Music With Asher Laub

Asher Laub: Yeah, well, they won’t know people either. I don’t think I don’t think anybody’s going to be searching my profile necessarily 2000 years from now. Maybe by maybe one or two people by accident, by trip over. But there’s going to be unlimited content. Even a hundred years from now. So what we do now, I just think the way we should think is how can we best impact other people in a good way? How can we bring love and light and happiness and joy to an otherwise pretty distressed world that we live in.

[Music]

Zeke: I want to welcome everyone to another episode and Let’s Gather Podcast. I’m your host Zeke and in this episode, have Asher Laub to speak about his experience as an electric violinist. You can find more information about him by clicking the link in the section below. I like to give a content warning for any strong language used in this episode and hope you have a nice day and enjoy the show.  

Zeke: So I want to start off by welcoming you, welcoming you to the podcast and give you the floor to introduce yourself to the audience.

Asher Laub: Okay, well, my name is Asher and I’m an electric violinist, composer, producer and live performer, and I’m glad to be here. I yeah. I mean, do you have any questions or should I just go to shoot the breeze here? 

Zeke: I guess. Um. We can start with? What the what kind of get you into like violin and music in general? Let’s start with that. 

Asher Laub: What got me into the violin? And, um. Well, I started with the violin pretty young age and kind of progressed from there to, um, you know, from classical training to improvisation. And that, that I, something I really enjoyed and that moved me that, that allow me to kind of progress into a professional type of setting as a, as a live performer in New York.

Zeke: And your bio say sort of to like how do you get a child that young to even like want to do something that requires time and practice. 

Asher Laub: Yeah. So I mean, that was the choice of my parents that and just because, you know, I was just a happy kid at the time, I figured I’d just go, go with the flow. So we after week attending, you know, private lessons allowed me to learn all these skills. And as I grew, the violins grew. They gave me larger violins and playing in orchestras. So that’s how I, that’s how I was able to develop various skills on a pretty complicated instrument. 

Zeke: Yeah. And now you’re saying that you go into Improvisation. So what is that? What does that detail? 

Asher Laub: Well, started with kind of learning, learning jazz, the jazz standards and observing the jazz band and saxophonist how they played and trumpets trumpet players, how they improvise and listening pretty extensively to, you know, some of my idols, like John Le Parti is a violinist, kind of cutting edge in the jazz improv world, and that that had a major impact on on my on my shift to improv from, you know, just reading, reading classical from sheet music, pretty much regurgitating or just memorizing what what the composer’s telling you to play.

Asher Laub: So here with improv, you don’t necessarily know what’s going to come next for the next line. You kind of follow the chord progression. That’s something that that was pretty appealing to me. So yeah, by 11th, 12th grade I was kind of spending a lot of time honing that skill. And then even more, more so when I hit the New York scene on the East Coast.

Zeke: Got it. It was more like you playing, I guess like more than just doing what’s already been done, trying to create something new or just playing what, comes comes to mind. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, playing comes to mind. You can’t think too much about it. You just have to kind of feel the chord progressions and I’d, you know, if you’re thinking like theory from bar to bar, you’re going to screw up.

Asher Laub: But if you’re kind of feeling the notes, feeling the chord progression, predicting what’s going to happen next, which just takes a lot of practice, a lot of repetition, that it then it’s something that’s enjoyable. It’s something that kind of breathes life and breathes the narrative that is otherwise not really achievable unless you have that, you know, that experience.

Zeke: You got it. And what does it feel like for you when you’re playing the violin, the kind of like, state are you in?

Asher Laub: A pure state of euphoria? Yeah, I, I guess it depends on the music that I’m playing. Depends on the venue, the setting. Sometimes I’m literally just not thinking about what I’m playing. I’m thinking about something else.

