Today we’d like to introduce you to Angel Duran.
Angel, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My curiosity for music started at a young age in my hometown of Nogales, Arizona when I decided it was a great idea to ask Santa Claus for a keyboard at four years old. It is safe to say that 20 years ago, I had no clue that the keyboard would be sitting in my apartment in Los Angeles, California helping me shape my path as a musician here. Although I received my first instruments at a young age, I sort of shyed away from music until I hit middle school and joined the drumline which once again sparked my curiosity for music. In high school, I remained in the drumline marching snare drum but what really started my reason for being in LA is me stumbling into a room where they taught mariachi music. At the time, I knew super basic chords on guitar and I realized what I knew was good enough to get me started in the program. Once in the program, I was able to travel with the performing group to mariachi conferences where we were taught by the greats and also got a chance to watch them perform live. Between the conferences and social media I realized that the hub where these professionals worked was in LA and that immediately attracted me to want to eventually move here. At the time all I knew is that LA was filled with traffic and was an expensive city to live in.
It was during my senior year of high school that I was trying to decide what was next for me in life that I was really looking into the possibility of being a musician as a career. What was super confusing at the time was that many of my closest friends and family were advising me to just keep music as a hobby and go for a “safer” option. A big role during this year was an art/music teacher named Mr. Peters, as he saw me delving more into my instrument he told me about the guitar classes he gave at the boys and girls club where he would start teaching me basic theory knowledge and introduced me to a world of music I had no idea about. He gave me plenty of casettes and cds introducing me to classical guitar and jazz that I had no idea about. At the same time through my mariachi program, I discovered Mariachi Sol de Mexico de Jose Hernandez and it was mariachi music like most of us had never heard before. This same mariachi came to one of our conferences and I was able to chat a bit with Jose Hernandez the musical director and owner of the group. When I asked him about his compositions and arrangements I realized he had a ton of influence from classical and jazz music and he had also gone to school for music. I realized that all these great musicians had all gone to study and really discover music in school, so I started to venture out to see what it even looked like for me to go to music school.
Eventually, I took the initiative and decided for good that no matter what I did in life it had to be music related. At first, I sort of was just testing the waters taking light music classes and eventually started on classical guitar lessons. The further I got into taking classes, I realized how behind I was from my classmates who had years of art school and lessons which I did not have access to. On top of this, the classical guitar program I stumbled into is actually one of the best in the world attracting a diverse roster of great players. Although it seemed tempting to give up since I was so behind, I decided to plow through and learn what was being offered to me. Taking classes such as jazz arranging, improv, music theory, private lessons, etc. really helped me shape a whole new idea of my career. I started learning about things like being a studio musician/arranger, teaching, administrative work in music, the music union among many other things. I would spend hours on end practicing and studying to catch up and build myself up as a musician who would bring some value to a city like LA.
While learning all these skills, I was also hustling any gig I could get my hands on in Tucson, AZ to put these skills into play. Eventually, I was out in the town playing mariachi, solo guitar gigs, accompanying a singer with everything from top 40 to jazz to oldies, and later even getting to arrange and record music for local artists. Combining music school and gigs actually set me up for now although at the time I was not even realizing it. My plan was actually to keep pursuing a career as strictly a classical guitarist and I took those gigs to become a better musician but also to put money in my pockets. Through the music program I was able to travel to places like Canada and France thanks to generous donors to attend classical music festivals and study with the greats. Even when I graduated, I had intentions on going to grad school I auditioned at the San Francisco Conservatory and University of Louisville. Although I got a big scholarship offer in Louisville I really wanted to move to a big city but even with financial help SF was way out of my budget. That spring-summer of 2019, I realized a grad program was not in the future for me and I kind of really had no clue where my career was going next I continued to teach, gig, and write out of Tucson but I knew that I wanted to move and pursue something bigger.
Eventually, I decided to save money for one year before moving to LA however in June I bought a oneway train ticket to visit my long time friend Chris Burr since he got to perform one of his songs at the grammy museum and he had told me to bring my gear so he could link me on gigs. I get here and go directly to a gig and after having a beer with Roberto Diaz founder/owner of Mariachi Quinto Sol and Guilt watches he’s asking if I considered moving he would give me a job playing. Fast forward two days later, I close the deal with Robert and Chris links me up with a teaching job and I randomly moved to LA. I quickly ended up sub-leasing my apartment in Tucson to a friend and went to Tucson to pack up a suitcase and a guitar to drive back to Los Angeles for good. Thankfully LA has kept me very busy from working private gigs, restaurants, universal studios, writing, and even California Adventure during the holidays. Through all this, I have been a complete one of my goals which is to live solely off music performing and no more teaching. I cannot wait to see what other ventures I can go on in this amazing city.
Has it been a smooth road?
