Switched on Pop - The classical rebel who infiltrated pop music

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

You've heard those shimmering disco strings in Miley Cyrus's "Flowers," the cinematic arrangements on Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher, and the orchestral flourishes across Taylor Swift's catalog, but you probably didn't know they're all the work of one person: Rob Moose. The violinist and multi-instrumentalist has contributed to nearly 1,000 albums, quietly becoming pop music's most prolific string architect. In this conversation, Moose reveals how he translates classical training into contemporary pop language, working with everyone from Sufjan Stevens to Bon Iver to create arrangements that feel both intimate and epic. We dive into his process, explore how he's reshaped what strings can do in popular music, and uncover the craft behind those arrangements you can't get out of your head. MORE Subscribe to our newsletter to receive your own bingo card! Songs Discussed Miley Cyrus “Flowers” Phoebe Bridgers “Punisher” Phoebe Bridgers Copycat Killer (EP, includes re-arranged versions of “Punisher,” “Kyoto,” “Savior Complex,” “Chinese Satellite”) Sufjan Stevens “Chicago” Bon Iver “Everything Is Peaceful Love” RINI “Miracle” Bon Iver “Short Story” Bon Iver “Speyside” Phoebe Bridgers “Chinese Satellite” Phoebe Bridgers “Savior Complex” Phoebe Bridgers “Kyoto” Lizzy McAlpine “Ceilings” Gracie Abrams “I Love You, I’m Sorry” Rob Moose “I Bend But Never Break” ft Brittany Howard Alabama Shakes “Sound & Color” Taylor Swift “Hoax” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I was listening to Myli Osiris's flowers one day when something stopped me cold. Those discreet. strings that seemed to shimmer with 1970s orchestral grandeur, ultramelow, and layered harmonies, made the track feel both retro and totally futuristic. It turns out that entire string section was just one person, Rob Moose. That realization sent me down a rabbit hole. Rob Moose's name

started appearing everywhere I looked. This violinist and multi-instrumentalist was behind some of my all-time favorite recordings. He's contributed to over a thousand album. for artists like Sufion Stevens, Taylor Swift, John Legend, Lizzie McAlpine, Alabama Shakes, and Paul Simon. He was even on the soundtrack to Everything Everywhere all at once, and this year I particularly loved his playing on Bonifers, Sable Fable, one of my favorite albums of the year. So yeah, if you're hearing a string section on a pop song, there's a very good chance you're hearing Rob Moose. But what sets him apart isn't just his prolific output. It's how he translates classical string techniques into the language of contemporary pop. He creates arrangements that feel both

intimate and cinematic. Listen to his work with Phoebe Bridgers on Punisher, and you'll hear how he uses space and restraint to amplify emotional weight rather than simply adding orchestral flourish. After hearing his work on Punisher, I sought out copycat killer, his strings and voice collaboration with Bridgers that reimagines some of those same songs. Here you can really isolate the architecture of his arrangements, understanding how each melodic line and harmonic choice serves the song's emotional core. So after diving deep into his catalog, I knew I had to understand his process. How does someone trained in classical traditions work in today's fast-paced pop world?

And how does he even go about using his classical instrument on pop recordings? Here's my conversation with Rob Moose, where he reveals the craft behind. those arrangements and challenges some assumptions about what strings can do in popular music. Rob, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I want to learn more about your approach to strings, but I want to get to know you better. I feel like with an instrument, there are so many different phases.

But to boil it down, there's a phase where you have to first pick up this instrument. There's a phase of falling in love with it and realizing I'm actually going to dedicate the absurd amount of hours alone that it takes to really get to know this instrument. Yeah. And then there's a point also where it's like, this thing is actually paying my rent. So when you tell me about those three phases for you? Yeah. All my grandparents are musicians.

So there was definitely a lot of like music in me and music in my house. My parents started me on piano when I was five. And that same year in public school that I was going to in Connecticut, there was a Suzuki violin program. And I happened to hear this like recital assembly thing. And I came home and begged to play violin. My mom kind of hesitated because she was like, you're five. You're already playing piano. And I guess I started crying.

