Edward Moretas Strings of Good Luck

Edward Moretas Strings of Good Luck The fortuitous acquisition of a guitar opened up a path to success for Moreta B.M. 11

By

Darry Madden

November 14, 2023

Edward Moreta Sr.

In his early 20s, Edward Moreta Sr. B.M. 11 dropped out of Franklin Institute of Technology and started spending his time kicking around Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood. He recalls his social circle at the time as being very rough, marked by guns and drugs.

One day, when a friend was unable to pay a debt, Moreta took the friend's guitar as repayment. That guitar saved my life, he says. Until that moment, Moreta had not played a single note in his life, but the instrument forever changed his priorities.

When I got the guitar, I remember [my buddies] calling me, We're going to a nightclub, we're going to pick you up.' And I'm like, No. I'm practicing.' Before long, he got serious about learning how to play, and a guitar teacher encouraged him to apply to Berklee. He thought getting in was such a long shot that he moved back home to the Dominican Republic after reluctantly submitting his application to the college. He received news of his acceptance during his first week in the DR-and promptly turned around and came back to Boston.

Moreta worked full time at the Hilton near Berklee's campus while also managing a full course load. A lot of days involved working a few hours at the hotel, running to class, then heading back to work.

It was hard, but he loved it. I learned so much at Berklee. I would need two lifetimes to be able to use all the knowledge, he says.

After completing his contemporary writing and production major, Moreta set out to find work as a producer, mixer, and mastering engineer. This was not an easy path at first. I knocked on so many doors after graduation, so many doors. I made so many calls and everybody was like, Nope, nope,' he remembers. But he was persistent and creative, and eventually built a studio in Roxbury, E7 Studios, where he happily worked on music he loved until 2020, when the pandemic shut everything down. For a long year, there was no music in his studio, and he didn't know what would become of all his dreams and hard work.

Then a request came in for a project that was small and low-budget: mixing a pop song by Guatemalan superstar Ricardo Arjona and reworking it into a bachata, a type of Dominican dance rhythm. When Arjona heard it, everything changed for Moreta. Arjona came to us, said, Oh my God, this bachata sound is amazing. I need to work with you guys.'

Arjona shared the song on Instagram, where it went viral, garnering over a million views. This was a game-changer for the studio. As the world began slowly opening back up, E7 Studios came blazing back to life; since then, Moreta has been busier than ever.

Today, he works with clients such as Univision Boston, Aqui y Alla, and Hablemos on music as varied as merengue, bachata, salsa, rap, and dembow, a Dominican genre that borrows from Jamaican dancehall and Dominican folkloric traditions.

I'm in constant motion and working with these different genres, he said. And there is so much energy in the Spanish-language music I'm encountering. It's exciting. The sky's the limit.

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