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Welcome to the PianoPod.
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I'm Yukimi Song.
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I'm Eric Hunter.
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And I'm Clara Zhang.
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Welcome to our introductory episode.
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And I'm the owner and director at Yukimi Song Studio, a private piano studio based in New
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York City.
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We have my friend Clara Zhang, who is also a piano instructor and owner and director
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at Rational Music Studios, and Eric Hunter, who is also a piano teacher, composer, and
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owner director at Hunter Music Studio.
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And both are also based in New York City.
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Hi guys.
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So before we officially take off next week's our first guest, we wanted to just to give
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you an introductory video where we want to introduce you who we are and also why we do
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this podcasting show.
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So Clara, you want to go first?
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Sure.
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Tell us who you are and what you do.
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Okay, great.
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Thank you so much, Yukimi.
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So hello everyone.
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My name is Clara Zhang.
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I'm a classical concert pianist and as you said, owner and the founder of Rational Music
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Studios based in New York City, Upper East Side.
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We opened the studio in 2012, and we have students aged 3 to 81 and from all around
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New York.
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And since March of this year, the whole studio has transformed into an online teaching and
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it's been going great, actually.
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So I just want to tell you a little bit of myself and why I joined these two amazing
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people on this podcast journey.
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So originally, I grew up in China, mainland China, and I started training when I was three
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years old.
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And my grandmother gave me a little keyboard and I just fell in love with it.
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And I had this vision that one day I'm going to use music to brighten up the world.
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And that's what I have been doing.
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And throughout the years, I went to the conservatory in China for a little bit and I moved to the
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US and so the training was a little different from most pianists because I went to the university
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and learned a lot of different things.
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So I was always very interested in psychology, philosophy, and the science on top of playing
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piano.
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So when I moved to New York City and opened up my studio, I met lovely Kimi and Eric and
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we had this open forum and we talked about how we teach piano and how as piano teacher
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nerds we really want to dive deep, see how can we help our students and ourselves as
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performers.
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And so that's how we all met up.
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And then recently when we all started teaching online, Kimi had this brilliant idea and she
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invited the first guest and a psychologist.
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And I was so intrigued by that idea.
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So that's how we got started.
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And I believe, really truly believe that with all of our energy and all the expertise from
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all these upcoming guests, we're going to make this piano teaching a really fun place
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for us all.
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So thank you so much.
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Great.
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I will hand the mic to Eric.
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Yeah.
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Thank you, Clara.
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That was very, very interesting.
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And I really can't wait to start working with you very soon.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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So Eric, so can you introduce yourself to us?
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Definitely.
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Thank you, Kimi.
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Thank you, Clara.
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So my name is Eric Hunter.
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I am also a pianist and teacher based in New York City.
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So composer.
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You can hear some of my works at erichuntersmusic.com.
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I've been living here for about 10 years now.
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Living all ages, performing locally, and developing my composition career.
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A few years ago, I felt that I needed to get in touch with more piano teachers because
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I was working in isolation like we often tend to do.
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And I wanted to know what everybody else was up to.
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And I wanted to balance my ideas off of other piano teachers.
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I also felt like as a teacher, I needed to do that in order to continue to develop and
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grow.
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So I started a program called Open Forum, which Clara mentioned, which is very simple.
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We just meet once a month at talk shop.
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And that's where I met Kimi and Clara.
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And we developed into great friends.
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And I respect their opinions very much.
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And so when Kimi came to us with this idea recently to start a podcast where we talk
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about everything related to piano, I thought it was great.
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And I wanted to come on board.
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Wonderful.
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Thank you so much.
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And thank you both of you for saying yes when I brought this idea.
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So I really appreciate it.
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I really trust your expertise and all of your past experiences.
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And also trust our friendship that we kind of grew together over the several years in
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the past.
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So I'm very getting excited.
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So speaking of that, so I really wanted to share this with you why I came up with the
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idea of podcasting.
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Let me just go back several months ago.
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I had several piano students who are kind of going through this transition from being
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elementary school students to teenagers.
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And they were kind of going through this performance anxiety because they were involved in piano
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competitions and so many other performance opportunities.
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And I really wanted to help them.
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And I did my best.
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You know, I have been teaching piano lessons for 20 years.
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And I'm myself a piano performer.
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So I kind of know how to deal with my nervousness and anxiety.
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However, just wanted to kind of Google a little bit more and then kind of get more concrete,
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more detailed kind of information and kind of wanted to talk to an expert.
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So I Googled and I came across with this article which was published three years ago on Klavier
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Companions.
