Nate Kadlac: [00:00:00] So you talked a little bit about how did you make a transition from that to video games? What
Josh Plotner: was the first thing that you worked on and how did you happen upon that? I had the fortunate accidental thing to stumble into
Nate Kadlac: Welcome to the hey good game podcast where we chat with the creators of your favorite games that you secretly play in the cracks of your day.
Joseph Rueter: Nate, we just had a chance to chat with Josh. I had not talked with a human that plays as many instruments as he does and has the kind of joyful disregard for norms Josh is like, hey, let's play some music.
Joseph Rueter: It's super exciting So that's the number one thing that came from the conversation for me is the joy that he has in his work How about yourself?
Nate Kadlac: I love this
Nate Kadlac: idea that you can do what you love. You can teach you can educate and that's You A way to, [00:01:00] earn a living in whatever you do.
Nate Kadlac: And Josh is putting it out all on the table and having a lot of fun with it. And so if you ever had any questions about flutes, this is the podcast you want to listen to.
Nate Kadlac: I'm Nate Cadillac, and I'm here with my cohost, Joseph Reuter. And today we are so excited to speak with Josh Plotner, a well renowned musician, producer, and. and arranger known for his work for films, tv, video games, and much more. He's based in New York and Josh has been a freelance musician for more than a decade.
Nate Kadlac: He is a saxophonist, woodwind multi instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and international recording artist. In video games, he's performed in many known titles such as Yoku's Island Express, Red Dead Redemption 2, Remnant from the Ashes, Kenna, Bridge of Spirits, and more. Hey, Josh, we're thrilled you're here.
Josh Plotner: Hey, I'm very glad to be here, yeah.
Nate Kadlac: we usually kick [00:02:00] things off. Do you have a favorite game to play?
Josh Plotner: the one that comes to mind would have to be, like, Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. I just, I think when Tears of the Kingdom came out, it was like May or June, and I just, I lost a month, if I'm being honest.
Josh Plotner: Yeah, I didn't do anything, for a whole month, I just played that game, and I was Really happy about it. The music, especially, ugh, that was so like, that music is everything I want to do. not everything, but a lot of it. I was almost mad when I heard it, if I'm being honest, because it was like, too perfect.
Josh Plotner: And also, it's really hard to get a job at Nintendo doing anything if you're not Japanese. And I'm not. But, yeah, Tears of Kingdom. Or, that's my favorite. But then a lot of what I play is like terrible little flash games, if I'm being really honest, because I get so deep into games like lose a month on tears of the kingdom that like the flash games are like noncommittal and they're bad and not necessarily bad, but they're just like small enough and unseriousness enough that I can step [00:03:00] away.
Josh Plotner: Cause as soon as I'm like in, I'm afraid of world of Warcraft, that would end me, I wouldn't do music anymore. I just, but yeah, so final answer. Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild. Oh, that's controversial if I have to pick one. I'm not going to pick one. I'm going to pick both.
Nate Kadlac: I'm really curious about you're a musician, obviously.
Nate Kadlac: And what is it about Tears of the Kingdom? Like when you're playing that game, what is it that you're blown away by? Is it the I'm not even going to pretend I know all these terms, but is it the background music? Is it the clicks, the little micro audio sounds like what?
Nate Kadlac: What is it about the game that you're looking at and admiring?
Josh Plotner: on the music side, visually stunning, open world, stunning. it could go on and on about that, but the things I can talk professionally about on the music side, it's really just like the compositions are so well thought out and fresh and also [00:04:00] like their choice of instrumentation because like my thing, at least as a musician, as a player is woodwinds and they like almost every song, not every song, but so many of them feature, like a really interesting woodwind instrument too.
Josh Plotner: They're not, it's a lot less like saxophones and oboes and a lot more like one of the village themes is like shakuhachi and the player they got sounds so good. And then I got really into it and I was, trying to figure it out. And also it's just, this is all the way deep traditional Japanese music nerdiness.
Josh Plotner: So shakuhachis is the most common traditional Japanese flute. If, maybe if you're thinking like a Naruto flute is what some people. think of. It's like easier for Western audience. So it doesn't play well in every key. So you buy a bunch of them if you're a professional, so that you have a bunch of keys so you can play in modern music.
Josh Plotner: But like Japanese music is the vast majority of it is just in one key, But in modern world, you buy a bunch of them and they're very [00:05:00] expensive because they're made by monks sometime. or at least traditionally. The key that they have is like a super unusual key in this thing and it's low and it's like nicer because it's more mellow than the normal one and like it's just like that attention to detail.
Josh Plotner: And then they've got like tin whistles making you feel like nostalgic and like friendly all over the place like especially in traveling places when you're on the road like a little tin whistle is just so friendly and yeah all the flutes and then the piano stuff is really good the harmonic not to get too deep in the weeds with music theory.
