20. Leveraging Spiritual Belief in Your Career w/Isaiah Hill

In this episode of 'The Music Executive', host Cinnamon Denise welcomes Isaiah Hill, a self-taught piano player and successful music composer based in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Isaiah has played for notable artists like Keith Sweat, Monica, and Tamar Braxton. He shares insights about his journey, from learning piano as a child to earning a full tuition scholarship at the prestigious Berkelee College of Music. Isaiah discusses his transition from performing live to composing music for television and film. 

He emphasizes the importance of faith, mentorship, and a supportive network in achieving success in the music industry. Tune in for an inspiring conversation filled with valuable advice for aspiring musicians.

Transcript

But I do think for sure that one thing that we need to stop doing as a musician body, and it is, it's so many things, but the main thing that stifled me was comparing myself to other people.

This is the music executive. A show where we talk about gig tips, music, business strategies, songwriting, experiences, collapse, and even more with industry professionals. Let's get into it.

Alright, y'all, welcome to the show. My name is Cinnamon Denise. That's Cinnamon like the spice. Denise, like Denise. And today we have an amazing guest. His name is Isaiah Hill. Now Isaiah is a, not only a self-taught piano player, but he's also a successful piano player and music. Composer based out of Atlanta, Georgia, who has played for artists that I'm sure you and my parents and their parents have heard of, and even probably the generation after as well, such as Keith Sweat, Monica and Tamar Braxton.

So Isaiah, thank you so much for being on the show. What has been the highlight of your day? Great question. The highlight of my day, it's funny because it literally, probably two hours ago I had go to my parents' house 'cause I got a call from my wife saying that Dr. Key's in the car. So I'm in the midst of making music for television.

And I get that text and I'm like, okay. And I'm literally about to hit bounce on my session. And she's like, you can you come over to try to get the keys outta my car? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I got you. Yeah, I got you. Right. And it would be the day where Georgia finally went dodge to happen today. You know what I mean?

I.

A positive highlight, but definitely that was the most eventful part of my day. There you go. But you gotta be there for wifey, right? Gotta be there for, gotta be there for her. Well, we're so excited to have you today. Can you tell us just a little bit about your background? I know I touched on some things, but I think you know you better than I would know you.

Right. So those were my, a few of my favorite things about you. But tell us some of your favorite things about the projects you've done and the things you're working on. Yeah, so those, the things that you touched on, those are pretty much the highlight of my, you know, touring career and all those gigs came, like the Keith Sweat, Monica Tammar, Braxton, and a few other like local artists.

You know, that was kind of a snowball effect. I got the Monica gig first, and then that turned into, because they have kind of the same camp, same musical director, different band, but just, you know, same kind of behind it and. That's kind of my touring life though. Between those three, they kind of keep me busy, mainly with Keith Sweat because I'm one of his three keyboard players.

But other than the touring and playing live, I also do a lot of live gigs around town. Do like a lot of private gigs and stuff like that. Turning my attention more tour composing music for television and film. So right now I'm working with a few music libraries that, you know, can be brief and they're like, Hey, we need a song that sounds like this, but we keep, because we don't wanna get it clear.

So can you kind of recreate, put your own spin on it? So I've been kind of in the mode of just like really dissecting popular songs and you know, trying to keep the integrity of the song, but still putting my own flare on it.

They wanna just call somebody, you know what I mean? So do what they ask, but still, you know, put yourself in there. Got you, got you. Let's back up. 'cause you kind of just jumped, you passed everything. I'm trying to you way past me, Isaiah, but listen, so let's start with the self-taught piano player. What does that even mean and how did that lead to a full tuition scholarship to the prestigious Berkeley College of Music?

Shout out to Berkeley students. Shout out, be like for this story to make sense. I'd have to go back. When I first started playing piano, my granddad, it was, I had to be like maybe six years old. My granddad me a bicycle for Christmas and bought my sister, my older sister, a piano for Christmas. And we've always had this kind of sibling rivalry, so we thought that the other person had the better gift.

