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this computer. All right, this is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host as always,
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Dr. Andy Johnson, and we have a very special, special guest with us today, Mr. Sven Johnson.
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Sven, how are you today? I'm doing great. Am I on video too? Yep, you're on video. Our video has
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started. And I wanted to talk with Sven today because Sven is a unique human being. He's very
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creative and I want to find out a little bit about the creative process. But before we start,
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I have a question for you, Sven. Why is it that you hate people? Whoa, hold on a second. This is
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entrapment. Okay, sorry about that. Why do you kick puppy dogs? So if I answer any version of that
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question, then I fear that it makes it sound like I kick puppy dogs, which I don't. You do? That's
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horrible. I don't. Okay. All right, we're talking about creativity. And I'd be interested in how
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you define creativity because Sven is very creative both in his music, which I think you'll be
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interested to see how it develops, kind of from the inside out, and his YouTube videos, which are
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great. Creativity, it's a type of thinking. And we tend not to address it in schools, but yet it is
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responsible for our greatest human innovations. And one definition is the ability to generate,
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invent, or improve ideas. So Sven, that's Andy, the professor. How would you define creativity?
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What do you think about it? I guess I've never really put it into words or thought of a definition
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myself, but it's just making something that didn't exist before. Pretty easy, pretty in line with
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the definition that you had. As a YouTube person, as an online creator, I guess I am both making
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stuff that hasn't existed before and innovating and capitalizing on trends, especially with age of
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short form content like TikToks, Instagram reels and stuff. Trends are so important, you have to
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hop on something that so many other people are doing and then bring your own little take to it too.
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Here's my version of this joke. Here's my take on this trend. And as a creative person, I've tried
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to be as myself as I can, and not just steal other people's stuff, because I fear creativity is kind
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of lacking in a lot of like, especially video creation nowadays, with the innovation of TikTok.
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There's so many people are rewarded by just making the same exact video without innovating.
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I'm putting it on TikTok. So I've always prided myself in putting my own little spin on stuff.
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And part of creativity though is embellishing or taking an idea or piggybacking on something.
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Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all. If you're bringing your own spin to it,
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or adding your own spin to it. Okay. Well, creativity is a type of problem solving. How can I
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create this mood? How can I write this song? How can I capture this feeling? How can I make a video
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that will make me a million dollars? Solving problems, creating products in ways that are
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unique yet practical is highly, and this is what people forget. It's highly dependent on knowledge.
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You can't be creative in areas that you have no knowledge about. I can't be creative in life
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insurance. I know nothing about it. And creativity is different than being bizarre. So creativity is
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depending on knowledge. Can you tell us about that, your knowledge and how that helps you
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in the creative process? I guess yeah, you said creativity is can't be, can't happen in a vacuum.
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I guess I never really thought about that. I mean, I obviously have to have some knowledge. Like,
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if I'm making a song, I have to know how to use a guitar, play guitar. I have to know how to use
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the digital audio workspace, which is logic that I use, which was the probably the biggest
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knowledge speed bump for me to get over in terms of like, having my creativity come from my brain
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into existence. And that is something that a lot of creative people, I think,
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fear because they just want to do like the artsy stuff where they're just making and then
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creating unimpeded. Yep, like this. But you got to put in the work, you got to have some discipline
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to teach yourself how to use tools. I've got so many friends who are just so stupidly creative.
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But some of them don't have the discipline to like teach themselves a skill like how to use
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logic. Not like I'm even the best at that at all either. But if you really want to take it to the
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next level, you have to do some of the book work. And that's what a lot of creative people, I think,
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are scared to do. It is a, well, come back to that, but it's a process. I like how you say that. It's
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not a drive through experience. And this is the Wallace model. You have to prepare. Let's get
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some, let's get in the idea. Incubation is where the unconscious mind manipulates the problem. And
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that's why, you know, creativity is in a one shot deal. It happens over time. And then the illumination
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where you suddenly see, oh, that's the way this song should be written or this idea. And then
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verification, you evaluate, you see how it is, you test your final product. Do you see some of that
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in the way you create videos and or songs? Yeah, with songs more than videos. Videos just kind
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of happen to me. It seems like I'll just like have a concept and then I'll film it. And I very rarely
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see like an illumination process. For example, with a video nowadays, that could just be because
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because I get way more creative fulfillment from creating music in this period. But
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yeah, I definitely there's a process. You got to prepare. You got to, is this incubate? Never used
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that word before. Incubation. That's right. Bubbling your unconscious mind. Okay, I guess I got to
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prepare an incubate for my videos as well. But yeah, there's definitely a process that you have to
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follow. Yep, you're not doing enough incubating. Paul, Doran said there's four types of creating
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of thinking that goes into creativity, generating a lot of ideas, that's fluency, flexibility,
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generating different types of ideas, elaboration, making things better. That's where you take an
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idea and you elaborate, you make it more detailed and originality, thinking of ideas that no one
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has thought of before. And it's not accidental. It is purposeful, very purposeful. So let me get
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out of that. That's just the academic stuff that people may have interest in. So how let's look
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at your videos first, and then your music, the music is most interesting to me. But tell me
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about the process of your videos, you've been working with your brother for a while.
