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Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod.
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I am Eric Hunter.
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I'm Yukimi Song.
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And I'm Clara Jones.
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If you are just joining us for the first time, the PianoPod is now a bi-monthly podcast
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where we interview some of the brightest talents in the industry.
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Each episode features a guest speaker who's making bold new innovations that have the
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potential to change the way we think about piano or even music in general.
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Today our guest speaker is Andrew Inkovet, piano teacher, entrepreneur, and the creator
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of the revolutionary new music color method.
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Andrew, thank you for joining us today.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you.
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Yay.
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Guys, great to see you all on this cold blustery day here in New York City.
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Yes.
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Yeah, it is brutal outside.
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So Andrew, we're going to get into the details in a little bit.
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But just very briefly, what is the music color method?
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What's it about?
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Music color method is all about giving more access to more kids' music.
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So it's an adaptive, inclusive, and fun curriculum.
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And we started this in my living room, just me and my son when he started asking for lessons.
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And I didn't realize that there was kind of a gap in music education at the time where
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there was really nothing I could find for a pre-literate kid to learn music and enjoy
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music, except for, you know, you have the clap along, sing along kind of things.
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But he got bored of that really fast.
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So this became a homeschooling project that has now been shared with the world.
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That's fantastic.
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And so how does the color portion come into it?
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So color is being used as educational scaffolding.
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So what I mean by that is that we directly label what we want our kids to do.
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So it's putting colors on even our fingertips with washable markers, colors on the keys,
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and then color notation that looks like colored blocks.
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So then it becomes as easy as a color matching game, which any three, four-year-old can do.
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And you don't have to actually say, oh, this is a C and it's below the staff and it's got
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this little line through it.
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And this is called the clap and it's like, what?
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This is very simple.
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You see the red thing is the red key and you have a red finger.
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How many times do we have the red box on the page?
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Oh, there's five.
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That means you play it five times.
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Oh, I get it.
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We can keep going really fast.
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And then we just steer them because they have their own motivation now to practice and they
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can keep going and it's much easier to steer a body in motion than one that is completely
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stalled.
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Right?
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Absolutely.
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Well, I want to ask Andrew, so before you created this color method, which I think it's
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just incredible when you are looking for a teacher or a method for your three-year-old
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son, right?
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Yeah.
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What did you discover or did not discover in terms of like method books?
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Yeah.
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So first of all, I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which is a very child-friendly neighborhood.
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So I figured there's got to be child services here.
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People have probably had this same need.
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So I started just asking other teachers, can I sign up?
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I even met with some famous pianists who were like, oh, we don't take anybody until we're
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teenagers.
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The higher the level of the pianist, it seems like the higher level of the student they
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want.
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So I had gone to school to be a music teacher back at NYU.
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I actually had a scholar in education scholarship, but I never made it my focus.
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So it was just like kind of like telling me, life was telling me to go back and be a teacher.
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And this was a great activity to bond with my son as well.
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So I started looking in the Brooklyn Public Library, they have a massive collection.
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I remember that.
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It's beautiful.
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Too bad we can't get there right now.
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But the so there's tons of method books.
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There's also tons of scores.
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If you ever looking for obscure scores.
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I ordered hundreds of dollars of books on Amazon.
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And the closest I came to was the Suzuki method, which was OK, I see that he's getting kids
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to play first.
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But then there's like almost there's like another gap between playing and reading.
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So I was like, OK, I can try to bridge that.
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And that's when I started playing around with color because I had spent 10 years as a information
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user experience designer doing websites for American Express, Manhattan Bank, all these
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things.
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So, you know, in that world, when you're looking at a screen, where you put a button means
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something, right?
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Everything has a reason to be there's real estate on the screen.
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The same thing on the page.
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Everything on the page has to have a reason to be there.
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Otherwise, why put it there?
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And what I realized from the world of UX design, the more concrete you can have a single audience,
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the more clear your message can be.
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So what my big epiphany was looking at these method books, most of these method books had
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three audiences on the same page.
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It was like notes for the teacher, notes for the parent and then something for the student.
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And even just yesterday, I would have a six year old came over socially distanced mass
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lesson.
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And I begged the parent to please, please bring her in because I'm having a hard time
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with a six year old over the screen.
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And I'm showing her a lesson book.
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I'm not going to mention names.
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And it's a great one.
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I use it for a lot of students.
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And she's looking at the page and there's a teacher's duet.
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And she's like, oh, what the heck is that?
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I don't want to.
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I don't know what that is.
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Yeah, they get intimidated by those.
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And she's just like, I don't want to do that.
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Yeah.
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So that is a big problem.
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I can understand why publishers do that.
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The cost of paper and shipping is very expensive, which is also what I discovered when I started
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making method books myself.
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And I really wanted to stick to this, OK, one page is for the parent or the teacher
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and one page for the kid.
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And then I'm like, oh, my God, I can't fit any more songs because the cost is going to
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be just ridiculous.
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It can be like $50 for my book.
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That's interesting.
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You know, let me interrupt.
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Yeah, I'm just curious because you just mentioned experiences at American Express or whatever.
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And then you have this music educational background at NYU.
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So please tell us about your background.
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It seems like you have many interesting experiences in the past.
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So yeah, it's been a lifetime trying to figure out.
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The best I've come up with is that I've had a wide angle career path with a lot of interests,
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a lot of parallel paths.
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So I went to NYU with a double major in music education and jazz performance.
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I am not really a jazz guy.
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I was a rock maniac.
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I had hair down to my waist.
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I was a heavy metalhead playing guitar.
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But I realized I wanted to learn jazz because, you know, those guys can play anything.
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And I did learn a ton.
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So at the end of the day, I ended up getting very involved with the music business in New
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York City and interning at some amazing places, eventually working on the marketing team that
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brought you artists like Guns N' Roses.
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Tracy Chapman we did.
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We did Anthrax, Megadeth, all these really toxic, syringed bands.
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My first day on the job was going to Metallica backstage and I was like, oh my God.
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Yeah, you can ask my wife about our first date at Metallica.
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I want to hear that story.
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You had a headache.
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And I remember you even working in Hong Kong for a while, right?
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So that led me to actually at that job, I actually was a, I've always been kind of self
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starting and I started learning how to use desktop publishing software.
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And one of my bosses was one of the first Mac guys in New York City.
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So I became the editor of this newsletter that then published our research on heavy
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metal to MTV's Headbangers Ball.
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And that's when I started hanging out with the MTV folks and I started writing scripts
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for them.
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And then I said to them, hey, you know what, I should actually be hosting the show.
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I'm writing the scripts.
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And long story short, it turned into me becoming one of the first VJs when they launched in
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Asia and moved me to Hong Kong.
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So I spent five years in Hong Kong, only one as a VJ, but then I was doing other things.
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I started film scoring while I was there.
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I started doing things with the Mac users group and getting into technology.
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That's when we started an internet marketing business, which led me into that world.
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So it's always been lots of things going on.
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I've also been an actor off Broadway with the Panthers and Reds.
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Oh, I didn't know about that.
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I was in some independent movies and stuff.
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Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of things going on.
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I think at the end of the day, my real reason for being is teaching.
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It took me all those years to have my son say, you know, why don't you teach me?
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See, that's very important, too, right?
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We have children, so yes, I get inspired.
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I changed my life for the better.
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That's really amazing.
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Right.
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And I wanted to jump in and say, I love the story of your career path because it's so
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non-traditional.
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Every bit of it has a role to play, right?
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That's why I love this method so much because coming from this diverse background that is
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very non-traditional, you were able to just step into the piano world and see what was
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out there and see kind of obvious gaps that I think a lot of us have recognized and felt
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for some time.
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I wanted to show everybody what you're talking about before.
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This is the first volume.
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I don't know if this is an older edition.
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Have you put out a new one since then?
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I keep updating minor tweaks, so that's still valid.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So I've been using this with my son, who's five and a half.
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And just to give an example of what you're talking about, here's the first piece in the
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book.
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And for anybody who's watching this on video, you can see it.
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Of course, for audio, I'll describe it.
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But basically, you have the piece laid out in colored blocks and the title and a single
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illustration and that's it.
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There's no extra information to confuse the young student.
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And then on the preceding page, you have the instructions for the parent or the teacher.
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So when you talk about graphic interface and the layout and how much of a difference that
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makes in the way we absorb the information, I mean, it's important at any age, but particularly
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for young kids.
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I've had some feedback where people felt like they didn't get to the reading on the staff
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fast enough.
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And there is a definite reason for that because they're just not ready.
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I mean, the original age group that I wrote this curriculum for was somewhere between
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three and six years old.
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Most of those kids are just not ready to think abstractly like that.
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So it really depends on how old your student is.
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And also, obviously, if they're a prodigy, some gifted Mozart, they can probably jump
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ahead, right?
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But yeah, most kids, if it's too hard, they hit this this hill of like, oh, it's too hard.
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I don't want to do this.
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And then they quit.
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And that's what we're trying to combat.
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We're trying to get them to like, this is fun.
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Every time you come, it's a win.