Very dramatic. Hard for me to kind of relate to that now, but... The only five-year-old in the world, I think, ever cried to get to play violin. That's awesome. What was I thinking? So I started lessons the next year, and I think, you know, for a while it was just kind of just another one of the many activities I did. But around age 13, I think somebody suggested that I picked between piano and violin, and I picked violin, which was a great move, I feel like, because there's too many pianists in the world. There's too many violins, too many violins, too. And then when I was 15, my violin teacher asked, my mom's permission to have this conversation with me to basically tell me that like if I was interested and if I took it seriously and worked hard that I had the potential to be a professional musician, which was something that never occurred to me. My mom was like, yeah, tell him. So from that

day, I just sort of like reinvented myself. I mean, the power of like adolescence where you're just like, I am this now. And I suddenly was just working really hard. Like I didn't necessarily know how to do that correctly. But overnight I was like, this is who I, this is my identity. I'm going to go for this. And so those last couple years in high school really gave me a boost. And then I came to New York to study at Manhattan School Music in terms of getting to the rent-paying portion. I had a kind of probably an atypical experience. It's probably more common now, but I was really equally interested in like rock music and guitar and improvisation. And I didn't really fit neatly into the sort of classical music, the rigorous training. Like this is the whole world,

don't listen to anything else. So I worked really hard at my violin traditional. additional studies and stuff, but I also benefited from being in New York City and, you know, going to concerts at places like Tonic or the Bowery Ballroom and seeing stuff. And I started to see in early 2000s when I was in school with bands that had classical orchestral instrumentalists on stage with them and playing amplified. And that was really fascinating to me. Right. I think of like Andrew Byrd certainly sort of maybe happening and eventually work with Sufjohn. Yeah, exactly. So like I saw stuff, it may have even been more in like a jazz context, but just seeing like improvising, violinists and cellists. And I was like, oh, this is possible because I sort of thought, like, I need

to learn a different instrument to play in the types of places that I want to play. But, you know, I was really taken with the performance experience, the kind of more of the connection with the audience that you had there rather than the sort of like formality. And I think I'm still kind of on the same trip. I'm like trying to like demystify this stuff for people and find a more direct connection between like the strings and, you know, and the listeners. I'm not interested in it being too smart for anybody or like you have to listen to these 10 things before you can understand what someone's doing over here like it just i don't know why that is the way it is so i started uh i answered a craigslist ad in 2002 or 2003 when i was still in college for a really

interesting sounding performance opportunity that listed like four names that all started with b like jeff buckley pierre boulas benjamin britain and who was the fourth bork and i was like i really just stood out and like sort of classifieds and so i'd played in this group called My Brightest Diamond for years, and the singer, Sharonova, was working with Sufian Stevens, and he was working on his Illinois album. And so she had a quartet in her band. We had been playing with her. He was like, I need to record strings. So we played, like, I'm playing violin on Chicago. You know, that was like one of my first recording sessions. It's funny thing is, like, I didn't know any of this indie music. It was totally new to me. It

just like what I found through this ad. And then I auditioned for this group, Anthony and the Johnson's and played all over the world in that group, and that led me to the National, which led me to Bonne Verra. Like, everything I've done has come from this, like, Craigslist random experience. And to me, it was, like, always very interesting to, you know, make it easier for these interesting artists to use strings and other instruments, like, in their music. They would have felt intimidated, but I thought their music was great and had great ideas. And so it's, like, let's, like, simplify the process whereby these things can meet each other. You are on so many of my favorite recordings, from both the world of pop

but also just music more broadly and I feel like strings especially in popular music are both so important but also not as well understood as like our guitars and our drums and our bass I want to better get to understand what the role of

strings are in popular music today and I thought maybe we could begin with like a Strings 101 would you be open to playing a few different techniques on the violin that you've brought here today. Yeah, absolutely.

And just sort of share, like, these are the different kind of voices that the violin can bring. Maybe, like, a word or two about what your associations to those voices are. Sure. So I guess, like, you know, in no particular order, traditionally, like, just sort of a legato, melodic, you know, smooth, connected, expressive.

So the violin, the lowest note is here, and then people play really high on the instrument, too. So you can play melodies like that that would be kind of reminiscent of someone's singing. Something I like to do a lot is play in that way, but use a technique called artificial harmonics, which basically just means you're placing a finger partially down on the string, a fourth or fifth or third if you want, above the fundamental that you're playing, and it gives you this kind of spooky, haunting, less supported sound.

And there's more slides kind of built into it because you're always using the same finger on the bottom, so you can't, like, you know, you'd have to move that same finger each time. It has a quality almost like a slide guitar a little bit. Yes. Okay, so we've got this sort of like the more singing nature of your legato playing. We've got this spooky artificial harmonics. What else can we say? Pizzicado where you're plucking, you know, either being kind of guitary about it or just being melodic.

And that allows us to be obviously percussive. Yeah, no sustain for the most part. Are there any associations you have to pizcado playing? I think it can be very playful. It can be kind of like cartoony. You could pair it with other more sustained stuff, but it would give you the sort of transient that you might get from a more percussive instrument,

like a piano. So it can be fun to, like, at the beginning of a chord, just do that alongside to kind of accent and create more of a definitive beginning. Or I also like to use something called ricochet in the same way, which is when you just drop the bow. There's a lot of excitement in the ricochet. Yeah.