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Yeah, well, my videos, I noticed you had, I think there was one of your little bullet points on
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your slideshow, on your little slideshow. Since I think fluency, I don't remember which one it was,
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but said have like a wealth of ideas for videos that has always been the case. I learned this
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pretty early on, my brother Gus obviously did videos before me and he was a huge mentor for me
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to start my own YouTube channel. Anytime you have an idea, you have to write it down. That kind of
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needs to take first priority because first of all, you just forget right away if you don't. And the
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second of all, once you have this big list of ideas, you can just return to it in the future
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where it's like, oh boy, it's time to time to make a video. It's been a couple of weeks having
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uploaded on YouTube, just dig into the Idea Bank and you've got I probably have hundreds, if not
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a thousand video ideas in some semblance of, you know, like whether it's a wine or an entire script
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right now. And so that's good to have like a pool to draw from. And then that's a great starting
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point a lot of times. So like usually when I start a video, I'll look into my drafts, I'll pick an
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idea, I'll embellish upon it. And then I will film a lot of my videos aren't scripted though,
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like I'll have a what's called a beat sheet where you have like a couple ideas that you want to
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like hit some main plot points if you even want to dignify my videos by saying they have a plot.
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And then we'll just film with my friends. I'm lucky to have some very creative improvisers as
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friends. And a lot of times when I just have like a rough idea and go into it, the video gets made.
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And so I found some of my best ideas, like you had the picture of the Heyman video,
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a frame from where I'm just like making up nonsense words with my brother and then
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crazy sounds come out. That one was completely improvised. There was no script. That was a
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situation where I didn't even go into my beat sheet. I just filmed with Gus and then we just made
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this up and we're like, what if, you know, cartoony techno techno sounds came out of us when we did
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certain dance moves. And that was one of my most popular series on my channel is just almost pure
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improvisation. So tell me about being around creative people, how that enhances and then
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being around black holes that sucks your soul. Interesting. Creative people are definitely
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interesting. I'm very happy and lucky to have creative friends. Wait, you have friends?
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You're supposed to uplift.
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You're supposed to uplift. You're supposed to tell my mom. Creative friends are great pros and cons
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to every type of friend. I'll start with the pros with my creative friends. Like I said,
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they elevate my projects. I can't do some of the stuff that I do if I didn't have that immense
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collaborative power with some of my most talented friends. Excuse me. A lot of times,
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they bring just a different taste to the project. Videos that I do with some of my
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friends, like especially Joel, my friend Joel Haver, wildly, the guy is just leaking creative.
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He's one of those types of dudes who just can't help it. Every time I collaborate with him,
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the project always takes a very different turn from what I had envisioned, but it's usually good.
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And yeah, I don't know. They're always adding something good to the project. One con and this
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isn't all of my creative friends, but I've noticed creative friends are some of the least organized
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people in my life. So if you ever have a due date or be here at 4.30, most of my friends aren't
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going to be there until 5.30 at least. And it's just everything is a lot looser. I think that
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might have something to do with the fact that ADD and ADHD are maybe, I don't know if comorbid is
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the right word, but. Oh, what did you learn that word? My uncle Andy. I learned that in psychology.
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Actually, I'm a psychology minor, don't you know? I don't know. Anyway, I've learned that ADHD is
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kind of comorbid with creativity. And so I think a lot of my creative friends just kind of get
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distracted by stuff in their life. And then timelines and due dates are a little harder for
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them to keep in mind. And that's one thing I try to be cognizant of as well. Cognizant, very good.
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Oh, yeah. Cognizant, I'm expanding my vocabulary. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
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You're good. It's hard to adhere to a schedule for a lot of these, a lot of my friends. So
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I try to be the best in that way. Okay. What gets in the way of creativity?
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Like any period in my life when I'm like, if you ever down, if you're depressed,
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it's hard to be creative. It's hard to like put new, especially like, well, for the term,
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for the stuff that I do, it's harder to be creative because I mostly make silly funny jokes on the
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internet. Just stupid stuff. And if like you're ever like feeling down on yourself, it's hard to
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try to be on camera. But music has been a great outlet for that too. Because like sometimes,
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like if you're not feeling like super happy, you just make an emo song as you like to call them.
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And then I can change the world with my emo music. So it's good to have two different
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outlets for that for when I'm in like either mood. There is a certain joyfulness of creativity,
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a certain playfulness. And you're when you're with people you like, when you're happy, you feel good,
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you just seem to be funny all the time. Yeah. When I'm with you and Gus, my wife says I revert to
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my 12 year old self. I'm a different person when I'm around you guys because I like you, sadly enough.
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And you guys are funny and you make me want to be silly. And it's just this goofiness.
