micro/Maker by Loose Leaf Transmissions

Carlynn Crosby reflects on her deep generational ties to Florida and how her relationship to the state has shifted over time. She discusses the complex feelings of pride, frustration, and responsibility she holds toward her home, and shares why her writing often centers on overlooked histories and counter-narratives that push back against the dominant portrayals of Florida in national media.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on social media @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kurt Rohde examines the structural problems embedded in how opportunities circulate in contemporary music — how access, relationships, and institutional permission compound quietly over time, rewarding the already-known and making it nearly impossible for others to even reach the starting line. Drawing on his own experience of benefiting from systems he later came to question, Rohde argues that radical transparency is the only meaningful corrective, and points to the San Francisco Arts Commission's fully public adjudication process as a working model. The conversation moves from critique to practice: his work with the Composers Conference, his approach to selection rubrics that are simultaneously rigorous and honest about subjectivity, and a conviction rooted in his own experience growing up gay in Poughkeepsie — that community doesn't just appear, and that small acts of deliberate openness are often all it takes to make something possible for someone else.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Austin Hammonds unpacks how taste, history, and storytelling shape his approach to film scoring. He and Tyler talk about what it means to compose for someone else’s vision, why he currently identifies more as a craftsman than an artist, and how the process of scoring often begins with shared emotional language — not music at all.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gabriel Bolaños found music through curiosity—a household guitar, a minor second that clicked. Formal study in Belgium led him from classical guitar to counterpoint, but the shift toward composition came when his theoretical ideas outpaced his bandmates' interest. Recording alone, he discovered that constraints like pure contrary motion revealed possibilities intuition wouldn't deliver: the fascination of problem-solving over what feels natural.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An unexpected ballet staging of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, a chamber-orchestra miniature built on pure unison, Calvino’s literary lectures, Japanese wabi-sabi, and an Ermhoi album remix—these are the touchstones that continue to spark Tyler Kline’s imagination. He unpacks how each one cracked something open, from seeing music’s power for climate storytelling to embracing imperfection and reinvention in his own writing.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Graeme Shields reflects on how a single conversation with a mentor reshaped his idea of what it meant to be a composer—and what kind of life he wanted to build around music. He and Tyler talk about the myth of the “conventional path,” the messiness of creative careers, and how early moments of being seen can set a lifelong course.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Noseworthy reflects on how his earliest musical life — writing original material in basement hardcore and progressive metal bands — never really separated from his later identity as a composer, even when academic language and institutions entered the picture. Rather than viewing those early experiences as a detour, he describes them as the foundation of a through-line: recurring gestures, textures, and instincts that continue to surface as his music evolves. Growing up in the extreme isolation of Labrador City, with limited access to instruments, teachers, or a broader musical scene, meant learning largely by necessity — self-teaching guitar, repurposing bass guitar for wind band parts, and finding creative momentum through sheer persistence. That isolation, paired with a DIY ethic and a gradual exposure to theory and new listening through private study, shaped a musical identity that still values continuity over reinvention — an artist carrying the same core impulses forward, even as the frame around them changes.micro/Maker episodes release every weekday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Through her operas, Yue Song gives voice to untold histories. From stories of women who survived wartime sexual slavery to reflections on the lingering trauma of violence, her work transforms pain into remembrance. In this conversation, Yue shares how writing about social injustice and anti-war themes has deepened her understanding of empathy—and how music can sustain the act of witnessing.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shruthi Rajasekar opens up about the creative paradox at the center of Carnatic music: an oral tradition where improvisation is the heartbeat of performance, yet centuries-old compositions are guarded with fierce dedication. She and Tyler unpack how lineage shapes authority, why certain versions of works are protected as “correct,” and what gets lost when contemporary creators—especially those outside dominant caste and cultural spheres—are overlooked. Shruthi draws a vivid picture of a tradition negotiating its past and future, and makes a compelling case for honoring both inherited material and the living, improvisatory imagination that defines the music.