WEBVTT - Rick Beato 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.959 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast, Like 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.640 Yesterday is the King of Music YouTube, Rick beat Rick, 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.080 Hey Bob, how are you okay? Rick? You do a 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.319 lot of analysis in your videos. What makes a hit record? Well, 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.880 I think that depends on on what era you're talking about, 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:33.519 But you know, typically a melody. I think the melody 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.440 catches people's ears or at least used to catch people's 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.159 ears first, and then uh, if they like the melody, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.640 then they will listen to the lyrics. So that's uh, 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:45.400 but there's a lot of there's a lot of other 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.320 things that make hit records, and that's kind of my 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.400 what makes this sound great series is about there's a 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:55.760 lot of background instrumentation, whether it's a piano line, stringline, 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.240 you know, some type of synthpad that has a melodic 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.160 hook in it that grabs people's ears, especially at key 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:09.800 points emotionally in the lyrics, typically in the chorus. So okay, 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.959 you do certain videos where you'll do like the top 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:18.280 ten on Spotify or iTunes or boomers listening to modern music. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.440 So what's your viewpoint on the modern music landscape? Well, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.280 I yeah, you know, it's a lot different than it 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.280 was thirty years ago. Obviously. I just did a breakdown 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.440 of kiss from a Rose on my channel that I 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.440 put out yesterday or two days ago, seals song, which 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.160 is an incredibly great song and was a number one 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:45.319 song in UM. And that's where pop music was then 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.080 years ago, and pop music is in a very different 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.640 place right now. Obviously, with the advent of pro tools, logic, 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.320 all the different home recording systems that there are, people 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.920 make records on their own without the aid of professionals typically, 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.720 and what you get is some incredibly creative things and 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.240 some not so creative things. And I think that, uh, 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:14.160 the lack of experts involved in some ways, uh diminishes 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.440 some of the results. And when I say experts, I 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:26.200 mean professional producers, professional UM arrangers. The string arrangement and 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.440 Kissed from a Rose is absolutely phenomenal. UM. You used 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.880 to have people like Paul buck Master and Dudley I 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.000 think did the string arrangement for that, you know, people 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.120 that were just geniuses. And Trevor Horne was the producer 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.400 of that record, and you had you had these really 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.760 talented people like Daniel Lenoian and Brian eno and and 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:52.280 George Martin, just genius producers that could help, whether it's 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:57.560 with parts, with orchestrations, with arrangements, and a lot of 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.280 times nowadays people work on their own. Artists work on 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:04.800 their own record things, spend hours and hours using logic 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.639 coming up with their own sounds. Some of them are 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.480 incredibly creative and you could only come up with them 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.360 if you spend hours and hours on your own. But 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.679 the level of sophistication of most popular music. When I 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:19.600 say popular music, I mean at the top of the charts. 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.519 When I do these countdowns, one thing I noticed is 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:27.680 that there's very little harmonic sophistication, meaning the chord progressions 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:33.520 are very basic nowadays. Um. And you also get a 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:38.800 lot of UM. You don't get the high fidelity like 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.400 you used to have. You know, even in genres like 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:47.680 metal rock, there's just you know, badly recorded guitars. Um. 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.560 You know. We used to have dedicated mixed engineers to 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.200 mix professional records, Bob Clear, Mountain, people that were pros 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:59.280 Andy Wallace, and you still have. For for major label records, 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.840 you'll get Serb in Guinea or people like that. But 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.440 a lot of records are mixed by the artists, and 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.520 some of them sound really good. But I think the 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:15.680 popular music could benefit from having some specialists involved. And 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.160 I don't mean people writing the songs, because there's too 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.640 many professional writers out there writing the songs. They need 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.720 to find kids that can write their own music themselves 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.320 without bringing in a bunch of people my age to 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.280 to write their hooks and and put a you know, 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.320 put put eleven people in a room to write music 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.159 by committee. There's my long answer. Okay, that's good. I 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.120 like long answers. Going back to your channel, So tell 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.360 me about your development of your channel, how it came 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.320 to be. So I was producing bands here in my 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.720 studio for Oh God. I built the studio in two 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.160 thousand five, but I've been producing I had been producing 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.680 bands since the mid nineties or so. And one day 0:04:57.760 --> 0:04:59.480 I had an assistant. He came in. He said, you 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.200 should start to YouTube channel. And I said, who's gonna 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.640 watch a white haired guy on YouTube? He said no, no, no, no, 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:07.960 And I said, what would even be about? He said, no, 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.560 I'm telling you're an expert at all these different things. 