So I was like, nah, my sister. And my sister was like, nah, he ain't about to get a better gift. So we put our gifts down and like gravitated to the other gift. So shout out for, to, for being stubborn and not wanting to piano because that's what kind of introduced me to piano. So then from there, all piano had to be keys that had the.

And I would just hit button you listen to and try it. Not knowing that I setting myself up for being ear, I.

It went from playing. Mary had a little lamb on my small little castio keyboard to, you know, later on in middle school and high school learning songs off the radio and trying to play it, you know, for the girls in high school and playing for the talent shows and just trying to, you know, just play piano just to entertain people.

But I didn't start taking it seriously until high school, my junior in.

So my band director, Mr. Oliver, uh, William Oliver, huge shout out to him because he was very instrumental in just making sure I was set up for success. Early age. He was like, I know you can play by ear. I know I can sit anything in front of you, you can play. That's cool. But I need you to read these charts because this is a whole nother side of the game that you need to know.

And I'm sure you already know. Like those are two different worlds. Like, you know, reading music and listen and playing by ear. It really takes two.

So he really pushed me to be able to be able to read music like charts and sheet music and all that individual and everything because I told him that Berkeley was the only school I wanted. That's the reason he was so hard on. Um, he was, are you sure you don't wanna to this other conservatory out? I'm like, dude, I'm gonna Berkeley.

I have nothing else on my list, but Berkeley College of Music, because I just knew Berkeley was progressive. They were accepting of every style of music. Gospel, jazz, funk, contemporary, everything. Berkeley accepting of everybody. So that's why exactly I wanted to go there because I know, you know, whatever I wanted to do, I'd have that support there to, you know, really let my gift shine.

So between the Casio keyboard, William Oliver, and just my love of trying to play music, entertain my family and friends, that's what really, you know, gave me a practice to ear. Okay, so you learn how to play by ear. You learn how to read the charts with William Oliver. I'm thinking he said his name. So like you said, shout out to Mr.

Oliver. I feel like a lot of musicians have that band director that just set you up for the right thing. Shout out to the band directors, man. So he said, I'm going to Berkeley. What happened senior year? Junior year of high school that manifested that. So I.

I was able to basically just teach lessons for this music school and the funds pretty much went to fund my tuition scholarship, my full tuition scholarship. So I feel like just by me putting that into the atmosphere and manifesting that, open the doors for me to be able to hook up with these people that allowed me to go to Berkeley.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful that, that you have that support system and that they've really set you up for literally success. And my thing is, where did film scoring come into the picture? Like where did this come? How did this develop? Like what this is all the way left field. 'cause you mentioned that one of your dreams, which I'll let you talk about, one of your dreams is to score a very specific film for a specific company.

And where in the world did this come from? It's funny because I was talking to somebody today.

You wanna score?

With being on the, that came also from me really wanting to be on the road with all these artists. I was praying, I was begging, I was doing all these phone calls, just trying to get on the road with these artists. But meanwhile, I saw my friends on the road with all these artists, you know, doing their thing.

And I'm like, I'm at the chilling, not doing anything. But I feel like with, by me praying, God put.

You know what I mean? Like, a lot of times we're gonna do things because we want it, and then we're gonna be there and be like, you know what, it's cool, but there's more. And I, I really feel like in the music industry, you know, we musicians only see a certain, you know, a certain thing. We only see, we think the pinnacle of our musical career is get a gig with a dope artist and we've arrived.

That's it. Like, that's the pinnacle of our career. But there's so much more out there. I got introduced to it a little bit at Berkeley because there's a whole film scoring department at Berkeley, so I knew about that, you know, so I took some film scoring classes, some business classes, but the passion really came after I left Berkeley and came back home.

I was on a gig, and it was a strange gig because I was playing, but I.

I heard the voice of say that you should be scoring films. Heard it clear that he said you should be scoring films, but it was confusing because I've never really had a passion for it up until that moment. And then the more research that I did after that gig, I was like, this might be the industry for me because it's something really fulfilling about seeing picture

the. They can both function well without each other, but when you bring them both together, it's a powerful thing when they're done. Right, right. I have a friend who said I watch scary movies with the music off and the subtitles on, and it's no longer scary.