Josh Plotner: There's a, if anyone, knows like Nare Sol, she has a really, she's a piano player who's all over social media. She has an amazing video like breaking down the music theory behind like some of these piano things. They're plex but sound gorgeous. Which is one thing I love. I actually, I think that's one thing I really look for in music.
Josh Plotner: I love like complexity that sounds simple where you can just have it in the background and you don't notice anything. And as soon as you look at it, you're like, [00:06:00] wait. And Breath of the Wild, the score absolutely delivers a hundred percent. Yeah. Nintendo, call me please.
Josh Plotner: If you're listening. Nintendo listens to your podcast, right? They do. the Shaka,
Joseph Rueter: Shaku. Oh, K U, yeah. Sha ku ha chi. you said it's really hard to make work. It looks like a recorder, and that's how I feel about all of my recorder work. It's like really hard to
Josh Plotner: make them sound good. It is so much harder than a recorder.
Josh Plotner: It is, it's like if you buy a shakuhachi, and I encourage that you do, There are cheap ones, it's called shakuhachi yu, y u, it's 200 bucks, it's not that bad. It's made of plastic, but you will get it and you will not make noise for maybe a week. You will just be blowing air onto this instrument and nothing will happen.
Josh Plotner: It is the most cruel instrument, it is so hard. And then once you kinda can make a sound Even professionals, they'll just have a day where it's like not working, and you [00:07:00] don't know why. It's mad. And then, once you get it together, the fingers are really hard, because you play more notes than you have holes, so you have to do cover the whole halfway in a really delicate It's a nightmare, but it's an awesome instrument.
Josh Plotner: Highly recommend if you want the craziest challenge of your life. Play Shakuhachi.
Nate Kadlac: Is this bamboo? Is that what that is made from?
Josh Plotner: Yeah, traditionally it's made from bamboo. They do make There are cheaper ones that are made from wood these days, and then the cheapest ones are made from plastic. And actually, I have a friend who is working with a company to make metal ones, and they call them the katana.
Josh Plotner: Very far from traditional, but they make them out of metal too, yeah.
Joseph Rueter: How often do you get to play this professionally?
Josh Plotner: I play so many instruments, it's hard to keep my frequency, but I would say shakuhachi comes up like once every couple months. Cause yeah, it's like when anyone wants. a Japanese like sounding thing like that's what there are other Japanese instruments [00:08:00] for sure, but like the people I work with are general.
Josh Plotner: I don't really work. I play. I actually study a lot of traditional music, but I don't really perform a lot of traditional music. So yeah, the people I work with all kind of want traditional sounding things that aren't traditional at all. And they like, it's we want a Japanese, but we don't know how to make Japanese music that well.
Nate Kadlac: That's like design where we need something that looks casual. So we'll use papyrus, even though it's a modern restaurant, we want it to look handwritten.
Josh Plotner: And actually, because I, specifically the shakuhachi, because I, Get enough call for it. And then I get things that are written for it that are impossible to play or would be just ridiculously hard because again, it really only wants to play a few notes, which is why, as I said before, you need a bunch of different size flutes to play in different keys.
Josh Plotner: So I actually bought this thing called a shakaloot, which is where there's a guy who he basically takes this top of a shakuhachi and chops it off so [00:09:00] that you don't have the shakuhachi body and then he puts a silver tenon in it so you can put it on a western classical silver flute. So you've got the shakuhachi top on your flute and now you've got your flute fingerings and it sounds similar to a shakuhachi.
Josh Plotner: When you have keys instead of holes, you can't like slide as much because you, like with the holes, you can slide off of it, but the keys allow me to shred like I can on silver flute. So I actually bought this thing for Western composers where I was like, you want Japanese music, but the thing you wrote is impossible for Japanese.
Josh Plotner: And it's not impossible, but like really unnecessarily hard and won't even sound good for Japanese flute. So let me just shred on this and this is what you want. So yeah, and it's called Chocolute. It looks crazy. It looks like, I mean it is, it's like Frankenstein flute.
Joseph Rueter: That's amazing. So if you go back to like your 3, 7, 10, 14 year old selves, could you imagine having just had that conversation?
Joseph Rueter: Oh, zero [00:10:00] percent. How'd you get here from there?
Josh Plotner: Yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. My mom will verify, I've wanted to play saxophone since I was three, and she thought it was a phase. So I actually, I started in band with everyone else when I was 10, and that was the year before my high school started forcing you to play clarinet before you play saxophone, and I'm so glad because I had no interest in clarinet.
Josh Plotner: I play clarinet now, love it, but like at the time, I would never have gotten into music if I had been forced to play clarinet. So I started on saxophone, and then at some point a teacher was like, look, if you want to be a saxophone, you're so into saxophone, like you have to play clarinet and or flute and that's just like it comes from like the big band tradition like where there's like always like they're like saxophone with a little bit of flute or saxophone with a little bit of clarinet and I was like okay and I started playing them and then I got really into them because actually in band like the saxophone parts usually at least In concert band, the saxophone parts are the worst [00:11:00] parts.
