Today we’d like to introduce you to Donovan Duvall.
Hi Donovan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I got started playing music when I was about 8, playing percussion in the school band. I started playing drum set around 12 and was quickly hooked. I was mostly playing rock music until my sister showed me really heavy electro-house music around 14. I remember she came home from her first year at school and blew my mind with how intense and driving this music was. I thought to myself, “Oh I HAVE to know how to make this.” In high school, I played in the jazz band and made beats at home. I mostly focused on house, but I messed around with drum & bass, hip-hop, and dubstep too. I went to college for Jazz Percussion and Performance and used those skills to try my hand at traditional songwriting. For the first time, I combined my instrumental skills and producing skills to make something I felt was original. For some reason, the two creative worlds for me had always been separated. “Why hadn’t I done this before?” I wondered to myself.
After leaving college, I began to teach, produce, and compose music full-time. Since then, I’ve toured around the country, played to sold-out crowds, had my music be featured on TV (CBS, National Geographic, and the Super Bowl), and composed the music for national ad campaigns.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s definitely a matter of perspective! It’s been both extremely challenging and wildly smooth at the same time. As we all know, music is famously secure and financially stable industry to pursue. Some of the challenges that I didn’t factor in were how expensive it is to be a “professional” musician. Stuff like studio costs, mixing, hiring musicians, mastering, PR, album art, booking agents, buying quality gear quickly goes into the tens of thousands. On one of my songs for just studio time, hiring musicians, and mixing costs, it’s about ~2,000 for the song. If your record has 8 songs…y’all can do the math. I haven’t even broached the costs of touring and promo. While that has been extremely discouraging at times, I try to separate the concept of success from making money. Financial success when it comes to art is a byproduct, not the main goal.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in songwriting and music production mostly! Thinking about the potential big picture of an idea gets me so so so excited, so I think that mentality lends itself to songwriting and production. To be able to take a fragment of an idea, say a small lyric or a short melody, and be able to help it expand into a full-fledged story is my absolute jam. I find speaking about music in different mediums helps me communicate with artists and musicians better. The subjectivity of sound and the way we describe sound is, frankly, frustrating. I feel like we end up using visual/sensory words to describe sound anyway. Words like “woody,” “muddy,” “shimmery,” or “warm.” I figured I could take that mentality further and try to think more like a sculptor or a cinematographer. What I found was I was able to clearly understand what sound the artist was looking for this way. Like referencing a specific scene in a movie and talking about how that made us feel or describing the way a tree moves in the wind (or something like that).
What matters most to you? Why?
I think what matters most to me is that I’m of some help to people! Ideally, with the music that I’m a part of, I can help ease the stresses of the day-to-day for someone. To me, music has historically been a form of medicine. I can name several artists who’ve helped with the pains and struggles that come and go throughout life. Their songs didn’t necessarily have any advice; what I heard was them saying to my teenage brain, “Me too.” So, I’d like to pass along that torch to someone else if I can. I think about making sure I remember that music isn’t for me; it’s for the listeners.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dono__dono__/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dono__dono__
Image Credits
Mike Kim
Eric Proffit