Asher Laub: If it’s a boring kind of gig, when I’m doing studio recording, I’m. I am nit picking every single note. The intonation and the, you know, the velocity of, of the note, all sorts of like because I want to sound perfect, I’m don’t have to listen to the recording for for four decades. So once it’s out so it’s a different story there that’s a little more stressful when I’m in a concert setting where like video cameras are me, then that that’s something that also is I’m not I’m not necessarily well, I guess it depends on the on on the audience reaction if the audience is really into the music then then I’m that I’m feeling just the enjoyment of the experience, just focusing on trying to tell the narrative of whatever the music is that I’m playing. Um, you know, I’m playing like Baroque type stuff is not as much of a narrative. It’s more technical. So you’re mostly just focused on the coordination. I would say so, yeah.

Zeke: Okay. So like when you’re recording, it’s like with some people, they don’t like the voice. When they were going, do you ever like, hear your own? So playing is like, I mean, it’ll change in your head, but I this could be better. 

Asher Laub: I do ever hear sorry is there a do I ever hear the voice? What change in my head like I know

Zeke: How like this people who hear their own voice in recordings and it just they can’t like, listen to it.

Asher Laub: It just sounds to work for listen to your recording because they don’t they’re not happy with it.

Zeke: Like to their own voice like the sound of their own voice is weird to them off of recording. 

Asher Laub: Oh well, I’m not really recording my voice so much. I’m doing mostly instrument instrumentals and many of that type of stuff. The, you know, when I’m recording other people, I mean, yeah, the, the, the, the, the product, the end product generally sounds a bit different because you’re adding some compression and a little bit of like some limiter effects and reverb, it sounds tends to sound a little bit more.

Asher Laub: It’s got like that sheen to it after it’s mixed and mastered. So it sounds a little bit different than it would, you know, just like in a room hearing somebody saying, Yeah, but yeah, I mean, the the violin sounds. I wouldn’t say that my vibe from my violin, I wouldn’t say it sounds weird. I like the way it sounds, the way that you know the product because, you know, once it’s mixed and acute and so on, so forth with the rest of the instruments.

Zeke: And for those who want to become musicians, how do you make that career? That’s not a traditional career for people to follow. 

Asher Laub: Well, it takes a lot of work is like any any career. It’s not it’s not something that kind of happened overnight for me. It took a number of years just to develop the skills, even even for even for for musical, like any aspect of the music, music profession, where you’re going to kind of rise to the top and be in the band, you have to really build up a skill over over a period of time or have some really darn good connections.

So for me, I made a career. It actually happened kind of naturally. I was working my way through school and I was doing one gig every, you know, month or so. I kind of increased from there due to demand, due to requests and so that’s kind of how it happened initially, like back in 2000, one, 2002. But for people that want to like, make a career instrument career, you want to make it as a career, you got to practice for many, many years and really just take me maybe professional lessons or be really dedicated to the craft if you want to deejay, I would say it’s a bit easier as somebody who has experience with both. If you have good coordination, you know, you might be able to tell if you’re a good producer, you have good ear, you listen to a lot of music, but that’s also craft. Like, that’s a skill. It’s not just just connecting random loops together. It’s also being able to listen to other music and translate that to your own production.

In terms of live mixing, it’s, you know, BPM beats per minute knowing, not knowing how to sync beats per minute. I don’t know if your, if the deejay thing is, is what you’re doing or if that’s like you’re I don’t know who I’m talking to in terms of like your audience, but you could you could tell me.

Zeke: I think mine is mostly um people my age and like 20, not like 20 to like 30. So people who like new into the career, so they still like it. 

Asher Laub: Okay, 

Zeke: Because so they choose any career they want 

Asher Laub: Am I covering am I covering the the the instrumental versus deejay like I’m assuming we’re we’re looking that we’re talking about a mixed group. 

Zeke: Yeah yeah yeah. 

Asher Laub: Okay so so that idea I’ll just keep saying when I was saying I guess it’s a bit of an easier transition with, with deejaying but, but then there’s the business end of things that is somewhat of a challenge building a company.

