Kyle Kellams: Self-taught guitarist Juan Moscoso recently came to the Carver Center for Public Radio. He was performing some original songs, and he also spoke with Ozark's at Large's Sophia Nourani as part of KUAF Live Session series. Originally from Colombia, Juan has now lived in northwest Arkansas for over a decade.
Juan Moscoso: I moved to the States when I was 15, and came to New York first, and then moved to Arkansas, where I've been here for about 14 years now. So this is my home now.
Sophia Nourani: Thank you for that. You mentioned you're a self-taught guitarist. Can you tell us about when you first started playing guitar and when you first picked it up?
Moscoso: So the guitar playing has been kind of random and messy. My parents got me a guitar because I really liked the way it looked. I didn't even know what it sounded like. I just wanted a guitar, but it just kind of sat in a corner for years collecting dust. Even had termites at some point. I had a private teacher who came by and tried to teach me some songs, but they were really old folk songs that, you know, for a six year old is really not much interesting.
So I never learned anything from him and I just didn't pick the guitar up until I was, I don't know, maybe 12 in high school, I had a teacher who taught me some chords. Then I learned how to read tabs, and then my mom got me an electric guitar. I play a lot of metal. Then I switched to the nylon acoustic guitar. Then I got more into classical music. So all my playing has been basically me learning songs. And then from those songs that I learned, I learned core patterns, scales, and then I make my own music. So I've never been classically trained or formally trained by any means. It's just been learning music, listening to a lot of music, and from that kind of old melts into a pot, and then I cook something out of that.
Nourani: Yeah, I'm sure, you know, touching all of those genres too… You can pick it up for your own music as well. That's such a cool skill. When did you first start performing in front of groups and to other people?
Moscoso: I'll say… I mean, I played random gigs every now and then. There was a small group of Colombians who got together one time to play a festival for the Hispanic Heritage Month in Fayetteville. Every now and then I see on Facebook that we need a guitar player. So I'll just go and show up and play. But when it comes to my music, it's probably been about a year or two that I kind of decided like, hey, I want to start playing my songs. So I've been playing every coffee shop in Fayetteville every month. I have a one hour set, and played a couple of shows with friends of mine who are singers. So I would say about a year or two ago that I decided I wanted to put my music out.
Nourani: Yeah. And what and what coffee shop is that?
Moscoso: Oh, Six Twelve Coffee on Weddington.
Nourani: We're really familiar with Six Twelve.
Moscoso: Yeah, I love that place. They really support a lot of local artists. They give them space for them to perform and to just express themselves.
Nourani: Mhm. Can you tell us about the songs that you played today? Go into a little bit of detail about those.
Moscoso: Yeah. So I played three songs today. The first one was called “Spring Dance”. That one was probably the second song that I ever composed on the guitar. So going back to the story, when I was playing the electric guitar, for some reason I was never able to write anything on the electric guitar. I don't know if it was due to the effects, the amps, but something about the electric guitar never clicked with me and I was never able to write something. The moment I got my hands into a nylon guitar, I wrote like three songs in a sitting. And “Spring Dance” was the second song that came out of that.
The second song is called “Shooting Star”. I wrote it around December…November. It's one of those songs that I was just practicing, and a lot of my songs come like that… I practice, I hit a note or a chord that I really like, and there is a feeling here. There is something to say. And I just let that feeling guide me into writing a whole song. So I literally just played one note or one riff, and then let that field turn into a whole song.
And then the last song, “Resilience”. As I mentioned, I usually have a bad name naming songs, and that song has stuck with me for a while as one of my best songs, one of my favorite songs. But same deal, I was practicing and I hit the first chord the turn and I was like, I like that. Let's elaborate on that. So I played a little bit lower and lower, and then make the whole melody out of just three notes.
Nourani: All beautiful pieces.
Moscoso: Thank you.
Nourani: So KUAF found you through your NPR Tiny Desk Contest submission to the NPR Tiny Desk contest. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about that piece and why you chose that for that submission in particular?
Moscoso: So that piece that I wrote is called “Ocean Moon”. For me, the feeling when I played, I can just imagine the reflection of the moon in the ocean. I chose a piece because I feel the melody is very catchy and has a lot of personality. I felt it would be something more appealing to the general audience than sending a video of a song that's more dark or more complex. I feel that I will reach out to more people. But that's the reason I chose it.