Yeah. Or you can use it to emphasize something, but you might disappear, but you're sort of setting it up. It's like you're falling down into that other thing. It's kind of like almost what the timpani player will do before they hit a big boom. Yeah, a little roll. It's a role, yeah, totally.

Other stuff, you know, where you place your bow when you're playing, like if you play quite close to the bridge, it's called still Ponticello if you get all Italian about it. So it just starts to get all these like spooky overtones. Or you can, the opposite being way over on the fingerboard. Sort of out of focus and kind of mysterious. There's so many different roles that we can play on the string. You know, they can sit in the background. Sometimes they're not even meant to be heard.

Sometimes it's just elevate the underlying emotion. Other times they're right there in the forefront. And sometimes they can help guide the whole direction of a song. And so one that stuck out to me that I'd love to hear you talk about is my absolute favorite song of the year. It's Bonnie Verre's Everything is Peaceful Love. Oh, nice. And I'd love to know how this came together

and what the strings are doing for the song. Yeah. This is, I think, one of the hardest songs to pull off because it's just pure, optimistic love. It is so raw, so vulnerable. And that core lyric in the chorus, but damn if I'm not climbing up that tree right now, you know, this feeling of ascension,

and everything is peaceful love, as we're going up that tree, we're doing a great moment of text painting. You and Justin together are climbing, up the scale and it feels like we're ascending to that place of peaceful love. Will you describe how this line came together and how that kind of collaboration occurs? Yeah, Justin is like my most significant musical collaborator of my career. We've been working together for 15 years and this is the fourth album I've got to work on with him. And I was so excited I've been hearing about this batch

of songs from him for a while and he kept saying, I really want strings because the last few records we worked on, I didn't really get to play so much as I got to arrange for other people because he wasn't quite looking for that color. I could sneak some stuff in, but it wasn't, like, going to be a real feature. So we scheduled some time for me to go out to Wisconsin to record a studio, but I got all the songs beforehand, and I was just kind of feeling, like, superstitious or nervous about it because I felt like, here's my chance to, like, reconnect with this important person and actually play and sort of bring my own self into it more directly. And so I decided to go in on all the songs sort of secretly, you know, in Brooklyn and just prepare some things

but not send them. I really wanted to play them for him in person and obviously bring all my instruments and we could do anything over. Everything is peaceful love is the only thing that I did in New York that just fully 100% survived into the finished product.

But I had been working on another song a little bit before for an artist named Rini. It was called Miracle. He sent me the song and was like, can you play the vocal melody in the chorus? And I was like, that's such a weird request. I would never do that.

I would never presume. to, you know, right. But I loved the effect. When I heard this song, and the chorus just seems so kind of new for Justin, like the fact that he would be doing a big upward line like that, really like putting himself out there. I thought, like, maybe he could use a little bit of a posse, you know? And so I tried it originally just from the second chorus onward,

and he liked it so much that he ended up putting it throughout the whole song. But each iteration of it adds more voices and more harmonies. So like in that one that we just listened to, it's a final chorus. Yeah, midway through the first phrase, there's an upper harmony that comes in, then there's more harmonies. And what I thought was interesting about that,

other than it just sort of feeling fuller, was that, you know, as you sort of stack something up, like a third above and a fourth below or whatever you're doing, like there are these moments within the line where it's not just quite as simple anymore. It's like you're adding maybe a moment of minor or a nebulous moment in the way these notes kind of color around. So the overall impact might be like, this is a major scale, you know, type thing going up,

but it's kind of just developing more of a range of emotions, which I think is reflected in the song too. Like there's an acceptance that maybe he's trying to find. And like, I don't know that I can decode a Bonne Verre lyric necessarily, but I think it's sort of like this acceptance and reconciliation with things and feeling positive about it and being like, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to step into this time in my life. And so I thought that having more colors around it would just sort of deepen the feeling, you know. And I remember that was the first thing I played for him

that they pulled into the sessions when I got there. And I was sitting next to him and I was sort of like watching him out of the corner of my eye. And he just started crying when he heard it. And I was like, OK, this is going to be really special, you know. So you've been working together for 15 years. And his earlier work is, of course, more acoustic. Went through an amazing progression

into very experimental textures, lots of electronics. And this record is all of it. Every texture in the world seems to be here. The fact that we have strings, electronic 80s keyboards, pedal steel, program drums. I love this song because I've never quite heard these textures together, but also just the raw emotion is so powerful. So it's wonderful that this record, Sable Fable, is a record of optimism in a sort of darker catalog. and it invites you to bring the strings back.

