Transcript
Speaker: Music
Speaker: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Able Voices Podcast. I'm Dr. Rhoda Bernard, founding managing director of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education and the assistant chair of the music education department at Berklee College of Music.
Speaker: And I am proud to present this podcast featuring disabled artists and arts educators. We are inviting artists with disabilities to be guest hosts with the Able Voices Podcast.
Speaker: Today, you'll meet our next guest host, Jillian Raquet. Jillian Raquet is a New York City-based nonprofit arts administrator, educator, and vocalist with more than a decade of experience in and the nonprofit arts and cultural sector.
Speaker: And as an artist with low vision, Jillian is deeply committed to creating more inclusive pathways in the arts. Her work is closely closely connected to the Filamino M. D'Agostino Greenberg Music School, a community music school for the blind and visually impaired, where she began as a student in 2012 while studying musical theater at Marymount Manhattan College.
Speaker: Through her work there, Jillian collaborates with fellow artists with vision loss and is dedicated to expanding meaningful opportunities for artists of all ages and abilities.
Speaker: Jillian's professional background includes positions at leading arts organizations such as TADA Youth Theater, Theater Development Fund, Philadelphia Theater Company, and A Class Act New York, where she developed expertise in arts education, outreach, and program development.
Speaker: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Able Voices podcast. My name is Jillian Riquet, and I'm super excited to be your guest host for the next few episodes. If you didn't hear my introductory episode, I'm a New York-based singer with low vision who works at the Philemon M. D'Agostino Greenberg Music School, a community music school for the blind and visually impaired.
Speaker: I'd love to introduce you to my first guest, a good friend of mine, Eddie Echo. Eddie Echo is a Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and musician known for his genre-blending sound, heartfelt songwriting, and dynamic live performances.
Speaker: At the age of 13, Eddie began losing his eyesight due to Stargardt's disease, a rare genetic eye condition, and is legally blind. Rather than letting visual impairment define or limit his creative vision, Eddie turned music into his primary lens for exploring and expressing the world.
Speaker: His lived experiences deeply informs his emotive sound, storytelling approach, and passion for connecting authentically with audiences. In addition to his career as a performing artist and a recording artist, he connects with creator communities as the host of the Eddie Echo Show podcast.
Speaker: Welcome, Eddie. So thrilled to have you joining us. Thanks for having me, Jill. So to start, I wanted to hear your story as an artist. How did you get your start? How did you get to where you are today?
Speaker: So I started playing music um at a very young age. My grandmother was an organist. um She was a full time musician. She played at churches and all around the Philadelphia area where I grew up. And I was in the Philadelphia Boys Choir as a kid and took piano lessons. And then around 12 years old, I picked up the guitar and got into a rock and roll and songwriting and really just been playing with it ever since.
Speaker: Awesome. I remember ah your first, your special ed and the guide dogs. that's That's my start of you as an artist. That was my high school band, special ed and the guide dogs, because I always lean on my friends.
Speaker: And that's gotten me all the way here. So shout out to the guide dogs out there. And next, tell me as about your experiences as a person and specifically an artist with a disability.
Speaker: Sure. Yeah. So I was always playing music my whole life. And um I started losing my eyesight around 13. So around that time, I really made it a core piece of my personality. And it it really pushed me my disability really pushed me into pursuing it more seriously. And you know, taking myself seriously as an artist. And yeah, since then, i moved to New York City when I was 19 years old.
Speaker: And yeah, now I'm here in Nashville. I've been here for about eight years and really just throwing paint at the wall and doing a lot of different things with music. And it's it's been a hell of a ride, i would say.
Speaker: That's awesome. I know that our listeners would like to hear about your arts education that you received. Can you tell us a little bit about how you studied the arts and anything you do to continue learning today?
Speaker: Sure. So I had a lot of great teachers along the way. I first started in the Philadelphia Boys Choir as a young child and um learned a lot about how to harmonize and you know work as a team. And then when I started losing my eyesight around 13, I concentrated more on ear training techniques like intervals and relative key centers. And I had a lot of great teachers help me with that. So I play all by ear.