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So you talked about schedule, you know, you're out there in Hollywood, living the dream.
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What the hell is your daily schedule like? Oh boy. I try to keep the schedule as much as possible.
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It's really hard. Even if you wouldn't have had this interview today, I probably would have slept
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until 10 and then wake up at 10. And I have this is like the most routine that I've added to my life
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in the last few months. So I'll go out and I have a rule if I want to be on my phone in the morning,
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I can't do it in my bed. I have to go do it in my backyard. So I can get like the light,
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the sunlight in my photo receptors in my eyes and then it wakes me up and then I don't feel like a
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piece of garbage. I'll go back in the yard and do my daily stretches in the morning for like 10
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minutes and then just kind of take it in, take in the sunlight because it's always sunny in LA,
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which is also another fortunate thing. Then I come in, eat breakfast and then I go to the gym,
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shower and then I usually start my day around noon or one in terms of doing work. Work can be
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anything from filming and uploading a video. Recently, since I've been getting into short
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four more like TikToks, like I say, I try to get up about four or five videos a week. So that's a
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big routine thing for me. I'll come back and I'll just pull through my drafts, you know, my list of
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ideas, film something that I think is good and those take a lot shorter to film and edit and then
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I'll edit it, upload it and at that point it's I'm kind of a free agent. I'll maybe go golfing
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with my buddies. I'll excuse me if I don't have plans, work on some more music. I've got a list
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right now where I'm trying to get at least one song either started or finished or make big progress
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on it in a week because I'm trying to also get an album out. So I've got my life works in terms of
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like due dates that I impose on myself. My short term daily due dates of like TikTok uploads,
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my weekly to bi-weekly due dates of a YouTube upload and then right now in the next month,
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I'm really trying to get this album out. I've been working on it for about a year or two.
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And so I'm imposing stricter due dates with like music stuff like that.
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Okay, that's good. Yeah, I mean that's it. That's pretty much.
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That's a good transition into the music part. But how many hours a day would you generally work?
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Would you say? Oh man, it's so tough for me because even when I'm not working, I feel the stress of my
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job because my job is kind of as much work as I put in. Your job. Yeah, my job. What I get out of it
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is kind of dependent on how much I put in to some extent. So I feel like I always should be working
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and I'm frequently stressed because of that. And I don't, I'm not the hardest worker. I know that.
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I'm trying to figure out how to be my own boss with zero schedule in my life. I found that like
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having some little pieces of schedule help line up everything else. So I go to volleyball, open gym
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once a week and my lifting, like going to the gym is like another routine thing to kind of like
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line up everything else. I've had part-time jobs too and creative fields as like a pitch writer
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for a larger YouTube channel that helps like keep all the rest of my stuff in line. But yeah.
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There is something about routine that enables you to free yourself. So you're not having to think
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about daily stuff as much as you're able to think and expand. All right. Well, I'm interested in how
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you write music. And I come from a background where to write music, you have theory and you know about
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keys and chords and signatures and time things. And there's a staff, a treble clef and a bass
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clef and you use a pencil and you write notes on the page. You write notes and then people see your
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notes and they play them. And when I asked Sven about such things, he said, I couldn't believe he
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was writing music but wasn't putting any pencils to page. What the hell? How do you get your ideas
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and how do you write music? Well, that's a very good question. This might be a visual aid necessary
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conversation. So do you mind if I see if I can share my screen with you? Okay.
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Because like I say, or like you say, I don't have much knowledge in terms of like the language.
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I don't know music theory. I don't know what I'm doing with like time signatures. I can kind of
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figure out for the most part. I've been around music most of my life. I've been a band and choir.
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And I've absorbed a lot of baseline knowledge about music there. But I don't know first thing
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about like traditional music theory or anything. So I'll show you my digital audio workspace logic
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here if I can. Do you know how to share a video on this? I don't know how to share a video but you
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can share your screen. Yeah, that's what I hear. Yeah. There you go. And you get an idea. Say you
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get an idea, a writing idea, a music idea. How do you capture that idea? That's another good question.
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Same as like the video idea thing. The second I have like a melody coming to my head or
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like a line that would be good for a song. I just write it down or I go into my phone and I record
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it in the voice recorder app. And a lot of times I write it down. How do you write it down without
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having notation? Write down a line. That's what I'm saying. Like if I have like a something that's like
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a lyric. Yeah. Okay. A lyric. Like I canceled all my other dates through their numbers all away.
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That's what that's like a line that I wrote down and I embellished upon it later that day and I made
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a song out of it. Do you start with melody or sound or chords or do you start with lyrics or does it
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change? It can work both ways. With that example that I showed you, I believe I've shown you this
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before. But like I'll take you through my project on Zoom here if that's all right.
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That specific song started with just that lyric that I told you. It was just that one line and then
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I was trying to like put a little melody to it and I just figured you know.
