Student Spotlight: Isaac Moore, Songwriter
With twelve albums and over eighty songs written, it is safe to say that Isaac Moore (‘26) is a songwriter. Isaac writes mainly in the genres of progressive metal, melodic metal, and djent. When the world was shut down due to COVID-19 and everyone was in their homes without anything to do, Isaac decided to try his hand at writing music. Ever since then, he has not slowed his production of songs and has the intention of continuing to write music for years to come.
Isaac first discovered his love of music when he was “eight and wanted to be cool.” Back then, being cool to him was being able to play the guitar. As a result, he started to learn how to play it and was instantly hooked. The guitar, along with music in general, quickly became a focal point of his life.
After a while, Isaac grew tired of playing other people’s music, so he began to write his own. “[Progressive metal] is the equivalent of something like sushi; you can put just about anything in it and it will still sound good.” He enjoys its freedom and flexibility, as most parts of his music may not work in other genres.
Isaac starts by listening to music he enjoys for inspiration. He then goes into his recording studio and plays around until he finds a series of notes that he likes. If he is happy with the melody or harmony that he has created, he finds a rhythm for it. Isaac then records it and repeats the same process until he has a song. His main source of motivation is listening to the finished product afterward. “It allows me to analyze what I did wrong, which tells me how to write better music to give everyone a more pleasant listening experience.”
Just like all other hobbies, songwriting takes time. For Isaac, it is very difficult to find time to allocate to songwriting when factoring in sports and school. Even though there is very little time for Isaac to record music, he still finds at least an hour nearly every day with more hours available to him on the weekends.
Even though Isaac has written so many songs, there is so much more to come.