Renée Yoxon
Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman
01/07/23
•84m
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Renée Yoxon is a trans non-binary singer, songwriter, jazz musician, and trans voice teacher.
In this episode, Renee shares some beautiful and inspiring performances from their albums, as well as stories from life as a disabled person and how their disability and chronic pain has guided the direction of their career. We talk about their musical development, and their experiences both bad and good as they navigated their musical education (after finishing a degree in physics!). Renée explains the kind of work they do with trans vocal exploration and we dive into all kinds of topics in the usual tangential style of this series. The transcript and video are linked here: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/rene-yoxon
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Renée Yoxon website: https://www.reneeyoxon.com/
photo: Laurence Philomène
podcast theme music: Nick Kold
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:21) Renée’s physics degree, start in school band, Jazz Works camp
(00:04:19) free improv group, intergenerational friendships
(00:06:38) intro to “Willow Weep for Me” by Ann Ronell
(00:08:53) “Willow Weep for Me” with René Gely
(00:13:57) piano, ukulele
(00:15:26) “Beautiful Alchemy”, film with Teagan Lance and album
(00:17:14) “Terrible Alchemy”
(00:23:19) Blossom Dearie
(00:23:52) worldless improv
(00:24:37) studies in New York, living as a disabled person, vocal technique
(00:29:33) singing in rock band “Gorgeous George”, care of the voice and endurance training
(00:32:20) trans voice aleration, TikTok success, pitch lowering, taking risks and learning to be silly
(00:40:14) gender presentation and gender identity
(00:42:35) ways we can alter the voice
(00:45:09) different languages in terms of vocal alteration, vocal fry and gendered cutural coding for vocal characteristics
(00:47:52) TikTok
(00:49:22) teaching Trans Voice Alteration to other teachers
(00:51:45) the importance of teaching business skills to musicians, University of Limerick, Edel Meade
(00:55:58) Banff, McGill, growing up in Ottawa, the importance of mentors, Mark Ferguson, René Gely
(01:00:29) social anxiety, speaking in public with a different voice or new language
(01:02:38) different people who take Renée’s courses on voice alteration
(01:03:18) songwriting, Aoife McAtamney Pink Breath
(01:04:27) “Drinking Coffee”
(01:08:58) songs “The Bad Years” about their chronic illness
(01:10:27) Kazaa music sharing, learning jazz repertoire
(01:12:53) Renée’s perspective on the music industry as a disabled person, and experiences at McGill university with lack of accessibility
(01:17:46) Mx non-binary honorific, the importance of pronouns
(01:20:32) disability rights, more about their McGill experience
(01:22:45) Montreal
Previous Episode
Season 3 Trailer
December 8, 2022
•1m
Hi! I wanted to give you an update on Conversations with Musicians. The next episode will be released January 7 2023, as Episode 1 of Season 3.The world is often a scary place, but my hope is that this series brings a positive and contemplative time into your life, with so many inspiring stories, insights and music from my featured guests. Season 3 is continuing with a fascinating diversity of creative musicians following different paths. In 2021 and 22 I released a total of 50 episodes, with many bonus shorter episodes in my Inspiring Excerpts series. If you look at my episode catalog on my podcast website, you’ll find links to all the episodes in both video and podcast format, with descriptions, photos and many transcripts. If you sign up for my newsletter through my website https://www.leahroseman.com/ then you’ll be getting lots of sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Finally, for less than a monthly cup of coffee, you can sponsor this series and get access to my exclusive Q&As, and a selection of unique perks tailored to your interests, through my Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/LeahRoseman I wish you and your loved ones health and happiness. I so look forward to sharing with you many more musicians’ perspectives! my photo: Curtis Perry
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/leah-roseman/messageNext Episode
Mike Essoudry: Drummer
January 14, 2023
•100m
This episode features the fantastic drummer Mike Essoudry, who is a busy performer and composer in Ottawa, Canada, playing with many projects in the funk, jazz, and improvised music scene. He’s in the funk group Gephilte with a previous guest of this series, Josh “Socalled” Dolgin, and in the Together Ensemble with his partner Megan Jerome. Today also marks the release of my bonus catch-up episode with Megan, in which she shares how she and Mike fell in love as well as her new album and great advice about an important aspect of the music business as an independant artist. Her episodes are linked here: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/megan-jerome-e10-s2This episode was unique in that Mike was sitting at his drumset during the entire episode and we talked in detail about the history of the drumset and evolution of different styles of drumming. Mike demonstrated lots of intricate grooves and finished the episode with a cool little solo. He also shared stories from his childhood and talked about how in his youth he built his drums and an intricate treehouse in a park. Transcript and Video: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/mike-essoudry-drummer
Mike's website: https://mikeessoudrymusic.com/home
Support this podcast with a tip, or consider becoming a monthly supporter with access to perks: https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman
photo: JC Batista
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:12) drum set history with demonstrations: bass drum, ride cymbal, Zildjian, Ludwig, Beatles, speed-metal
(00:12:51) tom-toms with demonstration
(00:16:54) brushes, cajon sticks, mallets
(00:20:26) the importance of drummers learning harmony and melody
(00:23:30) counting, knowing the tune
(00:27:03) Latin grooves
(00:32:32) drum solos, not losing the count, the advantage of having someone play with your solo
(00:36:09) poly-rhythms and groupings
(00:42:39) Mike’s book of beats and teaching, playing by ear and reading
(00:46:22) Foley artists, history of radio, silent movies, sound effects
(00:49:14) hand percussion, playing without shoes
(00:51:27) Mike’s childhood, rock drumming, blues
(00:55:31) drum pads substitute for drums
(00:57:45) marching bands, New Orleans, different traditions from around the world, Balkan music
(01:03:48) Mike’s parents, hand percussion on the drum set (demonstration)
(01:11:44) Mike’s father’s immigration story from Moroccon Jewish community, how his parents met
(01:17:37) carpentry skills, classic Lego, treehouse story, building his drum set
(01:23:53) visual and intuitive learning style
(01:26:24) Atlantis Jazz Ensemble, Alouette Space Agency
(01:31:24) solo drum project, balancing earning money with carpentry and writing and playing music
(01:34:39) how Mike practices and the importance of keeping your ears in shape, pushing boundaries like immitating machine beats
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