I saw the contest going on, and during that time I was going through a little rough time. I was unemployed and kind of stressed out, and I saw that and I had the time to do it. So one of my friends actually let me use his apartment to show the video. We used his table, his couch. He helped me record the video. I had my laptop hooked. So he would say action, he'll click here, I'll click here and have like two cameras. So between the two of us, we made the video and I just did it because I felt like if somebody sees this and really likes it, you know, who knows what good thing will come out of that.
Nourani: Hey. A good example of it.
Moscoso: Yeah.
Nourani: It was a great piece, great performance. You mentioned in that answer that your songs can shift, perhaps in tone and emotion. Describe your process for arranging a piece. When you sit down and you want to make something new, do you have a process for that?
Moscoso: So I don't have a set process for the most part. Songs come out to be in two ways. I'm either at work or doing something, and then a melody comes to my head and I have to pull up my phone up and just like, hum it or sing it or whistle it, and then go home and try to make something out of that, which I had a couple of good songs come out of that, but I would say 90% of my songs come from me just practicing. And then I hit a note or a chord that I really like, and I feel that that particular node has something to say. So I just let that guide me into a whole song. But I never sit down and say, okay, I'm gonna write a song right now. It's going to be on the key of E minor. No, for me, it's more like either the melodies come at the most inconvenient times, and I have to stop what I'm doing and try to write them down, or I'm just practicing until I hit something new and interesting. And then from that, I elaborate into a full song.
Nourani: So you mentioned how you play at Six Twelve, and you have some other musicians in the area that you perform with. Can you maybe talk a little bit about your experience being a musician in northwest Arkansas specifically, and your thoughts on the music scene here and your experience with that?
Moscoso: Well, my experience is kind of different because what I play is more like what you call hall music, something you want to go see in a quiet spot. The music scene here is great. There's a lot of really talented musicians. For me, most venues or places that want somebody to play, they want either a rock band or someone who is going to play a two hour set that's more upbeat for the guests at the venue. My stuff is, you know, I only have like a one hour set of originals. And there's a lot of noise of people talking... It's kind of hard for you to hear. But along the way, I met a couple of good singers. I played a couple gigs with a friend of mine, Mar Loroña, who's a great singer. We did a lot of covers of pop songs with a little bit of flamenco version of that. I have another friend of mine who I think he's a mariachi, or that was his background, mariachi. So he has a lot of Latin and Spanish songs. We played one show on Halloween and I showed up as a vampire and he showed up as a prince.
Nourani: Oh, that's awesome.
Moscoso: And then currently I'm playing with another great musician, Tim Warden, who 's more like a reggae and ambient, almost psychedelic. And we have a lot of really good originals and with him, I've been playing more shows this year than anyone. So even though my music, per say, on its own is kind of hard to perform, I find a lot of good musicians who I've been able to mix and make some original stuff out of that. Even if it's just covers, we make it our own way. But no, the music scene here is very interesting. There's a lot of talented people, and I mean, you find musicians and open mics. Like there's, there are a lot of opportunities for you to meet musicians. That's how I met a lot of people just going through open mics and little social events like that. And it's been great. I've been enjoying it a lot.
Nourani: Can you tell people where folks can find your music and you? You mentioned you perform at Six Twelve regularly, maybe remind folks of when that is and where you are online.
Moscoso: Yeah. So I perform at Six Twelve, this year on the second Thursday of the month, usually from 7p.m. to 8p.m. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram as Juan Moscoso and on Instagram under the same name, but with the username of one.string.guitar. As well as YouTube. I do have one song on Spotify, I have the song “Spring Dance”. So that's the best way to find me. Thank you for the opportunity and the chance to be here and the chance you are giving to all the other musicians to express themselves.
Nourani: Of course I'm happy to do it and to have you perform here. It was amazing. It was a pleasure. So thank you so much.
Moscoso: Thank you.
Nourani: That was me, Sophia Nourani speaking with Juan Moscoso as part of KUAF’s Live Session Series. We discovered Juan from his 2026 Tiny Desk Contest submission, and we'll hear from more Arkansas-based artists that submitted performances over the next couple of months. You can find Juan's tiny desk performance of his song “Ocean Moon”, linked to this week's “Talkin Tunes” on our website. Juan's full KUAF Live Session, interview and performance will be live on the KUAF YouTube and website next Friday.
Kellams: What if I want to hear something from it in just a few minutes?
Nourani: We'll hear a song from it shortly.
*Juan Moscoso’s “Ocean Moon” performance is also available on this week’s “Talkin’ Tunes” segment.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
