I'm proud of every work of art I've ever been a part of. Just today, I thought of a short score I wrote and recorded for a tv commercial some years ago. I managed to find the recording in my Dropbox and listen to it and I found myself smiling ear to ear by the end of it.

But to point to some of the highlights in my musical journey thus far that I'm particularly happy about or inspired by: first and foremost, my music that I've recorded of my own, I have to say, I just love it. I have a whole album's worth that I'm planning to release soon. It's all under my name Zach Moses. You can find some of my singles anywhere you listen to music. It's always written by me, all instruments performed and recorded by me, no midi, it’s mixed and mastered by me, blah blah blah. If you are looking for music that will meet you where you're at, and lift you a little, it's a great choice.

All the records I've done with Ibrahim Maalouf are favorites for me. I'm usually playing electric bass, and some guitar and synthesizers. He is a genius. The last two albums I played on of his were nominated for Grammys, which is always fun.

The last album by the artist Arswain I mixed (and slapped a little bass too), and it is a sonic masterpiece. Also, our collab album called Diving Dame was so much fun to make together and I think it breaks some boundaries sonically and musically that I'm very proud of.

I played bass on the most recent Chris Botti album, Vol 1. produced by David Foster and Gabriel Johnson, engineered by Bob Clearmountain, mixed by Allen Sides, and mastered by Bernie Grundman for Blue Note Records with a who's-who list of the most amazing musicians and it sounds incredibly beautiful.

Plus the list of musicians who I've performed with I feel so grateful for, like Joshua Redman, Brian Blade, Zakir Hussain, Taylor Eigsti, Louis Cole, Angelique Kidjo, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Fishman, Chris Potter, Jeff 'Tain' Watts, Eric Harland, James Francies, Joel Ross, Joshua Bell, Esperanza Spalding, Dayna Stephens, Julian Pollack, Kendrick Scott, Om’Mas Keith, Gary Bartz, Cory Henry and the list goes on and on. I thank God for all of this music in my life.

My love of music began with my parents. From the time I was born, they played Western classical music and American jazz in our apartment in Japan where I spent the first few years of my life. I was instantly obsessed with this music, and learned how to take the cassette tapes that I enjoyed the most and put them into my toy cassette player, put on the plastic headphones, press play, and enter a whole different world.

Then when was about 8 years old, I found my dad’s guitar in the basement and was so enamored by the powerful sounds that emanated out of it once it was plugged into the amplifier. We started studying guitar together, learning everything from Green Day to The Cure to Jimi Hendrix to John Coltrane. For years I’d been bullied in school. When my school music teacher asked me to play guitar for the class one day, the bullying stopped and I suddenly felt like I had a super power in playing this instrument. My life changed that day. My love of music continues to grow, as I find new recordings and artists who evoke a sense of peace and timeless love in their music.

I can very clearly think of the role models and mentors who have helped shape my love and understanding of music. My first guitar teacher Neal Harris would teach me any song I wanted to learn but also the underlying theory that made them “work.” So when I became interested in jazz after hearing Taylor Eigsti and Julian Lage play one night when I was a kid, I had already been learning the basic foundations for jazz improvisation through Neal my guitar teacher without even knowing it.

Then Neal gave me the album Bright Size Life by Pat Metheny, and that’s when I first hear Jaco Pastorius play bass. I was playing electric bass in the school orchestra at the time and Jaco inspired me to fall in love with the bass in ways I didn’t know possible. I didn’t know it could be so expressive yet so deeply rhythmic. I used a soldering iron to peel the frets off my brother’s bass and filled the slots with wood glue to get that fretless sound (you’re such a great brother, Sam).

Then I started playing upright bass when my orchestra teacher suggested it might a bit more “legit.” And I started studying with Ken Miller, one of the only members of the San Francisco Symphony who played both classical and jazz. I soon sought out any great jazz bassist who would come through to town, and I’d beg them to give me a lesson. Of all those bassists, Larry Grenadier became such an influential person in my life. I think of him as my musical godfather. He not only taught me so much about the instrument, but he also taught me so much about how to be a good person. And he encouraged me to sneak into clubs to sit in with the great San Francisco Bay Area jazz musicians at night, which was such a significant part of my learning as well.

Later on, I had the honor of taking some lessons with the great Ron Carter who taught me to be a scientist of music. And then so many mentors from there entered my life. Ben Street was one of those people. Julian Lage used to come over to my family’s house occasionally to play with me. And Taylor Eigsti and Dayna Stephens would call me for gigs once I moved to New York. My list of musical mentors who have changed my life feels endless. I’m just so infinitely grateful for all of them.

To have a "career" in music requires that you love it more than any other thing you could possibly imagine doing. And then, in my opinion, it requires being part of a community of musicians who want to help each other succeed. And then, you have to be so great at your craft, to have spent years of your life devoted to expanding your musical inspiration and prowess. And on top of all of that, you have to be a great person. A generous person. And then, just maybe, it all will align for you to have a career in music. There's no better time to start than right here, right now.
 

I’ve been using headphones since before I can remember. As I mentioned before, my parents tell me that I used to use a toy cassette deck and a pair of plastic headphones to listen to classical recordings in our apartment when I was a toddler. There were years of my musical life where I never owned speakers - only headphones: they always seemed more practical. Like, why buy a pair of clunky speakers only to be at the mercy of your room’s acoustics? It wasn’t until I became interested in recording, mixing and mastering that I realized how much I was missing without a proper monitoring system (I then proceeded to spend the next half decade stressing over and refining my various acoustic monitoring systems). Headphones were downgraded to only being used as a way to check mixes for sibilance and distortion. To wear while tracking. Enter Audeze: I am re-experiencing the joy of using headphones constantly throughout my day, both professionally and recreationally.

For my entire life experience with headphones, I’ve always had to ‘learn’ their strengths and (usually major) shortcomings in order to understand the way music sounds through them and how I respond as either a musician or an engineer. Usually, the most unforgiving shortcoming is in the low end, where the information is so inaccurate that it has no bearing on any other listening system, no matter how many references, curves, or calibrations are used in the process. Working with Audeze headphones has been nothing short of a headphone revelation. The low end, stereo imaging, transient detail, and consistency across the frequency spectrum are as accurate as the monitoring systems of the best studios that I’ve worked in. There is no second guessing. Everything that comes through them sounds exactly as it is. When a recording is not great, they tell you that very clearly. And when a recording is truly beautiful, it literally brings tears to my eyes (true story).

The CRBN electrostatic is the clearest sounding audio playback device of any kind I’ve ever heard. I’ve used some of the best studio monitors out there, in amazing rooms — these headphones are in a world of their own. I can hear the air around the reverb around every instrument in a recording. Every element is so perfectly represented. The transient detail is astonishingly clear, yet so musical. And the dynamic range is unmatched. These headphones are a revelation.