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And then I developed a melody. Once I had that I came back and then I put chords around that melody
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just to like make that little catchy interval fit. And then once I had the hook, which is like the
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harmony or the chorus and that melody and that line and the chords then I built the rest of the
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song around it. Most of my songwriting process starts with the chorus or the hook. So let me see
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if I can show you here. Here's the song I wrote the other day. This is one of the instances.
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Can you see my screen here? Yep. And you're still able to hear me. That's good. Okay. Yep.
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This is one of the instances where a lot of hard work paid off and I was able to make this song
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so quickly because I've been working and studying logic, which is this program for
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a couple of years now, a year or two. And my knowledge of just general music production has
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increased so much over the last year specifically as I've self taught myself how to use this by
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just watching videos online. I made this entire song tonight. And you can see there's a lot that
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goes into a into one song because as I expand this, these are all separate instruments. And I'll
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show you what that sounds like here. But there's vocals, there's guitars, there's synthesizers,
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there's MIDI drums and stuff. This was all born from that one lyric that you asked me about.
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Just I canceled all my other days through their numbers all the way. Did you play just the vocals?
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Start with the vocals. I'll play just the vocals here. Yeah, I'll show you what like a little track
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like this sounds like. I'll take you to the hook. This is what I told you about this is that little
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snippet. Oh wait, sorry, that's the guitars. Did you hear that though? No. Okay, here.
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And there might be an issue. Bear with me for one second.
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Share sound, that's what I wanted to do.
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Sorry for the dead air. That's okay. That's not a radio.
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All right. Okay, can you hear this?
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Nope.
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Darn it. That's all right. It might not work. I've had issues sharing audio in the past, but
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the visual cue is or the visual aid is somewhat helpful too. Yep. This is how my logic program
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works. It's super easy to do stuff in it because like I say, you don't need to know music theory.
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You don't need to know how a time signature works, all that stuff. I can just take my microphone and
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I can record each one of these tracks that I highlight here is a different audio recording.
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These are all my vocals in this folder here. There's, you can see 10 tracks. I was just able to just
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have stuff come out of my brain into the program. And then if I wanted to record some, here I've
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got a synthesizer here. Look at this. This is a perfect example of me not having to know
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how music theory works because there's a tool in this program that I can pull this up and then it
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puts it into a piano score right there for me. So I can have all the music if I want it to then
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give this to someone who knows traditional music and play it. I could just print this out. I could
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give it to them. But with my limited knowledge of music theory, that's not a barrier for me at all.
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Here's the drum track. You can also put that in notation if you like. Yeah, that is really interesting.
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Yeah. And so what about the guitar one? Can you put that? Now that's a, and if you might be able to,
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but I'm not, I probably know 20% of what this program has to even offer. I said right now,
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I don't know of a way that you can. Okay. Do you play your own guitar? I do. Yeah. So this song
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is very acoustic guitar heavy and then like rock sound heavy. So I was able to play the acoustic
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guitar for a lot of the verses. Like this would be a verse right here, this yellow section I
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highlighted. And then in the, in the hook, there's some light acoustic guitar, but then I added a
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lot of like MIDI synthesizer stuff here to really give it like a heavier sound. And that's just like
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a combination of instruments that I figured out after years of tweak or tooling around in logic
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and garage band. For the bass, you use a synthesizer and it gives you a string bass sound. Is that
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how? Yes. This is, this is the string bass right here. And it sounds like I can go in this program
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and then choose from all sorts of different basses. So like I chose the liver pool bass,
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but there's muted bass, pick bass, all these options on the left here. And that's just,
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you know, in one category, there's all these drum kits, guitars. And you use a keyboard to do the
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bass? Yep. So this is how MIDI works is I just hook it up to my electric keyboard that I have
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sitting right next to me here actually. Got a shirt on it right now. Yep. I see it. And then
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you can just do whatever you want. So I'm like, I'm able to play a thousand different instruments
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by only knowing one, the piano, because I can just hook it up to my computer and then rip,
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which is so valuable to me because I can fill out an entire like musical landscape with very
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limited knowledge. I could play a little bit of guitar and a little bit of piano, but my brain
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is able to work unimpeded. What do the vocals look like, the score for the vocals? The vocals,
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I mean, again, with most audio tracks in this, there's not a way that I know of to like transpose
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it or what's the word, just put it into musical notation. Okay. But these are all my vocal tracks
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here, these highlighted ones that you see. At the end, I've got one, two, three, four, five, six,
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seven, eight, nine, and then 10 here with these two backup vocals, 10 vocal tracks going at the
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same time. I've learned this is a strategy to make your vocals sound like really unified and
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distinct and it really makes the project sound great. You're double tracking, meaning you're
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on each one? Very good. Andy, good job, Gold Star. What's interesting is when we think of the Beatles
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back in the 60s, you've got more power on your dinky little thing than they had back then.
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I was watching the Beatles documentary get back on Disney Plus the other day,
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and it's about them recording their final studio album, getting ready for a show, and they brought
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in an eight track recording device from George Harrison's home studio. And that was a big deal.
