Episode 30: Face Your Year 2024

In this episode of 'Face Your Ears’, Justin Hochella and Rich Bozic reflect on the past year and discuss their plans for the year ahead. They recount memorable moments from previous episodes, including setting up a complex studio and launching their music production business, RJB Music Production. The conversation also delves into their future goals, which include Rich's aim to organize his projects with modern digital tools and Justin's ambition to create a course on Logic Pro. They highlight beneficial resources they look forward to discussing in the near future including music production site hooktheory.com and Vochlea Dubler 2, and emphasize their desire to engage more with live performances and collaborations. The episode wraps up with appreciations and a forward-looking message for 2025.

00:00 Welcome to Face Your Ears Podcast

00:30 Reflecting on the Past Year

01:30 Memorable Episodes and Guests

05:35 Looking Ahead: Future Plans and Ideas

11:30 Personal Goals for the New Year

23:36 Wrapping Up and Thank You

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

----

https://www.youtube.com/@FaceYourEarsPodcast/shorts

https://www.faceyourears.com

https://www.instagram.com/faceyourearspodcast/

https://www.facebook.com/people/Face-Your-Ears-Podcast/

Transcript

Justin 0:09

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. My name is Justin Hoschella, and I am joined by Rich Bozek. Hey Rich, how's it

Rich 0:21

Hello. A little frantic this morning, but getting it together.

Justin 0:27

We got here. We got here. We've arrived.

Rich 0:30

On this episode we've gathered here today to give a little recap of the year and to think about the year to come.

Justin 0:40

Yes, it's our annual Face Your Year episode, so this is our second one that we've done, is that right? Our second Face Your Year, So yeah, the whole point of this episode is

Rich 0:52

Oh wait, no! Episode 7! Episode 7, face your year. We just didn't label the

Justin 0:59

is our third. Wow. This is our third face your year. That's super. That's even more exciting. This is our third face your year episode. And if this is your introduction to our podcast, welcome. We actually do this kind of episode at the end of every year just to reflect back and look at what we accomplished throughout the year. Recognize the milestones and just kinda have a good time reflect back. So, yeah so Rich, what do you what, comes to mind for you as you look back on our episodes and think back on the different topics or guests that we had, like what, what stands out for you?

Rich 1:43

The thing that comes to my mind right away is the complex studio setup episode, because I think there was so much more associated with that episode. It was a chance to come out and visit you and your home studio in Michigan and help you basically overhaul your whole setup. And what was cool about that was obviously being able to hang out with my buddy, but also, Seeing the inner workings of your studio and how you put that all together Because I've been there before and I've seen all the equipment there, but you don't really you know think too much about okay How's it all

Justin 2:22

Yeah, That's a good point. Yeah, you actually got to do surgery. And you were so pivotal and instrumental in the cable management and the intricacies and those details that sometimes can drive me nuts. But you just had such great patience and focus and a vision for all of that. So

Rich 2:40

it was a great opportunity to act upon my extreme OCD with that stuff. And to be appreciated.

Justin 2:49

Yes, absolutely. It was, absolutely appreciated, but it was so interesting to you in that process of like how Certain things just came to light that, that made it the perfect situation for a podcast, things like how we came across certain issues with cables and like cable length and like how to organize them in a spreadsheet for planning, like all of these different things. That was, really interesting. Just things I, we hadn't thought about. Before we dove into it, but then as we were in the process, we're like, oh, wow, there's some things we could share with others to make this process easier.

Rich 3:25

Yeah, So that, was the first one that stood out to me. How about you?

Justin 3:29

I, was so excited for us to be able to finally announce our music production business, RJB Music Production. And we had our good friend, Barack join us for that to really celebrate and announce our JB music production. And so it was just really cool to be able to talk about our sort of vision and purpose behind that and our different roles in it and why we were coming together to do that and just to be able to. Um, that also makes me think about the episode with Josh D'Elia, aka my brother. And, uh, but Just having people on the podcast was great. I think we did that this year, like with Barack and RJB Music Production, but then with Josh and him talking about Sleek Teeth, his new, Dark kind of EBM electronic outfit that he's in and they, at that time, they had a single out and it's just been really cool to see since we recorded that episode, the work that he's done and everything from being featured in different publications or, like online publications to Playing live to having their, full EP released. It's, been really cool to watch that.

