I’m the Host of Song Exploder Hrishikesh Hirvey, and This Is How I Work
Hrishikesh Hirvey takes apart the songs to find out how they work. On his podcast Song Exploder, Hirvey interviewed artists such as Solange, Iggy Pop, Norah Jones, Bjork and Arcade Fire about their writing, recording and mixing processes. Hirway makes his own music, as a half of the Moors from Atlanta’s Lakeith Stanfield, and as a composer for television and film. He also co-hosts the West Wing Weekly podcast with West Wing actor Joshua Malina. We spoke to him about how this multidimensional artistic life weaves together. We also got an idea of how Hirvey does each episode of Song Exploder .
Location: Los Angeles. Current performance: Song Exploder (podcast), The West Wing Weekly (podcast), Moors (music). One word that best describes how you work: Anxiety. Current mobile device: iPhone X Current computer: iMac Pro.
First of all, tell us a little about your past and how you got where you are now.
I am a musician who moved to Los Angeles to make recordings and soundtracks for films. A few years later, I started the Song Exploder podcast, building on the experience, tools, and connections I have accumulated over that time. I enjoyed making the podcast so much that two years later I started The West Wing Weekly podcast with my friend Joshua Malina, an actor who played on West Wing , one of my favorite TV shows.
Tell us about a recent work day.
I woke up, looked through my emails, answered some and sent some. Most of them are trying to hire future guests for Song Exploder ; either artists advertise me, or I suggest Song Exploder to publicists. I had breakfast while listening to music that was sent to me for podcast review.
I wrote to Josh about our recording schedule for West Wing Weekly . I took a break and went to the gym, then came home and cooked lunch.
I went into the studio and recorded a couple of commercials for Song Exploder . I spoke with Christian Koons, the show’s assistant editor, about the status of the current version of the next episode. In the early evening I had a piano lesson.
Between all of these things, I check out Twitter and Instagram. I got the illustration for the Song Exploder from Carlos Lerma, and then formatted his illustration for the template I made for the graphics for the Instagram page.
After that, I more or less rolled my things in the studio and took the dog for a walk. I was having dinner with my wife, and in between watching an episode of “West Wing for Work” and a couple of episodes of “Americans for Fun,” I sent in a few more emails and replied to them. At about 1:30 I turned on my phone for the night and went to bed.
What apps, gadgets or tools can’t you live without?
All recording and editing in Song Exploder is done using Pro Tools . I also use Pro Tools as well as Ableton Live to create music. I have a tile on my keys that I lose about once a day, so it will come in handy for me. I keep track of everything in my life and work with shared Google Sheets. I have spreadsheets for future Song Exploder episodes, lists of unfinished songs, a list of everything I’ve watched this year, my family budget, and a list of the best meals I’ve eaten in restaurants this year.
How is your workplace arranged?
Half of my garage has been converted into an office that I use as a studio to make music and podcasts. If you enter, you will see several instruments: piano, electric guitar and acoustic, bass, cello, mandolin and xylophone.
There is a desk – originally an Ikea desk, but I replaced the laminate top with a real wood, painted to match the floor in the room. On the table is an iMac Pro with a second monitor, an audio interface with a microphone and headphones, and a Thunderbolt hub connected to it. There is also a Zoom recorder and a microphone that is always connected either to it or to the audio interface.
At the table, against the opposite wall, there is a sofa on which guests sit when they come to record interviews. The room has plenty of storage space for Ikea items, relative to its size to keep some of the clutter out.
What is the workflow for creating a Song Exploder episode?
I record interviews both in person and remotely, depending on the performer’s availability. If it’s remote, we talk on the phone or on the computer, and they record their part of the interview on a good microphone, and then they send me an audio file. Christian or our intern Olivia will then transcribe the interview and save it as a shared Google Doc . Now that I’m not the only one working on the Song Exploder , Shared Docs are great, especially the Proposed Changes feature, so I can annotate sections with notes and reminders. ( This is what it looked like when I edited everything myself, before using Google Docs .)
We then create a new Google doc containing only the parts of the interviews that appear in the episode, and I try to put them together in a reasonable order, adding notes about which parts of the music should be played and where. It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without knowing what the final image should look like.
We then check this paper edit. Christian takes the script and sketches the sequence in Pro Tools. I’ll review and make changes and notes in our google doc: cutting out sections, moving lines sooner or later, starting music in different places depending on what I hear. We do this several times, five to eight rounds of fixes.
Then, when I feel like we’re pretty close, I go through a Pro Tools session and do the final cuts and final mixing – the finickiest things that are too difficult to convey to another person (on paper or otherwise), because what I hear so subjective: changing the duration of the pause by a fraction of a second, changing the shape of the decay of music, etc.
In the meantime, we are working to get the music rights approved by the label and publisher, while illustrator Carlos Lerma creates an original artist portrait for the episode .
Are there any surprising differences between composing music for a film and composing your own music?
I don’t know if this is amazing, but I’m much more productive when I write for film / television. I will do my best to finish the music for someone else’s project on time. But I don’t have that kind of discipline at all when it comes to my own music.
What’s your best shortcut or life hack?
I’m not sure if this is important enough to be considered a life hack, but I find it really helpful to create my own keyboard shortcuts for auto-correct / replace text on my phone for longer phrases that I need to enter regularly, such as my email address. In the Keyboard preference on my iPhone, replace the word “eml” with a three-letter term. When I type it, it is replaced with my actual email address. This is especially useful for my home address: three letters instead of the full address, city, state, zip code.
Tell us about an interesting, unusual, or challenging process you have at work.
Song Exploder is actually finicky. It has been heavily edited to remove my questions from the interview and to make the answers as clear and clear as possible. But the finicky part is to disguise it as much as possible so that the listener seems like the musicians are naturally logical and eloquent. This means you spend hours trying to find the perfect cadence between words that weren’t spoken next to each other.
Who are the people who help you achieve results, and how do you rely on them?
In Song Exploder, Christian Koons is the Assistant Editor. He transcribes interviews and helps me with everything post-production, from editing episodes to publishing them online.
At The West Wing Weekly , we have a two-person team: Margaret Miller acts as a filter for us, editing our conversations. She then hands those edits over to us, as well as our mixer and sound editor, Zach McNese .
How do you keep track of what you need to do?
Google Docs, Google Calendar / iPhone, and Reminders on my iPhone.
How to recharge or relax?
I walk in my backyard.
What’s your favorite side project?
My whole life is a side project created in order to somehow earn my living.
What are you reading now or what do you recommend?
I just finished Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, my favorite author.
Who else would you like to see to answer these questions?
David Wayne.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
As for my musical career: “This is not a race.”
What’s the best hacker gotten from a Song Exploder guest?
You have a device that allows you to continuously record sound — the Voice Recorder app on your iPhone.
What problem are you still trying to solve?
How to require less sleep.