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And every time you go home, you know exactly what to do without anyone sitting with you.
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And then so then you can keep them for years and years and years.
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Most of my students at Park Slope Music Lessons, my school, stay with us five, ten, even fifteen
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years.
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So my son, as I told you, was the student number one.
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He's now 18 and he's at Brown University.
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So he's no longer a student.
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So that's been a nice long ride.
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So for me, this method is relatively new, right?
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I heard about this recently.
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I want to know what is this color come into?
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Like I mean, like the very specific.
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How does it work exactly?
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Each color represent a different key.
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That's how I just put this rainbow on the keys.
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The only difference I made was I tried to make it from a UX perspective.
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I tried to make it a little bit easier to see the difference between like purple and
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indigo or things like that.
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So I put gray as one of the colors in there.
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And so as we start, kids start to associate.
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OK, C is is red.
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So they can start using that as their visual language to compose immediately.
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And then, you know, when I learned solfege, I always thought of movable dough.
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Oh, actually, let me ask you guys.
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What is it for you?
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Movable or fixed?
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Fixed.
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Fixed.
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Fixed.
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I had to learn both.
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Interesting.
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Because of the way.
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So I just said, who would ever want fixed?
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That's crazy.
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Right.
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Because I don't know.
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I always thought movable just made more sense to me.
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You know, do re mi fa so.
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And I just move it around.
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But then as I started talking to more people and then I started noticing my students, they're
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constantly fixating red as dough and dough as C. And that just makes it easier.
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So I started asking some of the best site readers I know, teachers in my studio, my
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music director at the church, who's an amazing site reader.
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And they said, oh, fixed.
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I'm like, I said, why fixed?
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And they were like, because how can you not have fixed for 20th century music?
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There is no dough.
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You don't even know what dough is.
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Right.
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I was like, ah, that totally makes sense.
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But then it also just makes sense for the kids too now, because I can always sing dough,
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dough de re re.
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And then they know exactly what I'm talking about.
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Right.
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I see.
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So color becomes kind of the substitute for the note.
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But then in your question about keys and phrases, I actually used to use quite a bit this translucent
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colored tape.
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Oh, wow.
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And I've started.
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So for the more advanced kids who start getting onto the staff, I like to show them patterns
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right away.
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So we look at a pattern, say we see the first phrase in the A section and look at this and
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I'll just use any color.
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But then I'll say, where do you see that phrase again?
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And we like translucent colored tape.
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It's like a highlighter, basically.
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I put it there like, oh my God, look at that.
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A section, A section.
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Or this is A1, right?
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So by just having these big blocks of color, you've now organized patterns into chunks.
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And that's all about this pattern recognition that we do.
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That was that has been super successful with.
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That was really clever.
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Andrea, I wanted to ask you, I know Yukimi has some questions she wants to ask you about
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the business of Musicolor and promoting the method.
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But before we get to that, you mentioned scaffolding earlier.
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And I wanted you to talk more about that concept because that was something that I learned
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about when I was in graduate school too.
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And I think it's a really important concept for teaching.
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And also it ties into kind of your philosophy about the method itself.
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So I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about those.
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00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:19,000
Yeah, great, great question, Mike.
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So my wife is a she went to Teachers College, Columbia Teachers College for early childhood
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psychology, developmental psychology.
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So she was always she's always teaching me these terms and things like that.
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That's where I got it too.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You went to Teachers College.
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I went to TC.
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Yeah.
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Fantastic place.
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It is.
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So scaffolding is if you think about, you know, the buildings that are being built,
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they always build in like a little structure on the outside to help them get the stuff
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up there.
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Right.
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So that's kind of a scaffolding.
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It's kind of a helping tool that is temporary and is then taken away.
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I think about it like when we were teaching Alejandro, my son, to ride a bike, there was
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super expensive wooden bikes around there out on the market, handmade from Netherlands
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for five hundred dollars.
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No pedals.
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Very low to the ground.
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And I saw that and I was like, oh, my God, that is a brilliant use of scaffolding, because
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basically you're getting them to focus only on balance first and then they can do the
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pedaling later.
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Right.
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Once they have the balance.
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So it's the same thing I've applied.
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It's like this is the balance bike method to teaching music on the piano.
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So first we get them playing and then we get them to start recognizing more abstract concepts
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and then we start teaching them how to read.
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So it's more like a language.
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You know, it's you don't teach kids, you know, grammar in the first language when they're
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learning a foreign language.
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Yes.
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You're listening, you're speaking back, you're telling stories.
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And then later on, you're like, oh, that's what the word looks like.
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That's how I write it.
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And there's always a difference in playing level and reading level or speaking level
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and reading level.
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Right.
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So it's much more akin to a language.
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So it's scaffolding is different than some people think of crutches.
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Right.
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Even though crutches can be temporary.
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Right.
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But if you, if you stay too long in your crutches, what happens is like you atrophy.
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Right.
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And if you have a broken leg and you never give up that crutch, you'll never actually
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get off the crutch.
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Right.
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So that's the thing.
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I've had people criticize my colors without even understanding what the philosophy is.
349
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It's just a crutch.
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They're never going to get off that.
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I was like, no, we have six phases of notation that constantly progress further, further,
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further so that they are by the time they're done with this, they're on the staff, they're
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reading sharp signs, they're reading flat signs.
354
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And then the colors just naturally fall away after time.
355
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Yeah.
356
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:20,520
I just want to jump in there just to remind people for anybody who's a professional musician
357
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who've been reading music all their life.
358
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It can, it can be difficult to like put ourselves back in the mind of a child.
359
00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:30,200
Those symbols are actually incredibly abstract.
360
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:36,480
There's nothing about the symbol of a whole note that shows that it's long, you know?
361
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It's very, very unintuitive for kids.
362
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:43,880
And that's why I think it requires six phases to like work up to that if you really want
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them to be comfortable all along the way, especially since kids don't really read comfortably
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until quite a bit older than they can start learning music.
365
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,160
So they call that the curse of knowledge.
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00:21:56,160 --> 00:22:03,240
And that comes from an economist came up with that term, but it's very, very appropriate
367
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:08,980
to anybody who's coaching or teaching anything in any field.
368
00:22:08,980 --> 00:22:12,980
You forget how hard it was to learn what you know.
369
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And then you start explaining with words that don't even make any sense yet.
370
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You know, it's like you're using your own language to explain a foreign language.
371
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So everyone has to be mightily aware of the curse of knowledge.
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00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:37,600
I realized that my training program, the one that Eric, you went through, you can be went
373
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through a little bit, right?
374
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:49,520
It was kind of a brain dump of massive amounts of information, all front loaded.
375
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:54,840
And it's as I was going through it again, because I'm redesigning it now, I'm breaking
376
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:59,880
it into three different levels, basic, advanced and pro.
377
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:08,680
I'm seeing that I didn't follow my own advice that I've been giving to students of this
378
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:13,960
whole growth spiral, which I didn't even talk about yet.
379
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:18,920
But I see it's this whole I was guilty of the curse of knowledge.
380
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:24,360
Okay, you guys all here is a gigantic box of information.
381
00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:25,360
Go figure it out.
382
00:23:25,360 --> 00:23:30,800
I mean, it is a lifetime of information in there, but it could have been presented better.
383
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:36,240
And that's what I'm so excited about right now, because I've really streamlined it.
384
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:41,520
Yeah, there's things that you don't need to know on day one that would be super helpful
385
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,760
on day 30.
386
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:44,760
So that kind of thing.
387
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,520
That's where sequencing comes into play, right?
388
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:48,520
Yes.
389
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:49,520
Great.
390
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:53,640
You know, one of the hat you wear is a businessman.
391
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,600
So I kind of want to ask you about business side of the method.
392
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:05,360
So first question would be, so you chose to do to licensing your method instead of just
393
00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:09,860
selling method books like traditional method does.
394
00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:12,520
So can you explain to us?
395
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,120
Yeah.
396
00:24:14,120 --> 00:24:22,400
So it's it's really because it really does require a complete shift in mindset of like,
397
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:27,240
if I just put out my my my sheet music right now, people are like, what the hell is this?
398
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,600
I don't understand this.
399
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:35,400
And there's like, it would take a long time to explain, even the books that are out now,
400
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,800
they're not really explaining everything.
401
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:44,320
It's just like, like, if you've gone through the program, this is great, because you're
402
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:49,360
like, oh, I have the tools here is already pre printed, it's nicely bound.
403
00:24:49,360 --> 00:24:52,640
And I can just presented to the parents and there's some little tips for the parents to
404
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:54,120
help them.
405
00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:56,040
But there's a whole it's like the tip of the iceberg.
406
00:24:56,040 --> 00:25:04,720
There's a whole gigantic thing that is really a series of mindset shifts, thinking outside
407
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:06,560
the box.
408
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:14,800
So one of my favorite thinkers is he's got this book called Deep Focus.
409
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:15,800
What's his name?
410
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:17,800
I'll get it.
411
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:23,600
Anyway, he was talking about how, you know, getting deep focus work done.