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And then the article was talking about this one, three actually performance coaches.
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And one of them whose name is Dr. John Skidmore, who happens to be our first guest of this
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show.
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And I just had to Google him and then I had to kind of get in touch with him.
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And he was very graciously replied to my email.
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And then he also happened to kind of Google me and found my another podcast that I am
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actually doing for my own piano studio.
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It's called Conversation with a Piano Student.
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So in that episode, in that show, I actually invite my students to talk about their piano
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journey and everything.
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So then Dr. Skidmore wanted to be the guest of that podcast.
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However, I told him, I said, well, let's just not limit ourselves in that podcasting show.
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But let me talk to my really dearest friends, Eric and Clara, if they would be on board
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and interested.
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So that's how I actually brought the thing about podcasting.
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So yeah.
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What do you think, Eric?
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What's the, what are we doing this?
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What's the vision here?
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Yeah.
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Well, we're all very excited to be here.
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And yeah, so we talked about it some more.
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And basically, you know, a few months ago when the pandemic starting, it was a very
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scary time for all of us, for everybody in the music and entertainment industries.
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You know, everything just got turned upside down and job security is a big question now.
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And we realized basically, in order to survive, we're going to have to adapt and continue
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to evolve.
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And so I felt that it was really important to have a community in order to be able to
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support each other, which we already have through open forum a little bit.
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And we see this as a way to reach out to many different pianists of all ages, students,
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teachers, and even parents of students, potentially across the world.
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So that's really what we're trying to do.
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We're trying to bring community and like you mentioned at one point, we want to be a kind
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of pub or coffee shop where people can discuss all different ideas related to playing and
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teaching.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Yeah, we bring guests to kind of shake up the world, you know, like new ideas.
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But basically, obviously, we are teaching something traditional.
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We're not trying to break that or we're not trying to be disrespectful of that.
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But we can also have this more modern and contemporary approach to something old and
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something that we can kind of relate to because we're not from 300 years ago, obviously.
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This is the year 2020.
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And obviously, this, especially this year changed the way we communicate to each other.
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Everything has really changed.
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So I think this platform gives us kind of things to kind of discuss without judgment
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and bring topics that are really shocking to us.
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Exactly.
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Absolutely.
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There's also just a lot of new opportunities available now because of the nature of everything
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being online.
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For example, the three of us are all based in New York and Dr. Skidmore is based mainly
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in Utah.
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That's true.
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So we might not have had any contact with him naturally before this.
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But because everything is online now, it's the most natural thing just to reach out,
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send an email, bring them in on Zoom, and then we can offer this content to you, our
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viewers.
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And his content is really incredible.
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We're all super excited for this first episode.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I'm so excited for it.
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Clara, anything?
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Yeah.
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I just want to say, you know, it's something I couldn't even imagine when I was younger.
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I was always sort of like a book nerd.
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And when I was in the conservatory the first year, 11, 12 years old, living in a dorm with
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all these pianos, I was really just into psychology.
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And I remember climbing up the stairs of this library to find this one book and then has
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to have translated and all that.
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And now, you know, Dr. Skimmer was so amazing and he met us.
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And just imagine how many other more experts that, you know, we have all these hosts lined
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up and everybody's so interested.
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And the students too, a lot of the students, 35 years old, you know, I had them start using
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iPad.
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Now they're all experts with Zoom lessons.
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So I think we literally we're living in the best time of our, you know, of the year.
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So 2020 may be something to be grateful for.
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Sure.
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Definitely.
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Thank you.
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So that's what we are here.
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That's why we're here.
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And that's what we're trying to do.
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So I wanted to announce you.
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So our first guest, like I said, it's going to be Dr. John Skidmore.
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He's a psychologist.
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He's a performance coach.
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He himself is a musician.
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He's a singer, I think.
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And he currently lives in Utah.
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And we had this interview a couple of weeks ago and we're in the process of editing and
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about to publish on YouTube, as well as we're trying to do broadcast it on Facebook Live
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and as well as Instagram TV.
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So stay tuned.
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Then the first part of the interview will be available on September 8th, which is Tuesday,
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right after Labor Day weekend.
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So please stay tuned.
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So this is it.
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So this concludes the introduction of our podcast.
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And thank you so much, everyone, for watching or listening.
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And if you enjoyed today's episode, you can hit the thumbs up button down below and be
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sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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If you have any feedback for us, you can email us at the pianopadnyc at gmail.com or you
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can leave a comment on this video.
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Thank you.
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Great.
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So please tune in on September 8th, Tuesday for our first episode of the Piano Con.
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See you then, everyone.