Speaker: i do understand sheet music and things like that as well, but I'm not able to sight read anymore now that my eyesight has degenerated. But yeah, I ended up going to the University of the Arts and studying piano and eventually music business there.
Speaker: That's awesome. And so ah interesting. I know for me, I also did a lot of my learning by ear until I started using large print sheet music and and things like that. So it's always interesting to me the tools that we use to you know perform and work around our our disabilities.
Speaker: Well, one thing that I think that's interesting about this interview is that you and I have the same eye disease, right which is very rare. It's called Stargardt's disease. If anyone wants to look it up, it's S-T-A-R-G-A-R-D-T-S.
Speaker: So it's quite a ah mouthful. But yeah, it's it's it's interesting being someone that is legally blind, but not fully blind. um But yeah, once I lost the ability to sight read, I really concentrated more on the ear training side of things.
Speaker: Absolutely. And it is it's so nice. It's so rare for us to find someone who actually understands where we're coming from in our our boat of being, I always describe myself as just blind enough that it's inconvenient. Exactly.
Speaker: So you mentioned that you use a lot of accessible tech. Can you tell us a little bit about the programs that you use and how you make them work for you with your disability?
Speaker: Sure. Yeah. So all of my music on Spotify under my Eddie Echo artist name, I've produced all of it myself. So I really take a lot of pride in that. And I mix and master all my all of my own music.
Speaker: And i mostly i use Mac for everything and Apple products. And Apple i actually used to work at Apple for a long time. And Apple has put a lot of emphasis on creating accessible technologies for the blind and visually impaired. So basically, i use Logic Pro and I'm able to zoom in over the entire screen.
Speaker: um And i'm I'm very organized with it. So like I have my own template set up and everything's already color coded, And basically, yeah, I use that in conjunction with another software called Universal Audio, which is everything's digital here in my studio. I don't have a lot of like outboard gear, um so I'm able to like pull up templates and it's just made my workflow very smooth, which is great for for me being visually impaired.
Speaker: You know, I have the perfect amount of knobs that I can touch and and feel and things like that. But I think for me, a lot of the work has been done before I even open the session because I already have everything organized. I already have everything named so I can just click a button and just start creating right away. If I hear something, I can start playing it right away.
Speaker: So that's been really great for me just to be organized and to do kind of do that work before the session even starts. As someone who's visually impaired, like the the less I can look at the screen, the better. If i already know where everything is and it's it's kind of like a like a muscle memory type of thing as well, like which button I need to hit or all those things. So it's it's been great just to help me with working with other artists and producing my own stuff. But I think the tools have just gotten so much better for people with disabilities. And I'm really thankful for that. Absolutely. The organization, I think, is like the number one tool for me as well, just coming for my day to day job or at school.
Speaker: And sometimes I'm a little jealous that other people don't seemingly have to put in as much work before the work begins as we do. But it's it's a very I'm very grateful to have those tools.
Speaker: I am too. And it, you know, it's, it's, it really goes, it sounds cliche, but it it goes to say that when you have a weakness of some kind, a strength usually develops, um, in, in, you know, equal, equal and opposite reaction. So if you have that weakness, you, you become more organized. You have to, it's a bit of an adaptation. So I really think that people like you and i you know, we exist in the world as normal people. It's like you said earlier, it's more of an inconvenience with the the level of vision that we have. It's not that it's not debilitating.
Speaker: Yeah. and And for me, it's been really incredible being around other blind people and other blind artists, um including yourself. And through the years, I've met tons and tons of blind artists and seeing how everyone reacts differently and how how everyone finds their own solution. You know, there's no there's no correct way to do it. There's we all have our own unique way of making it happen. Absolutely.
Speaker: So you're very active as an artist. Tell us what you're currently working on. So I'm here in my studio in downtown Nashville. I've been here for eight years. And you know the the through line between everything i've I've tried to do through music has been my own artist career, where I release my own music. I produce everything myself with accessible technologies in Logic Pro.