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vanessa Ague recalls her time in college radio — from nervous beginnings to hosting her own shows focused on indie music and experimental sound. She describes the freedom of programming whatever she wanted, the joy of building a small but dedicated audience, and how those experiences shaped her thinking about music’s reach beyond traditional scenes.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beyza Yazgan discusses her deep connection to visual art and stop-motion animation, focusing on Passage, a handmade collage animation created alongside her music. Drawing from childhood memories, vintage imagery, and surreal storytelling, she describes animation as a parallel artistic language—one rooted in patience, imperfection, and tactile process. While music often comes first, visuals allow her work to expand into a broader ecosystem, where sound, image, and personal history coexist without competing. For Beyza, composition, animation, and performance aren’t separate paths—they’re inseparable parts of a single creative life.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sugar Vendil attempted composition right after grad school—musicians learn a language but don't always use it this way—then stopped because it felt overwhelming and too late. She'd started piano young, already knew she was good at that, and classical training emphasizes craft in performance. For years she had strong ideas for pieces but collaborated with other composers to realize them. One collaboration wasn't working. Sitting in LAX after learning a friend had died, she turned to her husband and said, "I have to make the piece. Life's too short." That became her first work, interdisciplinary with choreography. She stopped again, focused on her ensemble, commissioned other composers. Then two more friends died. A Target Margin fellowship pushed her to investigate new ways of interacting with the piano. Everything converged: loss, exploration, the realization that she knew what she wanted. She decided to make the damn thing herself.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sinclaire Marie describes a gradual but decisive shift from charcoal drawing into ceramics, driven less by strategy than by a growing sense that her earlier work no longer felt honest. She traces her deepening commitment through atmospheric firing—raku, wood, soda—and the formative role of access, noting how losing university kilns after graduation forced her into electric work while she built a parallel career in arts administration. Working at a small nonprofit meant teaching, curating, and sustaining community programs, often at the expense of her own studio practice, even as she continued making pots at home and discovered the power of sharing clay through outreach work like teaching in a local jail. That tension—between supporting art and making it—eventually clarified what was missing, leading her back to wood firing, additional study, and ultimately a residency at Queen City Clay. What emerges is a portrait of commitment shaped through interruption, persistence, and a slow recognition that without clay, something essential was absent.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For C. Jacqueline Wood, experimental film isn’t about chasing a single style—it’s about breaking rules. In this conversation, she recalls the appeal of video art in undergrad: working solo, translating an idea directly from her head to the screen, and pushing film beyond the walls of the movie theater. From projecting moving images outdoors to exploring sound, space, and site-specificity, Jacqueline describes experimental film as an open-ended practice: a series of choices that can subvert any element of cinema, from editing to exhibition.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James May and Tyler talk candidly about the realities of balancing creative work with a full-time job. James shares how working in tech has reshaped his relationship to composing, how burnout forced him to redefine success, and why security can actually make space for deeper creativity. Together, they reflect on what it means to build a sustainable life as an artist—one rooted not in constant output, but in fulfillment.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Baljinder Sekhon reflects on his earliest musical experiences — from banging on a Charlie Brown lunchbox in second grade to writing his first notated snare drum solo in sixth. What started as playful imitation evolved into a natural instinct to create. In this excerpt, he shares how composing wasn’t a formal decision at first — just something he did for fun, long before he knew it was called composing.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Composer Mahdis Golzar Kashani shares the moment that led her to choose composition as her life's path. In this excerpt, she recounts a political protest in Tehran that unexpectedly changed her trajectory as a musician. After narrowly avoiding serious injury following a government crackdown, Kashani realized that composition offered a way to stay connected to music regardless of physical limitations — a decision that continues to shape her artistic life today.