Q&A with Morgan Bosman

Based in Nashville Tennessee, Morgan Bosman’s sound cuts through sonic waves with singable jazzy-pop melodies and her memorable voice exudes deep, soulful roots. Morgan has performed originals with the Nashville Ballet and has been featured in SingersRoom, Marquee Magazine, Hello Beautiful Magazine, American Songwriter Magazine and Break on a Cloud. In 2018, she was a featured artist and songwriter on EDM duo CAZZETTE’s single “Run Run.” Currently, you can spot Morgan in a commercial for the Birchbox brand (2019).

(For the full interview, check out the video above)

Building Beats’ Marcus Rosario recently interviewed Morgan Bosman as part of our bbConnect Q&A series.

Marcus: So how long have you been making music for? How did you start?

Morgan: So originally I grew up in a musical family. My dad and uncle, gramps and older brother. They all played horns. They are all jazz musicians. Growing up, my dad was always teaching private lessons and he also taught band in the public school district for a while. My dad and brother had a band called The Bosman Twins. I grew up always being around music, hearing band practice around the house, going to concerts with my dad, seeing kids come over for lessons. I took flute lessons from my dad as well. I was always around it and it felt like a natural part of my life.

Marcus: That’s cool — a very musical family. What kind of music were you listening to? What was being played in your house?

Morgan: Growing up, my dad would play a lot of jazz. He loved John Coltrane so I grew up listening to a lot of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, some of those jazz players. But also many more… Hugh ‘Peanuts’ Whalum. So listening to jazz. Sometimes he would listen to R&B, but mostly jazz and classical. On my mom’s end, she’d play a lot of the classic soul and R&B, and gospel music. Growing up, that was the soundtrack of our house and riding in the car with them. These are artists that influence me heavily.

Marcus: At what age did you start performing live recitals? A few of our students do their own showcases… what advice would you give to our youth who are trying to become better live performers, being in front of people.

Morgan: I was very shy growing up. If you genuinely like it, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get. Your scared nerves will turn into more excited nerves. If you have no nerves at all, that’s kinda weird.

I think I was 8 when I started singing solos in the church choir. I remember begging my mom to join the choir. It looked fun and I’d go to church and my friends were there, and I said I want to do this thing. Eventually she’d start taking me to rehearsals. At 8, you’re not yet thinking, “Oh I have a voice.” It’s just something that’s fun and your friends are there and you just hang out. At some point I remember the choir director asking me to sing — every kid gets a solo at some point. I sang and it was fun. I remember being nervous because I was shy. I do remember the reaction from other arounds that were really telling me that “wow, you have a voice.” I was just thinking, “Oh, this is just fun.” I would definitely get asked to sing more, and I was shy but I liked it and I would keep doing it. That’s my first memory of a performance in front of others.

Marcus: Let’s talk a bit about your musical process. First, do you ever get writer’s block? I know some musicians and producers suffer from that. What’s your approach in overcoming that?

Morgan: I have a couple different approaches, cause sometimes one works and one doesn’t. One that I like is listening to instrumentals… you can hop on Soundcloud and listen. Just freeform listening and turning on Voice Memo on your phone. Sometimes you’ll find some nuggets in there. That seems to help a lot for me. Sometimes I do just have to walk away from it… if my brain isn’t having it. I’ll just walk away and be present. Sometimes that works too, just allowing yourself to be inspired. Freestyling over Soundcloud does help me a lot.

Marcus: Great tip. Do you have any other tips about your process? Just to get ideas flowing? Do you have any rituals or routines?

Morgan: A friend of mine, we did this together. We did a mini songwriter meetup fun thing. It was like “take a random book” — she grabbed some books from a thrift store. We all tore out a page and circled in that page words that stick out to us. After that it was like, make a story out of those words that you ended up circling. Some of it was kinda silly and we laughed and some of it was kinda profound. You might do something later with it and you might not. Another person had an idea too - each day, she said, make up and write down a song title. At the end of the month, you’ll have 30 song titles. Those are just ways to get your brain going.

Marcus: Those are good tips — there’s a lot of overlap with the ideas. What is something that you’ve learned through your experiences that no one tells you when navigating the music industry? There are things that no one tells you. What can you speak on?

Morgan: I’m the type of person where when I learn something I want to share it. No sense in holding useful information. One thing that I ended up learning is that if you’re a songwriter, or a producer on the music end, you do want to set up your Performing Rights Organization registration, and register each of those songs that you’re righting and releasing and performing. That’s something that a lot of young songwriters don’t know. You don’t know if you don’t know. That’s something I’ve been fortunate to learn early in my career. That’s a huge piece of being a songwriter.

If you haven’t already, the PRO is where you get your royalties. They collect your royalties and send them to you. There are three main ones: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. They all do the same thing. Pick one and you want to register as a songwriter and also if you’re not signed to publishing or a label, you want to sign up as a publisher. Those are two separate registrations. Then when you register your actual song through copyright.gov, you want to register the song itself, the creation, and also the sound recording, the master. Those are things I didn’t know right out the gate. I mean, I majored in music business so I heard some of that in class. But if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t know. A lot of people don’t know. There’s a lot of useful information online — YouTube videos that really break it down. You want to make sure that you knock out the business end. If you can help it, definitely do that before your next release. That way it’s all ready and you’re not scrambling to do it.

Marcus: That’s very useful information for all the singer/songwriters and musicians. We have a lot of students that are working on their craft and wanting to elevate it to the next level. Things like that are very important to do.

“I’m the type of person where when I learn something I want to share it.”