Speaker: and here in my studio. But I i really have ah a few different like pilots that I've started. I have a business called Nash Sessions, where we do tiny desk style music videos. It's a video service.
Speaker: So I run that here out of my condo in downtown Nashville. And I've worked with over 300 artists doing that. So I'm having a lot of people like find me online, tourists, people traveling to the US from other countries. And basically, we do like a plug and play like tiny desk ah video.
Speaker: It's all acoustic. So I really love working on those because they're simple and they really show like the organic side of the artist. um Outside of that, I also host my own show, which I recently started called the Eddie Echo Show, where basically I have artists come in. It's kind of like a house party, so I'll have like 10 people in the room.
Speaker: And I live stream everything and I do an interview with the artists and they play a few songs. So I've been getting that off the ground. And yeah again, like I said, i'm I'm kind of piloting all these things and throwing paint at the wall. But the through line is that i I do my own music and I'm an artist. I play around Nashville probably about six or seven times a month. I play in Nashville. I play at piano bars and hotels and do a little bit of traveling and touring and stuff like that.
Speaker: That's awesome. I'm very impressed, have always been very impressed by how motivated you are to, you know, start new creative projects and things like that. It's, you know, for as alike as our eyesight are, I love singing something someone already wrote, but I love seeing you work through that process. Yeah, and it's always, you know, for me, it's really just about just doing doing it.
Speaker: You know, if I have an idea, whether it's the video business or my podcast, I really like to just start out the gate and not overthink it and just just get the ball rolling on it and not worry too much about the numbers or who's watching. um And for me, i'm I'm a very in real life community type of person, like like how we met Jill. We met through the Foundation Fighting Blindness.
Speaker: And yeah, I really concentrate on real life communities and getting out there and meeting people. Absolutely. That's a huge part of of my story with um FMDG, and it's super important.
Speaker: So, Eddie, tell us a little bit more about your musical influences and how those have maybe changed since moving to Nashville versus growing up doing your performances with choruses and things like that.
Speaker: Sure. So my musical influences, it's a wide it's it's a very wide range of music growing up in Philadelphia. I remember a lot of you know Motown and Elton John and all those things. But I would say the most impactful group to me has always been the Beatles. And my first CD growing up was actually the Looney Tunes Sing the Beatles. So it was all the Beatles songs sang by Looney Tunes characters.
Speaker: And yeah, i I studied classical music and then eventually got under rock and roll and then eventually got and into jazz. So that's kind of how my piano playing is is based off of more of a jazz um type of theory.
Speaker: And yeah, again, I play mostly all by ear. And I really love like all like the seventh chords and different extensions. And I like the freedom that jazz kind of adds to music overall. And you know, the avant garde style um as well.
Speaker: So yeah, then I lived in New York City for five years and I worked at a hip hop studio, T pain studio. So I got to meet a lot of people in that community. And now that I've been in Nashville, you know, I didn't really grow up on country music at all. But now that I've been here for almost eight years, I would say that country music has been a big influence as well, specifically in songwriting and lyric development.
Speaker: Because country, it really is one of the more simple styles of music. But the lyrics and the themes are what what decipher each song from each other, you know, to find that turn of the phrase, as they say here in Nashville, and to make it unique. It's like everything's already been said before.
Speaker: So how do you say it in a unique way? So I would say that being here in Nashville has really made me think more about you know, lyric writing and storytelling more forward. Because even for me growing up, I think I was more of like a melody harmony first type of person. Like it was always harder for me to come up with the lyrics or the themes. But I really think at this point, like I'm now I've heard I've seen so many artists and I've i've been around so much music that now I'm like very focused on the story and the storytelling being here.
Speaker: So that's been a ah big benefit to being around all the country musicians and working with them. That's awesome. And I really feel like I need to check out this Looney Tunes Beatles ah album.