412
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:29,680
And he has another book about so good that you can't ignore you.
413
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:35,640
And I guess you can Google who wrote those books.
414
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:42,240
He was saying that as you get to be an expert in any field or anything you do, you get to
415
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,280
the edge of the world.
416
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:45,280
Right.
417
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:51,020
And that's where you start to see the adjacent opportunities that you would never ever see
418
00:25:51,020 --> 00:25:53,680
until you got to the edge.
419
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:59,640
And I feel fortunate that I've gotten to the edge in many different worlds.
420
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:04,640
Then I could actually say, oh, my God, that idea and that idea, they've never been combined
421
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:05,640
before.
422
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:07,240
Let me pull those in.
423
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:17,760
And that has helped me see a lot of business opportunities that were not available before.
424
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:22,760
Plus I've taken a lot of training, coaching and training.
425
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:28,920
One of my mentors calls it going through the process of putting on the green glasses.
426
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,240
Like all of a sudden you see opportunity everywhere that you never saw before.
427
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:37,160
By the way, I think the author was Cal Newport.
428
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,200
Yes, Cal Newport.
429
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:40,200
Yes.
430
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:42,080
Fantastic.
431
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,680
That guy is brilliant and incredibly productive.
432
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,920
He writes books as he's still a professor somewhere.
433
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,320
And yeah, one of my favorite guys.
434
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,880
It seems like you're selling your textbooks or the method books on Amazon, but you prefer
435
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,240
that teachers would get training from your method.
436
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:07,120
Yeah, actually, that's an announcement that I'm going to make here publicly that those
437
00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:09,280
books are not going to be on Amazon for long.
438
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:17,360
They're going to be pulled because I'm going to have them only for licensed teachers through
439
00:27:17,360 --> 00:27:23,600
my website and you can buy them in bulk at a discounted rate.
440
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:28,640
The other thing is that there is another opportunity for parents out there that's coming.
441
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,160
I can't announce yet.
442
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:31,160
OK.
443
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:32,440
That's exciting.
444
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:33,440
Yes.
445
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:34,440
Great.
446
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:39,280
So how many countries you've reached out?
447
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:44,120
That's it's really hard to tell.
448
00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:50,600
Because using Amazon's distribution network was really surprising.
449
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:56,080
And how many people just discovered me without me ever even knowing.
450
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:03,000
Like about a year ago, I woke up and found in my inbox an article from the Telegraph
451
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,880
UK that was a whole profile on me.
452
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,720
And I was like, how did this happen?
453
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:14,760
And I reached out to the author via Twitter and she was like, oh, thank you so much.
454
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:16,960
I really appreciate the books.
455
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:21,000
And I actually did this with my kids and she wrote about it.
456
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:27,560
And I also have a Spanish version of my first book and that has been selling really well
457
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:32,880
actually in Mexico and South America.
458
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,800
My wife is from Colombia.
459
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:39,240
So I had a lot of help.
460
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,760
Oh, great.
461
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,960
One of my teachers helped me a lot too.
462
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,400
So Amazon was part of the marketing strategy, I guess.
463
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:53,760
That marketing is a whole another ball game even in business.
464
00:28:53,760 --> 00:29:00,160
But everybody has to kind of become a salesperson of your own profession.
465
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:01,760
So what is your strategy?
466
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:08,760
It seems like you have some professional advice, but as much as you can reveal your secret
467
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:10,240
about marketing.
468
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:11,600
Wow.
469
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:19,240
Well, that's a huge question and it's not really a secret.
470
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:32,200
It's just that most people completely, I guess they underestimate what it is to run a business.
471
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:37,060
Marketing should be like 60% of your day's activities.
472
00:29:37,060 --> 00:29:43,600
Even if you're doing something else, like if you're a teacher even.
473
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:50,320
It's the same thing like you're starting a restaurant or something or a bar or something.
474
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:55,160
You should be like working on getting people to taste your food instead of worrying about
475
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,080
how fancy your business card looks, right?
476
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,400
There's certain steps to the order.
477
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:04,920
But the biggest problem I think most people, most music teachers I've talked to have is
478
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,960
that they think it's one quick fix.
479
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:12,560
They said if I just knew how to get big on social media, or if I could just have one
480
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:20,720
thing go viral, it doesn't work that way because you've seen people go viral and they last
481
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:22,860
for a day and that's it.
482
00:30:22,860 --> 00:30:28,680
You have to have something to take advantage of all these opportunities so that when opportunity
483
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,920
does strike, then you actually can make it work.
484
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:38,800
So marketing is really about crafting a clear message.
485
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:43,460
First of all, so here's, oh, okay, if you want to know the big secret behind marketing,
486
00:30:43,460 --> 00:30:49,000
this is huge, but I didn't understand this until I spent thousands, tens of thousands
487
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:50,440
of dollars.
488
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:58,440
So the whole thing about marketing is about knowing who is your audience first, right?
489
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,720
Specific audience, not multiple audiences.
490
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:01,760
Just one audience.
491
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,040
Make one audience.
492
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,700
Make that your king audience.
493
00:31:05,700 --> 00:31:12,880
Then figuring out what is the offer you're giving them and why is it such a great thing?
494
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,120
And then figure out the messaging around it, how to tell that story.
495
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,960
And most people start with like trying to tell this story, but not being clear about
496
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:21,960
the audience.
497
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,200
So it's like, it doesn't connect, you know?
498
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,640
But when I started teaching, I made Park Slope music lessons.
499
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,080
I said, okay, very clear.
500
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:37,600
My audience is Park Slope parents just like me in my neighborhood, my one zip code.
501
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:38,600
Okay.
502
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,120
I know how to talk to them.
503
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:41,720
Hi, I'm Andrew.
504
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:43,760
I'm a parent just like you.
505
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:49,560
And this is what I'm looking for, helping kids like my son with music.
506
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:54,720
What we do is this and why we do it is this and we do it better because of this and this
507
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,440
is how much it costs.
508
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,240
Book the lesson.
509
00:31:58,240 --> 00:31:59,240
Here's the price.
510
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:00,240
Boom.
511
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:01,240
Right?
512
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:07,000
So it gets to be from audience to offer to message.
513
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:13,040
And when you have like, I've had many teachers say, well, I say, who's your audience?
514
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:14,540
Who's your primary audience?
515
00:32:14,540 --> 00:32:19,400
And they're like, well, I have like one guy, he's 80 years old.
516
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,640
He wants to just play, you know, classical music.
517
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:27,800
And I got three teenagers trying to learn enough to get into college.
518
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:33,120
I have, you know, five kids who are like, you know, two years old and they're, they're
519
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,040
just doing mommy and me.
520
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,440
I'm like, wow, that's like three different audiences, whatever.
521
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:46,280
You really have to pick one and, and actually really just talk about that one.
522
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:47,280
Right.
523
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:52,600
And then you can be clear that when people get to your website or they're people know
524
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:58,480
they're talking about you, it's like, oh, they're talking to me, exactly me.
525
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,760
It's not like, do I fit in this category?
526
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:08,200
If you focus on that singular audience, you will generally find more of their friends
527
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,000
who are just like them.
528
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:11,000
Right.
529
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:12,000
Yeah.
530
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,200
And I want to point out that you have been incredibly successful with this strategy because
531
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,000
Park Slope lessons has how many students now?
532
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,200
We were at 110.
533
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:23,880
And how many teachers?
534
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,680
I'm just hiring a 15th now.
535
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:32,800
Not everybody has a full caseload because it's not, everybody wants a lot of students.
536
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:41,320
They have other gigs somewhere else, but yeah, it's, it's been very, it's been, I'm, I feel
537
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:43,600
humbled and blessed and grateful.
538
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:48,920
I know that there's, you know, a lot of these kids I've worked with them for nine, 10, 15
539
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:50,840
years, and I'm like family to them.
540
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:52,720
They're like family to me.
541
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:57,280
So and then supporting my teachers is, is super important.
542
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:02,800
I spent this whole last week preparing for our recital coming up and we have 76 kids
543
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:03,800
signed up.
544
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:05,800
I'm like, oh my God, it's a long recital.
545
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:11,000
We're going to have a few different concerts.
546
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:15,600
And they're all going to be prerecorded so we can maybe trim some of the dead air time.
547
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:16,600
Right.
548
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:17,600
Good idea.
549
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:23,760
Andrew, we're running out of time, but I wanted to ask you quickly, you know, and this year
550
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:27,360
we have to ask everybody, how has COVID affected you?
551
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,540
And I mean, obviously it's difficult for everyone.
552
00:34:30,540 --> 00:34:33,880
People are dealing with it in different ways as it's been.
553
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:42,960
Yeah, well, I, I feel extremely grateful and fortunate and blessed to not have had anybody
554
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:48,560
I know get seriously sick or die from it.
555
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:58,520
My lessons business, as soon as the city announced that we were going to have shutdowns, I had
556
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,760
a mandatory training for all my teachers on Zoom because I've been using Zoom for years
557
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,080
for music color coaching.
558
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:08,360
So I did a full on training on that.