Right. The track before Everything is Peaceful Love was really interesting to hear for the first time because it's in the key of D-flat. But this song kind of like ends on this drone-type situation in D-flat. And then the next song is in G major, which, you know, if you're following along, that's as far away as you can be key-wise, a tritone.

You know, it's like there's nothing inherently in common. And he was like, I'd love for these things to kind of like connect more, but I don't know how to do it. That was my first kind of like mission on those couple days I was there to solve from scratch, which was like, how can we make this flow into this? And I was looking back on what I did today, and I was like, whoa, it's pretty cool. Like, I mean, I was able to kind of float some notes that are slightly in common, almost by extension between the two and then have them kind of have this thing kind of converge.

And it's cool because it feels like they're melting into each other, almost like in a film score kind of way. like where you're working to picture or something. And I feel like it's fitting because short story is the first song on that sort of LP portion of the two things that got wedged together. And it makes sense to me that you're kind of coming out of this darker, more acoustic, intimate world of like, you know, space-eyed. And those songs feels analogous to the emotional journey that he went through to create this music,

to write the songs, to feel the way that he's feeling now. From darkness into light. Kind of gives me chills still, you know. That's the Wizard of Oz moment. Yeah, I was trying to figure it out on the piano earlier. like what it was that I did. But because it's sort of like the highest note is, is the major third of the key that we were in.

And there's a note in between that's like the second that sort of just gives it like a nebulousness. And then I put a note in that's one step below the old key. So it's like you're kind of like walking down away from it, like with a seventh. But those three notes together start to suggest this chord that's like in between that wouldn't normally go to the Everything is Peaceful Love Chord.

And then by sliding down and adding this one new note, it just morphs in. I could hear some of your artificial harmonic ghosty notes happening in there, a lot of those qualities that you were playing earlier. Yeah, yeah. So you've got these two different traditions you're working in. We'll just say, you know, pop rock sort of styling and then classical training. Right.

And these are musically, they can come together, but are often really different worlds. Different audiences, different concert halls. Also really different approaches to composition. I think, you know, in your formal training, studying violin, like, we're writing sheet music. We're writing things down on staff as opposed to many of the more electronic Bonnevere records where there's probably a lot of digital processing, work done in the computer, music being composed as it's being performed. I want to learn about how you bridge these worlds. I thought maybe a good case study would be your work with Phoebe Bridgers. Cool.

Because you have a little EP together where you took some of her great work that you had done together. and highlight specifically the strings. So it's your copycat EP. Yeah. How did this project happen? So for Copycat Killer, I guess Rough Trade, the record store has a thing each year where they pick a certain number of their favorite albums of the year,

and they'll do like an exclusive vinyl. And I think a lot of artists are just like, here's the demos, or, you know, there'll be like bonus tracks or something, but Phoebe wanted to do something different. And we had been working on a track from my own EP, which came out later, but where I transformed one of her unreleased songs into just a strings and vocal version,

and she basically said, I've got to do this thing. Can you do that thing that you did for my other song? But it was so fun to just get to essentially kind of like remix these songs and bring in elements from the original recordings, but also just like completely take a swing

at what does this sound like just with strings. I wanted to look at two different songs off this EP to maybe understand, yeah, what that collaborative approach is between these really different languages. I want to begin with the song Chinese satellite. one of my all-time favorite songs. Let's listen a little bit to the original.

It's so gorgeous. Yeah, I haven't heard that a long time. Wow. This is a beautiful song about faith, about relationship, about wanting to believe in something bigger in order to transcend our mortal reality. It's got a lot going on. And there's this really,

beautiful line of, you know, trying to look up with the stars, but they weren't out tonight. So all I saw was a satellite. And then I want to believe that, you know, I'm looking up there. I'm not alone. And as she looks up to the sky in the song, all of the guitars drop out, all the production drops out. And it's just this string arrangement. Right. Tell me about this moment.

Yeah, I remember flying out to L.A. to work on the record for a couple of days and I think I had written something for that section but I don't think the intention was for it to feature the strings and have everything go away but we were we were building it and they had a I don't really play the cello but that's me playing cello on that song um they have a cello at the studio and you know Tony that one of the producers would just kind of was like it would be really nice to have the bottom of this and I was like okay if you've got like an hour we can get those eight measures um and and and then just as it kind of got put together inevitably people we'll just solo the strings against the voice

just to hear how it's sounding. And that's a lot of times created moments like this where people are like, oh, this sounds so good, this should be the whole song. I mean, sometimes people will say that and do nothing. But in this case, it was like, let's do this major texture change. So it was really nice to have that moment of breath.