Josh Plotner: Cause a lot of the times the composers will just take the French horn part or something. It's this alto y tenor voice. And they'll just be like, yeah, and saxophones can play that too. they don't know what to do with saxophones in concert band and this kind of like classical ish marching kind of music, right?
Josh Plotner: That concert bands play. So I was like, I want to get good enough. flute or clarinet so I can just play there. so senior year of high school, I was playing flute in concert band because I was like, the saxophone sucks. I don't want to play the saxophone in concert band. And then I was also playing clarinet in the orchestra because they don't let saxophones in except for literally four pieces in the orchestra repertoire.
Josh Plotner: So I was like, now I want to hang out with my orchestra friends. And then so I was like pretty strong on sax, clarinet, flute. Then I got to college doing music and I was starting to think about a little more about what I wanted to do professionally. And I was thinking about, Oh, I'd love to do Broadway.
Josh Plotner: And people were like, sax, flute, clarinet will get you pretty far on Broadway, but if you really want to work on Broadway, oboe. And I was like, ah, [00:12:00] I don't know if I want to play oboe, but I do want to work. So I. I started playing Oboe in college and then I got to New York and I rolled up to Broadway and I was like, one job please.
Josh Plotner: And they were like, no. The way Broadway works in short is that you have to know people, you have to be in the network. And I hadn't studied with the people who were on Broadway, I didn't know the people. There's no audition process for Broadway. It's all kind of connections. And so what you do is you start.
Josh Plotner: subbing for people you play when they get another gig and they're busy or they're sick or whatever and all those positions are full too no one again people they were like no thank you well someone must need a substitute someone must have something that's a really hard book and The one I found was Lion King, and on Lion King, there's a chair that's 13 different flutes.
Josh Plotner: And so the one I found that was really hard was Lion King, and on Lion King, that chair had [00:13:00] 13 different flutes, which was daunting, but I was like, okay, let's go. what if I just start with the hardest chair on Broadway? And so I contacted the guy. He maybe we'll see. And eventually I just kept Being persistent, I bought all the flutes, which is like pan flutes and like these Indian flutes and flute and piccolo as well.
Josh Plotner: And eventually he let me sub and I'm still subbing there today. And, yeah, so that worked out, but then I like got the taste of the world flutes, right? And then I was like, And I got contacted by this guy, I can't remember how he reached out, but he wanted to record some world flutes, and I was like, Okay, sure, yeah.
Josh Plotner: And then he was asking me for things I didn't have, and I was like, hey, look, I'm googling this flute, I'm looking at it, it makes sense to me, I could pick this up pretty quick. It's if you have, a month for me to, get this, and ship this, and learn this, I'll do it and and it's look and also world flutes are very cheap flutes or non [00:14:00] western flutes are usually really cheap because like keys are what cost a lot of money Like the complicated mechanisms like stick with holes doesn't cost a lot of money It's like it's you're talking a hundred two hundred dollars.
Josh Plotner: So I was like Wait, if I buy this 200 flute and get 200, I made my money back, but now I have a flute. And then, actually much later on, I started doing like really bad, I guess it would be boy math, where I was like, okay, if I buy a 200 flute and I make 200 on it, the flute is still worth 200, and now I've made a 100 percent profit.
Josh Plotner: return on my investment. The stock market is an absolute waste of time. I can just buy flutes. And so I, yeah, it started just whenever it came up, anyone would be like, do you play this? I was like, I do in two weeks for shipping. And, so I, yeah, I just kept going and it really worked out.
Josh Plotner: And I, yeah, now I all over the place and that got me [00:15:00] more into especially video game stuff. Because video game stuff really loves, actually one thing I love about video game music in general is that there's no genre and there's no tradition, like there's no, almost every other genre of music has traditions and rules where like, you come into jazz and you're trying to play a bunch of very straight technical classical scales, it's not gonna sound right, you're not gonna get jazz guys to, It's not going to be right.
Josh Plotner: you come into country music and you start like playing crazy bebop complicated jazz licks, the country guys are going to be mad at you. Video game music has zero rules. There's zero tradition. And they're all over the place and they really like unique, unusual sounds and the world flutes that I play are a great Opportunity to get into that.
Josh Plotner: By the way, I should just say real quick. I keep saying like world flutes or non western There's no good word for like flutes that are outside the orchestra and jazz band Like that's what I'm trying to [00:16:00] say because you say like non western But Ireland is in the West and like Irish tin whistle is also like a world flute But also like I just want to address that there's no good term So like I apologize like the shorthand world flutes is like the best one I got None of it's good.
