Ep. 71: Navigating Cody Fry's "Symphony No.1: The Unlikely Mariner"

Garrett Breeze: Cody Fry, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Cody Fry: It’s an honor to be here to nerd out about music notation and publishing.

Garrett Breeze: That’s right. I’m very excited to talk to you. People often ask me what my favorite style of music is. And it’s a hard question to answer because I like so many different genres of music. And so now my go-to is just to say whatever Cody Fry is. That’s what I like because then I don’t have to pick, right? Because it combines so many different things. We’ll get into all that, of course. But let’s jump right in with your new symphony. Talk us through what it is and what makes it so unique.

Cody Fry: Gotcha. Yeah. So in the age of two second attention spans, I decided to write a 16-minute symphonic symphony. Basically, I wanted to take the classical symphonic structure and then superimpose my pop singer songwriter readings onto it and just see if I could come up with something new. And the result is a traditional symphony, but it’s built on kind of four songs instead of four movements. And as a part of the process, we decided to record most of it live. And we did it in front of a giant LED wall and put the entire orchestra in a water tank. The best way to experience it is probably watching it on YouTube. If you just go to my YouTube channel, you can watch the full 16 minute as a single video. And that’s I think my preferred way for someone to experience it.

Garrett Breeze: So, what did the National Symphony say when you told them that you were going to bring the water tank on tour? I’m very curious to hear how that conversation went.

Cody Fry: We haven’t had that conversation yet.

Garrett Breeze: Yeah. It’s like I said, it’s such a unique combination of not only musical genres, there’s some Williams, there’s some River Dance, there’s some traditional songwriting, right? But then you also have all these visual elements and the choreography and the lighting and all of these different visual effects. Talk to me just about the sequencing of how all of these ideas came together. What did you start with the music and then add the visual elements later? Was it just an experimental process? How did all that go?

Cody Fry: Yeah, so my music, my favorite thing to do in music is to tell stories. And some of my favorite songs that I’ve written are like underground which is a story of a guy who wakes up in a subway tunnel or flying which is a guy who jumps off a cliff because he thinks he’s able to fly and I love being able to tell those stories in these little three-minute chunks but I thought what if I gave myself a little more runway there and the symphony presented this unique four movement structure so I thought what if I could tell this story over four songs instead of just one song and let the narrative breathe a little bit more and I think that was what was really exciting. Like everything, it always starts with the music for me. So, I wanted to tell this story through the music, with the orchestra. And then as I’m writing it, I start to get these sort of visual ideas of how can we tell this story in a visual way because obviously that’s so important for promoting music these days. And also, it’s really fun. And at that point is when I brought in the director, Zach Dixon, who’s one of my best friends, and we just started brainstorming on how we could make this thing happen visually. And the visuals are all structured around how can we further enhance the storytelling of the music. Rather than how can we make something that looks cool, we’re thinking how can we make something that kind of clues in the viewer even more into what the music is trying to achieve. And that’s where it all began.

Garrett Breeze: So, you never really know what people are going through, but from what I can gather, you have a happy home life. So, what inspired you to write a 16-minute work about a young man abandoning everything to try and escape his trauma?

Cody Fry: Gosh, I don’t know. People ask me this sometime, and I really don’t have a satisfactory answer. The truth is I’ve always just liked writing kind of angsty sad songs and a lot of my songs are ripped from my own life and that I think is what a lot of great songwriters do. But I think the best songwriters are able to fictionalize and the great my favorite books are not personal stories. They’re fiction books. And so I I really wanted to try my hand at something that was a little bit more fictionalized for this. Obviously the emotions and the emotional impact is something that comes from my life, but obviously I’ve never sail across the ocean. In fact, I hate boats.

Garrett Breeze: So, as a songwriter, is your approach drastically different if you’re writing a song about yourself versus telling a story?

Cody Fry: I don’t think so. I think all songs are telling stories and being a good storyteller, I think, is the one of the most important things about being a songwriter. It’s just a matter of structuring the song in a way that feels like it’s bringing the listener along with you and keeping them interested and entertained and excited about, okay, what’s going to happen next? And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Garrett Breeze: I hear a lot of different influences in your music. I would say you wear your influences on your sleeve, right? I think it’s pretty obvious some in a good way, right? When you’re referencing a classical artist, you have these score videos we’ll get into later, right? But you have these score videos where you’re like, this is, you know, this is a nod to Holst and this is the various references that you’re intentionally bringing into the work. I feel Like for a lot of artists when they try to do that, when they try to combine different types of music, it can almost feel gimmicky, right? But it never feels out of place when you do it. So my my question is how do you pay tribute to something without making it feel like it doesn’t belong?

