< About | General Info | Pianist | Vocalist | Songwriter | Producer | Live Sound Engineer
Disclaimer
*Please consider the following before reading the information on this page:*
1. This page contains information about topics such as depression, bullying, and others that may be sensitive to certain individuals.
2. Some of Woolbert's original songs that are mentioned below have not yet been produced and released to the public. Woolbert has set a goal to produce and release as many of his original compositions as he can during his lifetime. However, music production is a time consuming yet beautiful and artistic process. Please be patient.
3. Like many composers, Bryan Woolbert takes his songwriting very personally. Please 'don't judge'.
-Thanks and enjoy!
1. This page contains information about topics such as depression, bullying, and others that may be sensitive to certain individuals.
2. Some of Woolbert's original songs that are mentioned below have not yet been produced and released to the public. Woolbert has set a goal to produce and release as many of his original compositions as he can during his lifetime. However, music production is a time consuming yet beautiful and artistic process. Please be patient.
3. Like many composers, Bryan Woolbert takes his songwriting very personally. Please 'don't judge'.
-Thanks and enjoy!
"Rushing Waterfalls" & The Chromesthetic Method
Bryan Woolbert composed his first song entitled "Rushing Waterfalls" at age 8. The composition was inspired by a dream that Woolbert had of a brightly sunlit group of waterfalls in the middle of a forest that rose and fell in varying patterns during early autumn. He implemented the gift of Chromesthesia to write the melody and chords of the song by comparing the colors he saw in the vision to their closest chromesthetic equivalents in his mind. This capability that Woolbert possesses to translate dreams, sets of emotions, and other life experiences into his native musical language of colors allows him to write music in a completely natural manner. This Chromesthetic Method is still the way in which he writes music today. At the time, Woolbert considered his compositional style to be classical in line with his piano instruction. However, he would later realize that his first songs were actually new age pieces based on their musical structures and inspirations derived from nature. Little did young Woolbert know that "Rushing Waterfalls" would serve as a prelude to many more visions, emotions, and life events that would ignite his musical creativity in years to follow.
The Gap of Silence & First Worship Song
During his preteen years, Woolbert's father left his family and soon after transitioned into a transgender woman. This change caused significant impacts on young Woolbert who subsequently stopped writing music for a period of time during grades 5 through 7. However, his faith in God was growing as he attended Mission Point Church. At age 14, Woolbert wrote his first worship song "Sin's Ender" (which would later be released as a single and remastered for his "You Are with Me" EP). Woolbert's first set of original lyrics expressed a confession of sin along with a full surrender of his heart to The Lord.
CharterTech High School for the Performing Arts
From 2013-2017, Woolbert attended CharterTech High School for the Performing Arts. During this time, he composed nearly a dozen songs in multiple genres, including Christian praise & worship, pop/rock, new age, and even a country/western tune as part of a history class assignment based on Westward Expansion. Woolbert was bullied considerably by many students and even some teachers during high school (he can be heard singing about "the things they used to say" in his top original song "Overcome"). By his junior year, the harassment had become so severe that he would spend as much time as he could isolated within a studio booth during instrumental music classes. However, this soundproofed environment unlocked some golden opportunities for Woolbert to be alone and work diligently on his original music using the production technologies that were at his disposal. It was around this time when he began implementing more advanced harmonic progressions within his compositions thanks to the music theory knowledge that he had acquired. Throughout the course of his senior year, Woolbert began to feel the emotional pain of rejection as multiple girls turned him down for reasons unknown to him. This prompted him to write "Let Her Name Ring" which he later performed at his graduation ceremony.