A lot of people think, Oh, I’ll have to do just like mixed turntables and just have a big catalog. And it’s not it’s is investment in equipment. It’s it’s access. It’s it’s being really what’s the word. It’s being really nimble when it comes to knowing how to access music in the right genres, knowing how to respond to clients, knowing how to get your music out there and publicize just there’s the million hats you got to wear, and it’s literally like being an accountant or lawyer or a doctor.

You can work your tail off and become great in music, or you can just kind of sit back and not make much money, or it may just not be about money, it may just be about impacting many people and that all takes a lot of work. So you have to wear a lot of hats. You have to be a businessman, you have to be a musician.

You have to you see your listeners as your clients. You have to see you have to think about data the way in a accountant would look at how what your return on investment is like. Look at how much you’re spending on campaigns. Are they the right campaigns? Are they screwing up your social media profile or are you connecting with the right people?

You know, it’s just like any other business. Just a lot of people don’t realize that. 

Zeke: Yeah, I can see, like when you’re business, you get to pretty much promote yourself, have be good to have first, then promote yourself and then make sure you’re making the best decisions financially and otherwise to make sure that you continue to grow. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, it’s a it can be a sticky field, as you may already know, or that your listeners might know.

It’s it’s a saturated field, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t demand there, just that there are that you can’t create, you can’t generate demand, you can generate demand and anything and fashion and whatever. But you know, you’ve got to be good at it. And you have to you have to you have to think. You have to think critically.

Just like in any career. 

Zeke: Yeah, you’re doing it. So it’s possible. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, there’s a lot of there’s unfortunately I’ve spent I’ve wasted a lot of time kind of learning from gurus who kind of sent me with just sent me and different paths and different kind of not so useful promotional campaigns. I learned that after the fact. But but to my best, to my to my credit, I did a lot of data crunching and I realized, like after a year or so of wasting my time and money, that this was not the the thing, that these weren’t the campaigns that were useful for for growing my audience or for building my career.

Zeke: So, yeah, that’s the business. Everything’s a business.

Asher Laub: It’s a business. Yeah, it’s definitely business. And so, yeah, if you don’t want to treat it like a business, you can you can be owned by somebody. You could you could get a booking agent. I was owned for like, you know, seven or ten years by the same people booking me over and over again.

I guess I should be grateful in retrospect because they did help me pay my way through college, but it wasn’t really sustainable because I wasn’t able to raise my prices. I wasn’t able to build a unique pathway like my unique brand. I wasn’t able to create my unique brand as an artist so that there was a big void there.

I wasn’t able to, you know, build an audience because it was just pretty much the work that was coming my way was generated by my booking agents. I wasn’t able to negotiate pricing or anything like that. I didn’t know where I was going to go. I rarely was able to negotiate pricing or how many hours I’d be working.

So yeah, you don’t have to treat it like a business, but if you don’t think, think of it as a brand, as a business, you might you’re going to have a lot of trouble growing your income. I think unless you have a really good, honest team around you that really believes in your work. 

Zeke: Yeah, I could see how they’re pretty much even though you’re getting work, they’re the ones who’s like doing all the work.

So they like the face, even though, like, you’re the one who’s putting in the work. So then say, No, they’re taking that. They’re taking the business part of it, but you’re not pretty much. You’re just more of a product at that point. Not really. The musician. 

Asher Laub: Yeah. I mean, if I’m the product, they’re selling my services, but I don’t have any connection to the client or the or the the concert promoter.

I’m not that much control of my career. 

Zeke: Yeah, let’s look second and go. Okay, So go back to performing hows like performing in front of Madison Square Garden and stuff like that? Do you ever feel pressure or is it you just so used to it now?

Asher Laub: Do I feel pressure? Yeah. I mean, it’s a lot of pressure when you’re performing in front of, you know, a huge audience.