Speaker: Yeah, go check it. I'm sure it's out there on the internet somewhere. and it was funny because I remember like I fell in love with like all those songs. And then when I listened to the real Beatles version, I didn't like it at first. and I was so used to like yeah yeah Bugs Bunny singing it. So once it was actually Paul McCartney, I was like, oh, I don't like this.
Speaker: But it was the it was really the melodies that got into me. Yeah, absolutely. my ah both are things that my dad introduced me to separately. so um I wonder if he's heard about it. I'm going to have to look it up for him.
Speaker: So tell me a little bit about what inspires you as an artist. What, you know, at the beginning, I know you mentioned that you really dove deeper into your music after being diagnosed with Stargardt.
Speaker: But what keeps you going? where Are there any particular people in your life that, you know, helped inspire you early on to keep pursuing music? Yeah. So I mean, I've always been drawn to music, even as a little kid. And I was always the kid like banging on the desk at school and, you know, making beats with my fingers and all of that. And um my grandmother started me off very young.
Speaker: And then once I started losing my eyesight, i think ever since then, I've kind of had like a chip on my shoulder as well. Like, I don't know it's if there's there might be something that I feel I have to prove or it's really driven me to like be like, hey, here I am. I'm going to put myself out there. I'm going to learn. I'm going to get better every day. i had a teacher, a guitar teacher when I was younger. His name Peter Block. Shout out, Pete.
Speaker: And yeah, once I started losing my eyesight, we really started to prepare for that. And he helped me with a lot of ear training techniques, like including like interval recognition and no relative key centers. So now I'm at the point where if someone plays something, I can play it back. And then I can play it in a different key.
Speaker: Because I basically base everything off of the tonic. and the mode that I'm in. So if it's in C major and it's a one to four, it's C major to F major. But then if they say, oh, I want I want you to play it in G. Actually, I can do that as well. Be G major to C major. So I really do kind of that that math in my head.
Speaker: I also play the guitar. I play all the rock instruments. So my my main instrument is piano. And then I play guitar, bass, drums. and But I really base everything off of the piano. So when I'm playing guitar, I'm thinking of the piano keyboard in my head. like I can still visualize the the keyboard. So that's kind of like my main... um Like that's what roots me into the theory of music.
Speaker: And I also think as I've gotten older, I've been able to kind of throw the theory out the window and just just play off of feel. But I'm always kind of rooted into that key center. And that's that's how I find my way around the piano and through music in general and and kind of understanding that there's only so much space you know that you can fill up with music.
Speaker: If you start out at 100, you're not going to be able to you can only go down. So I love to play with dynamics and, you know, build over time and really use a lot of those classic songwriting techniques in my writing.
Speaker: Awesome. So we're about to listen to one of your songs. Can you tell us a little bit about it All right, so the song I'm going to pick is one of my older songs, actually, um and I think it's very relevant to this conversation. It's called Achilles' Heel, and it's actually, i think it's my only song that's directly about um my disability and my blindness.
Speaker: I'm very involved with a nonprofit called Achilles International, and we run marathons together, half marathons. Basically, it's a nonprofit for athletes with with disabilities. So I started running with them in New York City, and now I've run three marathons and 32 half marathons.
Speaker: And I've been getting a lot more like competitive and running. Um, and I'm very inspired by all the athletes there. we have people who are, you know, missing limbs. We have blind people, we have deaf people. So this song Achilles heel is actually about that community. And it starts out with Achilles heel. I know just how you feel.
Speaker: So basically it's about me empathizing and being inspired by these athletes. Um, Yeah, so this is one of my older songs. i think I produced it about 10 years ago.
Speaker: So I sound a lot younger and everything in it. and musically, like, you know, whenever you go back and listen to something older, sometimes I get a little bit of cringe in me. But lyrically, I'm very proud of that that song. And I think it it applies to this conversation.
Speaker: That's awesome. I have um a bunch of friends who are involved with Achilles here. My friend, Francesco Magisano. Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he has pulled a bunch of us in. i've he keeps trying to get me to join, but I don't really like running. But I always love cheering at the New York City Marathon for everyone in their neon yellow.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really a great community. And and I think for me personally, running's not for everyone, but for me personally, it's really tied into like my artist journey as well, because it's it's very difficult. So I think that it it very much applies to this because this career is not for the faint of heart.