Cody Fry: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think the truth is I probably do it successfully sometimes and unsuccessfully other times. I think for me one of my favorite quotes, I think I heard it on freakonomics podcast was that innovation is just the novel remixing of pre-existing cliches. And I think you can see that as you go back through like the great music and great products and great innovations of our time. It was like taking things that already exist and then using them in a new way that unlocks something new within them. And I think about that a lot in the context of music, which is that kind of we’re all being influenced all the time by the music we listen to and that comes out in our music as we write it or in our arranging as we arrange it. You hear a great arrangement, you go, “Oh, I want to do something like that.” And so that’s how I feel a lot of the time is that I’m listening to these great composers. I just want to learn about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And so I study their scores and then I want to try my own hand at it and then that becomes my own music. Also, sorry if my child is in the background. I’m hoping it’s not too distracting.

Garrett Breeze: I love that people get to hear that because that is what my house sounds like most of the time and it only raises my respect for you being able to write in those conditions. A symphony is, as you alluded to earlier, it’s very, I don’t want to say reliant on the structure, but it that is a defining part of what makes it a symphony, having the four movements or the five movements and sort of the progression of one idea to the other. So, I’m curious what kind of score study went into this and deciding what are the elements that you need to include in each of these movements in order to pay homage to that symphony tradition while at the same time checking all the songwriting boxes.

Cody Fry: Yeah, I looked at a lot of different composers and did a lot of reference reading of how different composers have treated the symphony in the past. Obviously, there’s a million ways to approach a symphony in reality and many composers have used the rules as quite loose guidelines and that’s what I did also. But in general, you’re going to have that first movement be in sonata form and it’s going to introduce the main themes of of the piece. The second movement is going to be slower, more lyrical, more reflective. The third movement, I chose the scherzo format. It’s usually the dance movement, which is either like a minuet or trio. And then the fourth movement is generally a finale that brings the whole thing to an exciting conclusion and can be in rondo form or whatever. So, I looked at some of the different forms and the general conventions of the symphony and tried my best to superimpose that onto the songs. And actually, I have a score companion that you can get on my website where I go into more depth on what those forms actually look like in terms of a map onto the songs as they exist and how kind of it relates to symphonies in the past. So, if you’re more interested in that sort of thing, it’s probably more eloquently spoken or written in these score companions.

Garrett Breeze: I also think you you got to watch it on YouTube with the captions on. I’m sure you were behind that. I’ve never I’m so used to the YouTube captions being wrong that when it started throwing Lydian and Mixolydian and all these turns at me. I’m like, “Holy crap, this is the most informative YouTube caption I’ve ever seen in my life.” Cuz you narrate the the instrumental sections of here’s the French horns with this theme and like I’ve never seen that in a YouTube video before.

Cody Fry: Actually, yeah, I did get my hands into the captions myself and put in a few little Easter eggs.

Garrett Breeze: Yeah, great fun. I watch everything with captions cuz I’m an old person, but I love when the captions have little jokes for the watcher. So, speaking of Easter eggs. I also hear references throughout the symphony to other songs that you’ve written. I know you do everything intentionally. So, my question is, are these just for the fans or is or do all of your songs exist in the Cody Fry cinematic universe and they all get to interact behind the scenes? Is the guy from underground like watching this guy go out to the sea, the flying guy, are they all friends? Do they get to hang out? How does this work?

Cody Fry: I think I shouldn’t speak too much into that. I’ll let my fans dissect how it all goes there at one point comments. I do read the YouTube comments and yes, there are themes from pre-existing work in this new work and I’ve tried to keep a rough semblance of motifs that I keep track of through my music over the years while also allowing myself to come up with whatever new stuff I want to. But yeah, at some point we were going to create like a Cody Fry cinematic universe around these characters that were in the music videos for Photograph and I here in symphony, but it’s just too complicated to keep up with all that stuff. So, I just keep it in the music.

Garrett Breeze: I I think fans want to know, is this the guy from Photograph? Did things go badly or is this somebody else?

Cody Fry: I can’t answer it. I just have to wait.

Garrett Breeze: All right.

Cody Fry: See how the story unfolds.

Garrett Breeze: We should probably talk about the French horn thing. You are well known for your love of the French horn. You may be the most outspoken French horn advocate on the internet.

Cody Fry: Absolutely.

Garrett Breeze: Where does that obsession come from?