Joseph Rueter: That's amazing. Yeah. A detail I would not have considered. Yeah. The new title for this is the ROI on sticks with holes. Sticks are good ROI. So if you were going to go to the museum of sticks with holes. Is there a museum for world flutes? Is it part of a
Josh Plotner: okay, so actually I've started to really annoy my girlfriend because she's an artist, she does like background stuff, she's worked on like Netflix stuff and like Disney stuff, and she really likes to go to the Met.
Josh Plotner: we're in New York, the Met, Metropolitan Museum of Art, amazing, insane museum. They have a, like a musical instruments exhibit, and [00:17:00] I always want to go to it, even though I've already seen it, and she just wants it's a huge museum, so she always wants to see something new, and I'm like, but can we go see the instruments?
Josh Plotner: And I'm I know I'm so obnoxious when I go there, because every time we just get to, it's like, there's cool like banjos and violins and harpsichords. And then we get to the woodwinds and I'm literally just got it. Mine's better. oh, that one's like weird. Oh, they should, why are they doing that?
Josh Plotner: And I'm just like, I'm just like such an obnoxious being like, yeah, I have that at home. And mine's I don't know why, would they use that one? it's just me being a giant woodwind snob, basically. It's great. And she tolerates me somehow. but yeah, Go to the Met though, it's very cool. The instrument exhibit, it's awesome.
Nate Kadlac: So you talked a little bit about working on The Lion King and how did you make a transition from that to video games? What was the first thing that you worked on and how did you happen upon that?
Josh Plotner: Yeah, so I had the [00:18:00] fortunate accidental thing to stumble into online remote recording way back in 2015 or 2016.
Josh Plotner: I feel like once the pandemic hit, everyone was doing remote recording, but I started a few years earlier. So I was in that space. And then I realized there was few websites and stuff where you could list yourself and be like, Hey, I've got a nice thing. Microphone and a saxophone and a closet.
Josh Plotner: Please. Give me money And so I was doing that and then I started getting connected with people all over the world in all sorts of different industries and the video game people I started I think my First video game was probably like a mobile slots game like those mobile gambling games that I don't understand The I don't get the appeal.
Josh Plotner: I don't want to wait. I don't want to rag on it I just I don't understand it, but i've played on You on some of those. And then, honestly, it was like from a small network of people, you, you get a good [00:19:00] relationship with some people and then they start getting better opportunities, which means you start getting better opportunities.
Josh Plotner: And eventually, if they're nice, they tell their friends about you. And it started expanding out from there. one guy who really helped me get into the video game space was Adam Gubman, who's an amazing composer and producer. He's all over like Genshin Impact and a little bit of Genshin Impact and Arknights.
Josh Plotner: He's, and then he does Disney stuff. He's really cool. and I've been, I've been a part of that as well, through him. Yeah. And then saying yes to every opportunity.
Nate Kadlac: That's a, a great philosophy to have, especially getting started in your career, also do the same, just say yes to everything, when you, when it comes to making.
Nate Kadlac: music for video games. Like what is outside of flutes, which I think is a category you own. What are the most popular instruments that you're typically are asked to use?
Josh Plotner: Let's see.
Nate Kadlac: are we only hiring Josh for flutes? [00:20:00]
Josh Plotner: it's, a lot of, video games. It's a lot of flutes or it'll be once in a while, it'll be like.
Josh Plotner: On Arknights, which I've done a lot of stuff, which Arknights is super popular in like China, and I don't think it's as popular in the U. S., but there's a lot of like really cool like jazz stuff that I've done, so I've definitely done a lot of saxophone with that, but besides that, I think in video game music, it's a lot of flutes because there's so much of this like whimsical fantasy kind of music in video games.
Josh Plotner: There's definitely other kinds of music, but if it's metal, they're probably not gonna call me unless actually I did just play on the Hades 2 soundtrack on this track that I absolutely love by Darren Korb The track's called The Necropolis and it is, yeah, it's this insane, screaming, but it's actually still flute, it's silver flute, and I actually played bass flute on it as well.
Josh Plotner: But it's this insane, screaming flute thing that was really fun. [00:21:00] But yeah, it's a lot of Video games is a lot of flutes. If it's really cozy, I've played on a game that is super underrated called Hoa, H O A. It looks like Homeowner's Association, which is terrifying. It is the opposite. Or actually, maybe it's pronounced Hoa.
Josh Plotner: It's, like a, you play a Vietnamese sprite, and it's like the most cozy puzzle platformer I've ever played. they're not, Unlike other puzzle platformers, they're not like, hiding things and making you go back, and it's just really beautiful art. Straightforward, but challenging puzzles, and then the coziest music, and on that, again, because there's no rules for video game music, that one was like, super orchestral, kinda, cozy, cute little, Piano with oh, and then there's some oboe and then there's some clarinet and then there's a little bit of violin or something.
Josh Plotner: Big fan of hoa. Hoa? I don't know how to say it. but you play a cute little Vietnamese sprite and it's ridiculously underrated.