Rich 5:05

I agree. Just to add on to what you were talking about. It was nice to hear what's going on in his neck of the woods with regard to doing shows and stuff. I always like to hear that kind of stuff. I think that's really cool. And with regard to the you were talking about the other episode with RJB, that was really cool to be able to share that with people. I think what we do together, aside from the podcast, I'm so excited about all of that, and it was just great to share that with everyone. Moving forward, what do you see for the upcoming year for Face Your Ears? What do

Justin 5:42

Yeah.

Rich 5:42

what kind of ideas do you have in mind?

Justin 5:45

one of the things I know I'd mentioned to you. that I think would be really great is to talk about some resources that are out there to help people, who may not have a solid grasp of like music theory or a really, keen ability to play an instrument. And what's so amazing about today's. Landscape is there's so many great resources to help people. So there's one that I came across from a producer, her name is sides. She's awesome. She uses logic pro. She's like constantly sharing cool tips and tricks and one of the things she shared that I think we should talk about is a website called Hook Theory. And this is amazing. Like I, I've actually tapped into this and it inspired me. But basically it just helps you get chord progressions or chord possibilities and just Helps you get outside the box of your mind and, try different things. but also hear what that would sound like browse other songs that use the same chords. So it's just a really cool resource to get inspired. So that's one thing I would love to talk about. And then on top of that, there's another company called Voclia. And what they do is they, actually sell a, product called doubler. And what it, does is it allows you to use a microphone that you can just sing or like you can beat box into. And that allows you to compose using like basically any instrument you want, so you can sing the part into your DAW. And it will, like be the trumpet part or the bass part or whatever. And so I think both of these different things fall under a larger umbrella of the really cool technological resources that are out there for people who, might need some additional support or inspiration or whatever the case may be. So what's neat to me is that it, works for people on any side of the spectrum, whether you're. Brand new to music and you're just getting started. These tools can help you, but if you're super advanced they can also be great tools to sort of inspire creativity and new ideas. So that's one of the things like broadly speaking, like these sorts of tools. That are out there and I can't help but think about AI because like we also talked about AI this year and since we've talked about it, it's of course exploded even more. And there's just really, frankly, insane things that you can do with AI now, especially when it comes to the voice and singing and harmonizing and things like that. It's wild. So I think that's something worth exploring and just talking about because it's a reality. The, of the landscape that's out there today. so those are some of the things I've been thinking about. How about you?

Rich 8:47

might lie more in the actual way we put together the episodes. I want to dabble with. More of the skit ideas

Justin 8:58

Ah, yes. Yes. Which episode was that? What, which,

Rich 9:03

think we had two.

Justin 9:05

Yeah,

Rich 9:05

I'm not mistaken.

Justin 9:07

We did the DIY home studio

Rich 9:08

Yes, yes, yes.

Justin 9:10

you were like the angel Yeah,

Rich 9:13

Yeah, that, yeah, that, and I think another one was the, Yeah. overcoming obstacles. I think might've been where we had to make a sacrifice a sacrifice in order to

Justin 9:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So that we did both sides of the spectrum where we had an angel and then we had some sort of satanic cult or something, whatever that was. That's right. I love that. Yeah. That's so fun.

Rich 9:39

So I would love to dabble with more of those kinds of things. I like the creative part of it. Making these episodes at least that revealed to me that I enjoy that part of things So I wouldn't mind dabbling more and in that other like content wise for episodes I wouldn't mind getting more into the kind of nuts and bolts of the process of releasing music The ins and outs of that talking about the different distributors, things like that,

Justin 10:12

Releasing music is such a mystery, right? I think until you actually delve into Google and start exploring that it's, really esoteric, like, how does this work? Where, do I start? So I think we could help our listeners just by demystifying that a little bit of okay you've got your song like literally mastered, ready to go. Sounds awesome. You've got, Media like pictures and Instagram posts and like you're doing all that stuff, but it's like you actually get it on Spotify or Apple music, So yeah,

Rich 10:49

Yeah that would be, a good one. If any of our listeners have any ideas for episodes that they'd want us to try, please, reach out. Shoot us a message on Instagram or X.

Justin 11:04

or email.

Rich 11:06

Yeah. If you're that kind of old fashioned dandy who wants to use email, by all means.

Justin 11:14

If you know us personally, you can just us or call. That's that works too. Wow.

Rich 11:24

this past year episode wise. We talked about a few things we hope for the upcoming year. are three things that you yourself will do To move Your recording slash music making forward for this coming year

Justin 11:43

That's a good one.