Cody Fry: All the best moments in symphonies, film music. To me, they’re all punctuated by the French horns. It’s just the most noble, majestic, incredible sound. I’ve never met an orchestra that had too many French horns. I’d write for eight if I could. And actually, Unlikely Mariner was the first time I wrote for six French horns. Normally, I’ve written for the standard four because that’s what most orchestras use. And when we play it live, it’ll probably have to be with four French horns, which is sad. But I don’t know. I just feel like the trumpets and trombones get so much love in the brass section cuz usually the trumpets are out leading the charge. But I just feel like the French horns are I don’t know. It’s like this weird thing where people hear them all the time but may not necessarily know what they are or what they even look like. And so I wanted to try to highlight these incredible players on this wonderful instrument because I love it and I need it to keep existing and people to keep being good at playing it.

Garrett Breeze: I want to talk a little bit about your approach to orchestration.

Cody Fry: Mhm.

Garrett Breeze: You’re a very smart orchestrator. And it’s funny, usually when I do these interviews, I ask, “What does this thing mean here? What is this inspired from?” And you already have all that on YouTube. So, I’m not going to I’m not going to go through that. If you want to take a really specific dive into Cody’s stuff, he has a lot of breakdown videos and score videos that highlight specific moments. But what I wanted to ask was, when you’re orchestrating to a lyric, how do you decide when you’re going to imitate and embellish what the lyric is saying and how do you decide when you’re going to go against it?

Cody Fry: That’s a good question. I think in general my approach to production and not even just orchestration, but production generally is to ask the song what it wants to be and then don’t fight that. And I think as you write more and as you produce more, you develop taste that what the song can handle at this moment, what it’s looking for, do we need more variety or do we need more consistency? I feel like you develop a sense for those things over time. And I don’t know, I obviously I love text painting as my dad always called it. Just I love the idea that music can enhance what a lyric is saying. And so as much as I can, I try to incorporate that technique into my writing just because I think it’s fun. And I think I don’t know, I’ve always felt that you should treat listeners as if they’re smart because they are. And I think yeah, text painting and leaving those things for people to find as they listen. And I think is that it’s that mindset. It’s treating people as if they’re going to find those things and think that they’re cool.

Garrett Breeze: It’s just like the genre melding thing. If you do too much of it, it becomes hokey, but picking and choosing those moments. It’s a hard thing for composers to do. I think for most composers, the tendency is to overcompose or over orchestrate. And so, what has been the most helpful for you to develop that sense of, as you said, what the song wants, what the can take. Is it from listening? Is it from score study? Is it from trial and error? I know the answer is different for everyone, but for you, what do you think has been the most helpful?

Cody Fry: I think it’s everything you just said. Score study, listening, trial and error. I’ve been doing this a long time. Obviously, I had a father who was a musician and is still a musician and is an incredible orchestrator, so it’s like winning the lottery as a kid. So, I just got to be around it a lot, hear him talk about it, and I was exposed to a lot of that music at a young age which was just extraordinary. So I think I don’t know it’s just something you just do over time. I think something that’s helped me a lot is that I’ve had a lot of songs which means that when I get an opportunity to do something I don’t have to do it all at once. I think when I was starting out it was like I just wanted to show people look at all this stuff I can do instead of asking the song what it wanted to be and then doing that because I was afraid that this is my one shot to try this thing out or a big string section or whatever. Whereas now I know that the next song I do is not the last song I’ll do. And so I see more runway and I that kind of mindset allows me to be less what’s the word I’m looking for? What’s the word for when something is scarce? Yeah. I don’t have a scarcity mindset around like how much I need to put into one song in order to prove to whoever that I can do it.

Garrett Breeze: So one of the last lines of the symphony is when I close my eyes to sleep, I want my last thought to be you in that blanket singing softly to the sea. I want to know what type of blanket are we talking about here and when are you going to add it to the merch store?

Cody Fry: That’s true. A custom blanket. I always imagined it to be a quilt or something. Um, but there’s other meanings of a blanket of roses or a blanket of fog. There’s lots of imagery surrounding a blanket that can slot into that moment. I I never like to reveal too much about my songs to fans because I want them to feel that I don’t want there to be one right interpretation if that makes sense because I I think anyone who takes the time to dig into art and discover a meaning for themselves they deserve to have that meaning validated and I think as an artist I try to be really careful not to say here is the interpretation of my song that I want you to have because once it’s out in the world it’s not mine anymore it’s yours and so it gets to be whatever you want it to be and obviously I try to put as much meaning as I can in the lyrics but like how people take that and experience it. That’s their own business.