Joseph Rueter: That's awesome. So how does it typically go? You got a game [00:22:00] developer. What is the way to ask you to make music that fails? cause I would imagine like you get pitched all the time and you're like, meh, seen that before.
Josh Plotner: so I don't know. I, feel like I, I pride myself on being flexible. So the only thing that would fail is if it's like, Hey, can you do like a hundred hours of work and we have a hundred dollars? that would fail. But, short of that, like I appreciate that people come from different. Kind of background so if someone's really crazy intense musically and they're like hey Yeah, we need these instruments and yeah, and then this was gonna be this here the chord changes Here's the sheet music like boom.
Josh Plotner: Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom, like you're gonna record in 48k sample rate and like we need 24 bit audio like awesome But then I also like to work with people who are like, we just want something that's like round, but also like good tones and also [00:23:00] flashy. And that doesn't make any sense, but I've gotten stuff like that.
Josh Plotner: And then it's like a fun, like translation exercise. it's like, how do I make that make sense? Like a little bit of mind reading, a little bit of this and that. But yeah, as long as people are like, communicative and good to work with, I'm usually honestly happy to. And then, just whatever, the only thing that would drive me crazy too is if the vision was like, super unclear.
Josh Plotner: Where there's you want it round and flashy? I'm like, I don't, again, round and flashy barely makes sense to me, but I can like, kinda start to think of it. But then they're like, actually we want it like, really sad and simple. And I'm like, wait, no. That's, you can't, now you're just, now you're just messing with me.
Joseph Rueter: Yeah. And so you're talking about the kind of the role of translator in a client context. One of the things in getting to know your work that I was surprised by was almost like the e commerce nature of your webpage. So you like land there and you're like, I could do this and I can do this and I can do this and [00:24:00] BTW, here are all my reviews.
Joseph Rueter: And it's not a small list. It's like all these reviews. I feel like I'm on Amazon trying to pick my music for my game. Oh yeah, I should do this. I'm going to contact Josh. Talk me through
Josh Plotner: how you came to that. Yeah, that was a benefit of being remote recording space for so long that again, when the pandemic hit, I actually had a weird like feeling of guilt.
Josh Plotner: Cause I got a couple cool gigs out of the pandemic hitting. Cause LA shut down and they were like, wait, we can't record like we normally do. How does this online thing work? Oh, this guy has experience already. And the pandemic was also miserable for me too, but there were like a couple like silver linings.
Josh Plotner: But yeah, so all those reviews came from, yeah, just years of recording online. which also gave me so much experience working with so many people. Also a lot of it, like when you are just working with people text based, right? It was just like emails, not a lot of Zoom calls, not a lot of phone calls, not a lot of live [00:25:00] monitor recordings.
Josh Plotner: You actually get even better at reading people's minds and Translating what people mean and yeah, it just helps you get more flexible and then it helps you build a crazy website That's I spent way too much time on my website. it's actually it's funny for musicians That's not possible.
Josh Plotner: By the way, you there's not enough time. I was gonna say
Joseph Rueter: you just asked Nate to fight
Josh Plotner: here's the thing musician websites are usually terrible and I feel like they're Terrible enough. I've sent people my website and gotten a response like oh, that's okay And like I know what they're thinking like because like it's just like it's like a one page They're thinking it's gonna be a one page scroll With a half thought out bio and then a couple like links to SoundCloud and that's it and like a couple pictures like That's a normal music.
Josh Plotner: That's And no way to contact you, likely. Yeah, And it's, and I was like, I've just gone the completely opposite direction where I was like, here's everything ridiculously [00:26:00] organized. Here's all my, I even went so far as I not only list all my instruments, but I have I try to have like little demos for all of them.
Josh Plotner: And then even for composers, like it was already way too much time. But I, have a thing that like explains how to write for them in one paragraph, which is obviously too little information, but it's here are the most fundamental rules of how to write for the Bansuri, like instruments that you've never heard of.
Josh Plotner: Yeah, that's niche enough for most people. I was just trying to think of something more niche. The Bansuri, by the way, is a very common Indian flute. any Indian people listening are like, that's not. That's not niche. And I agree with you, person who thinks that's not niche. But, yeah, so I went way too deep on my website, but it's fun.
Josh Plotner: So go to my website. I promise it doesn't suck. there's some added
Joseph Rueter: benefit to
Josh Plotner: there's, is it
Joseph Rueter: called the Ney?
Josh Plotner: I've heard Ney and Nye. It's it covers a big enough region of the Middle East and Eastern Europe that you get different pronunciations. Both are fine.
Joseph Rueter: [00:27:00] Yeah. And you're like, here's the Arabic version.
Joseph Rueter: Here's the Turkish version. Yes. Yeah, there's a level of acuteness and competence that you're just saying, here's the stuff. Do you want to work together? That I think is super refreshing.
Josh Plotner: Yeah. Cause I'm really happy to nerd out and educate my cause sometimes as a someone who provides services, the trick is to educate your clients without letting them know that you're educating them.