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Welcome to the PianoPod.
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I'm Yukimi Song.
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I'm Eric Hunter.
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And I'm Clara Zhang.
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Welcome to our introductory episode.
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And I'm the owner and director at Yukimi Song Studio, a private piano studio based in New
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York City.
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We have my friend Clara Zhang, who is also a piano instructor and owner and director
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at Rational Music Studios, and Eric Hunter, who is also a piano teacher, composer, and
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owner director at Hunter Music Studio.
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And both are also based in New York City.
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Hi guys.
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So before we officially take off next week's our first guest, we wanted to just to give
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you an introductory video where we want to introduce you who we are and also why we do
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this podcasting show.
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So Clara, you want to go first?
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Sure.
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Tell us who you are and what you do.
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Okay, great.
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Thank you so much, Yukimi.
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So hello everyone.
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My name is Clara Zhang.
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I'm a classical concert pianist and as you said, owner and the founder of Rational Music
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Studios based in New York City, Upper East Side.
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We opened the studio in 2012, and we have students aged 3 to 81 and from all around
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New York.
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And since March of this year, the whole studio has transformed into an online teaching and
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it's been going great, actually.
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So I just want to tell you a little bit of myself and why I joined these two amazing
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people on this podcast journey.
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So originally, I grew up in China, mainland China, and I started training when I was three
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years old.
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And my grandmother gave me a little keyboard and I just fell in love with it.
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And I had this vision that one day I'm going to use music to brighten up the world.
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And that's what I have been doing.
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And throughout the years, I went to the conservatory in China for a little bit and I moved to the
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US and so the training was a little different from most pianists because I went to the university
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and learned a lot of different things.
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So I was always very interested in psychology, philosophy, and the science on top of playing
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piano.
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So when I moved to New York City and opened up my studio, I met lovely Kimi and Eric and
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we had this open forum and we talked about how we teach piano and how as piano teacher
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nerds we really want to dive deep, see how can we help our students and ourselves as
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performers.
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And so that's how we all met up.
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And then recently when we all started teaching online, Kimi had this brilliant idea and she
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invited the first guest and a psychologist.
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And I was so intrigued by that idea.
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So that's how we got started.
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And I believe, really truly believe that with all of our energy and all the expertise from
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all these upcoming guests, we're going to make this piano teaching a really fun place
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for us all.
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So thank you so much.
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Great.
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I will hand the mic to Eric.
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Yeah.
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Thank you, Clara.
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That was very, very interesting.
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And I really can't wait to start working with you very soon.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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So Eric, so can you introduce yourself to us?
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Definitely.
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Thank you, Kimi.
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Thank you, Clara.
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So my name is Eric Hunter.
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I am also a pianist and teacher based in New York City.
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So composer.
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You can hear some of my works at erichuntersmusic.com.
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I've been living here for about 10 years now.
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Living all ages, performing locally, and developing my composition career.
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A few years ago, I felt that I needed to get in touch with more piano teachers because
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I was working in isolation like we often tend to do.
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And I wanted to know what everybody else was up to.
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And I wanted to balance my ideas off of other piano teachers.
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I also felt like as a teacher, I needed to do that in order to continue to develop and
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grow.
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So I started a program called Open Forum, which Clara mentioned, which is very simple.
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We just meet once a month at talk shop.
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And that's where I met Kimi and Clara.
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And we developed into great friends.
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And I respect their opinions very much.
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And so when Kimi came to us with this idea recently to start a podcast where we talk
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about everything related to piano, I thought it was great.
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And I wanted to come on board.
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Wonderful.
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Thank you so much.
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And thank you both of you for saying yes when I brought this idea.
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So I really appreciate it.
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I really trust your expertise and all of your past experiences.
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And also trust our friendship that we kind of grew together over the several years in
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the past.
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So I'm very getting excited.
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So speaking of that, so I really wanted to share this with you why I came up with the
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idea of podcasting.
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Let me just go back several months ago.
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I had several piano students who are kind of going through this transition from being
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elementary school students to teenagers.
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And they were kind of going through this performance anxiety because they were involved in piano
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competitions and so many other performance opportunities.
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And I really wanted to help them.
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And I did my best.
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You know, I have been teaching piano lessons for 20 years.
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And I'm myself a piano performer.
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So I kind of know how to deal with my nervousness and anxiety.
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However, just wanted to kind of Google a little bit more and then kind of get more concrete,
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more detailed kind of information and kind of wanted to talk to an expert.
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So I Googled and I came across with this article which was published three years ago on Klavier
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Companions.