Speaker: and And I also want people out there to know maybe someone who is blind or deaf that you also don't have to take this that seriously. If you don't want to guys, you can just, you can just make music, you know, which, which is great too. But the career of trying to do this and make money and make a name, it's like running a marathon every day and it's harder than any marathon I've ever done.
Speaker: So yeah. So that song Achilles heel is kind of about that journey and, ah and that, um, ties into my mindset with everything that I do is that every step that I take is first of all, I'm lucky to take the next step every time, but you have to just keep going through the ups and downs and the peaks and valleys.
Speaker: That's great advice. So this is Achilles heel.
Speaker: Achilles heel. I know just how you feel.
Speaker: You're very active as an artist.
Speaker: you're very active as an artist please tell us about your current work So currently I'm working on ah a couple different projects, including my video business, Nash Sessions, which is here in Nashville. I do a tiny desk style music videos um for travelers and artists. So it's pretty much like an acoustic music video set. And I have a partner who does all the film and I'm on the audio side.
Speaker: um And then I have my own show called the Eddie Echo Show, which I've recently launched. And that's pretty much like a live stream. It's a house party type of vibe. So i' have like 10 to 12 people over and people will take turns playing songs and doing short interviews. um But yeah, I have a lot of music kind of that I've been sitting on and I've really gone through a period of just writing a ton over the since COVID to now, you know, the last six years, I've just been writing a ton. And now I'm in the the process of getting all that music out.
Speaker: um I think I currently have like 35 of my own songs out all produced by me, and I would love to get that up to like 50 by the end of next year. So I really just want to i want to be a prolific artist. I i want to be someone where so you can look back and, you know, i have years of music that has come out.
Speaker: And i'm not I'm at the point where I'm not expecting anything to just be a hit or you know, worrying about, or this is the one or any of that. It's just for me, I just want to be putting out, putting out, putting out and releasing. Kind of brings me to my next thing, which is what advice would you give to a young artist with a disability?
Speaker: My advice to a young artist with a disability would be to just start, just start creating things. um You know, don't overthink it or don't, you know, it's easy to think that it's, this is your Magnus Opus or your genius moment.
Speaker: um And we love to overthink everything. But I would say you just start out the gate, start putting stuff out and then make more stuff. That's great advice. As a as a chronic overthinker, i think I, even as someone who can't identify as a young artist anymore, i could take that advice as well.
Speaker: And I know you told us a little bit about ah what you are currently up to about your podcast, but where can our audience follow you for more information on your work and upcoming projects?
Speaker: Yeah, so my ah online my tag is Eddie Echo, Eddie with a Y and ECHO. So I have my show, the Eddie Echo Show, which I recently started, and that's on Instagram and YouTube in full format. And it's it's kind of like a live stream. So it's it's a longer format.
Speaker: um And then on Spotify, just Eddie Echo with a Y. And I also have a playlist on there of all the music I produce for other people, because that's mostly what I'm spending my time doing here in Nashville is i'm I'm hosting artists here in my studio and I'm a producer. So I work one on one with a lot of different artists, everything from country to hip hop.
Speaker: And yeah, I just love staying creative and trying to get everything out there. So. You can find me online on Google and yeah Great. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker: Thank you, Jillian.
Speaker: Able Voices is a production of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education, led by me, Dr. Rhoda Bernard, the founding managing director. It is produced by Daniel Martinez del Campo.
Speaker: The intro music is by Kai Levin, and our closing song is by Sebastian Batista. Kai and Sebastian are students in the arts education programs at the Berkeley Institute for Accessible Arts Education.
Speaker: If you would like to learn more about our work, find us online at berkeley.edu slash B-I-A-A-E or email us at B-I-A-A-E at berkeley, that's L-E-E dot E-D-U.