559
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:13,540
And by the next week, all of our lessons were switched to virtual.
560
00:35:13,540 --> 00:35:21,260
We did lose maybe in the first month, we went down about 30%.
561
00:35:21,260 --> 00:35:27,200
And then we jumped back up to like, maybe like 15% lower.
562
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:32,960
And now I looked at the end of the year, we're really just down 5% overall.
563
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:33,960
Wow.
564
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:34,960
That's great.
565
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,820
I'm very lucky and feel very fortunate.
566
00:35:37,820 --> 00:35:44,920
But also, I think we were prepared for this because my school is a virtual school in that
567
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:50,960
I send teachers to students' homes and they have a very strong bond with these people.
568
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,900
These teachers and students are very bonded.
569
00:35:54,900 --> 00:36:00,440
So moving to a virtual thing feels like, oh, okay, I see you, I know you, right?
570
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:01,440
Yeah.
571
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:06,120
So it's a little easier that I know that some of those big schools that are once a week
572
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,680
in a giant room and with a group class, it's a little harder.
573
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,120
Yeah, certainly group classes for sure.
574
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:19,220
If you had one piece of advice for music teachers, piano teachers, what would your most important
575
00:36:19,220 --> 00:36:21,120
piece of advice be for them?
576
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,440
Besides, by your method, of course.
577
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,060
And a weird shirt.
578
00:36:28,060 --> 00:36:33,440
I would say listen to all kinds of music.
579
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:36,720
I can't stress that enough.
580
00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:43,640
There's so many music teachers who are so fundamentalist almost and purist.
581
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:48,480
It's like nothing but Bach for me.
582
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:55,480
We only do 17th century piano concertos, whatever.
583
00:36:55,480 --> 00:37:03,880
I listen to all kinds of music and I love teaching everything from the guinea pig Olympics
584
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:08,680
to Metallica to Van Halen.
585
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:15,720
When Van Halen died, I was showing some of my students some cool riffs.
586
00:37:15,720 --> 00:37:21,320
And then Beethoven Bach, of course, and all the masters.
587
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:25,160
Listen to all kinds of music and be not afraid to teach it.
588
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:34,480
But I would say that using the timeline of musical history to know when to teach something
589
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,520
is also a useful idea.
590
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:46,440
Young kids need to have consonant sounding things from the classical and Baroque period.
591
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:55,680
You jump too far ahead and you're doing Debussy and all these heavy colored 13th and 11th.
592
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:57,800
It just doesn't make sense.
593
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:04,320
And the same thing from blues to rock to jazz, that kind of thing.
594
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,880
I think that's great advice.
595
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:11,340
We never know what kind of music we're going to be called on to teach in order to be able
596
00:38:11,340 --> 00:38:14,240
to connect with the student.
597
00:38:14,240 --> 00:38:18,200
I completely agree with you, even if it's the guinea pig Olympics.
598
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,760
Have to check it out.
599
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,000
Maybe talk faster on that.
600
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:29,560
Where can we obtain information and inquiry of your method?
601
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,320
So we go to my website.
602
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:33,440
It's a new website.
603
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:38,960
It's www.musiccolormethod.com.
604
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:40,560
And that's with one C in there.
605
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:50,280
So music and it's M-U-S-I-C-O-L-O-R method, no space.com.
606
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:55,760
And I'm going to actually create a coupon code for your audience.
607
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:57,240
Oh wow.
608
00:38:57,240 --> 00:38:59,240
Piano pod 21.
609
00:38:59,240 --> 00:39:00,240
Awesome.
610
00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:01,240
Awesome.
611
00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:02,240
I like that.
612
00:39:02,240 --> 00:39:08,600
Whoever buys our new basic training, which is going to be much more affordable than
613
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:13,480
in the past, will get a special bonus training from me.
614
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:14,600
All right.
615
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:15,600
I might be the best.
616
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:16,600
Great.
617
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:17,600
Thank you so much.
618
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:18,600
All right.
619
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,600
So now the fun segment is here.
620
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:24,000
This is a new segment.
621
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,780
It's called the Piano Pod Rapid Fire Questions.
622
00:39:27,780 --> 00:39:32,960
So we will ask fun questions to you and you just need to give us a short answer for each
623
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:33,960
question.
624
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,040
So make sure it's a short answer.
625
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:37,040
Okay?
626
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,080
I'm more nervous about this than...
627
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:41,080
Don't screw up.
628
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:42,080
It's really important.
629
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:43,080
Yeah, exactly.
630
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:44,080
You can't...
631
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:45,080
The music in the background.
632
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:46,080
Yeah, no wrong answers.
633
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:47,080
All right.
634
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:48,080
Are we ready?
635
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:49,080
Yes.
636
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:50,080
All right.
637
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:51,080
What is your favorite food?
638
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:55,080
Depends on the day of the week.
639
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:56,080
Thai, Korean.
640
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:57,080
All right.
641
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:58,080
Great.
642
00:39:58,080 --> 00:39:59,080
All good choices.
643
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:00,080
Cats or dogs?
644
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:01,080
Cats.
645
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:02,080
All right.
646
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:03,080
Obviously.
647
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:04,080
All right.
648
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:05,080
Next one.
649
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:11,080
What is your word to live by or words?
650
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,080
It's bullions.
651
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,080
Oh, good one.
652
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:16,080
Good one.
653
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:17,080
All right.
654
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:22,080
What is the most important quality you look for in people?
655
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,080
Passion.
656
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,080
Oh, great.
657
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:31,080
What is the worst quality in people you want to stay away from?
658
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,080
Ignorance.
659
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:40,680
So which historic speaker or composer do you want to learn or take lessons from if he or
660
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:42,080
she were alive?
661
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:43,080
Bach.
662
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:44,080
Bach.
663
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:45,080
Woohoo.
664
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:46,080
All right.
665
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,080
Next one.
666
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:48,080
Yep.
667
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:53,080
Which historic figure or composer do you wish to hang out at the bar if he or she were alive?
668
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:57,080
Well, I don't know.
669
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:02,080
It might be someone more like John Coltrane.
670
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,080
All right.
671
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,080
All right.
672
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,080
Name one piece in your current playlist.
673
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,080
One piece.
674
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:14,080
Oh my God.
675
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:20,080
What's the, I can't even remember the names of these songs, but all right, I'll give you
676
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:22,080
one that comes up all the time.
677
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,080
Soy Joe.
678
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:25,080
Okay.
679
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,080
What's a book you're currently reading?
680
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,080
The Promise Land, a Promise Land by Barack Obama.
681
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,080
Oh, yes.
682
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:41,080
And what's your desert island piece that you only get to listen to for the rest of your
683
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:42,080
life?
684
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,080
Oh my God.
685
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,080
Wow.
686
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,080
Heart questions.
687
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:52,080
One piece for the rest of my life?
688
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,080
Uh-huh.
689
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:56,080
Oh, boy.
690
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:01,080
It might be La Mer by Debussy.
691
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:02,080
Oh, I love it.
692
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:03,080
Nice, nice.
693
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:04,080
Beautiful.
694
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:05,080
All right.
695
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:06,080
I think we're going to end it there.
696
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:07,080
We've tortured you enough.
697
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,080
Those are hard.
698
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:10,080
Yeah.
699
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:11,080
Oh, yeah.
700
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,080
That's the whole fun of it.
701
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:15,080
All right, guys.
702
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,080
Well, I think that concludes this episode of the Piano Pod.
703
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,080
Thank you so much, Andrew and Kavette, for joining our program today.
704
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,080
And thank you, as always, to the audience for tuning in to us.
705
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:33,080
We want to remind you guys that the Musicolor method is available on Andrew's website, which
706
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:34,080
is musicolor.com.
707
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,080
The link will be in the description.
708
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:42,080
If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review on whatever podcasting platform
709
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:43,080
you use.
710
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:48,080
If you're watching it from YouTube, please hit the thumbs up button and be sure to subscribe
711
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:49,080
to our channel.
712
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,080
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
713
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,080
The links are in the description below.
714
00:42:55,080 --> 00:43:01,080
If you have feedback for us, please leave it in the comments or DM us via social media.
715
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:07,080
Or you can also email us at thepianopodnyc at gmail.com.
716
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:08,080
All right.
717
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:12,080
Hope to see you for the next episode of the Piano Pod.
718
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:13,080
Bye, everyone.
719
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,080
Thank you.
720
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:15,080
Bye.
721
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:16,080
Bye.
722
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:17,080
Thank you, Andrew.
723
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,080
Thank you, Andrew.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,480
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod.
2
00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:12,840
I am Eric Hunter.
3
00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:14,480
I'm Yukimi Song.
4
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:16,680
And I'm Clara Jones.
5
00:00:16,680 --> 00:00:21,720
If you are just joining us for the first time, the PianoPod is now a bi-monthly podcast
6
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:24,920
where we interview some of the brightest talents in the industry.
7
00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:28,360
Each episode features a guest speaker who's making bold new innovations that have the
8
00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:32,920
potential to change the way we think about piano or even music in general.