"Sounds of Nature" & Studio Experience
In the spring and summer of 2017, Woolbert experienced several incredible visions of romance within nature which inspired him to compose and produce his "Sounds of Nature: Songs from Dreams & Inspirations" EP. Many of these dreams revolved around "the girl of his future" (or Woolbert's future wife). A notable exception on the EP is his song "River of Tears." The combination of harassment, rejection, and academic stress near the end of his high school studies caused Woolbert to suffer through a brief period of serious depression. During this time, he encountered a dreary vision of riding alone in a small wooden boat on a dark, dirty river in the middle of the night. The combination of this dream and depression served as the manuscript that Woolbert chromesthetically translated into music. As Woolbert gained audio production knowledge through his own studio sessions and those with expert producer Kit Worton, he began composing music with the recording, editing, mixing, and mastering processes in mind. As the two spent dozens of hours on Woolbert's "You Are with Me" EP, he demonstrated his natural ability to improvise harmony lines on the spot. When Worton discovered this, he passionately worked with Woolbert to develop the characteristic wall of harmonies that can be heard on many of Woolbert's vocal tracks today.
Cairn University - Jazz & "Sounds of Nature 2"
From the fall of 2017 through the spring of 2019, Woolbert studied Worship & Music at Cairn University. As he studied classical and jazz music theory, he became increasingly frustrated with the strict compositional limitations imposed by both genres. Additionally, Woolbert strongly preferred composing music by memorizing it within his native chromesthetic language after learning about scoring musical notation. It was during this phase that Woolbert took it upon himself to begin writing his own jazz pieces. He would employ The Chromesthetic Method to translate complex sets of emotions that he was feeling into intricate harmonic progressions which he supported with jazz rhythms. Woolbert also took several Bible courses at Cairn that helped him to compose praise & worship lyrics with proper biblical context. This greatly influenced the lyrics of some of his later compositions on his "You Are with Me" EP. Meanwhile, he was also quietly composing much of the new age music from his "Sounds of Nature 2: Songs from Dreams & Inspirations" EP based on more visions and experiences that he had pertaining to nature. While he was on a trip to his grandparents' home in Virginia during the summer of 2019, Woolbert had a dream about his future wife. It was this amazing encounter that prompted him to compose "Glimpses in the Sunset" and later direct a music video that brought the story to life.
Rowan University & "I Just Can't Get over You"
Woolbert then made a transfer to Rowan University in time for the fall 2019 semester where he became a Music Industry: Technology major. As he studied music production in-depth, Woolbert's compositional techniques improved even more with regard to the recording, editing, mixing, and mastering processes. Prior to releasing it as a single, he composed and produced "I Just Can't Get over You" as a graded collegiate project. The assignment required Woolbert to make use of electronic drums and samples within Apple's Logic Pro for macOS. Thus, he chromesthetically translated his emotions following a series of visions about his future wife into a song with a modern pop flare. While this drastically deviated from his preferred style and sound, it proved that Woolbert can compose music in nearly any genre.
The Lack of Copyright Blunder
Despite the business acumen that Woolbert had built from his studies at Rowan, he made a critical mistake by performing an original song at a gig in 2023 that he had not yet copyrighted. A patron unintentionally stole the rights to the composition by publishing a video of this performance to the Internet. In order to avoid the potential legal hassle and emotional stress involved in fighting the situation, Woolbert decided to scrap the song altogether. Woolbert takes pride in his songwriting and holds the mentality that he will write many greater songs in the future. However, he will no longer publicly perform original music that he has not yet officially released in order to protect the rights to his compositions.
Today
To date, Woolbert has composed nearly 50 songs across multiple music genres. Several of these can be heard on popular music streaming platforms including Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL, Amazon Music, Deezer, YouTube, and others worldwide. As he continues to transform that which inspires him most into the beautiful art form of music, Woolbert aims to captivate his listeners and bring glory to God in the process.
Quotes
"Don't give me songwriting rules! Give me musical tools for inspiration!"
-Bryan Woolbert
-Bryan Woolbert
"When you underestimate someone, you slash the very rope that connects them to their dream. When you encourage someone, you give them the strength to keep climbing the rope toward making their dream a reality."
-Bryan Woolbert
-Bryan Woolbert
"They say 'Nothing is ever good to extremes...' I would refute that claim with one thing: Love. Genuine love."
-Bryan Woolbert
-Bryan Woolbert