Today we’d like to introduce you to Fernando Moguel.
Hi Fernando, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Once there was a little kid who had the most amazing parents. They encouraged him to love learning, follow his passions, and be open-minded and curious. They got him and his brother to try many interesting activities and lessons, such as piano, Tae-Kwon-Do, chess, soccer, basketball, singing, and acting. Not only did they enable them to do all of these activities, but they were always present at their kids’ practices and lessons. At the age of 9, the little kid did an acting audition and got cast in a live stage show of Barney The Dinosaur. He toured all over the US and Canada for two years, and on this tour, he met the renowned children’s entertainment group, The Wiggles.
He filmed and recorded a song with them, La Cucaracha, and from then on continued to work with them, eventually being chosen to play the role of the Yellow Wiggle for the Latin American Wiggles at the age of 15.
Eventually, this kid, now grown up, moved to Australia and received a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie University, in Sydney.
He retained his love of performing and educating and continued to develop his passion and talent for creating.
Sometime after moving back to Houston, he managed a TV studio for 3 years in an IB private school while also working as a freelance creative, producing music and videos and creating illustrations and animations for different clients as well.
I am fortunate to be able to say that the little kid in the story was me. Currently, I’m a product manager for an educational tech company, and I still do my independent client work. Throughout all of this time I’ve produced educational segments, scripts, music, videos, and experiments related to every kind of topic, from physics to psychology, history to technology, and so much more! These experiences have taught me so much about many different creative fields and have highlighted my passion for educating through the creative arts. The best part is, I get to use that knowledge and experience in my own creations!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have been many times where I have felt completely lost and uncertain of what path to take, to the point of being depressed and unmotivated. I’ve never been one to stick to the traditional way of doing things; I never had the mindset of finishing school and going into a job that I would build a whole career on and do for the rest of my life. I’ve always loved doing many different things, but I’ve never been driven when it comes to doing things that lie outside of my passions or interests, which I will admit is a privileged position to be in.
In hindsight, the different jobs and opportunities I’ve experienced have led me to the unique creative educational niche I find myself in and have shown me my great passion that lies at the intersection of education and the creative arts. But many times along the road it has felt as if I was wandering aimlessly in the dark, the stepping stones have not seemed chronological or natural but random and astray.
Even to this day, there are times when I feel unsure of where to go next, what project to pursue and invest in, what skill to focus on and improve.
Sticking to a single road is hard for someone who has many interests and loves mixing them together. But I feel that in a world traditionally obsessed with template careers, specialization, and conveyor-like paths, being a dabbler and using my passions as a compass has created a special path for me, a path that continues to evolve and become more clear.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As I mentioned before, I love doing many things.
For my regular 9 to 5, I’m a product manager for an education-tech company, where I lead scriptwriting, acting, and creative teams that design hands-on experiments, produce educational videos, and develop a proprietary educational streaming platform.
Outside of that, I do a lot of other creative work, from illustration to video production, writing to music production.
One of my specialties is creating children’s music, which stems from my mixed experiences of being in children’s entertainment and education and studying music production. I’m involved in all parts of the creation process, from writing the lyrics and music all the way to producing the music arrangement and recording the vocals. My clients are in all different parts of the world, including Singapore, China, the UK, Australia, Dubai, Germany, India, Canada, and the US.
I’ve also been fortunate enough to work with some wonderful creatives, such as Chris Ferrie, best-selling author of the Baby University series (csferrie.com), and Pokedstudio, prolific illustrator, animator, and artist (pokedstudio.com).
I have my own children’s music project as well, called Little Syne (littlesyne.com). My goal with that project is to create high-quality educational children’s music that’s fun for all ages and inspires curiosity and a love of learning.
Another personal project that I am very passionate about and proud of is one I call The Syneverse (thesyneverse.com). This project started out as a music project; I wanted to write music that was inspired by different topics that interested me, such as philosophy, mythology, literature, history, etc., and that touched on themes of humanity and important social issues, not just the usual lovey/heartbreak stuff.
But throughout the years, I also created characters, wrote stories and poems, made illustrations and videos, and eventually, it grew into a whole universe of characters, poems, songs, and stories, which is why I called it the Syneverse.
I’ve written several illustrated poetry books that also come with narrated, animated, and musicalized versions of the poems. I’ve also produced several animated music videos with an incredibly talented animation studio called All4Band (all4band.com), who curiously enough are based in the Czech Republic and specialize in the heavy metal genre (my sound is a mix of folk and pop with elements of electronic, cinematic, and world sounds).
My vision is to inspire wonder and curiosity through my creations and to push the creative envelope by taking poetry, art, and music to new dimensions of interactivity and creativity. I’ve been working with INVI (invi.us), a virtual architectural studio, to create a virtual space for some of my poems, and I’m hoping to get into the NFT space in the near future.
I’m also set to release a new animated music video called Death Is Always Hated, which revolves around the theme of dealing with death, attempting to paint it in a different, more positive perspective. I actually wrote this song and started working on the video before COVID, but with COVID the subject of death has become an even more sensitive subject, so I hope that it is received with the positive intention and message I meant to imbue it with. The music video premieres on November 2nd (which so happens to be Day of the Dead) and can be seen here: https://youtu.be/cPnLmp9ec-I.
I hope it resonates with you!
How do you define success?
Success for me is being able to do the things that make me happy while being surrounded by the people I care about. Aside from that, I would love to positively impact as many people as I can through my creative works.
Contact Info:
- Email: fernando@fjmmusic.com
- Website: https://thesyneverse.com/
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/fernando.j.m
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/syneverse
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/syneverse
- Other: https://www.littlesyne.com/
Image Credits:
Ambar Paula
