We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Greg Alper. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Greg below.
Greg, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I am driven by a need to create. As soon as I could play a few notes and chords on the piano, I began making up my own songs. I was fascinated by the combination of notes into chords and melody with harmony and rhythm to create a musical story. I taught myself music theory. I branched out onto other instruments and (later) studied orchestral music and music from many different cultures. I measured my days by how many hours I could devote to the pursuit of music. Playing, composing and listening to music continues to be my greatest joy.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
To my surprise, my current obsession is making music videos of my music. Here’s how that evolved.
I’ve played the saxophone for 60 years, teaching (Alper Music School), performing, recording my own albums and doing studio work. Learning to be a musician was a vehicle to hear the songs and compositions in my head. I’ve written scores and songs for film TV shows and the original score for the first Warcraft Game, and much of the music in the Might and Magic series. A highlight for me is composing in many musical styles, genres and cultures. I’ve composed for 60 piece orchestra and for jazz quartet. For pop and R&B groups and many flavors of world music. (Check out my CD Common Ground if you like)
When my father turned 80, I wanted to make something special for him. While he is musical, he’s more of a visual person). I learned photoshop and put together a book of Time Dimensional Portraits®. This book (the first of several) featured a series of collages showing both of us at the same age in each. Merging the photos into one to show our experiences as contemporary and simultaneous. When I presented the book he was speechless. It was a wonderful moment for us.
Last year I began re-releasing my CDs along with unpublished works. In re-working a few tracks, one of the songs, Carnival at Midnight, compelled me to write lyrics; the lyrics invite the listener to visualize – exactly what happens in Carnival (Mardis Gras) at, and after, Midnight? Luckily, I connected with a brilliant video editor, Mebil Rosales, to make the video. He perfectly interpreted the wild world of my song featuring Brazilian percussion, hypnotic rhythms, ethereal calls on sax; pulsating outbursts on guitar and Piano. Guitar and Bass tracks energetically contributed by my longtime bassist, Bill Markus.
We had so much fun, we created a second video of a song from the same collection Salsa Heard – Catch Me if You Can. For this visualization, my wife added the perfect vocal to a flamboyant and joyful percussion track by my old NYC roommate, Andy Potter. For the visuals, we collaborated with our artist friend Beanie Kaman (textile and mixed media art), to create landscapes to tell the story.
On a roll, we followed by creating a video for one of my vocal favorites – Catalina Cabeza (from the same collection) – a humorous ode to my 1971 Pontiac red convertible. Here, I’m playing all the instruments, singing and dancing like a maniac, while driving around town in that classic car.
Adding lyrics to my song Chewy, Gooey Marshmallows; I re-titled it, S’mores – Chewy Gooey Marshmallows; where we told the story about the boy who invented S’mores. Featuring a rich chorus of voices by Melissa Fahn, a well know studio and voice over artist and Jude, my students playing in the lead role.We added a new member to the team – Mick Morrison, a masterful mixing and mastering engineer, formerly at Abby Road.
Our newly completed production, Ziggy and Me (another homage), celebrates the life of our recent dog Ziggy, a malinois-husky mix. Ziggy could perform many tricks, agility training sang along with me and the students and was a dear companion for 15 years. This bark-out-loud outing rides a wave of world music (West African and Calpso) and creates a wide-vista adventure, featuring Ziggy and Me in exotic locations (Tropical Beaches, Mountains and the Savanna!
All videos and music releases can be seen on Vevo, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music under Greg Alper Band.
We are very excited. This current focus was unexpected (in retrospect, perhaps inevitable). The production ascended to a new level with the collaboration of my esteemed colleagues mentioned here. My team is delighted to share with you our zany, fantastic, fusion of music, art, lyrics and production skills in these videos. Enjoy!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Tenacity, Dedication, Joy.
My advice – find your joy and stick with it.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
I continue to evolve as a player, composer, visual artist and director. The quality of my projects has been immensely helped by my editor, music mixer, artist collaborator, fellow musicians and the executive producer, my wife, Sonja!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.alper@alpermusic.com
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi5I9JuX-kI&list=PLR8W-4qdxGXlvgvpFshTlN_zB6eQ3gRFu
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