Garrett Breeze: Let’s shift gears and talk about some of the covers that you’ve done. You I think when you were nominated for the Grammy Award, that was the first time a lot of people learned that a Grammy award for arranging exists, but you’ve been nominated three times now. You have a cover of Eleanor, The Sound of Silence, and A Wonderful World. How does that all work? How do you get nominated? How does the voting go? What is the behind the scenes of that whole process? That’s a huge moment for as an artist to be Grammy nominated and you’ve done it three times in a row now. So just walk us through what that has been like.

Cody Fry: Yeah, I was pretty stunned to be honest, especially the first time and actually the second two times cuz when I when Eleanor Rigby got nominated, it was a massively viral track that was doing hundreds of thousands of streams per day and like it felt okay, if I was ever going to get nominated for a Grammy, it would probably be for something like this that’s got a ton of cultural capital right now. And yeah, it was the other two It really shocked me that because they’re not my most streamed songs or anything, but I think in the particular case of the Grammy for best arrangement, I don’t really know. But basically, like most awards, the Grammys are just like a popularity contest. It’s almost like you just have to know a lot of people that are Grammy voters because it’s not like the general public can vote on the Grammys. And so I think that’s why you see this in a relative sense, but lesser known artists like Jon Batiste or whoever walk away with 10 Grammys. because he’s he is lesser known on the scale of Taylor Swift or whatever, but among Grammy voters, he’s just beloved because of the music he makes and the person that he is. And so I think in a specific case of the Grammys, it’s really just like you have to be like the type of artist that a Grammy voter likes.

Garrett Breeze: That makes sense.

Cody Fry: Um, yeah. So, I don’t really know much about how the process works behind the scenes, but I was just honored to get a couple nominations. That’s wild.

Garrett Breeze: Do you have a group chat with the other nominees now? Are you in? They’re all amazing.

Cody Fry: No, I the I know the guy from the 8-bit big band and we keep in touch every now and then, but I don’t think I’ve really been nominated alongside anyone else that I need personally. Some amazing arrangers though.

Garrett Breeze: Yeah, all three of those songs are extremely popular, well-known tunes that have been covered and arranged thousands of times. So, how do you approach a song like that? You talked before about what does a song need when a song like Sound of Silence has been recorded a thousand times. What? How do you figure out what it needs?

Cody Fry: Yeah. I don’t know. I think you’ll notice that a lot of the covers I choose are like massively popular song book staples because I think those songs stick around because they can handle so much interpretation. Obviously, like with Eleanor Rigby or whatever, I’m not going to do better than what the Beatles did. You can’t. But I can do something different. I can do something that has my spin on it. And I think that’s the fun of the orchestra is that I do think the orchestra is such a powerful organism, a powerful musical organism that you can bring new meaning to things in a song through it. Especially because there’s so much reference film composing and all this stuff you enter that world into these songs, it brings a whole new meaning to them and that’s been fun for me to discover. I’ve always loved these songs and so the opportunity to put my own spin on them was too enticing to pass up and I like it as a pallet cleanser between writing original things Yeah. I don’t know. I feel like it’s just a fun, approachable way for people to experience the orchestra because they know the song and so they can like they have something to grab on to, which I like.

Garrett Breeze: So, there’s a lot of terms in music that get thrown around interchangeably, right? Or that are obviously different roles but have similar functions. Arranger, orchestrator, composer, songwriter, like lyricist, like all these different things. So, when you’re arranging something versus composing or songwriting, Is the approach different because you already have the material or maybe because you’re performing it as an artist, you’re singing it. Do you have to go through that same sort of like how am I going to sing this and then how am I going to orchestrate it? I’m just very interested in the creative process.

Cody Fry: Yeah. So for clarity, I don’t do a ton of just contract arranging anymore. So usually I’m arranging for myself, which makes a big difference. Obviously I am the artist, I’m the vocalist, I am the performer and also the arranger. So I’m trying to choose songs that I think will work well for me as a performer, fit into what I like to do, fit my voice well, all of that. And so that’s the first priority with either songwriting original or doing a cover is I need to make it work for me. And then it always starts with the song for me. The song has to be great. Doesn’t matter how great your orchestration is. If the song’s not very good, it’s just not going to be very good. And obviously that’s a very Nashville thing to say, but it is true. So when I’m writing for myself original songs, I try to keep away from the computer, keep away from the score pad until I feel really good about the bones of the song. And that’s when I start asking the song what it wants to be and applying just general orchestration techniques to it. Sometimes I’ll write a song that has a really specific orchestral thing that I want to do and I’ll know that from the beginning, but in general, I’m just trying to write a good song. And on the arranging side, I think, yeah, that process generally flows as you would expect. I just take the song, I do like a kind of vocal and then start to just throw my own orchestral spin on it.