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And then the article was talking about this one, three actually performance coaches.
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And one of them whose name is Dr. John Skidmore, who happens to be our first guest of this
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show.
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And I just had to Google him and then I had to kind of get in touch with him.
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And he was very graciously replied to my email.
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And then he also happened to kind of Google me and found my another podcast that I am
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actually doing for my own piano studio.
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It's called Conversation with a Piano Student.
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So in that episode, in that show, I actually invite my students to talk about their piano
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journey and everything.
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So then Dr. Skidmore wanted to be the guest of that podcast.
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However, I told him, I said, well, let's just not limit ourselves in that podcasting show.
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But let me talk to my really dearest friends, Eric and Clara, if they would be on board
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and interested.
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So that's how I actually brought the thing about podcasting.
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So yeah.
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What do you think, Eric?
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What's the, what are we doing this?
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What's the vision here?
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Yeah.
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Well, we're all very excited to be here.
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And yeah, so we talked about it some more.
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And basically, you know, a few months ago when the pandemic starting, it was a very
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scary time for all of us, for everybody in the music and entertainment industries.
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You know, everything just got turned upside down and job security is a big question now.
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And we realized basically, in order to survive, we're going to have to adapt and continue
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to evolve.
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And so I felt that it was really important to have a community in order to be able to
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support each other, which we already have through open forum a little bit.
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And we see this as a way to reach out to many different pianists of all ages, students,
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teachers, and even parents of students, potentially across the world.
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So that's really what we're trying to do.
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We're trying to bring community and like you mentioned at one point, we want to be a kind
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of pub or coffee shop where people can discuss all different ideas related to playing and
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teaching.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Yeah, we bring guests to kind of shake up the world, you know, like new ideas.
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But basically, obviously, we are teaching something traditional.
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We're not trying to break that or we're not trying to be disrespectful of that.
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But we can also have this more modern and contemporary approach to something old and
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something that we can kind of relate to because we're not from 300 years ago, obviously.
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This is the year 2020.
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And obviously, this, especially this year changed the way we communicate to each other.
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Everything has really changed.
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So I think this platform gives us kind of things to kind of discuss without judgment
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and bring topics that are really shocking to us.
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Exactly.
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Absolutely.
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There's also just a lot of new opportunities available now because of the nature of everything
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being online.
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For example, the three of us are all based in New York and Dr. Skidmore is based mainly
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in Utah.
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That's true.
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So we might not have had any contact with him naturally before this.
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But because everything is online now, it's the most natural thing just to reach out,
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send an email, bring them in on Zoom, and then we can offer this content to you, our
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viewers.
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And his content is really incredible.
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We're all super excited for this first episode.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I'm so excited for it.
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Clara, anything?
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Yeah.
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I just want to say, you know, it's something I couldn't even imagine when I was younger.
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I was always sort of like a book nerd.
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And when I was in the conservatory the first year, 11, 12 years old, living in a dorm with
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all these pianos, I was really just into psychology.
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And I remember climbing up the stairs of this library to find this one book and then has
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to have translated and all that.
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And now, you know, Dr. Skimmer was so amazing and he met us.
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And just imagine how many other more experts that, you know, we have all these hosts lined
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up and everybody's so interested.
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And the students too, a lot of the students, 35 years old, you know, I had them start using
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iPad.
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Now they're all experts with Zoom lessons.
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So I think we literally we're living in the best time of our, you know, of the year.
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So 2020 may be something to be grateful for.
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Sure.
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Definitely.
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Thank you.
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So that's what we are here.
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That's why we're here.
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And that's what we're trying to do.
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So I wanted to announce you.
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So our first guest, like I said, it's going to be Dr. John Skidmore.
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He's a psychologist.
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He's a performance coach.
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He himself is a musician.
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He's a singer, I think.
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And he currently lives in Utah.
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And we had this interview a couple of weeks ago and we're in the process of editing and
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about to publish on YouTube, as well as we're trying to do broadcast it on Facebook Live
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and as well as Instagram TV.
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So stay tuned.
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Then the first part of the interview will be available on September 8th, which is Tuesday,
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right after Labor Day weekend.
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So please stay tuned.
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So this is it.
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So this concludes the introduction of our podcast.
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And thank you so much, everyone, for watching or listening.
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And if you enjoyed today's episode, you can hit the thumbs up button down below and be
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sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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If you have any feedback for us, you can email us at the pianopadnyc at gmail.com or you
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can leave a comment on this video.
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Thank you.
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Great.
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So please tune in on September 8th, Tuesday for our first episode of the Piano Con.
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See you then, everyone.