Josh Plotner: You don't ever want to talk down to a client, but also it's like, Oh, they don't know enough information to do this relationship. And so it's that tricky thing of trying to be like, here's a bunch of information in a very casual way with, finding
Nate Kadlac: that line. On the flip side, I think you see this with any profession as they're They speak to you like you should know exactly, like you're a musician as well.
Nate Kadlac: Or if I'm a designer, I, most of the websites are geared towards other designers, which is completely the opposite way to think about [00:28:00] it. And so I like this. this appeals to me as a non client right now, if I were to ever hire someone, I'd probably think of you because you've taught me, like you're showing pictures and samples of things.
Nate Kadlac: And so it's great. I think this is really well done. There's Something between this and the intersection of what you're doing on social, which I find really interesting. And I'm curious how that plays out for you. Do you, you do a lot of tutorials and how tos on your Instagram and it follows this theme that you're doing on your website here.
Nate Kadlac: How does that play into your overall idea of what generating clients or earning revenue, or are you just a teacher at heart? Like how does this kind of fit into to your persona?
Josh Plotner: Yeah. I would say a lot of it comes from me being frustrated that it doesn't already exist. I feel like a lot of ideas I have are, when you're looking for something on the internet, you just assume it exists, which is a [00:29:00] very safe assumption.
Josh Plotner: Like I want this, Google, give it to me, and Google's yeah, obviously. Here you go. Like when I'm searching for these more niche subjects, a lot of times, there is nowhere online that I have found where you can learn about like lots of different world flutes from, or like once in a while you find a page and it's it looks like it was made in the 90s, and it's like really hard to, and like the history is like way too long and way too dry, and then the sound samples are really like low quality, it sounds Seems like for some reason, like every recording sample of a traditional instrument was like from the 1970s on a potato. it's just there's so little high quality stuff for Like non western instruments, which there's no great reason why that is because they're like especially these days.
Josh Plotner: They're pretty accessible So yeah, when I think about the stuff I'm creating I just am like finding holes that weren't there and then trying to fill them or even I made a series about [00:30:00] how to write for woodwind instruments Like I was aiming for two minutes sometimes it became three or four but being like here's how to write for the clarinet in two minutes and the fact that we get when I was like looking for that and seeing what other people were doing and Like the shortest thing I could find was like 30 minutes and they're being like the history in 1774 the clarinet was who cares like I just want to know I want to write beautiful me.
Josh Plotner: I like clarinet I want to write beautiful music. There's only 10 rules you really need. It's don't go higher than this. Don't go lower than this. This thing doesn't work. This thing works great. Have a nice day. And so yeah, trying to fill those holes. And then lately on Instagram, I've been trying to make little things introducing like instruments that Western audiences wouldn't really be aware of in a really fun snappy way.
Josh Plotner: And then also just trying to write and produce a track. And man, I've been trying to do that every week. And I'm always up at 4am being like, I have to post this tomorrow so I can do this every week. I'm great at procrastination. I've been told my [00:31:00] whole life that it wouldn't work. it's oh, when you get to high school, you can't procrastinate anymore.
Josh Plotner: When you get to college, when you get to the real world, it's I'm still waiting for it to for the other shoe to drop. Terrible. If you're a teenager listening, just keep procrastinating.
Nate Kadlac: I think what you're saying is set deadlines, cause you'll get it done, it's just gonna happen the last 24 hours.
Josh Plotner: Deadline?
Josh Plotner: if you were a creative person, deadlines are the only thing that works. There is no muse that's gonna come whisper in your ear and inspire you, just get a deadline. Just be like, I need this tomorrow, it'll happen, it's magic. Deadlines are, the muses, the Greek muses that whisper into your ears, their name, the real version of them is deadlines.
Josh Plotner: That's what the muses are, they're deadlines.
Nate Kadlac: So what motivates you to keep making this stuff? Is it, are you invested in, is it to get clients? Is it just for fun? Are you a teacher at heart? What is it?
Josh Plotner: I guess it's partially to get clients, like it's partially, honestly, a lot of the things I've [00:32:00] done have come from frustration and then turning it into a positive thing.
Josh Plotner: so before this series I've been doing now about world instruments, when I was doing that, like how to write for flute in two minutes, that entirely came from, the whole thing was that I was getting so furious that people were writing, So flute, the lower notes are really soft and they really can't get very loud.
Josh Plotner: And then the higher notes are loud and it's hard to get them soft. And it's just such a basic thing. It's don't write loud, low notes for flute. Doesn't work. And I was like, if I see one more person write a middle C forte on flute, I'm gonna. Then it was like, What if I just made like and then I made this really positive happy video and now if I see that again I can be like you know I made a video about that like really passive aggressively it's like it's on YouTube it's been on YouTube for years not necessarily all the way I'm being a little dramatic it's not like anger it's just frustration but yeah and also with all these non western instruments like it's truly like I think these are cool and No [00:33:00] one else seems to know about them, and then, like, when I try to talk to people about them, sometimes, you talk about something foreign, at least to Americans, but I'm in New York, it's a pretty, multicultural city, but you talk about something foreign and people's eyes start to glaze over and they're like, Oh, that's not for me, and I'm like, It's music.