You know, you have a lot of a lot of experience. Yes. That stuff like that, like Carnegie Hall, that that those types of things are pretty can be pretty scary. Pretty daunting. But, um. Yeah. Well, what are you going to do? Like, turn it down, um anything. Anything worth earning is you know, is is worth a risk and worth a couple of nerves.

Zeke: Ah no I’m nervous, but this is so much money. I could I could be nervous for a little bit. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, it’s also the experience, but I’ve turned down gigs that that paid quite a lot on a number of occasions just because they just didn’t fit for the schedule. They didn’t fit the bill and felt like my branding as much.

You know, I to a certain extent, you know, it could be a sell out if you just we want to pay the bills, but it’s not. I don’t think it’s always wise to take every gig that comes your way. You could end up like misbranding yourself. There’s a there there’s a word like that. 

Zeke: Yeah, I can see you got to do what’s best and what fits. And then sometimes it’s like switch it up. If you, if that’s like a good, that’s a good part of the business but. 

Asher Laub: Mm. Yeah. 

Zeke: I’m just thinking about like how it is. There’s so many people, it just, I just try not to think, don’t mess up because that’s going to mess up anyway. If you think I mess up just go with it.

Asher Laub: You’re saying I’m sorry. Say it again. 

Zeke: I’m just saying like if I was out of that goes the day I try to tell myself to not think about not messing up because that’s what going to mess me up thinking about it. Just the best thing to do is just go with the flow. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, go with the flow. Also, like if you mess up.

Okay, what’s the what’s what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? People are going to laugh, throw tomatoes at you, you know, like what’s and our fear of like screwing up is generally amplified like beyond the reality of anybody actually caring. Like if it’s embarrassing and you trip on stage or your pants fall down. So it’s embarrassing in the moment.

And then like, let’s say there’s a thousand or even 2000 people in the audience, how many of them are actually going to remember that? I don’t know, a year down the road, like they may tell the story, Oh, have this funny thing happen, But it’s like you just have to if you if you realize how small your performance actually is in the grand scheme of things, of like humanity, the history of humanity, we’re just like a blip on the screen.

And it kind of kind of helps calm your com your nerves and allows you to kind of just like you mentioned, go, go with the flow, realizing that if things go well, that’s great. If things don’t go well, then whoopdeedoo? Tomorrow is another performance. 

Zeke: Right, like, well, they remember this in 2000 years. Probably not.

Asher Laub: Yeah, well they won’t know now people aren’t going to miss. I don’t think I don’t think anybody’s going to be searching my profile necessarily 2000 years from now. Maybe by maybe one or two people by accident, by trip over. But there’s going to be unlimited content with, you know, even a hundred years from now. So what we do now, I just think the way we should think is how can we best impact other people in a good way?

How can we bring love and light and happiness and joy to an otherwise pretty distressed world that we live in? And that’s kind of like why I do what I do. I’m in music and that’s that’s really with my limited scope and reach and capacity impact. That’s just what I choose to spend my time doing and kind of spend less time fretting and worrying about, okay, you know, what’s what if you know, what if I trip, what if I play out of tune, blah, blah, blah, You know, just enjoy it, enjoy the ride.

That’s what I’m trying to do. 

Zeke: Noble like that. 

Asher Laub: Thanks. 

Zeke: Welcome. So, yeah, you’re saying that about music. My experiences with music is very limited a little band middle school not that much more designer so it’s nice to see how like a lot of the same themes and lessons are and there also.

Asher Laub: Ah nice all the same themes and lessons from for middle schoolers you said? 

Zeke: it’s like, it’s like art, like designing. It’s also flows into um music. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, I mean, we’re all in the we’re all in the artistic kind of realm. Art Entertainment. Mm hmm. Yeah, right. Expression, Self-expression. 

Zeke: Mm hmm. Yes. Had an idea I lost it. Ok we’re back. So if it wasn’t for music, would there be anything else you would do if you never got the violin at two years old and learned the lessons?