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If you could have eight tracks in a song, record a bunch of different stuff simultaneously,
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that's drum, guitar, bass, a few vocal tracks, and then you get some extra stuff to work with.
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That was a big deal. Look at this. I got here on my project, 38 tracks, and I'm just some kids
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sitting in his bedroom. The tools are so much more accessible and so much wildly powerful
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nowadays. So much more. Why do you double track your vocals? Good question. That's double tracking
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is a technique where you can see like, here's two orange tracks. It's the same exact vocal line
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for these orange tracks. So it's the same melody, harmony, blah, blah, blah. But one of them, I pan
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all the way to the left ear and when I pan all the way to the right ear. That way it's like two
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different people speaking in each different ear. That adds so much more of a fullness to the sound.
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And it, like I say, it helps you understand, helps the listener understand what I'm saying,
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because you get more consonants, just more notes. So I've got like, here's the orange is going to be
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the melody. The green is like the low harmony, dark green is high harmony. And then these blue
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tracks down here are like the backup vocals. And how do you know what harmonies, how do you know what
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notes to sing with the harmonies? How do you know what sounds good together? This is another example
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of me being really lucky to have had so many experiences. So I am at the point where I can
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just pull from past experiences. I haven't lived in a vacuum my whole life and I can create, I can
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innovate because I was in choir for most of my life in college was, I was in a very good college
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choir. And that was maybe one of the biggest things that brought my musical understanding to the next
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level. It took me about four years to learn how to read music to some extent, and I've forgotten
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that, but I'm a big ear listener. And so just like listening to how different chords locked in
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in choir, and how like, you know, music flowed, I just absorbed a lot of that knowledge. So I'm
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at the point now where if I hear a good melody, I can just a lot of times on the spot as it's
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happening make up a harmony that sounds good. And then, yeah, I make the, I make the harmony on the
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spot basically, and then I can tweak it. Here's a tool that you might want to see this. This isn't
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exactly like the, what's the word for scoring? This isn't like the scoring that you saw where
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there's like notes on the staff. But each vocal line you can see here, you're not going to hear it
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because of, because of the audio issue. But these are the notes that I'm singing. So after I record
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something, if it's not exactly what I want, I can tweak this and go, does I can't set all my other
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days through my numbers all the way? If I want this to go up to here, then I can bring up there.
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And then it'll, it will play that back in the recording as me having sung that note.
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It's hard to like kind of visualize, but Mr. Smarty pants, I want to, you said something,
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I want to put you to a test. I'm going to sing a melody and I want you to sing a harmony with it.
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Okay. Okay. Just be a short one.
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I saw you standing alone without you dreaming my heart without a love of my own. Okay.
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An easy third of just blue moon. You saw me standing alone. That really sounds shitty.
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It's not good over the zoom. Yeah.
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Have you been lying to me? That sounds horrible. No, no, no. If we were a person that would sound
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beautiful, you really put me on the spot there and I delivered. Oh, your emo music,
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your emo music. Oh, I don't know your career. Oh, that's horrible. My career was ruined on
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the Andy Johnson reading podcast. It's called the reading instruction show with Dr. Andy Johnson.
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Sorry. Yep. And I want you to know I get tens of listeners. Whoa. Not up to the dozens, Eshalon yet?
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Tens means 20, 30 or 40. Okay. No, I attract some listeners. I have an audience, nothing like you,
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who probably get more listeners in one silly podcast, Wiggling Your Hips, and I get in five
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years of podcasts. But that's a statement on our culture, isn't it? What is the statement?
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People would rather engage in a tall skinny man wearing diapers than a short bald man talking
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about things that impact society. Oh, yeah, likely. Yep. On the shallows. All right. Well,
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I'm getting bored with you now. Can you turn off your screen or take that away? Yep.
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Because I want to... All right. This is the big finish. This is where you say something significant.
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Tell them how much that I write your material because I am a registered
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comedologist. Oh. And because of the people in this room right now, raise your hand if you
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were voted class clown. That proves it. Darn it. Mandy's got that one accolade to hold over my head.
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I've been doing it for how many years now? As long as I can remember about...
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Ever since you remembered, that has been something that you bring up to me.
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And this is something you told me. Jokes get funnier if you tell them many, many times.
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Didn't say that either. Like 27th time. It's just funnier than the 26th.
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Andy's going... There's a quote. I don't know who said it, but
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my brother Gus will say it all the time. Quantity is a quality in and of itself.
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So that's what Andy's relying on for his humor. Yes. Quantity. Very good. Speaking of humor,
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I'm doing Dancing with the Stars here in Mankato on February 10th. If you're listening
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from Mankato, there are tickets still available. Okay. And it's for the Red Cross. And you can
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make a donation for poor people. Remember poor people? I do. Yeah. So is that a yes or you're
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going to make a donation? Oh, I can make a donation. Oh, man. What time is it? 9.36. I really got to be
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going. All right, sirs. Thank you. This has actually been pretty good. I loved it. It went
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better than I thought it would. Wow. You must have had pretty low hopes for it. Well, I didn't get to
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show you my song. Next time when you figure out how to do, you know, to share, that is still
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intrigues me and that would be really good. Sure thing. Well, yeah, it was a breeze doing this
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podcast. So I hope it does well. Thanks for having me, Andy. You're welcome.
