Jehad Choate

Eighty percent of my hand-written scores were destroyed in a flood at my parents’ house in Florida. It wasn’t a natural disaster or anything dramatic; just an old water heater that couldn’t take the pressure of performing after twenty years…

I have a lot of friends who are not composers. But their listening skills are invaluable when I test out new ideas. They aren’t looking for a motivic nod to any predecessor, or if the form is a sonata, or…

The best advice I ever got from a composition teacher was, “Write like you will be dead tomorrow.” 

A macabre thing, no doubt, but what he meant was make sure that your score contained all the necessary stuff to inform…

Following my last piece advocating the changing of the narrative behind classical music, I would like to address the practitioners of classical music -- the orchestras. My main concerns are with how they program music and how they interact…

Shortly after the beginning of the protests against police brutality, many institutions tried to show their solidarity with the POC (person of color) community by posting black squares on their social media, or saying pretty much the same thing their…

I am a film composer. I am a sound engineer, producer, and performer. I am a foley artist and a music supervisor when I need to be. I have managed to snag gigs both passion and paid in all of…

A couple months ago, I had the unique opportunity to work on a horror short with a simple premise that would rely heavily on sound production. Usually, I would tell you the story of how I learned how to use…

The hardest part about “coming up” in your industry is trying to find skill-specific work that is beneficial to both yourself and the people who hire you. Realistically, you are not going to find the ideal career in the daily…

I have been a boom operator in a handful of projects since I moved to California. It’s the most physical form of expression as a sound guy in film, and it allows you the opportunity to meet great people and…

All of my friends who have built a foundation in Southern California have pretty much sang the same song to me. It has only been eleven months, and aside from the glorious amounts of rejection I’ve received occupationally in the…