The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast

Bob: Hello, Odyssey world. I'm Bob.

Jesse: And I'm Jesse. Welcome to the official Adventures in Odyssey podcast.

Bob: Jesse, what was the first thing you heard on today's episode?

Jesse: You saying hello.

Bob: Before that.

Jesse: The listeners hitting play?

Bob: After that.

Jesse: Oh, the music.

Bob: Right. Music is usually the first thing you hear on the podcast or Adventures in Odyssey, but it's one of those pieces you don't usually notice until it's missing.

Jesse: Right. And today, we're talking with a composer who is continuing the mission of making Odyssey feel and sound like, well, Odyssey.

Bob: Composer Conner Savoka has written the music for several episodes now, including the Smouse show, "Quiet as a Smouse," and the recent "This is My Story." Let's chat with Conner.

It's always great when we can welcome new talent to the Adventures in Odyssey family. Today's one of those days as we talk with composer Conner Savoka. Conner, thanks for joining us.

Conner: Well, thanks for having me. It's so great to be on with you guys.

Bob: Let's start by going back. Take us back to your earliest music lessons. Were you the kid who couldn't wait to practice or the one who had to be dragged to the piano bench?

Conner: You know, I actually did hate to practice. I grew up playing banjo. That was my first instrument that I ever learned to play. I learned to play that when I was about six years old. My family had a bluegrass band and we traveled around the state of Colorado. I'm from Colorado as well.

I played in concerts and I was doing that from a very young age. But my mom made me learn how to play the banjo. She wanted all of her kids to learn how to play an instrument because she grew up playing in a band as well. I kind of learned to pick up piano by ear as well. Every instrument I learned how to play was completely by ear. Learning to play banjo by ear helped me understand music theory in my own way.

Bob: Was there a teacher or a moment or some other breakthrough that changed your relationship with music?

Conner: Honestly, I actually credit a lot of that to Adventures in Odyssey, believe it or not, because I was an avid listener as a kid. I did continue playing my banjo and continued playing piano. I thought that was interesting, but I never thought I would go anywhere with it.

I started trying to be a voice actor and make my own audio dramas and that kind of thing. So I got into the sound side of it at a much younger age. Then listening to audio drama music and mixing it into my own audio dramas and hearing how because audio drama music is so different than film music in that it follows the story so much more. There's a lot more creativity, I feel like, in audio drama music than film music. There's so much more going on. It's a lot more fun.

That was always interesting to me to listen to that, especially the Odyssey music. I was doing my own audio drama and I called John Campbell and asked him to do the music on it. Just a couple of pieces I wanted him to do. But more, it was an opportunity to try to talk to him because I was really interested in talking to him and having him do my audio drama. That was what I thought was going to be really cool was to have his name on it, have his music in it.

I cold-called him. I was like 13 or 14 and he picked up the phone. I didn't expect that. I thought it was going to go to his secretary or something. It was going to go to the studio and he answered the phone. We talked and he did some music for me. Then I thought it was really cool how he did it, his process, and how he did it so quickly. He just sat down at his studio and wrote me a piece of music in one morning.

I thought that was super cool, super interesting that he was able to do that and do it so well. That really interested me in a different kind of way. I really thought that was cool and I thought maybe that'd be fun to do. I never thought I would do it professionally or do it for real the way he does, but I just thought I'd like to kind of learn how to do that. Then all the childhood training and everything that I learned as a kid kind of came back naturally because it was always there.

Jesse: It's so cool how God takes those difficulties, those trials in our life, and He uses them. Nothing is wasted.

Conner: I know. You don't realize it at the time. There's so many examples like that in your life where you have no idea what's going on at the time. You're maybe not even thinking about it. Then you look back and you're like, "Oh, yeah."

Bob: Before we get into Odyssey specifically, let's tackle a question from one of our listeners. We call this our TRQ because it's a totally random question, though actually it does have to do with music, so it might not feel as random as some. Baker Bookie wants to know, should Christmas songs be played before Thanksgiving? What do you think as a musician?

Conner: Interesting. My personal feeling has nothing to do with being a musician. No, because by the time Christmas rolls around, I'm really tired of Christmas songs. That's understandable. It's not Christmas season yet. It's still Thanksgiving or we're five weeks away. No, I feel like after Thanksgiving, it's acceptable.

Jesse: All right, Baker Bookie, thank you for the question. That was a good question and I agree with you, Conner, on that one. Yes, let Thanksgiving be its own thing. Let's give thanks to God for His provision and then we give thanks to God for His Son. Let's do them in order.

Conner: Exactly. Let's not jump ship on Thanksgiving. It's a great holiday.

Jesse: Okay, let's jump to Adventures in Odyssey. You went from a fan listener to composing music for the show. How did that work?

Conner: Yeah, so that's very interesting. I never expected to work on the show. That was my ultimate dream. That's a dream that I never thought would come true. I didn't even expect it. But yeah, I started listening to the show when I was probably five years old on the radio. My mom found it on the radio and thought it was really cool for kids to listen to. So she started having us listen to that. We listened to it every day. It was on at 3:15.