9
00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:37,840
Today our guest speaker is Andrew Inkovet, piano teacher, entrepreneur, and the creator
10
00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:40,560
of the revolutionary new music color method.
11
00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:43,200
Andrew, thank you for joining us today.
12
00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:44,200
Thank you so much.
13
00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:45,200
Thank you.
14
00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:46,200
Yay.
15
00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:51,320
Guys, great to see you all on this cold blustery day here in New York City.
16
00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:52,320
Yes.
17
00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:53,320
Yeah, it is brutal outside.
18
00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:57,900
So Andrew, we're going to get into the details in a little bit.
19
00:00:57,900 --> 00:01:01,000
But just very briefly, what is the music color method?
20
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000
What's it about?
21
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:11,200
Music color method is all about giving more access to more kids' music.
22
00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:16,320
So it's an adaptive, inclusive, and fun curriculum.
23
00:01:16,320 --> 00:01:24,700
And we started this in my living room, just me and my son when he started asking for lessons.
24
00:01:24,700 --> 00:01:31,720
And I didn't realize that there was kind of a gap in music education at the time where
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there was really nothing I could find for a pre-literate kid to learn music and enjoy
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music, except for, you know, you have the clap along, sing along kind of things.
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But he got bored of that really fast.
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So this became a homeschooling project that has now been shared with the world.
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That's fantastic.
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And so how does the color portion come into it?
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So color is being used as educational scaffolding.
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So what I mean by that is that we directly label what we want our kids to do.
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So it's putting colors on even our fingertips with washable markers, colors on the keys,
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and then color notation that looks like colored blocks.
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So then it becomes as easy as a color matching game, which any three, four-year-old can do.
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And you don't have to actually say, oh, this is a C and it's below the staff and it's got
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this little line through it.
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And this is called the clap and it's like, what?
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This is very simple.
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You see the red thing is the red key and you have a red finger.
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How many times do we have the red box on the page?
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Oh, there's five.
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That means you play it five times.
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Oh, I get it.
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We can keep going really fast.
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And then we just steer them because they have their own motivation now to practice and they
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can keep going and it's much easier to steer a body in motion than one that is completely
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stalled.
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Right?
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Absolutely.
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Well, I want to ask Andrew, so before you created this color method, which I think it's
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just incredible when you are looking for a teacher or a method for your three-year-old
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son, right?
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Yeah.
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What did you discover or did not discover in terms of like method books?
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Yeah.
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So first of all, I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which is a very child-friendly neighborhood.
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So I figured there's got to be child services here.
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People have probably had this same need.
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So I started just asking other teachers, can I sign up?
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I even met with some famous pianists who were like, oh, we don't take anybody until we're
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teenagers.
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The higher the level of the pianist, it seems like the higher level of the student they
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want.
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So I had gone to school to be a music teacher back at NYU.
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I actually had a scholar in education scholarship, but I never made it my focus.
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So it was just like kind of like telling me, life was telling me to go back and be a teacher.
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And this was a great activity to bond with my son as well.
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So I started looking in the Brooklyn Public Library, they have a massive collection.
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I remember that.
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It's beautiful.
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Too bad we can't get there right now.
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But the so there's tons of method books.
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There's also tons of scores.
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If you ever looking for obscure scores.
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I ordered hundreds of dollars of books on Amazon.
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And the closest I came to was the Suzuki method, which was OK, I see that he's getting kids
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to play first.
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But then there's like almost there's like another gap between playing and reading.
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So I was like, OK, I can try to bridge that.
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And that's when I started playing around with color because I had spent 10 years as a information
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user experience designer doing websites for American Express, Manhattan Bank, all these
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things.
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So, you know, in that world, when you're looking at a screen, where you put a button means
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something, right?
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Everything has a reason to be there's real estate on the screen.
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The same thing on the page.
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Everything on the page has to have a reason to be there.
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Otherwise, why put it there?
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And what I realized from the world of UX design, the more concrete you can have a single audience,
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the more clear your message can be.
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So what my big epiphany was looking at these method books, most of these method books had
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three audiences on the same page.
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It was like notes for the teacher, notes for the parent and then something for the student.
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And even just yesterday, I would have a six year old came over socially distanced mass
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lesson.
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And I begged the parent to please, please bring her in because I'm having a hard time
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with a six year old over the screen.
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And I'm showing her a lesson book.
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I'm not going to mention names.
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And it's a great one.
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I use it for a lot of students.
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And she's looking at the page and there's a teacher's duet.
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And she's like, oh, what the heck is that?
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I don't want to.
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I don't know what that is.
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Yeah, they get intimidated by those.
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And she's just like, I don't want to do that.
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Yeah.
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So that is a big problem.
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I can understand why publishers do that.
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The cost of paper and shipping is very expensive, which is also what I discovered when I started
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making method books myself.
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And I really wanted to stick to this, OK, one page is for the parent or the teacher
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and one page for the kid.
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And then I'm like, oh, my God, I can't fit any more songs because the cost is going to
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be just ridiculous.
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It can be like $50 for my book.
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That's interesting.
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You know, let me interrupt.
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Yeah, I'm just curious because you just mentioned experiences at American Express or whatever.
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And then you have this music educational background at NYU.
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So please tell us about your background.
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It seems like you have many interesting experiences in the past.
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So yeah, it's been a lifetime trying to figure out.
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The best I've come up with is that I've had a wide angle career path with a lot of interests,
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a lot of parallel paths.
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So I went to NYU with a double major in music education and jazz performance.
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I am not really a jazz guy.
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I was a rock maniac.
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I had hair down to my waist.
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I was a heavy metalhead playing guitar.
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But I realized I wanted to learn jazz because, you know, those guys can play anything.
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And I did learn a ton.
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So at the end of the day, I ended up getting very involved with the music business in New
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York City and interning at some amazing places, eventually working on the marketing team that
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brought you artists like Guns N' Roses.
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Tracy Chapman we did.
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We did Anthrax, Megadeth, all these really toxic, syringed bands.
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My first day on the job was going to Metallica backstage and I was like, oh my God.
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Yeah, you can ask my wife about our first date at Metallica.
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I want to hear that story.
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You had a headache.
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And I remember you even working in Hong Kong for a while, right?
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So that led me to actually at that job, I actually was a, I've always been kind of self
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starting and I started learning how to use desktop publishing software.
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And one of my bosses was one of the first Mac guys in New York City.
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So I became the editor of this newsletter that then published our research on heavy
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metal to MTV's Headbangers Ball.
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And that's when I started hanging out with the MTV folks and I started writing scripts
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for them.
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And then I said to them, hey, you know what, I should actually be hosting the show.
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I'm writing the scripts.
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And long story short, it turned into me becoming one of the first VJs when they launched in
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Asia and moved me to Hong Kong.
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So I spent five years in Hong Kong, only one as a VJ, but then I was doing other things.
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I started film scoring while I was there.
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I started doing things with the Mac users group and getting into technology.
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That's when we started an internet marketing business, which led me into that world.
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So it's always been lots of things going on.
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I've also been an actor off Broadway with the Panthers and Reds.
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Oh, I didn't know about that.
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I was in some independent movies and stuff.
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Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of things going on.
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I think at the end of the day, my real reason for being is teaching.
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It took me all those years to have my son say, you know, why don't you teach me?
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See, that's very important, too, right?
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We have children, so yes, I get inspired.
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I changed my life for the better.
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That's really amazing.
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Right.
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And I wanted to jump in and say, I love the story of your career path because it's so
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non-traditional.
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Every bit of it has a role to play, right?
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That's why I love this method so much because coming from this diverse background that is
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very non-traditional, you were able to just step into the piano world and see what was
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out there and see kind of obvious gaps that I think a lot of us have recognized and felt
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for some time.
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I wanted to show everybody what you're talking about before.
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This is the first volume.
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I don't know if this is an older edition.
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Have you put out a new one since then?
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I keep updating minor tweaks, so that's still valid.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So I've been using this with my son, who's five and a half.
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And just to give an example of what you're talking about, here's the first piece in the
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book.
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And for anybody who's watching this on video, you can see it.
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Of course, for audio, I'll describe it.
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But basically, you have the piece laid out in colored blocks and the title and a single
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illustration and that's it.
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There's no extra information to confuse the young student.
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And then on the preceding page, you have the instructions for the parent or the teacher.
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So when you talk about graphic interface and the layout and how much of a difference that
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makes in the way we absorb the information, I mean, it's important at any age, but particularly
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for young kids.
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I've had some feedback where people felt like they didn't get to the reading on the staff
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fast enough.
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And there is a definite reason for that because they're just not ready.
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I mean, the original age group that I wrote this curriculum for was somewhere between
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three and six years old.
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Most of those kids are just not ready to think abstractly like that.
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So it really depends on how old your student is.
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And also, obviously, if they're a prodigy, some gifted Mozart, they can probably jump
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ahead, right?
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But yeah, most kids, if it's too hard, they hit this this hill of like, oh, it's too hard.
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I don't want to do this.
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And then they quit.
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And that's what we're trying to combat.
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We're trying to get them to like, this is fun.