And I'm like, first and foremost, if you was that scared of the movie, you shouldn't be watching a movie off and go to Bed. Bed, go watch a Disney movie or something like that. But, but you know. That's the power of music is it evokes such a, so much emotion when you're watching anything is 'cause if you're saying you're, you composed scores, that's not just for music, that's not just for movies.

That can be for commercials, that can be for television shows, et cetera, et cetera. So that's not just movies. That's a lot of things. Now, the other thing that I do wanna ask you. This show is about individuals in the music industry who are making it happen, have made it happen, and are going to continue to do so.

So what is something that you have seen other musicians or composers doing that they should just stop doing? Because you mentioned, Hey, people think we get to a, we play for a dope artist, we go on tour. That's the pinnacle. Clearly you don't think that's right. You don't think that's it. So what are, what should we stop doing?

Should we change the mentality? What do you think? So when I say that it, it's not it, it's person to person because that person may have that drink from being a youngin and they get on that dope gig and they do feel that in their heart of hearts that they're fulfilled. I just didn't personally feel that fulfillment playing with art.

I'm still gonna do it because I love that energy of being on stage and that rush of playing in front of thousands.

Do for sure that one thing that we need to stop doing, but the thing was myself.

Right there, that rabbit hole of all type of depression, anxiety, bad thoughts. Yeah, we got it. Episode over. Yeah, pretty much. Let me ask you just about two more questions. Isaiah. What role would you say your faith has played in your career? You keep bringing up God and how do you integrate that into your career?

I just know that the opportunities that I've gotten, I wouldn't be able to have it without guiding my life. And people believe in different things and whatever, however you feel like guides you, you need to believe in that and lean on that. Because personally, I feel like if it's up to you. You're only gonna get so far, you're gonna need help.

And you know, I'm a huge interview person. I love watching interviews. I just love hearing people speak. That's one of my quirks. I love hearing, you know, I love hearing people speak, especially like people that just speak well and, and very concise, very in people. One thing that I hear a lot of successful people say is, I didn't get by myself.

Now whether they had a strong team behind them, they had a strong behind them, A behind them, behind them. You not gonna yourself.

But you're only gonna go so far by yourself. You need help. Whether it's from, like I said, from that spiritual being, my case is, God, whatever religion you believe in, or just a good set of solid friends, which I'm grateful to have. I have a solid circle of friends that I can call my brothers and my sisters, or strong family, a strong village, you need people around you.

They're like, okay, we know how to, you know, help you get there. Get there. Exactly. Totally agreed. Totally agree. There is one of my professors at Berkeley as well. I told him, I was like, oh, I'm gonna mix my album. He's like, why are you mixing your own album? He was like, Esperanza Spalding doesn't mix her album.

And I was like, and I was like, you might have a point. And that's the same thing you're saying. You have a team, you have people around you, you have whatever spiritual belief you have. That's what gets you to where you're trying to go. And it's not just a one way street, right. You're, it is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Mm-hmm. And that's the beautiful thing about music. I think there's a comradery that happens, like you can't have a band, you can put a band together on by yourself and kind of do a looping thing and that sort of thing. But a band is a group of people. You need to feed off of and there's another, no other energy like that, which is why it's tough right now because you know, I'm not playing in church, I'm not doing as many gigs.

So, you know, I'm in the studio per, you know, composing a lot. So I'm missing that just person to person interaction, you know, where I can like look at the bass player and be like, oh snap. Yeah, that was dope at

recreate that just by yourself. Well, this has really been great, where if audience wants to follow you, where should they go? How can they find you? If they wanna email you, where can they go? You can find me on Instagram at Isaiah Malik Music, Facebook, Isaiah Hill, and my email address is Isaiah Malik, number one at gmail com.

I'm near my phone, always my laptop, so if you hit me up, I'll hit you right back. Beautiful. Well, Isaiah, we are so honored to have you on the show. You're full of energy, full of light, full of love. So thank you so much for being on the show. Y'all have a good day. Thank you so much.

Don't forget to leave a rating of the show. Helps to make us better. Thanks so much y'all. Take care.