And it was cool because when I got to approach the song again for a copycat killer, I was like, I can use this. This works really well, you know. And so it was nice to kind of get to revisit elements from the album and bring them into reinterpretation as well. Let's listen to them. Yeah. So that's the copycat killer version.

Here's the original. Really different textures. He's always sort of going for this like more darker, more muted, not that bright, crispy guitar. Totally. And what's interesting is you sort of create a guitar sound with your violin that is a little bit brighter. That has its own identity that sounds quite different

than the original. Right. For that song, I was the most literal that I was of the four because I just thought it would be really interesting to use some advanced

extended techniques on strings to try to sound like guitars. Extended technique is basically using the instrument in a way that it's not entirely intended. Yeah, stuff that evolved over the kind of writing history of string instruments.

So nothing too crazy, but just like Colenio, which I guess I didn't exactly demonstrate where you're dropping the bow but hitting the wood that type of thing and then probably some actual

I don't know what you call this but so like ricochet would be like if you just drop it and Calendia's on the wood but just actually like you get some of the pitch but you get a lot of like thump too and I was using violas on the recording so it was richer and I detune

them so that it was more open strings and just kind of like in certain reviews people were like the guitars and it's like I pulled it off like nobody knew, but. And the other crazy thing about this project is that I got asked to do this when my son was like five weeks old and it was like peak pandemic, August 2021. And I had like a week to do it. And the way that I came up with doing it was that I was going to just stay up all night four times and make one track per night. So I did all this like from conception fully to recording in like six or eight hours

overnight. Wow. And then like my family would wake up and I would, you know, carry on with like the days like it was completely insane i did i did two two nights in a row i took one night off and like slept and then i did two more nights i was supposed to do five songs originally and i told her after the fourth one i said i think i'm going to like get a divorce if i don't stop is it okay to just do four that's the killer side of copycat killer yeah it was but it was incredible because like you just have to you know solve it and so i really quickly just figured out like some some version to kind of go you know and the other one uh save your complex like that was i'm i'm i'm i'm I'm amazed that I was able to do that,

and that was the, I think, the first one I did. Let's listen to that. Here's the original. So dreamy. I love this song so much in this recording. Emotional affair. Overly sincere. Smoking in the car.

You worked on the original. What were you thinking about how you wanted to translate it? I think the approach that I tried to take with this in general was like, how much can we sort of imply and trust the listener to fill in the chords and stuff in their own ears based on the intervals that Phoebe is singing? Like what bare minimum thing can I add initially and then build from that'll still feel like the song? Because she's outlining the chords so well in her vocal melody that I'm like,

if I can provide like one note and a bit of rhythm, will that feel like a guitar in combination with her? So a fair, be sincere, smoking in the car. Till tears run a tap till it's clear. Drift off on. I drag you to the shore, sweating through the sheet. So you're bringing in a 20th century minimalism, you know, very glass to me. Yeah, yeah.

With these arpeggios that are kind of gliding in and out of time, these drones. Yeah, I was thinking about glass string quartets a little bit, like just if each voice is moving at a different rate, there's this kind of like incredible holiness of math that's happening. And it's like, you know, it's creating this wash at the same time. And each voice is entering gradually and kind of contributing more of the corridor information. And then eventually, like, the cello comes in and plays what used to be my overdub, which was up high on the original, the instrumental part, it becomes a bass line.

So just kind of like flipping the whole thing on its head. Yeah. So yeah, just stop. Wow. It's gorgeous. There's some really lovely harmonies. It was really, really fun to do that. I just basically just would sit at the piano

and try to come up with like a section and then record that. And then it would be like three in the morning and I'd be like, oh my God, how am I going to? So you can hear when it arrives at verse two, the strings just stopped because I was like, as far as the idea went, I didn't write anything down.

I was just, like, making it. And then it's just like this nice line of her by herself and then a complete texture shift because I was, I'm also allergic to the idea of strings just like being like wallpaper and just kind of continuing. So there's this, like, crazy string interruption in the second verse that has all this, like, ricochet. And I feel like it's just like this,

it's maybe too much or something, but it's what happened. And it's like a cool pallet cleanser and then lets us go somewhere completely different afterwards. Call me when you land. I'll drive around again. Yeah, I changed all the chords there, too. I feel like, you know, by verse two, it's sort of, when there's nothing else happening,

part of the evolution of the arrangement can be like, what if we felt this way about it? What if, like, you know, you're kind of working with the words, like, bending the feelings a little bit. So I had the freedom to do that in this project because there was nobody else playing. And no one telling me what to do. Yeah, I would just make these overnight. extend it to her with her old vocal, like kind of edited to fit the tempo,

and she would be like, sounds great, do another one. And then, like, a week later, she sang to all of it. We added the cello. It got mixed. It was like totally, we were in different places. There's a way, though, that you really feel like you're in conversation. I mean, this shift reveals a lot to me.