Josh Plotner: Music, all music is for all people, in my opinion at least. but sometimes like you're trying to sell someone on like Ethiopian food and their eyes glaze over and I'm like, look, you're wrong. You have to eat Ethiopian food. It's amazing. If you haven't had it, go eat Ethiopian food and listen to cool music from all over the place.
Josh Plotner: And yeah. Yeah, I've it's like it's a lot of times it is just like me being like I wish the world was a little more like this and no one else is doing it Honestly, it'd be easier if someone else was but I guess I'll do it because I need something to do
Nate Kadlac: just as a personal bias, I would love to see and maybe you do this already but like examples that are out in the wild and you're Calling out that [00:34:00] instrument.
Nate Kadlac: Like you, you find live examples of the instrument that you're talking about, this kind of rare thing and kind of doing a simple breakdown like that. To me, it's really difficult to pick apart composition and figure out what all the instruments are, but it's really fascinating to me when I learn what those are.
Nate Kadlac: And Just as a, selfish request, I would love to see that in the world by you.
Josh Plotner: That's a good idea. And there'll be a lot, less work than some, though. You're doing it yourself. Yeah. Yeah. cause yeah, some of the kind of when I'm like trying to produce a whole track and then make a little information about the thing, it's oh yeah, just like listening to be like, Hey, this is that.
Josh Plotner: That's how that works. That's a good idea. Until I start getting it wrong. Yeah, yeah. Although I, I was, my first thought was like, oh, that would be like to make videos about Breath of the Wild talking about all the different like flutes and stuff there. And then it's funny because that would be challenging just because like sometimes things sound similar and it's oh, this it gets really tricky actually.
Josh Plotner: I feel like I have a TED talk to give [00:35:00] about how the reason I can play so, so many flutes from around the world and like woodwinds is because they're not that different. They are different. And the music, like the traditional music is very different, but the physical instruments, there's five kinds of flute in the world.
Josh Plotner: And that's it. not only Is physics the same in every country? But human skeletons and faces are more or less the same in the whole world. We all, 99%, 10 fingers, one face with lips and a chin and stuff, so there are only so many options for Instruments you can make cuz physics and so there's a tiktok to give about something world peace We all made the same flute and there's even like kind of niche stuff like the shakuhachi that we were talking about that Japanese Flute, it's really hard to play.
Josh Plotner: I don't even understand how you could come up with the flute itself, because it's like, how do you invent this? I don't care if you are sitting [00:36:00] around all day, pre internet, pre TV, pre entertainment, with nothing to I don't understand how you ever figure out that this flute works. But they also figured out almost the same flute in the Andes Mountains.
Josh Plotner: around, Peru, they made the same flute. And they weren't hanging out. This flute, it depends, but we're talking hundreds if not thousands of years. They were not jamming together in the Andes and in Japan, and they came up with the same ridiculously complicated, tricky to figure out flute.
Josh Plotner: But so there's all these similarities of flutes from around the world, which is cool and unifying, but getting back to the Breath of the Wild thing, I would be terrified, because sometimes they Sound very similar and I'd be like, Oh, that's a whistle, but Oh no, it's like this thing from this country.
Josh Plotner: Cause that's what they played on it and Nintendo doesn't credit all those things specifically. So I can't look it up, but you could make like a educated,
Joseph Rueter: I can make
Josh Plotner: an
Joseph Rueter: educated guest informed guest. Yeah. You're like, I know this one, 30 percent chance. It's this, [00:37:00]
Josh Plotner: but especially something like, like most people I think know the, tin whistle, but you find those like, most European countries, they have a version of it.
Josh Plotner: That's like again, it's like the same thing, but it has a different name and they play different music on it, but like acoustically and like physically, it's you made it out of wood instead of, Actually, here's a really fun fact about woodwind instruments. It doesn't matter what they're made out of.
Josh Plotner: Even like woodwind musicians don't know this. This might be even boring, but, it doesn't matter what they're made out of. They don't have to be made out of wood. They don't have to, as long as it's like a solid, smooth thing, woodwinds can be made out of any material and it doesn't affect their sound.
Josh Plotner: deeply controversial statement, but it's also correct. Now, I just want, and just give me, whenever there are like comments being like, he's wrong, just send them to me and I'll be like, ha Here comes the carbon fiber version. Yeah, it worked. There are, carbon fiber flutes and they sound the same.