Being an artist in general is never such a smooth road it is more like a plane ride with tons of turbulence. I once heard Guillermo del Toro describe the journey like being in a car accident that you come out okay as. You feel the hits directly and the people just hear about it and see you recover and I remember thinking wow what an accurate statement. One of my biggest obstacles for sure was having to oppose the resistance from people saying I would make no money, I would be unemployed, to get a “real job” because at some point in your career when things get difficult you can start to wonder, man maybe they were right and I think I have had many of those moments with myself especially having to play catch up in music school. Most artist can relate to the awkward family dinner with people wondering and asking how does one get a job as a musician. Eventually, I realized that it was only a test to see if I really wanted to do it or not. I saw those people’s lives and I knew thats not what I wanted mine to look like so this is probably why I opposed so much. Once I just went for it, realizing how behind I was in reading sheet music, knowing theory, and playing up to a college level was another lion to tame. Fortunately for me my professors like Tom Patterson and Angelo Versace were there with their doors open for me to dive into a world of knowledge.
Throughout the years in music school the work just augmented more and more. I was balancing being in school full time, hustling any gig that I could get, and eventually also teaching students. I remember at times just feeling super exhausted from it all the classes kept getting tougher, the performances, students, gigs, etc.. I have to admit that at times it just made my head spin. Once I graduated music school, I was set to going to graduate school doing an audition for a master’s program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and also the University of Louisville. I must say I felt grateful for being accepted with open arms to both schools University of Louisville with a teaching assistantship and to the Conservatory also with some financial assistance. I was so conflicted because the logical option was to take the Louisville offer which is what most people were pushing me to do because “that’s where the money was” and although my heart was set on San Francisco the amount of financial debt I would have to acquire would have been close to 70,000 dollars which was way too much for me. So now there I was with the option of either going to a place I really did not want to go or burying myself in debt. After long conversations with myself and others I took a turn and ended up declining both offers. I realized that the truth was that I was tired of being in school and my passion was definitely not found in being a music teacher which is most likely where those routes would have taken me. This decision put me in an awkward position because although I knew I made the right choice I was also not sure where I was going next.
Eventually I thought about LA but would always end up thinking oh I don’t have the money, I am not ready musically, next year I’ll save some money, and so many excuses that we all come up with to rationalize our decisions. Once I randomly decided to move her on the spur of the moment type thing the anxiety kicked in for me and of course my loved ones. Now there I was sharing a room with my best friend since high school in a house with six random people to make our rent super cheap. Living in that space was so difficult because we barely fit in the room, there was two bathrooms for six people with a ton of “extra roommates” in the tub and parking was a nightmare. Coming home from long hours of working scrambling for parking crawling into my little space thinking I need to find a way out soon. Finally after a couple of months and some money saved up we were ready to move out but the next obstacle was finding a landlord who would even take a couple of working musicians with no pay stubs and no “real jobs”. Application after application started to feel like rejection after rejection until finally at the brink of pausing our search we get a call back from one of the nicest landlords we could’ve asked for accepting us for a two bed two bathroom apartment which we currently reside in. I truly believe that the obstacles are the way and believe it or not I am truly looking forward to the other obstacles that will be coming my way.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I truly believe that what I specialize in is a very simple concept that we all have which is curiosity. I have such an enthusiasm and curiosity for music which leads me to consistently keep learning, listening, growing as an artist. A lot of the music that I have written either for myself or other artists has influences from jazz, pop, classical music, folk music, rock, etc. I believe that this wide range of music I consistently grab from is responsible for the work that I put in. I am really proud that I have been able to work on different projects from mariachi, jazz, pop, etc. I think I have really been able to build a great network in LA so far where I am writing and playing different types of music live. I always knew that I was inspired by all kinds of music but up until now, I was not sure how I was gonna put all this into a career without limiting myself. I think one thing that sets my work apart is that I am always willing to grow and listen and my passion for what I do is endless. There is no way I can envision myself doing any other work. The love I have for my work allows me to work long hours and most importantly withstand some difficult obstacles that it brings along. It also makes the sacrifices I have made seem minuscule in the big picture and gives me the drive to sacrifice as much as I need to. As crazy as it sounds, I would have stayed in that room with Chris as long as I needed to. I truly understand that any sacrifice or obstacle is just the next step forward always, which I believe is one of the hardest things to wrap our head around at times.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The music industry is changing day by day with more technology and access to stream music now than ever before. You can literally record an entire album from home and release it on many different platforms at one time. I believe a big shift is that a lot more people will be more independent artists versus being owned by a label. The internet with tools such as Instagram, Facebook, snap chat, tik tok, etc.. are allowing people to do their own marketing and build their own following. I have seen a lot of up and coming artists releasing singles one Spotify versus recording a whole album or ep. When you think about it even when we used to buy CD’s we were probably only listening to a song or two so now the singles make it possible for the music to be put out more consistently instead of waiting for the whole album to be done. I also believe that in the next 5-10 years there will be more of sponsors or labels reaching out to artist due to their following on social media as to before artists had to go seek these people to show them your work now they are all a click away from an arsenal of projects thanks to social media. I am sure these are just some light predictions compared to what will actually be happening. I am super excited to see where this all goes as we delve more into the future. I just hope that whatever it is, it moves us forward and provides more opportunities for artists all over the world.
Contact Info:
- Address: 333 N Monterey St
- Phone: 5203132255
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @aguitar12
Image Credit:
Adolfo Estrada and Christopher Burr
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