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Getting at "That Thing" with saxophonist Jesse McGinty (Camila Cabello, Meghan Trainor, Scoobert Doobert)
Metadata
- title
- Getting at "That Thing" with saxophonist Jesse McGinty (Camila Cabello, Meghan Trainor, Scoobert Doobert)
- description
- Jesse has played with everyone from Pharrell to J Lo, arranged horns for television shows like FOX's "The Masked Singer," and built a career and partnership that's spanned decades. How did he do it? What does it mean to be a pro? And how can a young musician diversify their way to greatness? This episode was recorded around the holidays, so we thought it be fun to bend time some by dropping it in the middle of the year. So we're either way ahead of schedule or late to the party. You decide.
- status
- complete
- date
- 2024-06-11
- kind
- guest
- guestSlugs
- jesse-mcginty
- listenUrl
- https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Getting-at-That-Thing-with-saxophonist-Jesse-McGinty-Camila-Cabello--Meghan-Trainor--Scoobert-Doobert-e2knidr
- lmwUrl
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_zQm9STTsc
- appleUrl
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-at-that-thing-with-saxophonist-jesse-mcginty/id1567355195?i=1000658579566&uo=4
- spotifyUrl
- https://open.spotify.com/episode/5G3EzbBOVPohu4iBb5ZVxB
- youtubeUrl
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb7Pgtz3n-Y
- topicsDiscussed
- Drums
- Guitar
- Japan
- Singing and vocals
- Songwriting
- Effects
- Touring
- That thing, identifying the one fix that makes a song click
- Two-room studio partnership, sax/low brass vs. trumpet/engineer swap
- Christmas horn sessions & pop credits (Camila Cabello, Meghan Trainor)
- Singer-songwriter fear and re-learning uncool three-chord writing
- Pastor Joel Seagal, best at one thing vs. good at many
- hostNote
- Jesse McGinty is a **session multi-instrumentalist** who thinks like an arranger, the episode title comes from his habit of finding **the one thing** that's off in a track, fixing it, and watching the whole song snap into focus. We talk horn sections as relatively static canvases where small margin changes rewrite the output (unlike guitar-world knob sprawl), his long-running trumpet partnership in a two-room studio, and why he couldn't program believable drums without a decade inside great drummers' pockets. There's also honest talk about singer-songwriter insecurity, Christmas remake season, and starting Japanese practice nine years ago when everyone asked "why?", with no map, and a career that kept opening because of it.
- selectedMoments
- label
- Horn arrangement on Santa Buddy
- startSec
- 182
- note
- Host/guest connection: Jesse arranged horns on Luke's Christmas record.
- label
- Fix that one thing
- startSec
- 1000
- note
- Episode title frame, identify what's off, fix it, energy returns.
- label
- Horns vs. guitar knob rabbit holes
- startSec
- 2412
- note
- Static horn beds vs. losing the performance in pedal technology.
- label
- Couldn't program drums without drummers
- startSec
- 575
- note
- A decade with incredible drummers before thinking like one in the box.
- label
- Scared of singer-songwriter
- startSec
- 1309
- note
- Three-chord cowboy songs as something to run toward, not away from.
- label
- Started practicing Japanese
- startSec
- 2016
- note
- Nine years ago with no plan, foundational to happiness and career.
- label
- Trumpet partner & two-room studio
- startSec
- 3472
- note
- Sax/woodwinds/low brass vs. trumpet, switching engineer roles.
- label
- Best at one thing vs. good at many
- startSec
- 3817
- note
- High-school pastor advice that shaped a multi-instrument path.
- excerptQuotes
- text
- I identified this is the thing that's off for me — I fixed that thing and all of a sudden the whole song started to come into perspective. Then I had energy to stay up.
- startSec
- 996
- reviewed
- true
- text
- Horns are fairly static — on the margins can we change things and make a world of difference? Guitar is the opposite: so many knobs and pedals you can lose yourself in the technology.
- startSec
- 2417
- reviewed
- true
- text
- I couldn't have programmed drums without spending like a decade with incredible drummers and touring with people — I couldn't think like that without learning from all these different people.
- startSec
- 570
- reviewed
- true
- text
- I started practicing Japanese nine years ago. Everyone was like, why are you doing that? I don't know — I like it. It's been foundational to my happiness in my career.
- startSec
- 2015
- reviewed
- true
- text
- You're either going to be the very best at one thing — in my case jazz tenor sax — or really good at a lot of things. Guess what, you're not gonna be the best. So you'd better be good at a lot of things.
- startSec
- 3813
- reviewed
- true
- faq
- question
- What does Jesse McGinty mean by getting at 'that thing' on Love Music More?
- answer
- He describes finding the single element in a song that's blocking everything else, fixing that one issue (arrangement, part, tone, performance) until the whole track clicks into focus and the session regains momentum.
- question
- Does Jesse McGinty discuss Japan on this episode?
- answer
- Yes, he talks about starting Japanese practice roughly nine years earlier with no clear career motive, and how it became foundational to his happiness and professional path over time.
- transcriptPublished
- false
- draft
- false
Content
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