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.560 You can talk about music production, music theory, music history, whatever. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.200 I said. I don't even own a camera. I don't 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.000 know how to edit video. And he's like, I'll bring 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.360 in my camera tomorrow. We'll make your channel trailer. And said, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.120 what's that? He said, that's the first thing that people 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.880 see when they come to your channel. They only see 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:28.360 it one time and then they never see it again. 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:29.880 So he brings in his computer the next day with 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.159 his camera and he films his trailer does b roll 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.080 And I watched him edit it and we put it 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.839 up And that was on June second, two thousand and sixteen, 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.400 so just five years ago. Actually yesterday was the five 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.880 year anniversary of my first video, thank you. So I 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.040 just started with with my iPhone making videos, not even 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.640 replacing the sound, and doing them at night when I 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.320 was producing bands, I would just put up my iPhone 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.520 on a stand and I started making videos with no expertations. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.800 But if one looks back at your history, you did 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.400 have a viral video prior to this with your son 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.440 in perfect Pitch. How did that come to be? And 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.560 you've made a few videos before that, Why was that 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.960 one viral? And did that give you the idea that 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:17.760 there was a marketplace? Where did you have to wait 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.159 for the person working with you to bring up the idea? 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.640 So I I have a friend named Shane that was 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.160 over at my studio. I was producing a record of him. 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.280 He's a country artist and I'm a good friend of 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.400 mine and my son Dylan was down here and I 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.080 was playing chords and you know, showing Shane. He says, oh, 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:36.880 can you make a thing too so I can show 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.760 my wife Angie. And so I said, oh, Dylan, coming downstairs. 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.560 I want to do one of these things, you know, 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.320 things where I'll just play chords for you, just tell 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:45.440 me what they are. And he's like, oh, I don't 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.120 want to do it. And because I was getting ready 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:48.640 to go to a school board meeting, I was on 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.320 the school board at his school, I said, just come 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.520 down and take two minutes. So we come down record. 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.000 I put it and put it on Facebook, and I said, Shane, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.480 I put this on Facebook for you. You can show 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:04.599 Angie and and and then Shane saw it and said 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.880 he ended up actually putting it on his Facebook and 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.280 it got three million views on mine. It got eighteen 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:16.200 million on his Facebook page. So okay, But you've made 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.880 a couple of videos with Dylan before. What was so 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.880 magical about this one? Um, it was just the complexity 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.120 of the things that he could hear when he I 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.320 realized he had perfect pitch when he was three, and 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.440 he had an incredibly good memory, and so I just 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.240 started teaching a music theory. So I said, Dylan, hey, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.000 when you hear CEG, that's C major. Okay, yeah, I 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.280 got it, G B flat ds G minor. And I 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:43.600 just taught him the names of all these chords. It 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.880 doesn't matter what order they're in, that's what they are, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.200 says okay and um. And then I taught him about 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.360 modes and all these things. So when I would play 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:54.200 then I would play two chords at the same time, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:55.720 and he could tell what those were. And he just 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.200 can tell anything. Twelve note chords, didn't matter how distant 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.600 it was. He it here, break apart all the chords, 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.440 no matter how distant it is. He just has a 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.680 phenomenal ear. Well, how did you discover that he had 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.280 this year had perfect pitch. Well, I played him this 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.559 really complex music when before he was born, my wife 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.720 I was reading you know with my wife, you know, uh, 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.120 what to expect when you're expecting, and it says, oh, 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.440 the baby can hear it fifteen weeks or whatever. I said, 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.040 I'm gonna make a playlist, like said what she said 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:28.800 what I said, Yeah, I'm gonna make a playlist. I 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:33.640 made a playlist of all this really complex improvisation piano 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.079 music that a friend of mine i'dness and Turkish genius 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.280 improviser did that I recorded back in the eighties. So 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.600 I'm gonna make music. And I would put it on 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.120 my wafe's stomach every day for about thirty minutes when 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.480 we'd hang out together, and then, um, I did this. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.280 I would sit with him when when he was born, 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.520 I'd sit with him for about an hour to two 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.800 hours every morning and uh and just listen to music 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.400 and dance around with him. And then that's all I did. 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:01.720 I never ever played any notes or anything like that. 