Garrett Breeze: What is your take on composing in a DAW versus composing in notation software?

Cody Fry: I think the truth is you should compose in whatever way gets the music out. If that’s easier for you with pen and pencil or whatever, do that. If that’s easier for you on the DAW, do that. I think process is very personal and I think the DAW can be quite helpful because it’s like getting an instant preview of what it would sound like if you performed it with real people. But there’s also something to the idea of imagining what it will sound like without hearing the kind of instant somewhat plastic feedback of a computerized instrument. So, I don’t know. I see pros and cons to both. I do a lot of writing side by side where I am writing in my notation software and then I have my DAW open at the same time. So, it’s like I’m doing all of it.

Garrett Breeze: Let’s shift gears a little bit before we wrap up and just talk about big picture career things. I’m very curious to hear your take on managing the risk/reward of music. You’ve got a lot of experience. You’ve you were with a label. Now you’re not with a label. You’ve done these large orchestral things that require a lot of upfront money. And I’m just curious how you approach the art and the business and how that affects your decision-making.

Cody Fry: Yeah. Like you’ve said, I’ve moved forward with that in a lot of different ways. I was on a major for a second. I ultimately left because I that’s its own podcast episode, but I enjoy being independent. I like the idea of controlling my own fate. And I even like the idea of financing my own projects because I think there’s something magical that happens when you have the right limitations in place. And I think budget can be an incredible limitation. I think it requires everyone to think more creatively in terms of how can we get this thing made for the budget that we have. And sometimes I think unlimited budgets kill creativity because it’s just there’s too many options and you don’t have to solve any problems. And that I think breeds less creativity than you’d think. I also just think ownership is a big deal. If I’m the creator, I want to own it. And so that’s always been my thing and will continue to be my thing. Yeah. Trying to think if there’s any way I can relate this to the music publishing space. I think that’s been one of my largest disappointments in the music publishing space. If I can just be totally candid with your audience is just how little arrangers are paid and how much the store aggregators take. Because I just I don’t think the store aggregators are adding a ton of value for especially for someone like me where I have my own existing audience. I won’t mention the publisher or whoever, but like when I got this thing where it was like, “We’d like to include you in some a series, a coral series or whatever.” And when I looked at the deal, I was just like, “This makes no sense because my song is the draw here.” Obviously, I’m sure the arrangers are great. The person who owns the thing feels like it feels like these stores are just taking a large amount from the creatives that I feel like really deserve to be paid more in my opinion. And that goes for arrangers, songwriters, all of that. So I feel like

Garrett Breeze: I think this is a good segue. I feel like in the world of music you can divide everybody into three camps. You have the classical music world over here. You have the professional music industry, the songwriters, the publishers, that side of things. And then you have music education. All of the school music programs and university programs. And I feel like these three different worlds don’t really understand what the other’s doing. I feel like there’s a lot of separation between them. Sometimes it’s self-imposed, just stylistic. Sometimes it’s just a lack of awareness. I don’t know. But I feel like there is a disconnect between these three major centers of music making. And I feel like you’re somebody who crosses a lot of those barriers because you know how to talk to the professional symphonies, but you also know how to talk to the songwriters and you know how to talk to the students. So as someone who crosses a lot of these, call it ideological barriers, stylistic, professional barriers, what do you think the key is to getting these different parts of the music industry to understand one another?

Cody Fry: Yeah. I don’t know. I obviously I like you said, I sit at the middle of all of that and I just try to feed all those different people what they need and I don’t know. I can take it on the educational side in particular. I don’t know because it just feels like things have become too professionalized in education. If a professor or a teacher emails me and says, “We’d like to use your song for whatever. What do you charge?” I’m like, I don’t charge anything. You’re a school. Teach the mu teach the music to the children. More French horns. No. You know what I mean? I’m just like, why am I trying to take money from an elementary school? That’s not what I’m here to do. I want It’s an honor to have my music sung by children or whatever. And and to be a part of music education feels just so special. And obviously, I know there are music education companies that are built to create resources and provide materials and that stuff is all really valuable. But in terms of getting a license to just sing my song at your concert or something. I’m like, come on. We don’t need to be doing that. That’s crazy to me. Yeah. If you want to record it or something, obviously that’s different, but that’s got its own set of things where it’ll be fine. I just feel like I in on the education front in particular, I just wish it didn’t feel so like we have to get the right legal licenses and stuff. I’m just like, man, just go for it because no offense, I don’t that’s what I did when I was in high school. I used to arrange songs all the time. I never sought permission to do that. Obviously, I was 15 or whatever, so I wouldn’t have even known how to do that. But it’s that was so invaluable for me. I remember arranging 35 of the most popular tunes when I was in high school for the pep band or whatever. And I I just couldn’t imagine trying to do that now. It feels like someone would be like, “You got to get this license and that license.” And oh man, I just want that kid to have that educational experience. That’s all I care about.