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this computer. All right, this is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host as always,
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Dr. Andy Johnson, and we have a very special, special guest with us today, Mr. Sven Johnson.
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Sven, how are you today? I'm doing great. Am I on video too? Yep, you're on video. Our video has
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started. And I wanted to talk with Sven today because Sven is a unique human being. He's very
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creative and I want to find out a little bit about the creative process. But before we start,
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I have a question for you, Sven. Why is it that you hate people? Whoa, hold on a second. This is
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entrapment. Okay, sorry about that. Why do you kick puppy dogs? So if I answer any version of that
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question, then I fear that it makes it sound like I kick puppy dogs, which I don't. You do? That's
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horrible. I don't. Okay. All right, we're talking about creativity. And I'd be interested in how
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you define creativity because Sven is very creative both in his music, which I think you'll be
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interested to see how it develops, kind of from the inside out, and his YouTube videos, which are
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great. Creativity, it's a type of thinking. And we tend not to address it in schools, but yet it is
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responsible for our greatest human innovations. And one definition is the ability to generate,
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invent, or improve ideas. So Sven, that's Andy, the professor. How would you define creativity?
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What do you think about it? I guess I've never really put it into words or thought of a definition
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myself, but it's just making something that didn't exist before. Pretty easy, pretty in line with
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the definition that you had. As a YouTube person, as an online creator, I guess I am both making
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stuff that hasn't existed before and innovating and capitalizing on trends, especially with age of
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short form content like TikToks, Instagram reels and stuff. Trends are so important, you have to
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hop on something that so many other people are doing and then bring your own little take to it too.
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Here's my version of this joke. Here's my take on this trend. And as a creative person, I've tried
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to be as myself as I can, and not just steal other people's stuff, because I fear creativity is kind
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of lacking in a lot of like, especially video creation nowadays, with the innovation of TikTok.
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There's so many people are rewarded by just making the same exact video without innovating.
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I'm putting it on TikTok. So I've always prided myself in putting my own little spin on stuff.
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And part of creativity though is embellishing or taking an idea or piggybacking on something.
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Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all. If you're bringing your own spin to it,
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or adding your own spin to it. Okay. Well, creativity is a type of problem solving. How can I
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create this mood? How can I write this song? How can I capture this feeling? How can I make a video
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that will make me a million dollars? Solving problems, creating products in ways that are
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unique yet practical is highly, and this is what people forget. It's highly dependent on knowledge.
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You can't be creative in areas that you have no knowledge about. I can't be creative in life
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insurance. I know nothing about it. And creativity is different than being bizarre. So creativity is
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depending on knowledge. Can you tell us about that, your knowledge and how that helps you
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in the creative process? I guess yeah, you said creativity is can't be, can't happen in a vacuum.
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I guess I never really thought about that. I mean, I obviously have to have some knowledge. Like,
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if I'm making a song, I have to know how to use a guitar, play guitar. I have to know how to use
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the digital audio workspace, which is logic that I use, which was the probably the biggest
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knowledge speed bump for me to get over in terms of like, having my creativity come from my brain
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into existence. And that is something that a lot of creative people, I think,
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fear because they just want to do like the artsy stuff where they're just making and then
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creating unimpeded. Yep, like this. But you got to put in the work, you got to have some discipline
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to teach yourself how to use tools. I've got so many friends who are just so stupidly creative.
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But some of them don't have the discipline to like teach themselves a skill like how to use
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logic. Not like I'm even the best at that at all either. But if you really want to take it to the
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next level, you have to do some of the book work. And that's what a lot of creative people, I think,
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are scared to do. It is a, well, come back to that, but it's a process. I like how you say that. It's
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not a drive through experience. And this is the Wallace model. You have to prepare. Let's get
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some, let's get in the idea. Incubation is where the unconscious mind manipulates the problem. And
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that's why, you know, creativity is in a one shot deal. It happens over time. And then the illumination
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where you suddenly see, oh, that's the way this song should be written or this idea. And then
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verification, you evaluate, you see how it is, you test your final product. Do you see some of that
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in the way you create videos and or songs? Yeah, with songs more than videos. Videos just kind
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of happen to me. It seems like I'll just like have a concept and then I'll film it. And I very rarely
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see like an illumination process. For example, with a video nowadays, that could just be because
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because I get way more creative fulfillment from creating music in this period. But
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yeah, I definitely there's a process. You got to prepare. You got to, is this incubate? Never used
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that word before. Incubation. That's right. Bubbling your unconscious mind. Okay, I guess I got to
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prepare an incubate for my videos as well. But yeah, there's definitely a process that you have to
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follow. Yep, you're not doing enough incubating. Paul, Doran said there's four types of creating
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of thinking that goes into creativity, generating a lot of ideas, that's fluency, flexibility,
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generating different types of ideas, elaboration, making things better. That's where you take an
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idea and you elaborate, you make it more detailed and originality, thinking of ideas that no one
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has thought of before. And it's not accidental. It is purposeful, very purposeful. So let me get
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out of that. That's just the academic stuff that people may have interest in. So how let's look
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at your videos first, and then your music, the music is most interesting to me. But tell me
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about the process of your videos, you've been working with your brother for a while.