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:03.040 And then when he was three and a half, then 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.400 we had our second daughter, Lennon, and my wife's like, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.120 I don't want to do this headphone in the stomach thing. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.720 I'm like, yeah, okay, no problem. I didn't think anything 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.720 of it. One day, I'm in the car and I 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.720 had been listening to John Williams soundtrack, so I said, Dylan, hey, 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.480 sing the intro to Star Wars, and he sings it, 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.120 and I go, I think that's in the right key, 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:23.400 and so I play it. It's like, that's in the 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.719 right key, and so it sings the intro to to 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.640 Indiana Jones. He's like da, and I was like, that's 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.360 in the right key too. I checked that I don't 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.040 have perfect pitch, but I have good, really good pitch memory. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:36.360 So I turned the car around. I come back to 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.280 the studio here, and I had to know B flat 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.600 on the piano. So one noticed that Dylan because Star Wars, 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.559 and he goes Star Wars and Star Wars starts on 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.319 a big B flat major chord. Then I had to 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.440 know G and he goes Superman and Superman theme starts 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.000 on the no G. Then I had seen he goes, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.120 that's the Excavator song. Some tuning, and then I realized 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.880 he had perfect pitch, and I taught him all twelve 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.080 notes right then, and that was it. It took me 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.080 five minutes and and then I was like, can you 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:03.960 what about two notes at a time. He's like yeah, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.000 ce E flat G B. You know, I mean, it 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.600 didn't matter. So what's the status? How old is he today? 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.079 He's thirteen, So is he's still interested in music? Is 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.240 he pursuing this or this is just something he has 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.400 the ability to do. This is kind of something he 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:20.920 has ability do. He plays basketball, he plays video games. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.040 Is thirteen year old? You know, he's he's He plays 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.680 the oboe in the school band, but he's not um. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:28.640 And he likes to listen to music, but he's not 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.920 He doesn't really play an instrument. He's played, played a 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.080 little bit of guitar. He played piano for a few 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.920 years to piano lessons, but got disinterested in that and quit. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.920 So okay, so even though you had this viral video, 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.920 you had no anticipation, no inkling that it should be 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.560 followed up. You had to have the guy working with 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.120 you in the studio to say he let's do a channel. Yeah, 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.960 so that the viral video has happened about probably eight 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.400 months before I started my channel, and they were on 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.719 Facebook on YouTube. I had a YouTube channel that I 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.240 based there was show videos to to my family. That'send 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.200 videos of my kids to my family. That's what it was. 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.160 So um um. I had about forty seven subscribers on 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:16.320 June eighth. And how many subscribers do you have today? Uh? 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.320 I don't know, almost two point four million. Okay, let's 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.400 break this down because everybody's not super sophisticated. What does 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:27.520 it really mean that someone subscribed to your channel? They 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.800 just hit that red subscribe button and then edit. Uh, 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.199 and it notifies them when I have a new video 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.679 come out or any type of release. And how are 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.920 they notified? Um, well, if they have the bell icon 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.400 there's there's different levels. There's three different levels of of notification. 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.360 But if they have the bell clicked, then they actually 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.040 get a notice on their phone. It's a you know, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.959 it would be a drop down note notification if you 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.480 have your notifications enabled, that you would get saying I 0:11:54.480 --> 0:12:00.480 have a new video out. Okay, you have three million subscribers, 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.000 but a good number of videos don't reach that quantity 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.280 in view, not that the ones that have two hundred 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.720 five hundred thousand that thought significant. Do you think those 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.400 are all subscribers watching? Do you think that word of mouth? 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.200 Why do you think certain subscribers don't watch certain videos? 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.920 That's a great question. So when I started my channel, 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.920 I started it as a channel for professional musicians, so 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:32.080 very sophisticated harmony. I did a lot of um film 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.880 scoring breakdown, I'd break down film cues, James Newton, Howard Thomas, Newman, 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.600 John Williams, Bernard Herman. I would take you know, I'd 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:41.840 take a section. Maybe I'd take the opening of the 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.960 Shawshank Redemption. I'd do a piano reduction of the orchestra, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.240 and I would talk about it for thirty minutes or whatever. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.120 So and then or I would do really sophisticated jazz improvisation. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.240 And what I got were pros that followed my channel, 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.600 professional musicians that you know, wanted an out letter or 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.360 was we're looking for things, and it would suggest YouTube 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.760 would find those people that were interested in those kind 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:10.200 of things, And I really did. The algorithm of YouTube 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.120 would serve up that video you found. How that that 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.760 was how most people coming to your channel as opposed 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.440 to independent promotion you were doing yourself. Yeah, I did 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.520 no promotion. I've never done any promotion. Everything is based 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.280 on the algorithm of YouTube. So YouTube goes out there 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:30.440 and collects every person that looks up um, you know 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.600 the mix a Lydian mode, or that looks up Bernard Herman, 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:41.720 film scoring, or that looks up uh you know top 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.439 ten songs or or or mixing, how do you how 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.000 to mix drums or whatever? Whatever? The videos on it 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.280 goes out and finds those people that are interested, people 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.600 that like Joni Mitchell, We'll find my videos. I did 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.440 a video on the song Amelia, or I did the 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.800 song on Seal, so people that follow Seal. But I've 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.760 also done videos with you know, I've done a hundred 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.920 and five breakdowns of famous songs, So you figure out 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.640 the people that follow all those songs bands from Tool 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.560 to Boston to Steely Dan, to led Zeppelin, to the Beatles, 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.320 to the Rolling Stones too, you know, to Gordon Lightfoot. UM. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:22.480 So it's anybody that watches Gordon Lightfoot videos will get 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.080 served up my video on if you could read my mind, 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.400 or people that like Joanie will get served up my 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.520 video on Amelia and then they watched that and then 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.120 they start getting recommended other videos that they think they'll like. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.920 So that's kind of how you and my channel is 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.400 so varied. The content is so varied that it's picks up. 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:46.040 It's picked up. You know, let's go back five years ago. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.560 So it starts out as professional, continue with the evolution, 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:55.160 so start up professional. UM. So that went for um 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.760 until the so from the summer of un till g 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:05.600 Annuary tight ofen when I had two hundred thousand subscribers, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.400 and then I introduced this what Makes This Sound Great series, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.320 and the first episode I did was on Blink one two, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:14.360 and then I followed it up I think with Kid 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:19.280 Charlemagne by Steely Dan and from that first video, and 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.560 these are breakdowns of multi tracks of famous songs and 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:28.360 um and that's I started getting a thousand subscribers a 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.760 day then, and then eventually, uh in twenty nineteen and 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:37.120 I got up to I don't know, five hundred thousand. 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.720 Then I started doing these top twenty videos, Top twenty 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.800 Acoustic Guitar intros of all Time, Top twenty Guitar Solos 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.880 of all Time videos, and these videos got millions and 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.240 millions of views, and then I started getting two thousand 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.880 subscribers a day, and that just just pretty much gone on. 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.200 And uh So there's a certain segment of audience that 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.960 watches videos for that are based on classical music or jazz. 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:04.000 I made videos on My Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, uh, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.560 Jimmy Cobb, West Montgomery, all these famous jazz musicians. I 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.400 made videos on famous classical musicians. I did a video 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.440 on Martha Argridge, who's one of the greatest classical pianists 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:15.200 of all time who just turned eight years old. I 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.360 did that video about a week and a half ago. 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.600 That one's got four and thirty thousand, four and fifty 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:25.560 thousand views. Um. And so those people aren't necessarily gonna 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.280 watch a video on corn or on h Lincoln Park 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.840 or or system of a down, but they're gonna watch 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:38.480 videos maybe on um UM. I don't know what they're 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.920 gonna watch videos on. But I have other classical oriented videos. 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.800 So it's it's a very segmented audience. Okay, let's go 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.080 back to so you start. The big issue that we 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:55.240 see evidenced online is few people have perseverance. How many 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.920 videos were you making and what was keeping you going? 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.240 I made probably why still make to this day? I 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:09.199 make twelve videos a month. Um. I shooting at it. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.080 I have an assistant, but I'm pretty much shooting at 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:18.760 my own videos. UM myself and UM and I made 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.879 I'm the first year I probably made two and some 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:27.159 odd videos. Okay, so you start five years ago in June. 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.480 So how do you come up with twelve a month? 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.040 I don't mean how do you come up with how 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.480 do you come up with the number twelve. I just 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.520 started doing about every other day. Okay, And at what 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.600 point did you formalize it's like, well, it's twelve a month. No, 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.679 it was actually fifteen a month back then, because sometimes 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:46.520 I would make two videos a day. I didn't know 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:48.280 what I was doing, Bob. I would make a video 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:49.760 and I'd be like, you know, I have this idea, 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.560 and then I'd go and make do a live stream 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.520 after after I put out a video six hours before 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.399 I did a live stream because on some idea that 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.560 I had. Okay, let's let's slow down. So you start 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:07.760 to make videos. Your engineer second is helping you at first. 