blast, lots of concerts, played for Beatrix the Dutch former Queen. We had a gig in Gouda on a big stage in the water, did some music on a boat, did the tourist thing, and had lots of good food. 🙂

Lets do this again soon!!

Article in NRC next

Yesterday my name appeared in the Nrc Next – a Dutch national Newspaper. It was an article by Anouk Vleugels about crowdfunding. It tells about new ways to fund your studies, like I did before going to Berklee. Actually I’m humble and proud to say that I was able to fund the whole study! And I’m so thankful to everyone that made this possible – you know who you are 🙂 …

If you wanna read it, please check it here:

crowdfundingNRC-1

crowdfundingNRC

Songwriting workshop @ Leiden University LAK

This summer I was teaching a summer workshop week for the University of Leiden at their cultural center (called LAK.) The goal was to write and record your own song in 4 days.

During the first day we spoke about writing better lyrics, the second day we spoke about writing music, chords, and melodies. On the third day the students worked on their new song and the fourth day we recorded the final product. I am superproud of my students because some of them never wrote a song and they all worked so hard and did such a great job!!

Here you can listen:

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By the way… a similar workshop happened in 2012 where I worked with 6 teenage students and 6 adult students and if you are  interested in the songs they wrote, listen here:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/2520479?secret_token=s-OFCLb” params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

 

I gave Jimmy Page a high five :)

photo 3And then I was graduating Berklee College of Music. Broken elbow or not, commencement was there. Over 900 graduates from all over the world. All music related majors being the best in what they do. I have been in Berklee since January 2012 and it has been an amazing experience. Berklee allowed me to discover myself and my music, gave me the opportunity to grow while having the best mentors and teachers, and made me meet musicians and fellows from all over the world.

The ceremony started with a long wait in line (since its pretty intense to organize 900 peeps in one line so they will enter the arena in the right order)… Then there was an opening speech by the President Roger Brown. My fellow graduate Drew Krasner gave a great speech representing us, the class of 2014. Commencement is also a time when the college presents honorary doctoral degrees to those who have made outstanding contributions to the field of music. This years honorary doctorates were Jimmy Page, Valerie Simpson, Geri Allen and Thara Memory. Read here a little article in the USA today.

And, of course to conclude the ceremony, all the names of the graduates were mentioned and we had to go forward to the stage to pick up the diploma and shake the hand of the honorary doctors Jimmy Page, Thara, Geri and Valerie and president Roger Brown.

Can’t believe I’m finishing up…Anyway, the ceremony you can see in the little clip below, and it’s

Here a very short clip of the ceremony, you see me walking in slow-motion 🙂

And Jimmy Page’s speech:…

And some pics:

Joe Lovano played my composition!

Screen Shot 2014-05-13 at 5.52.39 PMWith my private instructor Joanne Brackeen I’ve been working on phrasing this semester. And, how do instrumentalists and vocalists speak their melodies. In earlier blogs I’ve mentioned that I like to approach music as a language, and if you can phrase your melodies as if you where speaking them, they will sound natural.

Anyway, this week we worked on one of my compositions and she suggested me to ask some saxophone players to play my melody, and then to transcribe it. A day later, with this assignment in mind I ran into Joe Lovano, who was working with us in the Global Jazz classes. I told him about my assignment and he told me that we could meet the next day. Then he played my composition, my melodies, and he even improvised on it! He sounded amazing 🙂 …

Now I have to sit down and transcribe it, difficult but wow. This was one of the most amazing moments of the semester.

Nadje Noordhuis

Jazz Symposium

For this Amazing Symposium on jazz composition and the future of jazz Berklee invited a bunch of fantastic people: Geri Allen, Terence Blanchard, Billy Childs, Vijay Iyer, Tania Leon, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Shamie Royston, Patrice Rushen, Maria Schneider, Magan Stable and Don Was.

See here the program. I went to as many events as I could between my normal classes and it was an amazing experience. It was great to see Maria Schneider work with us and talk about her music, hear the forum about the future of jazz and business, to meet Terence Blanchard and work privately with him on some of my compositions, to have diner with some of those people. What a blessing and … just too much to tell… simply put; the whole week was amazing!

Here the link to the program!!

My first drum lesson from Adam Cruz

2014-04-09 21.01.41Visiting artist Adam Cruz (drummer of Danilo Perez, McCoy Tyner, Tom Harrell, Chick Corea and many more) told us that every musician has to play – at least a bit – of drums. He is right. So today he gave us all his old drum sticks and showed us the first drum rudiments. How to hold the sticks and then do ‘rolls’.

First baby drum steps:

[ ]R – L – R – L
[ ]RR-LL-RR-LL
[ ]RRLR LLRL (paradiddle)
[ ]‘walk the dog’ hi-hat hits

We also had to clap different clave, and then use the clave in the left hand, and the 4/4 or the 3/4 in the right hand…to really work that independence 🙂

Time to practice now!

David Gilmore and our Berklee Global Jazz Ensemble

We performed a couple of the songs we have been working on this semester with Dave Gilmore and here are the recordings.

I’m especially happy with one of the recordings which is my original composition ‘the Concept of Falling’.
Screen Shot 2014-05-17 at 12.47.35 PM

David Gilmore – Guitar and ensemble teacher.
Vivienne Aerts – Voice
Seungho Jang – Bass
Simon Budoc Moullier – Vibes
Jin Young Park – Piano
Hironori Suzuki – Drums

Enjoy.

Cheryl Bentyne

Screen Shot 2014-05-14 at 10.57.58 PMIts so amazing that Berklee invites all these wonderful musicians to give workshops and masterclasses 🙂

Today it was Cheryl Bentyne, known for singing with the Manhattan Transfer, one of the best vocal groups in the world. When studying jazz choir conducting I studied a lot of their music. And, since I am also a big fan of Bobby McFerrin I really love their version of ‘Another night in Tunisia’.

Next to her career with the Manhattan Transfer she also performs as a soloist and played with musicians like Kenny Barron, David Newman, Don Alias and Lewis Nash.

A couple of statements that resonated with me:

* trust in simplicity

* study the meanings of the songs

* you must bring joy

* instant fame is not the way

http://www.cherylbentyne.net/