Asher Laub: Is there anything else that I would do with my life now you’re saying?

Zeke: Yeah. If it wasn’t, 

Asher Laub: I would probably be a nurse or a teacher. Probably be doing something, you know, super, super important and somewhat boring. I don’t think anything quite touches music as 

challenging as it is to to run a career in the music industry. But it’s safe, it’s fun, it’s rewarding. 

Zeke: Nice. Is there anything that you want to go over that I didn’t ask?

Asher Laub: I think you tell me about yourself. I just talked about myself. I’m, uh. I mean, there’s a lot about me you guys could check, You know, if you want to check out my music, I’d check it out on my original music on Spotify, iTunes, Deezer. You know, pretty much every major platform. And if you want to check out my like, my social media posts, my live performances are on Facebook and Instagram.

Tik Tok Asher Laub A S H E R L A U B and you know, I don’t care where you’re from or what language you speak, I always appreciate people reaching out saying hello, posting comments DMing me. It means the world to me as a as an artist. So because of what I do, this is why I chose to do it. I chose to connect with human beings, with people across the planet and I guess that’s what I want to relay.

Zeke: Nice {stuttering} you wanted me to introduce myself to you. 

Asher Laub: Yeah, sure. Go ahead. 

Zeke: Uh, so, Ezekiel, Zeke saw this podcast back in 2020. Ah to speak with people, first of all, some of my friends, and then I’ve sort of branched out to different people who will find the podcast and I connect with them by doing that now, cause three years into trying to figure out what to do, but they keep how they keep going.

Asher Laub: Okay, cool. So you started 2020 due to the pandemic? 

Zeke: Yeah, like I had the idea in 2019 and then I started releasing in 2020. 

Asher Laub: Mm hmm. So. So you’ve done quite a few then? 

Zeke: Yeah. 

Asher Laub: Cool. And this is career on the heels of being a performer or being a producer episode or what? 

Zeke: I’m sorry. 

Asher Laub: I’m saying you. Yeah.This you chose to do the pod podcasting in the context of, like, you’re a producer or a live performer.

Zeke: More like the creative, like producing it 

Asher Laub: Producing music? 

Zeke:No, but my brain is not. I’m sorry. I am not. Yes. I like to use my creative as works for producing or creating. 

Asher Laub: I was just wondering why what you do and if you do anything in music.

Zeke: Oh, me personally, no. That’s more of a my brother thing. He does more music. Okay. Like. 

Asher Laub: Interviewer 

Zeke: Yeah, 

Asher Laub: Cool. Well it’s nice to meet you. 

Zeke: Nice to meet you. 

Asher Laub: Mm. 

Zeke: Yeah, 

Asher Laub: Well, that’s that’s about all I got. 

Zeke: Oh, at the time. Okay. Oh, so everybody knows who you are done with that. 

Asher Laub: Actually, a lot that comes my website and that, that will kind of direct people to, to all the, the major platforms that I’m on and again want to welcome them to, to say hello.

Let me know what kind of music they like to hear a cover, a different bunch of different genres, like classical, EDM, classical, hip hop, that type of stuff. And I try to produce music based on my listener’s interests. So that’s what I want to share and anybody wants to who’s interested in and like the input of a violin and you know, in whatever genres like hip hop or pop or, or EDM, let me know.

Asher Laub: Pretty easy to reach me and I’ll try to see if I can make some music for you. 

Zeke: Nice again, thank you for joining.

Asher Laub: Thanks for having me. 

Zeke: Of course.

Zeke: That brings another episode of the Let’s Gather Podcast to a close. Again you can find more information about Asher Laub by clicking the link in the description below. This is the last episode, of season 10 of the Let’s Gather Podcast. You can find more information about what I’m doing in the closing episode that’s also premiering today. I hope you continue to have a nice day and hope to see you there.

[Music]