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.920 Now when you start to roll up, are you doing 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.480 it all alone? Or is he yes? No, No, he 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.240 didn't help me at all. He never edited any videos. 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.760 So I made the videos and edited them myself right 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.359 from the beginning. Okay. And what kind of equipment? What 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.000 level of equipment were you using the same as I 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.040 have now Final Cut pro and and my iPhone, But 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.200 now I have a nice sony camera, so I I 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.800 used up my iPhone and honestly, Bob, I used the 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.920 sound off my iPhone because I couldn't figure out well 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.040 I finally figured out how to how to drop in 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.600 audio uh into the videos as I got better as 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.600 an editor. Um, I just figured it out. It's very 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.439 much like editing audio because I've edited in pro Tools 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.679 forever doing music production, and uh, it's it's virtually the 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:55.679 same thing. You just look at the wave forms and 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.760 edit simple. I can edit very quickly. And if you 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.480 were remember how many views did the trailer get and 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.919 did you promote that amongst your community at all? I 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.560 did not promote it at all. My trailer is at 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:13.080 about a million views now. But then you starting, Oh 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.480 my first forty videos, I didn't have one that was 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:23.000 over a thousand views? What kept you going? Um? People 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:25.720 kept writing to me. I got you know, I got 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.359 an email from I would get emails from Dweezels, Appa 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.000 or Steve I or uh, you know, Victor Wootton or 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.240 people like that. I started getting emails from people within 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:39.240 a couple of months. Um, and then I started, you 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:43.000 know people, I interviewed people. I interviewed Steve I was 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.960 my first interview, and then I interviewed uh, I forget, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.960 I forget who I remember interviewed Victor Wootton, I interviewed 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.679 Dennis Chambers, a little a lot of famous musicians, and 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.040 John Petrucci and Jordan Rutis from Dream Theater, and and 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:02.080 people from all different guitar players, bass players, drummers, um 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.919 and Chris Potter the Great suggest saxophonist. All these people 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.720 were I was doing videos, interview videos, all these kind 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.480 of things. And okay, let's let's look a little bit. 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.359 You say you were getting email. Were they posting on 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.000 YouTube on the channel? Were they literally sending you email? 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.480 And how did they get your email address? Literally sending 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.800 me emails the address because it would be if people 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:27.840 would ask me questions. I had so few views that 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:29.800 somebody asked me just email me, and I put my 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:36.600 email in the in the comments. Okay literally, okay, so 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.159 now you got the naxos, as they say, And yet 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.919 it's the good feeling of these legendary people contacting with you. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:51.239 Are the views ascending five years ago? Um? No, you know, 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.920 I didn't have a viral video on YouTube for two 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.080 years or so. But I mean as I started getting 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.560 within within four months or so, I had maybe forty subscribers, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:03.560 and then the views would start to you know, there 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.720 my big My first big video was Um, a video 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.640 called the double Harmonic major scale. Now I don't know why, Bob, 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.560 but it got like eight hundred thousand views or something. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.639 It was a completely weird video that had a weird 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.199 I would make videos on scales, and it had a 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.400 weird composition that I did at the end, very distant. 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.280 It sounded a tonal but used only the seven notes 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.000 of the scale. And that was my first big video. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.240 And I have no idea why it became a big video, 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:37.280 but um, but that you know, those are the kind 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:39.520 of things that that I was doing, and and the 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:41.760 videos would just start, you know, then every video would 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.560 have a thousand views, and then you'd have some videos 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.040 to pop up to ten thousand, somebody get fifty thousand, 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:49.280 and occasionally get a hundred thousand, and then they just 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.639 started all rising and rising. Were you a student of 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:58.680 the game looking at YouTube competitors if you found any 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.520 or what was going on? What were you just working 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:06.120 in the dark. Um. There's a guy that reached out 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.800 to me after when I had about four thousand videos. 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:11.120 He had a channel called Piano around the World and 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.880 he had he had forty seven thousand subscribers, and I thought, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:16.879 oh my god, that that I can't even believe. How 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.000 did could you get ever get forty seven thousand subscribers. 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.560 He had a few videos that had millions of views, 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:25.159 and I remember saying to him, his name is Doton, 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.640 I said, I said, Doton, what if I can ask 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:30.800