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Every time you come, it's a win.
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And every time you go home, you know exactly what to do without anyone sitting with you.
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And then so then you can keep them for years and years and years.
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Most of my students at Park Slope Music Lessons, my school, stay with us five, ten, even fifteen
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years.
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So my son, as I told you, was the student number one.
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He's now 18 and he's at Brown University.
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So he's no longer a student.
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So that's been a nice long ride.
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So for me, this method is relatively new, right?
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I heard about this recently.
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I want to know what is this color come into?
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Like I mean, like the very specific.
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How does it work exactly?
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Each color represent a different key.
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That's how I just put this rainbow on the keys.
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The only difference I made was I tried to make it from a UX perspective.
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I tried to make it a little bit easier to see the difference between like purple and
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indigo or things like that.
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So I put gray as one of the colors in there.
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And so as we start, kids start to associate.
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OK, C is is red.
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So they can start using that as their visual language to compose immediately.
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And then, you know, when I learned solfege, I always thought of movable dough.
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Oh, actually, let me ask you guys.
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What is it for you?
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Movable or fixed?
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Fixed.
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Fixed.
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Fixed.
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I had to learn both.
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Interesting.
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Because of the way.
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So I just said, who would ever want fixed?
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That's crazy.
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Right.
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Because I don't know.
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I always thought movable just made more sense to me.
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You know, do re mi fa so.
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And I just move it around.
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But then as I started talking to more people and then I started noticing my students, they're
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constantly fixating red as dough and dough as C. And that just makes it easier.
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So I started asking some of the best site readers I know, teachers in my studio, my
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music director at the church, who's an amazing site reader.
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And they said, oh, fixed.
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I'm like, I said, why fixed?
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And they were like, because how can you not have fixed for 20th century music?
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There is no dough.
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You don't even know what dough is.
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Right.
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I was like, ah, that totally makes sense.
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But then it also just makes sense for the kids too now, because I can always sing dough,
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dough de re re.
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And then they know exactly what I'm talking about.
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Right.
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I see.
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So color becomes kind of the substitute for the note.
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But then in your question about keys and phrases, I actually used to use quite a bit this translucent
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colored tape.
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Oh, wow.
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And I've started.
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So for the more advanced kids who start getting onto the staff, I like to show them patterns
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right away.
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So we look at a pattern, say we see the first phrase in the A section and look at this and
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I'll just use any color.
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But then I'll say, where do you see that phrase again?
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And we like translucent colored tape.
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It's like a highlighter, basically.
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I put it there like, oh my God, look at that.
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A section, A section.
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Or this is A1, right?
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So by just having these big blocks of color, you've now organized patterns into chunks.
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And that's all about this pattern recognition that we do.
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That was that has been super successful with.
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That was really clever.
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Andrea, I wanted to ask you, I know Yukimi has some questions she wants to ask you about
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the business of Musicolor and promoting the method.
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But before we get to that, you mentioned scaffolding earlier.
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And I wanted you to talk more about that concept because that was something that I learned
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about when I was in graduate school too.
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And I think it's a really important concept for teaching.
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And also it ties into kind of your philosophy about the method itself.
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So I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about those.
295
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:19,000
Yeah, great, great question, Mike.
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So my wife is a she went to Teachers College, Columbia Teachers College for early childhood
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psychology, developmental psychology.
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So she was always she's always teaching me these terms and things like that.
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That's where I got it too.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You went to Teachers College.
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I went to TC.
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Yeah.
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Fantastic place.
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It is.
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00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:48,040
So scaffolding is if you think about, you know, the buildings that are being built,
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they always build in like a little structure on the outside to help them get the stuff
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up there.
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Right.
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So that's kind of a scaffolding.
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It's kind of a helping tool that is temporary and is then taken away.
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I think about it like when we were teaching Alejandro, my son, to ride a bike, there was
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super expensive wooden bikes around there out on the market, handmade from Netherlands
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for five hundred dollars.
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No pedals.
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Very low to the ground.
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And I saw that and I was like, oh, my God, that is a brilliant use of scaffolding, because
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basically you're getting them to focus only on balance first and then they can do the
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pedaling later.
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Right.
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Once they have the balance.
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So it's the same thing I've applied.
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It's like this is the balance bike method to teaching music on the piano.
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00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:46,520
So first we get them playing and then we get them to start recognizing more abstract concepts
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and then we start teaching them how to read.
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So it's more like a language.
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You know, it's you don't teach kids, you know, grammar in the first language when they're
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learning a foreign language.
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00:19:58,600 --> 00:19:59,600
Yes.
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You're listening, you're speaking back, you're telling stories.
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And then later on, you're like, oh, that's what the word looks like.
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That's how I write it.
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00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:15,480
And there's always a difference in playing level and reading level or speaking level
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and reading level.
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Right.
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So it's much more akin to a language.
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So it's scaffolding is different than some people think of crutches.
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Right.
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Even though crutches can be temporary.
341
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Right.
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00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:36,320
But if you, if you stay too long in your crutches, what happens is like you atrophy.
343
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:37,320
Right.
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00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:42,000
And if you have a broken leg and you never give up that crutch, you'll never actually
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get off the crutch.
346
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Right.
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00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:45,400
So that's the thing.
348
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:50,120
I've had people criticize my colors without even understanding what the philosophy is.
349
00:20:50,120 --> 00:20:52,160
It's just a crutch.
350
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:53,440
They're never going to get off that.
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I was like, no, we have six phases of notation that constantly progress further, further,
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00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:06,200
further so that they are by the time they're done with this, they're on the staff, they're
353
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:10,280
reading sharp signs, they're reading flat signs.
354
00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:13,720
And then the colors just naturally fall away after time.
355
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:14,720
Yeah.
356
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:20,520
I just want to jump in there just to remind people for anybody who's a professional musician
357
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:22,520
who've been reading music all their life.
358
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:26,960
It can, it can be difficult to like put ourselves back in the mind of a child.
359
00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:30,200
Those symbols are actually incredibly abstract.
360
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:36,480
There's nothing about the symbol of a whole note that shows that it's long, you know?
361
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:38,800
It's very, very unintuitive for kids.
362
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:43,880
And that's why I think it requires six phases to like work up to that if you really want
363
00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:49,760
them to be comfortable all along the way, especially since kids don't really read comfortably
364
00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:53,600
until quite a bit older than they can start learning music.
365
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,160
So they call that the curse of knowledge.
366
00:21:56,160 --> 00:22:03,240
And that comes from an economist came up with that term, but it's very, very appropriate
367
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:08,980
to anybody who's coaching or teaching anything in any field.
368
00:22:08,980 --> 00:22:12,980
You forget how hard it was to learn what you know.
369
00:22:12,980 --> 00:22:18,360
And then you start explaining with words that don't even make any sense yet.
370
00:22:18,360 --> 00:22:24,280
You know, it's like you're using your own language to explain a foreign language.
371
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:30,640
So everyone has to be mightily aware of the curse of knowledge.
372
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:37,600
I realized that my training program, the one that Eric, you went through, you can be went
373
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,400
through a little bit, right?
374
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:49,520
It was kind of a brain dump of massive amounts of information, all front loaded.
375
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:54,840
And it's as I was going through it again, because I'm redesigning it now, I'm breaking
376
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:59,880
it into three different levels, basic, advanced and pro.
377
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:08,680
I'm seeing that I didn't follow my own advice that I've been giving to students of this
378
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:13,960
whole growth spiral, which I didn't even talk about yet.
379
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:18,920
But I see it's this whole I was guilty of the curse of knowledge.
380
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:24,360
Okay, you guys all here is a gigantic box of information.
381
00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:25,360
Go figure it out.
382
00:23:25,360 --> 00:23:30,800
I mean, it is a lifetime of information in there, but it could have been presented better.
383
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:36,240
And that's what I'm so excited about right now, because I've really streamlined it.
384
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:41,520
Yeah, there's things that you don't need to know on day one that would be super helpful
385
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,760
on day 30.
386
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:44,760
So that kind of thing.
387
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,520
That's where sequencing comes into play, right?
388
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:48,520
Yes.
389
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:49,520
Great.
390
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:53,640
You know, one of the hat you wear is a businessman.
391
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,600
So I kind of want to ask you about business side of the method.
392
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:05,360
So first question would be, so you chose to do to licensing your method instead of just
393
00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:09,860
selling method books like traditional method does.
394
00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:12,520
So can you explain to us?
395
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,120
Yeah.
396
00:24:14,120 --> 00:24:22,400
So it's it's really because it really does require a complete shift in mindset of like,
397
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:27,240
if I just put out my my my sheet music right now, people are like, what the hell is this?
398
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,600
I don't understand this.
399
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:35,400
And there's like, it would take a long time to explain, even the books that are out now,
400
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,800
they're not really explaining everything.
401
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:44,320
It's just like, like, if you've gone through the program, this is great, because you're
402
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:49,360
like, oh, I have the tools here is already pre printed, it's nicely bound.
403
00:24:49,360 --> 00:24:52,640
And I can just presented to the parents and there's some little tips for the parents to
404
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:54,120
help them.