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Yeah, well, my videos, I noticed you had, I think there was one of your little bullet points on
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your slideshow, on your little slideshow. Since I think fluency, I don't remember which one it was,
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but said have like a wealth of ideas for videos that has always been the case. I learned this
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pretty early on, my brother Gus obviously did videos before me and he was a huge mentor for me
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to start my own YouTube channel. Anytime you have an idea, you have to write it down. That kind of
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needs to take first priority because first of all, you just forget right away if you don't. And the
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second of all, once you have this big list of ideas, you can just return to it in the future
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where it's like, oh boy, it's time to time to make a video. It's been a couple of weeks having
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uploaded on YouTube, just dig into the Idea Bank and you've got I probably have hundreds, if not
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a thousand video ideas in some semblance of, you know, like whether it's a wine or an entire script
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right now. And so that's good to have like a pool to draw from. And then that's a great starting
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point a lot of times. So like usually when I start a video, I'll look into my drafts, I'll pick an
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idea, I'll embellish upon it. And then I will film a lot of my videos aren't scripted though,
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like I'll have a what's called a beat sheet where you have like a couple ideas that you want to
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like hit some main plot points if you even want to dignify my videos by saying they have a plot.
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And then we'll just film with my friends. I'm lucky to have some very creative improvisers as
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friends. And a lot of times when I just have like a rough idea and go into it, the video gets made.
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And so I found some of my best ideas, like you had the picture of the Heyman video,
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a frame from where I'm just like making up nonsense words with my brother and then
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crazy sounds come out. That one was completely improvised. There was no script. That was a
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situation where I didn't even go into my beat sheet. I just filmed with Gus and then we just made
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this up and we're like, what if, you know, cartoony techno techno sounds came out of us when we did
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certain dance moves. And that was one of my most popular series on my channel is just almost pure
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improvisation. So tell me about being around creative people, how that enhances and then
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being around black holes that sucks your soul. Interesting. Creative people are definitely
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interesting. I'm very happy and lucky to have creative friends. Wait, you have friends?
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You're supposed to uplift.
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You're supposed to uplift. You're supposed to tell my mom. Creative friends are great pros and cons
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to every type of friend. I'll start with the pros with my creative friends. Like I said,
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they elevate my projects. I can't do some of the stuff that I do if I didn't have that immense
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collaborative power with some of my most talented friends. Excuse me. A lot of times,
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they bring just a different taste to the project. Videos that I do with some of my
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friends, like especially Joel, my friend Joel Haver, wildly, the guy is just leaking creative.
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He's one of those types of dudes who just can't help it. Every time I collaborate with him,
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the project always takes a very different turn from what I had envisioned, but it's usually good.
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And yeah, I don't know. They're always adding something good to the project. One con and this
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isn't all of my creative friends, but I've noticed creative friends are some of the least organized
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people in my life. So if you ever have a due date or be here at 4.30, most of my friends aren't
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going to be there until 5.30 at least. And it's just everything is a lot looser. I think that
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might have something to do with the fact that ADD and ADHD are maybe, I don't know if comorbid is
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the right word, but. Oh, what did you learn that word? My uncle Andy. I learned that in psychology.
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Actually, I'm a psychology minor, don't you know? I don't know. Anyway, I've learned that ADHD is
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kind of comorbid with creativity. And so I think a lot of my creative friends just kind of get
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distracted by stuff in their life. And then timelines and due dates are a little harder for
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them to keep in mind. And that's one thing I try to be cognizant of as well. Cognizant, very good.
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Oh, yeah. Cognizant, I'm expanding my vocabulary. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
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You're good. It's hard to adhere to a schedule for a lot of these, a lot of my friends. So
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I try to be the best in that way. Okay. What gets in the way of creativity?
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Like any period in my life when I'm like, if you ever down, if you're depressed,
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it's hard to be creative. It's hard to like put new, especially like, well, for the term,
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for the stuff that I do, it's harder to be creative because I mostly make silly funny jokes on the
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internet. Just stupid stuff. And if like you're ever like feeling down on yourself, it's hard to
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try to be on camera. But music has been a great outlet for that too. Because like sometimes,
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like if you're not feeling like super happy, you just make an emo song as you like to call them.