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions. Follow us on social media @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charly Daniels reflects on the formative artistic moments that shaped his creative sensibility long before he formally studied music — vivid memories of a childhood theater production, early encounters with abstract expressionism, and the emotional power those images held. He describes how his musical life began not with notation but with a sequencer in his family’s home studio, where hours of improvising and layering sound became his first language as a composer. This early mix of intuition, color, texture, and play became the foundation for the way he understands and approaches music today.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Staves, stems, and page turns carry more than notes. Marc Mellits explains how a copyist’s eye shapes his notation—prioritizing clarity, flexible tempos, and performer ownership—so rehearsal time goes to music, not decoding. He and Tyler Kline dig into the psychology of reading (iPad vs. paper), why a single word can guide interpretation, and how to write for players you’ll never meet.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brett Copeland traces his path into electronic and electroacoustic music through artists who treated the tuba as a flexible, expressive engine rather than a fixed orchestral voice. Influenced early on by Nat McIntosh and the genre-blurring work of Youngblood Brass Band, he became fascinated by acoustic sound manipulation—multiphonics, vocal effects, and timbral shape-shifting—as a foundation for later electronic exploration. That curiosity deepened through performers like Brian Wolf, whose use of effects, drum machines, and live processing opened the door to Brett’s own experiments with signal chains, distortion, and degradation using tools like Ableton Live and Max/MSP. What began as playful experimentation eventually became a philosophical stance: honoring virtuosity while deliberately breaking sound apart, embracing grit, noise, and punk-rooted disruption as a way to expand what the tuba—and composition itself—can be.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carlynn Crosby reflects on the winding, often precarious path that many writers face after college. She shares how freelancing, food writing, and side gigs shaped her post-grad years—and why, for her and many others, writing has remained a passion even when it couldn’t be the primary paycheck.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on social media @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Caterina Schembri reflects on why introspective, unhurried music feels truer to her nature—and how that sensibility shapes the pieces she writes. She talks about resisting the pressure for velocity or density, instead choosing to make work that asks listeners to slow down, pay attention, and stay inside a single sonic space long enough for something subtle to change. The conversation moves into the lived experience behind that aesthetic: the pull toward quiet in a world fixated on immediacy, the relief that comes from music that breathes, and the intuitive ways she shapes pacing, harmony, and atmosphere. She also opens up about collaboration as an introvert—how trust, resonance, and shared artistic values make creative partnerships feel possible—and how her long relationships with performer friends ultimately helped her bring Sea Salt and Turpentine into being.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Annika Socolofsky fell in love with the Hardanger d'Amore—a Norwegian fiddle with sympathetic strings that ring underneath, creating resonance like built-in reverb—when her teacher Dan Truman left her alone with one in his office. She knew if she played it, she'd have to attend Princeton. She played it. The instrument slowed her down; fast Scottish reels gave way to sitting in single notes, which felt like enough. She brought it to Kansas to play for her grandmother and great aunt, identical twins with dementia living in the same nursing home. Music made connection easy when conversation couldn't. The fiddle filled their muffled rooms with warmth. Turod, written after they both died, means "a break in the clouds." The instrument made her spectrally sensitive, attuned to verticality and resonance in ways melody alone hadn't. It also taught her fragility could be beautiful—she didn't need to justify delicacy or write forceful music to deflect gendered judgments. A single note, imperfect and exposed, could be worthy of the stage.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Declining PhD offers for “one gap year” sent Tyler Kline down a decade-long side road: composing at break-neck speed while climbing the ranks in public-radio hosting. He recalls the crash that followed, the food-and-sound series Terroir New Music, the 50-miniature piano set Orchard, and why launching Modern Notebook felt like a healthier way to uplift fellow composers instead of competing against them.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Nathan Hudson first heard author Ben Loory’s story The Duck on NPR’s This American Life, he knew he had to set it to music. That impulse sparked a collaboration that’s grown into years of friendship, concert tours, and a forthcoming album. Hudson reflects on jumping headfirst into vocal writing—despite never having written for voice before—and the challenge of setting Loory’s full, unedited texts to music. The result? Works like The Duck and God that blur narration, chamber ensemble, and song, grounded as much in human connection as in musical invention.