Daily Inspiration: Meet Noah Bauer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Noah Bauer

Hi Noah, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in a household that always had music playing. My father had very eclectic tastes, jazz, classical, classic rock, world music, folk, etc., so I was exposed to a lot of different styles and was fascinated by all the beautiful ways music could be made. My older brother played the piano and I became enraptured from hearing the live creation of masterpieces such as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Vince Guaraldi’s Linus and Lucy. I began private piano lessons at the age of 9, took up percussion in middle and high school band, added on guitar (mostly self-taught) at the age of 19, and since have often dabbled with many other instruments. Whistling has been my companion as long as piano, remedying creative compulsion anywhere I go when there are no instruments on hand.

I began songwriting shortly after picking up the guitar, finding it to be the most natural medium to compose with, despite a vast experience gap between guitar and piano at that time. Raised on the likes of The Beatles, Rusted Root, Vince Guaraldi, Beethoven, Zap Mama, and Tom Waits, I knew music could be beautiful in many forms. Eclectic seeds grew into countless other songwriting influences, such as Neil Young, Greg Brown, Warren Zevon, Phish, Dave Matthews, and Andrew Bird, as well as traditional world music influences, such as Latin, African, Balkan, Indian, and Irish.

I worked other jobs for many years, only doing music on the side, as I honed my abilities, wrote more songs, and slowly acquired professional quality musical gear. Eventually, I decided to do music full-time and having been doing that for the last few years. Once I had a solid repertoire of originals I was proud of, and once I had acquired sufficient musical gear, I launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an album. The Kickstarter was successful, so I recorded with Ryan Staples of Dead River Sound to record my songs at a high quality studio. I released my debut studio album over the summer and had CDs, T shirts, and stickers manufactured for it. The album is titled “Lunitidal Interval”, and is now available on most streaming platforms. The CDs, stickers, and T shirts are also available for order and shipping.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There are many struggles when trying to learn instruments, write songs, or to do art for a living. It takes thousands of hours of practice to reach a professional level at an instrument, often times dealing with frustrating plateaus, self-doubt, and seemingly hopeless learning curves. It often seems like no matter how much I learn, those never go away and mastery will be forever out of reach. Songwriting has many similar defeats, often being hampered by creative blocks, decision fatigue, and feeling like anything I create is unoriginal and too derivative. Lyrics can take years sometimes to feel finished as I try to figure out what to say and how to say it.

On a business level, there are constant challenges and obstacles. Doing music for a living primarily involves playing frequent live shows. Keeping up enough live shows to pay the bills month after month can be very unstable. Most booking inquires go unanswered, so keeping a sufficient amount of gigs on the calendar requires constant persistence. Sometimes it takes 10 messages to a venue over the course of months before they’ll give a reply. A lot of time and energy has to be poured into the task with no promise of any return on investment. As the sole member of my business, there are countless roles that need to be performed aside from music that I came into with little or no experience. I’ve had to learn as I go to figure out how to do graphic design, accounting, design and manufacture merchandise, and promote my business. I’ve had to become very adaptable to all the various business needs that arise.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’ve taken to calling the style of music I create “progressive jazz folk with world music and rock flavors”. I am informed by a multitude of genres, styles, and cultures, but those seem to be some of the main influences that pervade my music. The progressive part refers to 3 different things, my politically progressive messages, my progressive rock influence, and the attempt to create music that pushes genre boundaries and compositional norms. My blend of genres is already, in and of itself, unique, but there are many more things that set it apart from conventional music. Instead of sticking to typical song formats, I often write them with complete disregard for those structures and compose songs with almost more of a classical or operatic feel, where there are movements, themes, and variations, instead of just singing over simple recurring chord progressions like most Western music. My songs often become long-form compositions then, usually being in the 8-10 minute range, which is also very uncommon in most Western music.

Another thing that has given my music a distinctive quality is my whistling. I’ve been doing it most of my life and am quite comfortable with it, so it became the natural solution to fill the void in solo sections of songs when playing without accompaniment. I worked on improving my tone and vibrato by mimicking Andrew Bird, but then did something unusual for whistlers and used it to try to emulate what I imagined for guitar solos, piano solos, horn sections, etc. After lots of improvisation and experimentation, the end result was a style of whistling quite unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. I recently learned a style of Tuvan (Mongolian) throat singing, so I’ve been starting to incorporate that into my music more to give my music another distinct flavor. In Western music, Tuvan throat singing, as far as I know, is only popular in metal. Using it in a blend of folk and jazz has created some very intriguing sounds that I plan to further experiment with in my quest to create very original and unique music.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My main advice for musicians is to trust their ear and play with feeling. Music theory is valuable, but is just one component of good music. Many musicians overlook instinct and emotion and it leads to music that sounds lifeless. Compelling music comes from the heart. The other big one is to listen to as many styles of music as possible and then inform yourself from all of them. Learn techniques and practices from many genres to find a much more unique musical voice along the way, both on your instrument and in your songwriting. Don’t be afraid to throw out the rule book and just make up hand positions and guide yourself completely by ear and intuition when in the creative process. Often times, some of my best compositional components came about from experimenting with random hand placements that weren’t any of the chords or voicings I had knowledge of. Finding a chord voicing that is rare can immediately elevate a song to a more interesting path. If you aren’t paying attention to what they might be called and keep experimenting with the guide of your ear, you can sometimes find uncommon chord pairings that work, but go beyond your theory understanding of why. Our ears know best. Theory is just a reference point, but many great works have been created, and theory has even often expanded, due to musicians venturing beyond their knowledge of it.

Pricing:

• $15 for CDs w/ lyric booklet (plus shipping)
• $30 for 100% heavyweight cotton, woodblock print T-Shirts (plus shipping)
• $5 for Stickers (plus shipping)
• Live Music prices vary based on location and duration
• $500 for Song Commission

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/noahbauer
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noahthedroplet/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088050186850&mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/live/7aMJ3dZanoo?si=-XOedfh2mPaOkbdf
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/0rY0LZpQ4JfN3XEsiGczBh?si=zPaXowVoSZGwBKNnB0ceBQ

Image Credits
Jacob Darner and Bradley Blair