One, it shows me that you are equally comfortable in the world of improvisation, playing something on the spot, recording it as you're arranging it, as you are with pen and paper and arranging in a more formal kind of way. But you're also incredibly responsive to the lyric. So just like before in China's satellite, where we hear this moment of looking up to the sky and then it's all string arrangement,

here we have this wonderful change in texture when she says, call me when you land. Like, we've landed, and we're in a new territory. Yeah. I also feel like she's in this position in the song where she's supporting somebody who's maybe not giving her that much back or something. And so it's sort of felt appropriate

to take away all of the musical support in that moment and make that feel a little bit more like desperate. Because she stays so sort of cool in how she narrates, which actually allows you to kind of, you can bring your own, you can project your own feelings onto the things she's saying.

It can mean more than one thing. It's really interesting, like her detachment slash emotional connection as a singer. It's like kind of magical. And yet here in the, rearrangement of Savior Complex, I feel like you have captured the same emotion in a different way.

I think it's a really hard thing to do. Like, oftentimes, my favorite covers are songs where the lyric is sad, but the composition is happy. And then just be like, no, but let's make the real things. Like, let's make it fully sad. Yeah, I did that with Kyoto on this project.

Oh, yeah. I was like, I want to make the version that, like, Phoebe would play at her own funeral. It was just, like, really fucked up. But she has that kind of goth background, you know, if you're like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yet here with...

Savior Complex, this sort of like lullaby into outer space quality, which I heard in the original, is there as well in the copycat version. Wait, let's hear Kyoto for a second, the saddest version. Yeah. Oh. If you'd be me to it, turn through Tokyo skies. And so when she sings, and I changed my mind, what in the world just happened? In the strings?

Gosh, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of this endless journey of following this line down, I guess, you know. I think that's around where I maybe actually get to the right chord for a second, but then I don't really stick with it. Yeah. It's sort of there's like a bridge or a peace offering in a way between the music and the words or something, but it's like it's not done searching somehow. Yeah.

Her mind is still changing. Yeah. I'm so proud of those. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness.

I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey.

Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. One thing I want to know better about arranging for strings is how working on a song with strings as sort of the lead is different from collaborating with someone, maybe where it's an after-the-fact sort of support role. I was wondering if we could highlight two different examples. One where you came in and said, we need strings, you put strings in there,

what that relationship is versus, like, we are co-authoring a song in strings are a part of it. Okay. As a support, either Lizzie McAlpine's Sealings or Gracie Abrams, I love you, I'm sorry. Yeah, I think Sealing's is a really interesting arrangement-wise. I was listening to that today. I was like, oh, this is really cool.

It's kind of cute, but it's so, short, then you're driving me home, and I don't want to leave, but I have to, you kiss me in your car, and it feels like the start of a movie I've seen. I'd love to learn about how ceilings came together and how the strings are acting as a support for Lizzie and her song. Yeah, that's an interesting one, because the melody she's singing is she's on a, she's centering around the note that's like not exactly normally in that chord, you know, is just doing this like Lydian sharp four thing that's very expressive.

And so I was trying to figure out like, why did I pick that first note that I played? And I think it was because I was trying to find a note that could work with what she was singing. This is going to sound very obvious. But the melody she was singing and then also the chord, but like not a note that she was going to run into. So I think I was interested in just like hovering some things and creating this kind of suspenseful, like it's the beginning of a new emotion, but you don't quite know where it's going to go. It's not like giving you a melody. It's just like, this note enters and then this note enters.

And over time, they kind of accrue into something that's like this smoky, hazy kind of experience. And I hear the notes moving in ways that almost makes sense. Like, they'll be, I'll be playing a note that, like, would have been normal on the chord just before or the chord that's coming. but I'm sort of like dancing around it until the moment where she says You kiss me in your car and it feels like the star of a movie I've seen And that's where the low strings come in

And kind of like I'm on, I'm still on the notes From the previous chord up high But the low note is the correct note And there's this sort of duality there That just feels very cinematic for some reason And you are the movie that she's described Right. And this song is so much about ruminating about a love that is dreamed for, staring at the ceiling, wishing things were a movie, and you literally get to, yeah, realize this sort of cinematic quality at that moment. Yeah, it's exciting to hear that chord. We're playing a...

And she's singing this from my intonation, but it has that kind of a rub to it. So instead of playing a note like... or something, one of these notes over top, I actually, I think, came in with a, you know, which is, it's the same type of relationship that I actually did on the short story. Yeah. It's a note that's like, it's not wrong, but it's not like, oh, yeah, you found the note.