Marcus: I’ve never been to Nashville but I know it’s a very musical city. So many recording studios. How would you say it’s helped your career? How has it helped your music and creativity?

Morgan: For me it was great to be around the industry in the way on the entertainment side. Coming from St. Louis, the talent is there, but the infrastructure for what I wanted to do was not there. It was like “Where to go?” I ended up going to college in Nashville because it has the moving industry but it’s driving distance from St. Louis. I ended up staying because I met my team. I’m independent and have a small team that I work with here. I met some of the best musicians I’ve met… and some incredible songwriters. That’s really inspired me. Nashville’s inspired me a lot over the last nine years, especially in the last five. I’ve been really inspired by this city. I think a lot of it’s just submerging yourself in what you want to do, where people are doing it. Submerge yourself in that environment, in that culture. New York and LA definitely have that. Nashville has that on the creative end. There’s incredible musicianship here.

Marcus: Do you write all of your music or collaborate when building concepts?

Morgan: Definitely both. I do collaborate a lot. More than I have in past years. When it works, it’s such a magical thing. You can’t always create by yourself. It’s magical because what comes out of it, is something that you wouldn’t have gotten done. They by themselves wouldn’t have gotten that done it. The magic is that “that song wouldn’t have happened at all if we hadn’t gotten together.” The sweet spot when the energy is good.

Marcus: Collaboration is great. What have you learned about yourself by opening up to collaborating with others?

Morgan: I’ve learned to let go. Early on, two years ago it was a goal of mine to collaborate more. I was really nervous in the sense of “What if we don’t come up with anything? What if it doesn’t work out? What if they think I’m a sucky songwriter?” I had negative thoughts and self-doubt. But the more I do it, the more I learn that it’s okay. It’s almost better to come in without those heavy expectations. Now I’m like “let’s vibe.” You might come with some ideas and they might come with some. I like to be prepared with ideas to move the process along. I’ve had co-writers where we vibed but we couldn’t create anything that day. Being okay with that is good. You might not always finish a song. Just be okay with what happens and don’t force anything - allow it to happen naturally. Try some creative strategies if you’re hitting walls. That’s what I’ve learned so far.

Marcus: How did you build relationships as an artist with your producers?

Morgan: Some of them I ended up meeting in college (I’ve been based in Nashville for nine years). Some I just connected with. You meet people when you go to shows. You connect in that way, checking out each others’ work. A lot of them were in-person connections where you end up meeting people and vibing. A couple were through DMs - people who don’t live locally. I was inspired and they were inspired.

My last single back in October, Venomous, was produced by Hennessy. His name is Will Hatton and he’s based in London. We connected about five years ago on Soundcloud. He heard a song and DMed me. We ended up exchanging emails and collaborating online. A couple times I’ve been over there in person I’ve met him and met other musicians. I ended up playing a show and doing some stuff over there. So don’t be afraid to reach out to people. If you see someone that you want to work with, shoot your shot. Even if someone doesn’t live in your city or country, you can still do it.

Marcus: I know a lot of producers and musicians start on music and never finish. What is your take on that? Are you the type to finish a song to completion?

Morgan: If I’m inspired to finish it, I’ll finish it. But if I keep trying and hitting a wall, writing free-form, I might come back to it later, but I might not. There have been songs that I have come back to years later. The original idea was years ago. Sometimes you do end up coming back to those little nuggets, and adding onto it something you’re proud of. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn’t and that’s okay.

Marcus: You mentioned you have a small team that you work with. I was curious, something we talk about with our students, the power of having a team. You hear about collectives and groups. Can you explain your team and how they help with your music?

Morgan: Being independent and unsigned, it is up to us to handle the business end and the creative end. We end up outsourcing some of the things that a label would typically provide for you. For example, there’s someone I go to who is really great with branding and marketing. Whenever I have questions on that or building my website, I can easily reach out to her. I also have a mentor who helps with the business side of things. That has been really helpful too. There are a couple of producers and other musicians that I work heavily with on the creative end. It’s about finding different people around you that do really well with certain things that you need. Somebody you may come across at a show or a networking event. Somebody in your city.

Marcus: On my own musical journey, I think that helps. There is more community in that. You also said you have a mentor. Have you always had mentors?

Morgan: For music, it’s funny because in college everyone says “get a mentor” but you don’t know how to do that. It’s so awkward. A lot of times it will form organically. I know there are some people that have reached out to people and created a mentor for them. That wasn’t my experience. I was too awkward. For me, finding a mentor has been organic, thankfully. Growing up, on the music end, if I had questions of course, I could ask my dad. Sometimes dads are dads, so sometimes when I needed a not-dad opinion, I could go to my uncle. Growing up there weren’t as many mentors outside of my family. I got more experience when I moved outside of Missouri. Here in Nashville I have a mentor named Brian, who is kind of like a big brother. He has very good advice on the business end and the connecting with people end. There’s a nonprofit here in Nashville called Creative’s Day. They provide resources for creatives in the city to connect with. So as you are building your team, it is easier to find people through their networking workshops. Sometimes they bring in an entertainment lawyer so you can ask questions. Usually you’d pay a lot for an entertainment lawyer, but here you might not pay anything. A lot of the people I can call up and ask for advice have been through that organization. I’ll ask them, “Hey I don’t know anybody who does this, do you know anybody?”

Marcus: Thank you so much for joining us today; any final thoughts?

Morgan: If there’s anything I can say, is I’m still learning and going through life. Be unapologetically you. Whatever it is that you are, there are going to be people that are going to discourage you, but be you. Do what you do, find what you do, do that and do it well. That’s all you gotta do.