We had old cassette tapes that we'd pop in the radio and we'd record them on cassette tapes. Then we had a whole stash of them. We'd listen to those in the car and the classic stories of kids who grew up on Odyssey. That was 100% me. I probably heard every episode I don't know how many times.

Jesse: Did you have a favorite?

Conner: I don't have a favorite, but probably my favorite series would be Novacom. Just love that time in Odyssey and that whole storyline was so well done and just so well. I loved it. I probably listened to that more than anything, honestly.

Then I visited Focus on the Family when I was probably eight and went to the kids' radio studio, did my own, or it was me and my four siblings. We did our own Odyssey show and that was so much fun to be in the studio and to do the sound effects and do the voices and everything. That's really what started me wanting to be in this industry.

Then I went home, started making my own audio dramas, and all my siblings helped. They were the voices and I did all the sound work on it. So it was something I was doing from a very young age. Then I got into film scoring, did a bunch of short films and a feature or two, and I was looking for any opportunity I could to write music and to be in the industry.

I went to the Christian Worldview Film Festival a number of years and met Luke Gagne at one of those. I think it was 2018 we met there. He had heard some of my music and really liked it and we kind of hit it off as friends then. We stayed in touch over the years after that, but he reached out to me in late 2023 and said he wanted me to take well, he was working on Odyssey at that point for quite a while.

Yeah, I've just known him for a while and he was like, "I want you to take a crack at an Odyssey show." I was like, "You got to be kidding me. That's not happening." I still kind of pinch myself because I can't believe it. But he sent me a show. I did a couple of cues for it just kind of as a trial run and he took it to the team and everyone really liked it. Then he's like, "Okay, you can finish the episode."

I thought, "Okay, that's really cool. I got to do one show. Maybe that's all I'll get to do in my career will have peaked." Then he sent me another show and I've just been doing two, three, four a year or something like that since then and really love it. I mean, I can't believe I have the opportunity to do it. It was just some place I never thought I was going to get to. I was like, "I might get close to Odyssey. I'm not going to actually get to work on it, though."

Bob: Yeah, of course, any of our fans, listeners, who remember "Quiet as a Smouse," they'll get a chance to go back and listen to your work. So take us into the studio as you sort of get set to score an episode. Now that you've done a few, do you turn the lights down? Do you listen to other soundtracks to prep yourself? Do you pray? How do you get yourself into the right composing mindspace?

Conner: I really don't do a whole lot. I really want to just get in and get started. I don't listen to sometimes I'll listen to other music. Maybe I'll listen to some Odyssey shows especially just to kind of get my mind in the right space musically. But I don't want to listen to too much because I don't want to take too many ideas from other episodes or I don't want to copy anything in the past if I can help it.

Sometimes I might, if I need a little inspiration, I might fire up some Odyssey or maybe something else like some other film scores that I like or something. But generally I just sit down and just start working on the show. I'll pull it up in I use Logic Pro. I pull it up in there. I pull up my script and I don't read through the script first typically. I just start at the very beginning because I don't want to know what happens and I want that to kind of be reflected in the music.

I just kind of go at it because I'm on a deadline, so I got to start and just try to do my best and move as fast as possible is really what I'm thinking. I don't have a lot of time to mentally prepare. It just needs to happen.

Jesse: When people hear Adventures in Odyssey music, you think immediately of John Campbell. And again, you mentioned John earlier and you called him, which I'm still just like, that took courage, really. John's composed music for more than 700 episodes. As a newer composer to the show, again, you still have three years' experience but newer, how do you honor that legacy while still bringing your own musical voice to the show?

Conner: Well, yeah, it's really an honor to kind of come behind and alongside of John because he really is my musical hero. And so to kind of get to work on Odyssey, a show that he basically made musically, it's really an honor and I never want to take away from what John did and just kind of I'm just honored to work alongside him and just kind of follow in his footsteps a little bit.

But I'm not John Campbell and I never will be. So automatically my style is different because my brain just doesn't work like his. And my capabilities are not the same as his. So but I've tried to understand his sound and his design for the music of the show because I don't want to stray away from that and create something that doesn't sound like Odyssey.

If my music doesn't at least have an Odyssey sound and not even just the theme but actually sounds like we've been transported to the Odyssey world and just stayed true to the sound. So I think where I consciously try to stay inside the sound is at the beginning and the end because you want it to feel like, "Okay, we're being transported into Odyssey," and then same thing at the end. It's like, "Okay, that was the Odyssey sound."

If I try to go outside John's sound at all, it would be if it's not a typical day in Odyssey or we're somewhere else besides Odyssey or something like that. There's a bit more creative freedom there. But if it's just like a typical day in Odyssey, I really try to stay true to his sound without being him because I'm not him and I don't want to be confused for him or make it sound like I'm copying him. So it's a really tough balance.

Bob: Jesse and I are word guys and so we understand the phrase "writing is rewriting." It kind of reminds us that the first draft is just the beginning. It doesn't matter what, whether it's an article or a book. Tell us about the revisions you did on this score and how the sound designers communicated the need for changes for "This is My Story."