Rich 11:44

So I'll start okay, so what I did was Recently I've taken a deep dive into Getting more organized, but I'm using digital tools to help with that I'm old school when I do my schedule for teaching, everything's handwritten. A few years back, I had a traumatic experience where I put everything into Google Calendar, and then it all disappeared, and it freaked me out. So it scared me back to the paper calendar. But I've been also keeping track of a lot of things using the notepad app on my phone, but I found that making lists in that app was I became too, it was just too much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then, Yes, yes, so then I was like, you know what there's this reminders app and I use it every once in a while to remind me to take a vitamin or whatever or something like that So so I'm like, why can't I use this to help me organize what I do as a musician? So I did a deep dive. I watched some videos on how to use it properly and all the deeper possibilities within it and so That got me on fire to get It My house even more in order with regard to keeping track of things, setting more deadlines and squaring things away because there's, there are a lot of things on the list. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish and sometimes there's just too much going on and there are things I forget. So there we go. That's my, first one. How about you? Do you have a first?

Justin 13:21

So I've been slowly working my way through a course about, This is meta, but it's a course about how to create a course. And so I've been dabbling in that and thinking about how I could create a course focused on logic pro and I've been taking my time with it. And I'm glad I have been, because I think there's certain things as I've been just doing day to day work in the studio that I realized like, Oh, you know what, this area of logic would be such a great thing to talk about, especially for someone who's new. one of the things I've encountered with people that I've been teaching production to is just how overwhelming it is. And it's even overwhelming for me as a teacher because I have this huge amount of knowledge in my head and it's like, where do you begin? Like, how do you boil that down so that it's digestible and not overwhelming for, them. And so it's just a lot to process. And so I've been thinking about how I could start my own video series. focus on various bite sized topics to help somebody really get started and really produce their first song, because at the end of the day it's, just a lot of very simple things that makes it so overwhelming and complicated, like no individual element. In logic pro is that difficult. It's not like you have to perform calculus to add a plugin, you don't have to know physics to, uh,

Rich 15:02

be doing it. I wouldn't be doing it if I had to do that. So

Justin 15:05

It's like, you don't need to know physics in order to like, you know, record your guitar or your voice or whatever. So it's not that any one particular feature is, that complicated, but I think what happens is like you start stacking those. There's literally like thousands of features that logic has, and that's where people get sort of decision paralysis. Or there's just things they, don't know because they're not readily obvious. I just feel really passionate and just called to share what I know in that kind of a way, and I think it could complement the actual one on one sessions that I do with people because they could take advantage of these videos. And then that could be a great way for us to have a great lesson to focus on particular things that were covered in that video and then walk them towards the ultimate goal of producing that song. So that's something going into 2025 that I'm really focused on and excited to dive deeper into.

Rich 16:04

That's really cool, by the way. I can't wait to see. I can't wait to see what you come up with. That'd be cool. The second thing I want to try this coming year is I want to play more live performances. So I'm doing a lot of stuff in the studio, but I want to get out more and play live. I've recently been getting together with some friends. We've been dabbling with some covers and things like that. And that's inspired me to try to get it together on that front and not go crazy, but play out a little more. See some of the local venues, meet other musicians, collaborate with people.

Justin 16:40

My cat just showed up. I almost got him. We almost got a cameo here. We might. He's still, close by. I got him, We have a special guest today.

Rich 16:55

What do you have to say for yourself, Kat? Go ahead.

Justin 16:59

This is Huey. He's let me go. He hates to be held, as you can tell. He's like squirming around. But he just brought me his favorite toy, which is Mousie. Huey. He does that at least once a day. So thank you, buddy. All right Yes, he's the best hunter in the house. All right

Rich 17:21

business. Play

Justin 17:22

Yeah, he's let me go anyway well, I realized recently just how much stuff I have both digitally and hardware. And I just feel like there's such an opportunity for me to explore what I already have. I honestly don't think there's any need whatsoever to buy anything else unless there's a really compelling reason. I have, for instance, Native Instruments Complete. And that is just a universe of different instruments and sounds like guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, sounds you name it, drums there's so much in there. And I think I just have an opportunity, not only to just explore that, but, it or catalog it. I'm not sure the right nomenclature is, but just become more aware of like what I have available to me in a way where it's usable, like it's, what it's a waste of time to go through it and be like, Oh, this is cool. Wow. I have a lot of stuff, but that's what's the point of doing that? If you can't three months later, be like, I need this kind of sound. Yeah. And you have a sense of or, a resource rather. Of here are some sounds that would be perfect for X, Y, Z applications. So just getting better at, knowing what I already own. And I think there's also an opportunity. I think it's just laziness that I don't use hardware more. Like it's just so easy to drop a plugin into the track There's just so much to be had with, tapping into real hardware synthesizers and so forth. brain works differently. The, tactile kind of experience just produces something different. So I think there's an opportunity there just in terms of how I work in the studio. I think that there's an opportunity for more inspiration and creativity,

Rich 19:39

If you find a way to catalog that sea of stuff to where it's accessible

Justin 19:45

Yeah.

