Daily Inspiration: Meet Marcel Camargo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcel Camargo.

Hi Marcel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
What’s my story? In a nutshell:
*I was born and raised in Brazil, I got started playing guitar there with my uncle who encouraged me and gave me my first instrument. I came to the US with my family as a teenager, went to UCLA and got a degree in Ethnomusicology and became a Jazz head.
*I then moved to NY, had the opportunity to work with the great Tom Harrell for a good year or so, in that period I became interested in songwriting and got burnt out on NY, so I moved back to LA.
*From there I got on some pop/jazz gigs as a guitarist, the longest standing job I had was with Michael Bublé. I was inspired to learn how to write for orchestral instruments at that time, so I did (I had had a baby and wasn’t sleeping anyway, figured I’d use the time to study something new).
*I made a record and did some touring with my old UCLA friend Gretchen Parlato, the record “Flor” was nominated for a Grammy. I got to do some songwriting and orchestral writing for Jason Mraz, I got to orchestrate Wendy Wang’s music for a Disney+ show
*These days I’m releasing solo guitar music, still doing arranging, writing and orchestration for a number of people and I’m almost done getting my certification as a massage therapist. Next I want to go into wellness and combine what I learned from music with all that I’m learning about the human body and humans in general

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely has not been smooth road. A career in music, as I’ve experienced it, largely has required that I make my lifestyle all about music as well. It’s been hard to find a good work/life balance. It’s also not a straight forward path – what we put into this work is not proportionate to what we get back. It’s the kind of job that you have to absolutely love doing because we don’t have the infrastructure or wider understanding from our world to fairly compensate us for our efforts. It can be tough for people, to have this disparity in energy exchange…it’s, in part, why I’m interested in exploring a line of work that is outside of music.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What are my specialties? I think I do especially well as someone who accompanies singers and someone who writes with or for singers. I’ve done that more than any other work in my life. I adore doing arrangements, orchedstrations, collaborating on writing and I do think of that as a specialty…I can speak Jazz and Brazilian music and pocket/groove oriented music as a guitar player.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Oh wow. This is a big question. I can tell you this industry has felt to me like a fast moving target ever since I graduated college. The world my mentors experienced and taught to me does not exist anymore. We’ve definitely gone from a broadcasting to a narrow-casting world, especially with music. People consume music in a much more solitary way nowadays and music is so pervasive that it’s lost a good deal of its value. For my money, what I’d like to see happen is a movement back toward live music and back toward creating experiences that bring people together. That, to me, has been the point of music all along and it might be it’s saving super power – especially as we’re entering an age when AI will be able to take over the more prescribed, “canned” music work that now exists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marcelcamargo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcelcamargomusic/# https://www.instagram.com/marsage_therapy/#
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarcelCamargoMusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@marcelcamargomusic
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/marsage-therapy-alhambra

Image Credits
Eric Wilson, Craig Cochrane