Conner: They always communicated in a way that makes sense, in a way that I agree with. Usually I never disagree with revisions because I look at it and I'm like, "Yeah, they're right. That doesn't work very good and something else would sound better." So I have to remember that I serve the story ultimately. And if what I did was not working for the story, then I have to humble myself a little bit and be like, "Okay, what do I need to do to serve the story?"

Early on in the show, we have Mr. Whittaker essentially being accused of being responsible for an arson. And I kind of made Whit sound like he was the worst villain in world history. And so the sound guys had to come back to me and be like, "Okay, he didn't he's not it's Whit."

Jesse: This is Whit we're talking about. It can't possibly be that bad, whatever it was that he's being accused of. So tone it down a little bit. Don't make him sound like he's the world villain.

Conner: And that one was like I went back and listened to it and I was like, "Yeah, you're right. That makes Whit sound like Regis Blackgaard or something like that." That's not who this is. It's Whit. So that's one where they came back to me and told me what they needed revised and I was like, "Yeah, you're 100% right." And so that's just an example of being willing to serve the story instead of letting my big dramatic music take over the scene.

Jesse: Not only do you have to serve the story, but you personally serve God. So how does your faith influence the way you approach scoring a show like Adventures in Odyssey?

Conner: The fact that I get to work on the show to begin with means that prayers were truly answered. That's one answer. But I'm God's storyteller essentially. Odyssey is a collection of stories about Him and the gospel, so He's telling His story through Adventures in Odyssey.

Maybe people have heard it before, and like me who grew up believing in God, and then there's those who have never heard of Him, never heard of the gospel before, and Odyssey hopefully brings them to Him. So I think God invented this beautiful thing called music, so I believe that He inspires all the music that I write and uses me as just a component of His storytelling.

Bob: As we kind of bring this in for a landing, Conner, for kids who love music, what is one piece of advice that you wish somebody had given you earlier, especially about turning your craft and your creativity into a career?

Conner: That's a great question. I don't know if there's one thing because I honestly got so much advice from guys like John Campbell, who really was my music mentor. I would like to say that he influenced me in so many great ways and gave me so much great advice and was really just there for me when I needed him early on.

So I think what I'd like to pass along about what I've learned is just to stay patient, but have confidence in yourself and go after it as hard as you can and just be okay with failing. Every time you're working on music, you're going to think that you could do better, that this could sound better. You're going to have expectations that you really can't meet. It's impossible to meet. So I think shoot for perfection, but be okay with yourself and forgive yourself if it doesn't meet the standards that you set for yourself. It takes a little bit of time, but you just have to be patient and believe in yourself a little bit because it's just like anything in life. Just be patient, but go after it.

Bob: I think it was Thomas Edison who said something along the lines when he was asked about inventing the light bulb that every time he failed, he essentially eliminated an option of something that wasn't a light bulb until he eventually came across the one that was. Like 10,000 tries at it or something. I mean, who wouldn't have given up by then?

We all want to do things with excellence, but that doesn't always happen right out of the gate. Conner, thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing a little bit about your history. It's always fun when we get to hear somebody who grew up on Odyssey gets to be a part of the show in a way like you described. And hopefully we'll have an opportunity to talk with you down the road.

Conner: That would be great. Well, thank you guys so much. I'm so honored again that I get to have this opportunity to work on the show and be a small part of it in its 40-year history. It's so great to talk to you guys. Like I said, I grew up listening to you guys on the podcast too, so it's really an honor and a lot of fun to talk to you as well and look forward to future shows and future podcasts.

Jesse: I'm going to be paying closer attention to the music for the next few episodes. And then I'm going to let it fade into the tapestry of the show.

Bob: Just like it's supposed to. Great Odyssey music doesn't shout, "Look at me!" It quietly says, "Look at this moment." Conner's most recent show, "This is My Story," is the final episode of Album 80: Rewritten. That's available now on the club, CD, and download. What else is new in the club, Bob?

Bob: Okay, we've got another new adventure coming up on June 4th. It's called "Accountability Please." We'll hear from a new Odyssey police recruit and seasoned officers like Polehaus and Burke. And Chris, can you tell them who else will be in the adventure?

Chris: Now on the Adventures in Odyssey Club, Jay and Olivia are worried.

Jay: One of us definitely needs to address the whole Zamrin thing.

Olivia: Zamrin? What are you talking about?

Jay: You're kidding. She's got a major crush.

Chris: Especially after they make a discovery.

Olivia: Oh, what?

Zoe: It's just a bunch of signatures that say Zoe Morris.

Jay: Zoe Morris as in Cameron Morris as in Cam?

Chris: Listen now, only on the Adventures in Odyssey Club.

Bob: Again, that's in the club on June 4th. You can join at adventuresinodyssey.com.

Jesse: And while you're there, check out everything else happening in Odyssey. We'll have links to pick up Album 80, more about the movie and latest novels, and daily episodes that you can hear absolutely free.

Bob: Well, that's all for this edition of the Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, a presentation of Focus on the Family.

Jesse: That website again is adventuresinodyssey.com.

Bob: Or call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY. I'm Bob.

Jesse: And I'm Jesse, reminding you that with God in your life, every day's an adventure.