405
00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:56,040
But there's a whole it's like the tip of the iceberg.
406
00:24:56,040 --> 00:25:04,720
There's a whole gigantic thing that is really a series of mindset shifts, thinking outside
407
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:06,560
the box.
408
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:14,800
So one of my favorite thinkers is he's got this book called Deep Focus.
409
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:15,800
What's his name?
410
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:17,800
I'll get it.
411
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:23,600
Anyway, he was talking about how, you know, getting deep focus work done.
412
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:29,680
And he has another book about so good that you can't ignore you.
413
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:35,640
And I guess you can Google who wrote those books.
414
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:42,240
He was saying that as you get to be an expert in any field or anything you do, you get to
415
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,280
the edge of the world.
416
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:45,280
Right.
417
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:51,020
And that's where you start to see the adjacent opportunities that you would never ever see
418
00:25:51,020 --> 00:25:53,680
until you got to the edge.
419
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:59,640
And I feel fortunate that I've gotten to the edge in many different worlds.
420
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:04,640
Then I could actually say, oh, my God, that idea and that idea, they've never been combined
421
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:05,640
before.
422
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:07,240
Let me pull those in.
423
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:17,760
And that has helped me see a lot of business opportunities that were not available before.
424
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:22,760
Plus I've taken a lot of training, coaching and training.
425
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:28,920
One of my mentors calls it going through the process of putting on the green glasses.
426
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,240
Like all of a sudden you see opportunity everywhere that you never saw before.
427
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:37,160
By the way, I think the author was Cal Newport.
428
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,200
Yes, Cal Newport.
429
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:40,200
Yes.
430
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:42,080
Fantastic.
431
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,680
That guy is brilliant and incredibly productive.
432
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,920
He writes books as he's still a professor somewhere.
433
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,320
And yeah, one of my favorite guys.
434
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,880
It seems like you're selling your textbooks or the method books on Amazon, but you prefer
435
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,240
that teachers would get training from your method.
436
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:07,120
Yeah, actually, that's an announcement that I'm going to make here publicly that those
437
00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:09,280
books are not going to be on Amazon for long.
438
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:17,360
They're going to be pulled because I'm going to have them only for licensed teachers through
439
00:27:17,360 --> 00:27:23,600
my website and you can buy them in bulk at a discounted rate.
440
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:28,640
The other thing is that there is another opportunity for parents out there that's coming.
441
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,160
I can't announce yet.
442
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:31,160
OK.
443
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:32,440
That's exciting.
444
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:33,440
Yes.
445
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:34,440
Great.
446
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:39,280
So how many countries you've reached out?
447
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:44,120
That's it's really hard to tell.
448
00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:50,600
Because using Amazon's distribution network was really surprising.
449
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:56,080
And how many people just discovered me without me ever even knowing.
450
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:03,000
Like about a year ago, I woke up and found in my inbox an article from the Telegraph
451
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,880
UK that was a whole profile on me.
452
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,720
And I was like, how did this happen?
453
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:14,760
And I reached out to the author via Twitter and she was like, oh, thank you so much.
454
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:16,960
I really appreciate the books.
455
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:21,000
And I actually did this with my kids and she wrote about it.
456
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:27,560
And I also have a Spanish version of my first book and that has been selling really well
457
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:32,880
actually in Mexico and South America.
458
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,800
My wife is from Colombia.
459
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:39,240
So I had a lot of help.
460
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,760
Oh, great.
461
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,960
One of my teachers helped me a lot too.
462
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,400
So Amazon was part of the marketing strategy, I guess.
463
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:53,760
That marketing is a whole another ball game even in business.
464
00:28:53,760 --> 00:29:00,160
But everybody has to kind of become a salesperson of your own profession.
465
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:01,760
So what is your strategy?
466
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:08,760
It seems like you have some professional advice, but as much as you can reveal your secret
467
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:10,240
about marketing.
468
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:11,600
Wow.
469
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:19,240
Well, that's a huge question and it's not really a secret.
470
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:32,200
It's just that most people completely, I guess they underestimate what it is to run a business.
471
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:37,060
Marketing should be like 60% of your day's activities.
472
00:29:37,060 --> 00:29:43,600
Even if you're doing something else, like if you're a teacher even.
473
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:50,320
It's the same thing like you're starting a restaurant or something or a bar or something.
474
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:55,160
You should be like working on getting people to taste your food instead of worrying about
475
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,080
how fancy your business card looks, right?
476
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,400
There's certain steps to the order.
477
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:04,920
But the biggest problem I think most people, most music teachers I've talked to have is
478
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,960
that they think it's one quick fix.
479
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:12,560
They said if I just knew how to get big on social media, or if I could just have one
480
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:20,720
thing go viral, it doesn't work that way because you've seen people go viral and they last
481
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:22,860
for a day and that's it.
482
00:30:22,860 --> 00:30:28,680
You have to have something to take advantage of all these opportunities so that when opportunity
483
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,920
does strike, then you actually can make it work.
484
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:38,800
So marketing is really about crafting a clear message.
485
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:43,460
First of all, so here's, oh, okay, if you want to know the big secret behind marketing,
486
00:30:43,460 --> 00:30:49,000
this is huge, but I didn't understand this until I spent thousands, tens of thousands
487
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:50,440
of dollars.
488
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:58,440
So the whole thing about marketing is about knowing who is your audience first, right?
489
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,720
Specific audience, not multiple audiences.
490
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:01,760
Just one audience.
491
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,040
Make one audience.
492
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,700
Make that your king audience.
493
00:31:05,700 --> 00:31:12,880
Then figuring out what is the offer you're giving them and why is it such a great thing?
494
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,120
And then figure out the messaging around it, how to tell that story.
495
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,960
And most people start with like trying to tell this story, but not being clear about
496
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:21,960
the audience.
497
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,200
So it's like, it doesn't connect, you know?
498
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,640
But when I started teaching, I made Park Slope music lessons.
499
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,080
I said, okay, very clear.
500
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:37,600
My audience is Park Slope parents just like me in my neighborhood, my one zip code.
501
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:38,600
Okay.
502
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,120
I know how to talk to them.
503
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:41,720
Hi, I'm Andrew.
504
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:43,760
I'm a parent just like you.
505
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:49,560
And this is what I'm looking for, helping kids like my son with music.
506
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:54,720
What we do is this and why we do it is this and we do it better because of this and this
507
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,440
is how much it costs.
508
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,240
Book the lesson.
509
00:31:58,240 --> 00:31:59,240
Here's the price.
510
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:00,240
Boom.
511
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:01,240
Right?
512
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:07,000
So it gets to be from audience to offer to message.
513
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:13,040
And when you have like, I've had many teachers say, well, I say, who's your audience?
514
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:14,540
Who's your primary audience?
515
00:32:14,540 --> 00:32:19,400
And they're like, well, I have like one guy, he's 80 years old.
516
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,640
He wants to just play, you know, classical music.
517
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:27,800
And I got three teenagers trying to learn enough to get into college.
518
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:33,120
I have, you know, five kids who are like, you know, two years old and they're, they're
519
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,040
just doing mommy and me.
520
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,440
I'm like, wow, that's like three different audiences, whatever.
521
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:46,280
You really have to pick one and, and actually really just talk about that one.
522
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:47,280
Right.
523
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:52,600
And then you can be clear that when people get to your website or they're people know
524
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:58,480
they're talking about you, it's like, oh, they're talking to me, exactly me.
525
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,760
It's not like, do I fit in this category?
526
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:08,200
If you focus on that singular audience, you will generally find more of their friends
527
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,000
who are just like them.
528
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:11,000
Right.
529
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:12,000
Yeah.
530
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,200
And I want to point out that you have been incredibly successful with this strategy because
531
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,000
Park Slope lessons has how many students now?
532
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,200
We were at 110.
533
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:23,880
And how many teachers?
534
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,680
I'm just hiring a 15th now.
535
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:32,800
Not everybody has a full caseload because it's not, everybody wants a lot of students.
536
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:41,320
They have other gigs somewhere else, but yeah, it's, it's been very, it's been, I'm, I feel
537
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:43,600
humbled and blessed and grateful.
538
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:48,920
I know that there's, you know, a lot of these kids I've worked with them for nine, 10, 15
539
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:50,840
years, and I'm like family to them.
540
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:52,720
They're like family to me.
541
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:57,280
So and then supporting my teachers is, is super important.
542
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:02,800
I spent this whole last week preparing for our recital coming up and we have 76 kids
543
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:03,800
signed up.
544
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:05,800
I'm like, oh my God, it's a long recital.
545
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:11,000
We're going to have a few different concerts.
546
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:15,600
And they're all going to be prerecorded so we can maybe trim some of the dead air time.
547
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:16,600
Right.
548
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:17,600
Good idea.
549
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:23,760
Andrew, we're running out of time, but I wanted to ask you quickly, you know, and this year
550
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:27,360
we have to ask everybody, how has COVID affected you?
551
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,540
And I mean, obviously it's difficult for everyone.