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gabriel Bolaños is fully Nicaraguan, though his parents fled the Sandinista revolution in 1979 with three kids and two suitcases. Growing up abroad, moving every few years, Nicaragua remained the one constant—summers with family, guitar lessons with folk guitarist Julio Vásquez, marimba training. But Bolaños resists incorporating those traditions into his notated work. He learned early that folk music's vitality lives in embellishment and performance practice, not the bare-bones transcription on the page. To him, presenting Latin American folk music in concert halls with polished instruments and performers disconnected from its history feels disrespectful—like putting something living in a cage. Even when expectations arise, he holds back, only hinting at those roots sparingly, as hidden gestures rather than central features.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emma O’Halloran reflects on Ira Glass’s famous “gap” quote—the reminder that every creative must endure the distance between their taste and their early work. She shares her own struggles with that gap, the importance of making “bad art,” and why practice is as vital for composers as it is for performers. From clearing space with meditation and movement, to filling the well with curiosity and new discoveries, to the discipline of showing up every day—Emma outlines the pillars that sustain her creative practice.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon.Follow us on Instagram @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicolás Lell Benavides reflects on the bridge between rock, jazz, and composition — how early band rehearsals unknowingly taught him orchestration, and how writing music became a way of organizing thought. He and Tyler talk about teaching creativity, the value of notation as a tool for clarity, and the humility required to stay curious long after formal training ends.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Austin Hammonds opens up about what it really means to take ownership of a creative career — after years of working under others, learning the ropes, and navigating industry instability. He shares the courage it takes to step out on your own, the deep self-reflection behind that decision, and how family, mentors, and curiosity continue to shape his evolving path as a composer.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jessica Ackerley applied to an Arctic residency on a whim, partly motivated by a childhood spent reading Farley Mowat's accounts of Northern Canada and a long-held desire to reach the polar regions. What they found in Svalbard, Norway — one of the furthest points north on the planet — was almost the inverse of what they'd imagined: the gap between preconceived idea and lived experience became the subject. The island carries centuries of layered history, from fur traders and whalers to coal excavation to current scientific research on climate change, and sits at a geopolitical flashpoint as nations jockey for influence over the Arctic. Ackerley describes their ongoing work rooted in that experience as an attempt to share something most audiences will never witness directly — and to let music do what language can't quite manage: convey the essence of being there, and make listeners question what they thought the Arctic was.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hannah Boissonneault describes how her songwriting and concert music practices have become more unified over time — and how improvisation has remained at the heart of both. She shares how voice memos, nontraditional instruments, and a love for slow-moving harmony help her tap into musical intuition. Whether writing a fixed media piece or recording with her band, she embraces the same curiosity, layering textures to create immersive, emotionally grounded sound worlds.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions. Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Through his Vital Organ Project, composer and organist Graeme Shields is reintroducing audiences to an instrument that’s often misunderstood—or overlooked entirely. He and Tyler talk about making the organ accessible outside of church walls, connecting with new audiences, and showing that this centuries-old instrument still has a vital place in today’s musical landscape.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicky Sohn traces a real shift in how she lives and works back to meeting her husband Nate, whose ordinary nine-to-five routine — gym at six, regular hours, a clean line between work and the rest of life — struck her as almost unbelievable after years immersed entirely in musician culture, where identity and self-worth get tied up completely in career outcomes. Watching her brother Justin's old nine-to-five (before he left it to become a ceramicist) planted a similar idea: what if composing worked that way too. The bigger realization underneath both is that music isn't life or death, despite what conservatory training can leave people feeling — that a slow commission year doesn't make her a terrible person. She's since pulled back from all-night writing sessions and constant email responsiveness, trying to build in actual breathing room. Marrying outside the music world has helped in another way: Nate offers something composers rarely give each other, plain, unguarded encouragement, alongside occasional outsider feedback sharp enough to be genuinely useful, like noticing that an opening passage didn't sound like a beginning at all.