micro/Maker by Loose Leaf Transmissions

Daijana Wallace shares how grad school became a pivotal period of creative self-discovery. She reflects on overcoming uncertainty, experimenting with graphic notation, and how a collaboration with bassist Will Yager pushed her toward a freer, more intentional compositional process. Wallace and host Tyler Kline explore how shedding limitations opened new creative doors.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 Instagram and Facebook @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.

Brett Copeland reflects on how graduate school clarified what a sustainable artistic life actually looks like—not as a single role, but as an ecosystem built from composing, performing, teaching, and collaborating. A formative cohort in Tampa showed him the power of working alongside artists across disciplines, especially dancers, whose physical relationship to sound reshaped how he thought about musical density, gesture, and clarity. That same instinct for intentional separation led to the creation of DJ Electro Tuba: a space for music unconcerned with recital halls or academic framing, built instead from beat-driven collage, improvisation, and stylistic borrowing. Drawing from artists like Parliament, clipping., and later drifting toward more ambient influences such as Brian Eno and Aphex Twin, Brett describes an evolution toward restraint and spaciousness. Tools like Ableton Live and Audacity—especially the PaulStretch process—became ways to slow sound down, stretch small ideas into immersive environments, and let taste, rather than chaos, guide where the project continues.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 quit social media again after reading How to Break Up with Your Phone—the data on time spent and brain impact was horrifying. She briefly checks Instagram when people invite her to collaborate, then deletes it. The "work" she got from being active was superficial; meaningful projects come via email, not DMs. Her newsletter has a 60-70% open rate, far better than whatever eyeballs see Instagram posts. Social media peaked and businesses are realizing it's mostly bullsh*t. Everyone's attention is fragmented; even if they see your post, they won't click through. Vendil's reading more books than she has in years—she knows it's because she's off her phone. She'd rather make really good work without maximum attention than get sucked into a platform that makes everything look and sound the same. And the "privileged" argument doesn't land—none of us are making money purely off art anyway. Everyone has a job. She's choosing where her attention goes.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.

Vanessa Ague shares how her blog The Road to Sound began as a personal outlet and grew into a meaningful platform for artist-centered writing. She discusses how encouragement from mentors like Will Robin helped her claim her voice as a critic, and how the blog ultimately opened doors to new writing opportunities, lasting collaborations, and moments of both joy and challenge.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.

Before studying composition or even imagining a life in music, James May’s first creative spark came from an unlikely place: the Boy Scouts. In this conversation, James reflects on early musical memories—from Catholic folk groups and piano lessons to self-taught electric guitar riffs—and how those beginnings shaped his curiosity about sound and creation.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.

Charly Daniels talks about synesthesia not as a quirk but as the core engine of how he writes — a way of hearing harmony as color, sensing timbre as light or shadow, and shaping form through visual landscapes that unfold in his mind long before notes hit the page. He describes how this inner world emerged from childhood daydreaming, early experiments with his father’s keyboard, and years of listening without notation as a guide, eventually becoming a fully integrated compositional tool. His music grows from these sensory crossovers: clarinets that glow blue, strings that bloom in green, harmonies that brighten into orange or sink into brown, all feeding into a flexible structural intuition that shifts as a piece takes shape. For him, imagining music visually is both a starting point and a feedback loop — a way of staying inside the emotional truth of a sound as it evolves.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.

Shelley Washington shares how her lifelong love of textiles — inspired by her mother's artistry — finds its way into her musical thinking. From modifying vintage fashion to composing pieces like Uniforms, Shelley describes how fabric, memory, and creativity are all tightly interwoven.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.

Sean Hamilton shares how improvisation became central to his artistic voice — and why his compositions now live at the intersection of the fixed and the fluid. In this excerpt, he explains how environmental and emotional factors shape every performance, why he's moved away from traditional notation, and how indeterminacy opens new dimensions of expression and possibility.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 and Facebook @LooseLeafTransmissions.micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.