Josh Plotner: I like, I started playing like, 3d printed plastic mouthpieces [00:38:00] because like you can mess with the geometry easier than rubber or wood It's like it's not that 3d printed plastic is better It's just like you can make like for 10 cents You can make a bunch of different versions and if you're making something out of wood or metal or rubber Like you really have to craft it and it takes a really long time.
Josh Plotner: But yeah, anyways, that was all the way That's
Joseph Rueter: amazing. So do you have a printer?
Josh Plotner: I do not. I work with a company called Sios. They help design them. They make amazing stuff. And we've worked like really closely, like tons of iterations to make amazing 3d printed mouthpieces.
Joseph Rueter: Super interesting. It's impacting medical.
Joseph Rueter: Oh yeah. It's food instruments. It's all kinds of stuff.
Josh Plotner: Absolutely. Yeah. I'm trying to convince them to make. Like more stuff too for like other instruments. Cause I'm like, you couldn't make this in the center. Like we are so overwhelmed already with this one, like kind of mouthpiece. And they were like, Hey, yeah, but what if you did 10 other things?
Josh Plotner: They put up with me. I really appreciate the people at Sios. So
Nate Kadlac: for someone [00:39:00] wanting to be cracking this code, getting into the video game industry, do you think being kind of niche and, owning a category is the way to go? Is it being more of a generalist in the instruments that you play?
Nate Kadlac: what would you recommend?
Josh Plotner: I would say at the end of the day, with almost the entire music industry, it's just about people. It's just about knowing the right people and being friendly. And I don't care what industry you're in, you've definitely know someone who is in way too high of a position that doesn't deserve shouldn't, isn't qualified to be there, maybe.
Josh Plotner: That happens all the time with music too, and maybe even more, because it's like really hard to have, it's not like there are music tests, there's no objective measures of right and wrong in music. So it really is. networking and people industry. That is the giant headline. And then if we do want to talk about specifically what you want to get into, [00:40:00] I would say, like musically, what you want to get into kind of being a generalist is very dangerous.
Josh Plotner: Like I actually run into this problem all the time. People assume that I just suck a little bit at a lot of things, which is a fair assumption. Like it's this guy does too many things. There's no way he can be good at them. I try to be good at them. I'll let other people decide if I'm good at them.
Josh Plotner: If you want to be a generalist, you have to be deeply passionate about it and be 10 times as good and constantly fighting, being like, no, I'm going to be amazing at everything and work 10 times as much. It's far better. And it's just like easier for people because also it's, if you're a generalist, I would say, and I'm not saying this about myself, but If you are a generalist who is amazing at everything, like one of those, people who can sing and dance and act and that's usually intimidating to people and sometimes off, but they're like, Oh, I don't want to believe that someone can be that good because I don't feel like I can be that good.
Josh Plotner: So being a generalist is, that's the path I'm going down, but [00:41:00] it's a very tricky and hard path to go down. First of all being good enough because it's more work and then convincing people that you're good enough and then not Convince it not being too good because then like egos can get in the way or Actually just finding people whose egos don't get in the way I guess might be the solution to that one like specializing and also kinda being the kind of person who says no and being the kind of person who has a Vibe and being the kind of person who has honestly people who don't like them is, can be really actually actually, one thing when I started getting negative comments on my social media is when I started feeling like I was making it.
Josh Plotner: Because if you're only getting negative comments, that's probably something, there's probably something wrong. But if you're the kind of person, yeah, but if you're the kind of person who has been like, you get like all these positive comments because it's like, it's from your circle of friends. It's from like nice people.
Josh Plotner: Once you get to the [00:42:00] point that you're big enough that people don't. see you as a human being and they see you as an entertainer on TikTok, right? that's when people feel comfortable enough. It's oh, this person's big, so I can like, say mean things about them. That's how you know you're making it.
Josh Plotner: And also, you don't want Everyone to like you because it's impossible to make anything that everyone likes. So I would say once you find your small five ten percent of haters in your comments That's how lean into five to ten percent haters of achieving that much I would say because that's actually a good sign that you've gotten rid of some people But then you're leaning in really hard to the people who are going to really love you
Nate Kadlac: Josh, if people want to reach out to you, say hey, or hire you, or where are you living these days and where can people find you?
Josh Plotner: My address is joshplotnermusic. com. I'm on Instagram at joshplotner, I kinda everything, my name, you'll basically find me. [00:43:00] Yeah, feel free to, to reach out, I read through everything, I'm doing stuff on Instagram and TikTok. I've got my website. I'm also in New York. Next year, I'm actually spend planning on spending a good chunk of time in LA and New York.
Josh Plotner: So I'll be all over the place. And yeah, feel free to reach out. I always love hearing from people. Absolutely.
Nate Kadlac: be sure to check out Josh's Instagram. It's quite hilarious and you're going to walk away, having learned something, which is really cool too. So thanks for being here, Josh.
Josh Plotner: Yeah, thank you guys.
Josh Plotner: This was a blast.
Nate Kadlac: That's great. Thanks, Josh.