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Han Hitchen shares how his identity as a queer, transgender, nonbinary man has shaped his music, from early subconscious works to intentional explorations of belonging and transformation. He reflects on the freedom he’s found in embracing both masculinity and femininity, and how composition became a vehicle for expressing identity with honesty and depth. For Han, music is not just notes on a page—it’s a way of making visible the truths of selfhood.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Frazier outlines three guiding pillars that now shape his creative life: fun, patience, and the embrace of identity. Reflecting on earlier periods where composition felt more dutiful than joyful, he describes how reconnecting with jazz, rhythm, and later his Latino heritage fundamentally shifted his relationship to writing music. Fun becomes not a distraction from rigor, but a necessary condition for sustained artistic investment; patience allows musical ideas the space to unfold fully; and identity offers a source of sincerity rather than constraint. Through recent works shaped by rhythm, dance, and cultural memory, Frazier describes a turning point where composition becomes not only meaningful, but genuinely enjoyable again.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions. Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ania Vu discusses The Music She Writes, a project co-created with pianist Eunmi Ko to spotlight the work of Asian women composers. She talks about curation, community, and the power of making space for others — all while resisting narrow definitions of identity-based programming.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions. Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For Christopher Stark, what makes a residency valuable has little to do with geography. Across stints in Italy, Norway, and upstate New York, location left almost no mark on the work itself — the people did, offering a rare baseline of cross-disciplinary curiosity and genuine attention that felt validating in a way daily life rarely does. Residencies also provide distance: a chance to step outside routine and assess whether it's actually serving his goals. A year in Rome clarified this from the opposite direction — Stark found himself missing the chaotic, diverse American art scene he could move through in a single week, despite conditions he describes as inhospitable to art-making. That contrast extends to artistic community itself: away from home, everyone starts from a baseline of mutual unfamiliarity, but in St. Louis, identity, history, and local politics attach to everything, including a string quartet, in a city with little of the ironic distance found in scenes elsewhere.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Baljinder Sekhon talks about intuition, timbre, and the gap between the music we love and the music we create. He reflects on early experiences with sound, the influence of Mario Davidovsky, and why loving many kinds of music can actually make it harder to define a singular voice as a composer.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

C. Jacqueline Wood reflects on art-making through the lens of loss, disillusionment, and resilience. Once embedded in the world of festivals and nonprofits, she has shifted toward creating on her own terms—outside the systems of grants, gatekeepers, and institutions. In this conversation, she speaks about why she no longer measures success by accolades, how her microcinema became a space for nurturing potential, and why sometimes the most important work emerges when artists stop waiting for permission.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Phong Tran reflects on how disillusionment with the classical commissioning system led him to create a more autonomous performance practice. He shares candid thoughts on the institutional structures that shape musical labor, and how writing an essay for I Care If You Listen helped clarify his position.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions. Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Satisfaction is slippery. Tyler Kline and Marc Mellits trade notes on finishing a piece, cringing at what they’d change, and carrying those fixes into the next work. Mellits lays out his “three thirds” view—composer, performer, audience—arguing that interpretation by great players (and the listeners who complete the circuit) transforms notes on a page into art. Along the way they celebrate how performers can uncover things in a score the composer didn’t know were there.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Opperman remembers the day Final Fantasy music struck him like lightning. What began as a teenage obsession with Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtracks turned into a surreal journey—meeting his hero, joining the Distant Worlds team, and eventually orchestrating music for Final Fantasy concerts across the globe. From Carnegie Hall to Japan, Opperman shares how a lifelong fandom became a career bringing joy to thousands of gamers and concertgoers alike.