You know, it's like a little bit more it can mean different things. There's a lot of ambiguity, which is something that we're hearing in the song. There's ambiguity about relationship. Yeah, it's the kind of thing that, like, if you were playing a guitar chord and you weren't careful, that note might,

be ringing on top of your chord and you didn't really intend to play it but it's just like a cool artifact and so I feel like I latch onto those kind of like what was that interval? Ninth. It was a ninth. Yeah. A ninth on top of a of four, sharp four. So it's a that's a that makes sense but you know but but but it's in the context of the underlying harmony it's a woo this yeah yeah a lot of a lot of tension going on. A lot of this is just I mean all of it is very intuitive. It's basically just me listening to the song and singing along and trying to remember what I did. I don't even like voice memo myself. I just like, if I forget it, then I feel like, okay, it wasn't meant to be.

It's like just trying to kind of be in real-time dialogue with something, even though you're capturing it on your own or whatever. And so your method of writing is you're actually, this is actually a fairly contemporary way of writing music. It sounds like you are playing your strings, you're taping them, you're recording them. Yeah. You're not writing down an arrangement on, on sheet music.

I do that when the song is either really complicated or incredibly simple. I got to work on like 16 Ed Shearron songs a few years ago and I wrote those out formally every single one. I had to because he just was like, he was like singing before the song started. I couldn't find anywhere to like get in. And then I found ways through thinking more analytically.

But the best thing for me is like to get to audio as quickly as I can. Just sing something, capture it, see what it's doing in the song, respond to it. Like don't think really. Just feel, capture, keep moving. That's you working in your studio. You haven't met the artist.

You're just responding to the song. Let's think about the opposite, where the song is coming together with the strings at the same time. Yeah, you know, I work so much remotely that a lot of times, even with people that I know or things that are starting with me, there might still be like an extended

down the rabbit hole period, which is certainly true of I've been but never break. I mean, that song, I asked, Britney Howard, is somebody I just admire so much. I feel like one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to be a part of was a Sound and Color album. So I've just admired her for a long time, and she was one of the first people that I asked

when I had this idea to do a project of my own. You call it inflorescence? Yes, inflorescence. I just asked, like, do you have a song that you've written that didn't kind of find its way, but that still matters to you that you would be open to me trying to create with? And so she shared that song with me.

The version I heard was like heavy, drums, like very soul, like soul, big, a big song that had maybe been done for a movie or something. And so I tried to forget everything I heard because it was very intimidating. It was like amazing. It's like as much as you can be percussive on this thing, you can't, you can't simulate a bass drum. No, no. No. I had the song for like a year. And every day I was like, man, I got to work on this song, but I have no idea how to do it. And one day I just, I was like in the shower or something. And I started singing something and I realized like, oh, maybe this is the way in. And I started to find my path with the song by taking that choir part that's at the end and doing a string intro, played kind of a lot on like spooky harmonics and other things,

just referencing something that was going to come at the end of the song that felt like this beautiful payload in a way, moment of catharsis. But sort of set that up, even though it didn't lead directly into the song. And once I had the intro, I felt like, okay, I can make this thing. Cool. Let's listen. You like spooky. I guess I'm going for like black. light and the kind of distant, you know, like...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, but now it's coming into focus. Yeah, gradually. I'm not feeling. But fear will never stop me. To reach up with an hour divine, strength, divine to figure this world out. Wow. There's this wonderful rhythmic interplay between you.

You know, Brittany's got this. What I realized was she's mostly singing on this one note. but she's giving so much drive. Like, she's like the drummer. So all the things that I was like intimidated by having to replace, I realized like she contained it all. And she was feeding that information everybody she was playing with at the time. And so we still had it.

And so it was just kind of like, oh, I don't have to like dumb this down or support this in a typical way. I can just dance around it and highlight and know that she has this incredible strength. And then because most of the song is sort of almost like spoken and it's on this one pitch a lot, It gave me, you know, a lot of room to, like, try different chords that would, where that note could mean different things. And in this world out, it seems so big in this experience, it isn't tense, and it would blow me down.

And in this case, it's sort of like, it's almost like you're working with a drum. Like, there is, there is a resonance to it, but, but, you know, later in the song, it gets more melodic. But at this point, it's like, I feel like you can kind of do a lot of different things. things. So it was really inspiring. I got to listen through a lot of your discography and things you've contributed to in preparation for a conversation. I'm wondering for you, where does your voice in the strings fit best? Well, I'm most attracted to like devastatingly sad things. We've listened to a lot of devastatingly sad music. Is there an upbeat one? And then on the whole playlist, there's like flowers. And that's even pretty devastatingly sad. Just upbeat song.