552
00:34:30,540 --> 00:34:33,880
People are dealing with it in different ways as it's been.
553
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:42,960
Yeah, well, I, I feel extremely grateful and fortunate and blessed to not have had anybody
554
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:48,560
I know get seriously sick or die from it.
555
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:58,520
My lessons business, as soon as the city announced that we were going to have shutdowns, I had
556
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,760
a mandatory training for all my teachers on Zoom because I've been using Zoom for years
557
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,080
for music color coaching.
558
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:08,360
So I did a full on training on that.
559
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:13,540
And by the next week, all of our lessons were switched to virtual.
560
00:35:13,540 --> 00:35:21,260
We did lose maybe in the first month, we went down about 30%.
561
00:35:21,260 --> 00:35:27,200
And then we jumped back up to like, maybe like 15% lower.
562
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:32,960
And now I looked at the end of the year, we're really just down 5% overall.
563
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:33,960
Wow.
564
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:34,960
That's great.
565
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,820
I'm very lucky and feel very fortunate.
566
00:35:37,820 --> 00:35:44,920
But also, I think we were prepared for this because my school is a virtual school in that
567
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:50,960
I send teachers to students' homes and they have a very strong bond with these people.
568
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,900
These teachers and students are very bonded.
569
00:35:54,900 --> 00:36:00,440
So moving to a virtual thing feels like, oh, okay, I see you, I know you, right?
570
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:01,440
Yeah.
571
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:06,120
So it's a little easier that I know that some of those big schools that are once a week
572
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,680
in a giant room and with a group class, it's a little harder.
573
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,120
Yeah, certainly group classes for sure.
574
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:19,220
If you had one piece of advice for music teachers, piano teachers, what would your most important
575
00:36:19,220 --> 00:36:21,120
piece of advice be for them?
576
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,440
Besides, by your method, of course.
577
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,060
And a weird shirt.
578
00:36:28,060 --> 00:36:33,440
I would say listen to all kinds of music.
579
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:36,720
I can't stress that enough.
580
00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:43,640
There's so many music teachers who are so fundamentalist almost and purist.
581
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:48,480
It's like nothing but Bach for me.
582
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:55,480
We only do 17th century piano concertos, whatever.
583
00:36:55,480 --> 00:37:03,880
I listen to all kinds of music and I love teaching everything from the guinea pig Olympics
584
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:08,680
to Metallica to Van Halen.
585
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:15,720
When Van Halen died, I was showing some of my students some cool riffs.
586
00:37:15,720 --> 00:37:21,320
And then Beethoven Bach, of course, and all the masters.
587
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:25,160
Listen to all kinds of music and be not afraid to teach it.
588
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:34,480
But I would say that using the timeline of musical history to know when to teach something
589
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,520
is also a useful idea.
590
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:46,440
Young kids need to have consonant sounding things from the classical and Baroque period.
591
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:55,680
You jump too far ahead and you're doing Debussy and all these heavy colored 13th and 11th.
592
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:57,800
It just doesn't make sense.
593
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:04,320
And the same thing from blues to rock to jazz, that kind of thing.
594
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,880
I think that's great advice.
595
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:11,340
We never know what kind of music we're going to be called on to teach in order to be able
596
00:38:11,340 --> 00:38:14,240
to connect with the student.
597
00:38:14,240 --> 00:38:18,200
I completely agree with you, even if it's the guinea pig Olympics.
598
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,760
Have to check it out.
599
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,000
Maybe talk faster on that.
600
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:29,560
Where can we obtain information and inquiry of your method?
601
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,320
So we go to my website.
602
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:33,440
It's a new website.
603
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:38,960
It's www.musiccolormethod.com.
604
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:40,560
And that's with one C in there.
605
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:50,280
So music and it's M-U-S-I-C-O-L-O-R method, no space.com.
606
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:55,760
And I'm going to actually create a coupon code for your audience.
607
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:57,240
Oh wow.
608
00:38:57,240 --> 00:38:59,240
Piano pod 21.
609
00:38:59,240 --> 00:39:00,240
Awesome.
610
00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:01,240
Awesome.
611
00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:02,240
I like that.
612
00:39:02,240 --> 00:39:08,600
Whoever buys our new basic training, which is going to be much more affordable than
613
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:13,480
in the past, will get a special bonus training from me.
614
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:14,600
All right.
615
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:15,600
I might be the best.
616
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:16,600
Great.
617
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:17,600
Thank you so much.
618
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:18,600
All right.
619
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,600
So now the fun segment is here.
620
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:24,000
This is a new segment.
621
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,780
It's called the Piano Pod Rapid Fire Questions.
622
00:39:27,780 --> 00:39:32,960
So we will ask fun questions to you and you just need to give us a short answer for each
623
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:33,960
question.
624
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,040
So make sure it's a short answer.
625
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:37,040
Okay?
626
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,080
I'm more nervous about this than...
627
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:41,080
Don't screw up.
628
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:42,080
It's really important.
629
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:43,080
Yeah, exactly.
630
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:44,080
You can't...
631
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:45,080
The music in the background.
632
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:46,080
Yeah, no wrong answers.
633
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:47,080
All right.
634
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:48,080
Are we ready?
635
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:49,080
Yes.
636
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:50,080
All right.
637
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:51,080
What is your favorite food?
638
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:55,080
Depends on the day of the week.
639
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:56,080
Thai, Korean.
640
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:57,080
All right.
641
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:58,080
Great.
642
00:39:58,080 --> 00:39:59,080
All good choices.
643
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:00,080
Cats or dogs?
644
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:01,080
Cats.
645
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:02,080
All right.
646
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:03,080
Obviously.
647
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:04,080
All right.
648
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:05,080
Next one.
649
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:11,080
What is your word to live by or words?
650
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,080
It's bullions.
651
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,080
Oh, good one.
652
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:16,080
Good one.
653
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:17,080
All right.
654
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:22,080
What is the most important quality you look for in people?
655
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,080
Passion.
656
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,080
Oh, great.
657
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:31,080
What is the worst quality in people you want to stay away from?
658
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,080
Ignorance.
659
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:40,680
So which historic speaker or composer do you want to learn or take lessons from if he or
660
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:42,080
she were alive?
661
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:43,080
Bach.
662
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:44,080
Bach.
663
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:45,080
Woohoo.
664
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:46,080
All right.
665
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,080
Next one.
666
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:48,080
Yep.
667
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:53,080
Which historic figure or composer do you wish to hang out at the bar if he or she were alive?
668
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:57,080
Well, I don't know.
669
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:02,080
It might be someone more like John Coltrane.
670
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,080
All right.
671
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,080
All right.
672
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,080
Name one piece in your current playlist.
673
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,080
One piece.
674
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:14,080
Oh my God.
675
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:20,080
What's the, I can't even remember the names of these songs, but all right, I'll give you
676
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:22,080
one that comes up all the time.
677
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,080
Soy Joe.
678
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:25,080
Okay.
679
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,080
What's a book you're currently reading?
680
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,080
The Promise Land, a Promise Land by Barack Obama.
681
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,080
Oh, yes.
682
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:41,080
And what's your desert island piece that you only get to listen to for the rest of your
683
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:42,080
life?
684
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,080
Oh my God.
685
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,080
Wow.
686
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,080
Heart questions.
687
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:52,080
One piece for the rest of my life?
688
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,080
Uh-huh.
689
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:56,080
Oh, boy.
690
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:01,080
It might be La Mer by Debussy.
691
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:02,080
Oh, I love it.
692
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:03,080
Nice, nice.
693
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:04,080
Beautiful.
694
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:05,080
All right.
695
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:06,080
I think we're going to end it there.
696
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:07,080
We've tortured you enough.
697
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,080
Those are hard.
698
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:10,080
Yeah.
699
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:11,080
Oh, yeah.
700
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,080
That's the whole fun of it.
701
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:15,080
All right, guys.
702
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,080
Well, I think that concludes this episode of the Piano Pod.
703
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,080
Thank you so much, Andrew and Kavette, for joining our program today.
704
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,080
And thank you, as always, to the audience for tuning in to us.
705
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:33,080
We want to remind you guys that the Musicolor method is available on Andrew's website, which
706
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:34,080
is musicolor.com.
707
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,080
The link will be in the description.
708
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:42,080
If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review on whatever podcasting platform
709
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:43,080
you use.
710
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:48,080
If you're watching it from YouTube, please hit the thumbs up button and be sure to subscribe
711
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:49,080
to our channel.
712
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,080
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
713
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,080
The links are in the description below.
714
00:42:55,080 --> 00:43:01,080
If you have feedback for us, please leave it in the comments or DM us via social media.
715
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:07,080
Or you can also email us at thepianopodnyc at gmail.com.
716
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:08,080
All right.
717
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:12,080
Hope to see you for the next episode of the Piano Pod.
718
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:13,080
Bye, everyone.
719
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,080
Thank you.
720
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:15,080
Bye.
721
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:16,080
Bye.
722
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:17,080
Thank you, Andrew.
723
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,080
Thank you, Andrew.