Rich 19:45

some good knowledge.

Justin 19:46

Oh man, yeah, What's so intimidating for me is just the time. It's Oh, I have 500, samples of X and I'm going to go through it. But yeah, and there's like literally stuff that I have that I've never used because there's so much of it and maybe it's something I don't know, brass, for example, like I don't. Really necessarily use that stuff. But but who knows I might get a client that's Hey, I want to do a, big band kind of thing. I don't know. So, so that's one thing. Another thing just, I just thought of this that, I'd like to do that I'm very scared to do, but I think that means I should do it is This is number three. Yeah. I want to try to just reach out to another artist. And say, Hey, do you want to collaborate? I really like your style. I like the kind of music you do. Here's what I do. No, no pressure, no expectations. Just like, way to, make. New friends and acquaintances and connections and so forth. There's an artist on Instagram that I follow that I'm like, this guy if he and I lived close to each other, we'd be like best friends. Like we like all the same movies and same bands and same types of music and stuff. And so I'm like, why not? So that's something I want to do. And I think that there's probably so much more opportunity for that. And I know if somebody reached out to me, I'd be like off the chair. I'd be like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah.

Rich 21:22

great. My third one is similar in a way because it involves others. I, don't know if I mentioned next year, 2025 will be the 25th anniversary of BOSIC Voice Studio of my teaching. So, it's a big year. There's gonna be, hopefully, a lot of action around here with regards to that. I'm hoping to hold some special events throughout the year. One of the things that I really love is working on original music with, students and encouraging and inspiring all of that. So I was thinking about maybe having either some sort of special studio class or maybe a series of classes or whatever where we could just dabble a little bit with songwriting.

Justin 22:07

Yeah.

Rich 22:11

goals. Like you have a week to write this kind of song, something like that. So I was thinking about maybe throwing in some kind of special things like that. Maybe you have some special guests come into the studio class. Perhaps maybe you could come to one of the studio classes.

Justin 22:24

yeah. Oh my gosh. I was just thinking that I think we've talked about it before a little bit, but I would love to do just an hour long sort of, you know, quote masterclass on like, even like showcasing like an example of here's the song and it's an initial form and then here's how I produced it into a full, production for release how it started and how it ended up kind of thing. That would be awesome.

Rich 22:48

Yeah, that, that would be awesome. So stuff like that, aside from special performances. I want to be able to do that kind of thing this year because songwriting was something that was part of what I did as a musician from literally the day I got my first instrument. I was, I didn't know how to play it. So I started making stuff up on it right away.

Justin 23:11

Right. Yeah.

Rich 23:12

special place in my heart, but there you go. So there we go. We have three things each of us have listed as things we want to try to accomplish in the coming year. How about you listener? What things do you want to accomplish? Perhaps you can share some of that on social media or take note for yourself so you can be productive in the coming year.

Justin 23:35

Yeah. I think that's a great place for us to wrap things up here for today. And I just want to end by saying once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone for tuning in and listening to our podcast. Rich, thank you my friend for being a part of this journey with me. And it's just been an amazing. Experience to work on this podcast, see it grow, and just come up with new crazy ideas, whether it's sacrificing goats or talking about AI or whatever. It's been amazing. So thank you for that.

Rich 24:13

Yes, I want to also thank everyone for tuning in and we hope that you're getting something out of this, as we've might've talked about this before, but we oftentimes Justin and I, cause we're really good buddies and we've known each other for a long time. get together and talk shop all the time. And so we're like, why don't we start a podcast and maybe get a little more organized about this. And. be able to get together on a regular basis and continue the conversations but be able to share with others. thank you for tuning in and thank you Justin as well for you know being so committed to the process and providing such great information and also just being such a good friend and I love talking to you. So this is awesome.

Justin 24:59

Likewise. Alright everybody, have a safe and happy holiday season. We will be back in January to kick off the new year. we will see you in 2025. Bye for now.