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beyza Yazgan reflects on how limited her early exposure to living composers was while studying piano in Turkey, where the focus remained firmly on the classical canon. That began to shift only after moving to New York, where encounters with contemporary music, free jazz, and improvisation classes quietly rewired her listening and sense of possibility. An improvisation course—initially peripheral to her formal training—became a turning point, offering permission to imagine herself not just as an interpreter, but as a creator. Now composing daily without having formally studied composition, she navigates a hybrid creative life shaped by curiosity, self-teaching, and practical demands—from sound libraries to stylistic flexibility. Rather than a clean break from tradition, her path reflects a gradual widening: a willingness to let unfamiliar sounds, disciplines, and questions reshape what a musical career can look like.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anuj Bhutani reflects on what his non-linear path into composition may have actually been teaching him all along: a process built on following curiosity down paths that mostly don't pan out, until the one that does becomes obvious. A comment from Ted Hearn about watching him rework material over and over crystallized something Bhutani had been doing without fully naming it. A separate piece of advice from teacher Andrew May — that it's every person's right to gather evidence, form a hypothesis, and test it — reframed decision-making itself as a practice rather than a destination. The excerpt closes on a conviction both composers share: that no matter how abstract or apparently non-referential a piece is, it carries the life of the person who made it. The composer who claims otherwise, Bhutani suggests, probably hasn't looked hard enough.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Skydiving and Kurosawa might not seem like obvious musical influences — but for Emily Koh, both reshaped how she experiences time, perception, and meaning. She shares with Tyler Kline how the surreal suspension of a 40-second free fall, and the multi-perspective storytelling in Rashomon, deepened her thinking about how music is felt, heard, and understood. For Emily, the goal isn’t to control the experience — it’s to leave space for listeners to find their own version of it.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emma O’Halloran opens up about what drives her to make music—not from an external push to “say something,” but from an internal urge that feels inseparable from who she is. She reflects on creating music that channels emotion directly, sometimes bypassing traditional ideas of form or intellectual justification. Along the way, she unpacks her resistance to the “tortured artist” myth, the layered honesty she seeks in her work, and how trusting her inner world has shaped her creative path.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon.Follow us on Instagram @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sinclaire Marie frames artistic growth as something both practical and deeply personal: a balance between whether an object does what it’s meant to do and whether it communicates what the maker hopes to share. For her, success begins with function—whether a mug feels right in the hand or a teapot pours cleanly—but extends into conceptual clarity, where texture, weight, and surface convey warmth, care, and intention. She describes pottery as a layered record of decisions: how the clay was handled, how the surface was treated, how fire touched the piece, and how much of that history the maker chooses to reveal or conceal. Rather than chasing polish or perfection, growth shows up in consistency, experimentation, and the ability to keep making—allowing each pot to carry not just use, but evidence of process, emotion, and presence.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Austin Hammonds shares how a brief connection with composer Jay Flippen sparked the realization that a life in composition was actually possible — even from small-town Kentucky. He and Tyler reflect on what it meant to meet a living model of creative longevity, and how moments like that can shape an entire path forward.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram @loose.leaf.transmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Composer and performer Hannah Boissonneault reflects on her early creative impulses—playing an out-of-tune family piano and inventing music long before she knew the rules. She talks with Tyler about how those childhood experiences laid the groundwork for a lifelong relationship with sound, one rooted in curiosity, freedom, and exploration. From classical piano to upright bass to electric ensembles, Hannah’s journey is about staying open and connected to what music feels like, not just how it’s supposed to work.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions. Follow us on social media @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Deadlines once drove Tyler Kline to crank out a new score every month—but three years spent perfecting a single piece reshaped his outlook. In this reflection he unpacks the shift from chasing constant output and external validation to finding satisfaction in slower, more deliberate work. The goal now: balance paid commissions with music made purely for the love of making it, and let the process itself be enough.micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday!Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.