Garrett Breeze: Yeah. But I think the reason for that is a lack of understanding. Right? If music publishers are being asked to provide permission for something that they don’t understand, I think the default reaction is just to say no to play it safe. Right? And I think the opposite’s true, too. I think some schools don’t understand that there is a whole process in place to get songwriters paid and you can take it to the other extremes, too. What would you say the reaction to your m I know this is super hard to answer, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Do Do you feel like you get the same reaction to your music from different kinds of musicians or does it kind of depend on who you’re talking to? Does everyone get it?

Cody Fry: I don’t know. I That’s such a stupid question, but No, I’d like to think that there’s something for everyone to get in my music. I think even if you’re not a musician at all.

Garrett Breeze: The reason I’m asking is because I feel like in the music industry, uh, they being the industry really likes to put you in a box as a composer and say you do this type of thing and that’s what you’re known for and we’re going to market you as this and everyone understands what this is and so it will make money. But I feel like for someone like yourself, you push against that because you have all sorts of different influences in your music. So I guess do how important do you think those labels ought to be? Is it something you’re consciously fighting against or is it something that just happens and you just do whatever you want? Cuz I don’t know. I feel like especially career, that stuff can be limiting. If you’re known for a certain type of music and then you try to branch out into something else, you get kind of shut down.

Cody Fry: Yeah, I think I have two parts of an answer for that. This is one of the other reasons why I like to be independent is because I get to define the box for myself and so obviously I just get bored very easily. So I just can’t do the same thing over and over too much or I just feels like banging my head against a wall. And so on that sense it’s like I like to be in control of my own destiny and be able to make whatever creative moves that I want to make. On the other hand, I do think there is some value in having a identifiable brand that’s associated with something specific. Obviously, you brought up French horns. It’s just like that has become my calling card. And you could look at that as a box, right? Oh, yeah. You’re boxed in to be the French horn guy. So, I’m privileged to be the French horn guy. I made something that is it’s a I’ve made something that is so Yeah. I got to make the box is I think probably the value part here which is that I built a box that I enjoy sitting inside.

Garrett Breeze: Let’s end with this question because you’ve been more than generous with your time. What would your advice to artists be that want to try something new but don’t know how?

Cody Fry: Oh gosh, I don’t know. You can learn anything on YouTube. That’s for certain. So if you don’t know how to do it, someone will teach you on YouTube. I think my standard answer on this is the job of the artist is to know themselves. And I think most artists should start there. What about you is unique? What about your context is unique? What things about life have you experienced that make you unique? And how can you look inward to discover these things that you have a unique perspective on? And then how can you apply that perspective to something new? And I think that’s what all the great artists do is they figure out who they are, what makes them unique, what their point of view is, and then they learn how to express that. And so I think if any artist is attempting to do that, that’s the path toward success for me.

Garrett Breeze: Yeah, that’s a great note to end on. Where can our listeners find you?

Cody Fry: Oh, I don’t know. People are better at the internet than I am. Just search Cody Fry. It’s somewhere else.

Garrett Breeze: Be hard at this point. Yeah.

Cody Fry: Yeah. Definitely go watch Unlikely Mandarin on YouTube. I think it’s absolutely really fun.

Garrett Breeze: Thank you for coming on the show and congrats on the symphony.

Cody Fry: I’m honored, Garrett. Thanks for having me.

Garrett Breeze: Thank you for listening to another episode of Selling Sheet Music. If you like the show, please rate and review it wherever you listen to podcasts. You can read episode transcripts and get caught up on past episodes at selling sheetmusic.com. And you can find my music at garrett breeze.com. Selling sheet music is written, produced, and hosted by me, Garrett Breeze. Post-production for this episode was done by Brandon Haney, and our theme music was written by myself and David Dystra. I’ll see you next week. Go write something.