But don't you think the best music is sad? It is. Well, I mean, we, we have. We listen to everything's peaceful love. Yeah. Which is like sadness turned happiness. Yeah. So strings for you, they really capture that quality effectively. I think I tend to gravitate toward pulling in pathos and, you know, tension and adding sort of spookiness and surprising.

You know, the way that I learned to do strings was just by kind of doing it myself. And I wasn't necessarily trying to like be traditional. represent a string orchestra. I was more thinking like a guitar player or a keyboard player. I just was drawn to these sounds that were kind of above the vocal. Because I felt like that was a space that was less occupied, less

densely populated. Like you've got guitars and bass and drums and there's a lot of like warmth. It's all low end. Yeah, and I don't play the cello. So I'm not like, I'm more tend to hear like another top line or like a secondary line up high. So I think that's, I feel like there's

room to comment up there. there's also another thing that's really important to me is just like entrances and exits because I feel like if you, when you take yourself out of a song you provide this clarity by your absence. So like another reason why I like to disappear is to help attract focus. If 18 of me go away, then you're like

something that's like you step through this portal or something. It's just as important to know where you belong and where you don't belong. Yeah. I really, when I'm listening to a song for the first time, I'm thinking like, where does this song need me or need something? Not like, oh, I can't wait to play on this part of the song. It's like, it's not about me really, right?

It's like, I think the most important thing is that, like, you have to fall in love with every song that you work on. So, so much of what you're doing is providing a support and emotional boosting to whatever the underlying song is. But maybe as a final question, is there a place where we feel like we can really hear Rob Moose where you are in that recording with whatever's going on with you that day?

Sometimes working on the songs, really does feel like it's kind of indirect application to my life. Like, my son is almost five, and the last thing I got to do before he was born was work on some Taylor Swift songs from folklore. And then the first thing I got to do after he was born was write orchestral arrangements for Laura Marling, and I feel like it was sort of like the end of one part of my life

in the beginning of another, and the very last piece of music I participated on before he was born. My wife's water had broken. We were going to go to the hospital the next day, and I got this text from Aaron Destner, and I was like, hey, honey, like, are you cool for a couple hours? Like, can I pop into the... I think this could be a good thing for us.

Like, and it was this song, hoax. It's the closing song on folklore. I think it's one of the last things they wrote. Yeah, and it's like mostly just piano and her voice. My only one. My smoking gun. She writes the songs, I guess, by like, she plays the instrumentals on her computer

and then sings into the voice memo of her iPhone. And so when she sends her vocal back initially, it's just like that capture so you hear a little bit of the song. So like I had that. It felt like so raw. And I knew my life was about to change. I also had had this terrible accident the night before with a bread knife. Oh my God, never use a bread knife after like 1 a.m. And I had sliced open my ring finger, which is my favorite finger to use for like a juicy tone, a good vibrato. So I had like, you know, it was bandaged and gauzed and stuff and I couldn't put it down. And so I only had like three fingers to use. And there's this fragility to use. And there's this fragility to. You know, the song I think takes you there anyway, but I can hear what I was going through. You're about to be a dad any second, and your finger is... I almost destroyed my livelihood, you know. Oh, my gosh. My best laid plan, you'll slide up...

Your sleight of hand. Sfitting. I remember recording it, sending it to air. and he texted me back something like, I love it. I think I'm going to use all of it. And it's really frail and quiet, and it's like, it's really,

I feel like it's almost like her Sufion Steven song or something, like the whole song feels like that. Like it's like recorded an inch away from you and very vulnerable. And so it was like method acting. You're like, well, you better use it because there's no time for punctions. Yeah, yeah.

There's no for dubs. I'm in the hospital. I don't really sound that good. I don't sound that good. I don't sound common. You know, but it's kind of right. I mean, there's such a fragility to this song. It makes sense that you were in an incredibly fragile position in so many different ways.

No one else could have done it. I was uniquely qualified. It's a great story for, you know, to tell Milo someday. Yeah, that was really special. Wow. Rob, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate. It's been a pleasure chatting with you.

Oh, likewise. Thanks so much. This episode of Switchdown Pop is produced by Rina Cruz with support by Charlotte. Tang, engineering by Brandon McFarlane, editing by Art Chung, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, theme music by Zach Tenario, and Jossi Adams of Arc Iris, who have a really cool new track with Willow coming out. At the end of this week, you've got to check it out. Remember with the Vox Media Podcast Network, production of Vulture, which is part of New York Mag, you can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Very exciting news. If you want to see this interview and others in the future in full,

we'll be sharing them on YouTube. You can check us out on YouTube at switch.compot. We'll be back next Tuesday, and until then, thanks for listening.