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And then I can change the world with my emo music. So it's good to have two different
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outlets for that for when I'm in like either mood. There is a certain joyfulness of creativity,
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a certain playfulness. And you're when you're with people you like, when you're happy, you feel good,
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you just seem to be funny all the time. Yeah. When I'm with you and Gus, my wife says I revert to
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my 12 year old self. I'm a different person when I'm around you guys because I like you, sadly enough.
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And you guys are funny and you make me want to be silly. And it's just this goofiness.
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So you talked about schedule, you know, you're out there in Hollywood, living the dream.
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What the hell is your daily schedule like? Oh boy. I try to keep the schedule as much as possible.
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It's really hard. Even if you wouldn't have had this interview today, I probably would have slept
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until 10 and then wake up at 10. And I have this is like the most routine that I've added to my life
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in the last few months. So I'll go out and I have a rule if I want to be on my phone in the morning,
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I can't do it in my bed. I have to go do it in my backyard. So I can get like the light,
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the sunlight in my photo receptors in my eyes and then it wakes me up and then I don't feel like a
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piece of garbage. I'll go back in the yard and do my daily stretches in the morning for like 10
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minutes and then just kind of take it in, take in the sunlight because it's always sunny in LA,
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which is also another fortunate thing. Then I come in, eat breakfast and then I go to the gym,
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shower and then I usually start my day around noon or one in terms of doing work. Work can be
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anything from filming and uploading a video. Recently, since I've been getting into short
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four more like TikToks, like I say, I try to get up about four or five videos a week. So that's a
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big routine thing for me. I'll come back and I'll just pull through my drafts, you know, my list of
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ideas, film something that I think is good and those take a lot shorter to film and edit and then
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I'll edit it, upload it and at that point it's I'm kind of a free agent. I'll maybe go golfing
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with my buddies. I'll excuse me if I don't have plans, work on some more music. I've got a list
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right now where I'm trying to get at least one song either started or finished or make big progress
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on it in a week because I'm trying to also get an album out. So I've got my life works in terms of
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like due dates that I impose on myself. My short term daily due dates of like TikTok uploads,
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my weekly to bi-weekly due dates of a YouTube upload and then right now in the next month,
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I'm really trying to get this album out. I've been working on it for about a year or two.
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And so I'm imposing stricter due dates with like music stuff like that.
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Okay, that's good. Yeah, I mean that's it. That's pretty much.
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That's a good transition into the music part. But how many hours a day would you generally work?
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Would you say? Oh man, it's so tough for me because even when I'm not working, I feel the stress of my
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job because my job is kind of as much work as I put in. Your job. Yeah, my job. What I get out of it
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is kind of dependent on how much I put in to some extent. So I feel like I always should be working
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and I'm frequently stressed because of that. And I don't, I'm not the hardest worker. I know that.
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I'm trying to figure out how to be my own boss with zero schedule in my life. I found that like
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having some little pieces of schedule help line up everything else. So I go to volleyball, open gym
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once a week and my lifting, like going to the gym is like another routine thing to kind of like
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line up everything else. I've had part-time jobs too and creative fields as like a pitch writer
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for a larger YouTube channel that helps like keep all the rest of my stuff in line. But yeah.
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There is something about routine that enables you to free yourself. So you're not having to think
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about daily stuff as much as you're able to think and expand. All right. Well, I'm interested in how
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you write music. And I come from a background where to write music, you have theory and you know about
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keys and chords and signatures and time things. And there's a staff, a treble clef and a bass
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clef and you use a pencil and you write notes on the page. You write notes and then people see your
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notes and they play them. And when I asked Sven about such things, he said, I couldn't believe he
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was writing music but wasn't putting any pencils to page. What the hell? How do you get your ideas
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and how do you write music? Well, that's a very good question. This might be a visual aid necessary
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conversation. So do you mind if I see if I can share my screen with you? Okay.
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Because like I say, or like you say, I don't have much knowledge in terms of like the language.
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I don't know music theory. I don't know what I'm doing with like time signatures. I can kind of
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figure out for the most part. I've been around music most of my life. I've been a band and choir.
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And I've absorbed a lot of baseline knowledge about music there. But I don't know first thing
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about like traditional music theory or anything. So I'll show you my digital audio workspace logic
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here if I can. Do you know how to share a video on this? I don't know how to share a video but you
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can share your screen. Yeah, that's what I hear. Yeah. There you go. And you get an idea. Say you
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get an idea, a writing idea, a music idea. How do you capture that idea? That's another good question.
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Same as like the video idea thing. The second I have like a melody coming to my head or
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like a line that would be good for a song. I just write it down or I go into my phone and I record
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it in the voice recorder app. And a lot of times I write it down. How do you write it down without
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having notation? Write down a line. That's what I'm saying. Like if I have like a something that's like
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a lyric. Yeah. Okay. A lyric. Like I canceled all my other dates through their numbers all away.
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That's what that's like a line that I wrote down and I embellished upon it later that day and I made
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a song out of it. Do you start with melody or sound or chords or do you start with lyrics or does it
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change? It can work both ways. With that example that I showed you, I believe I've shown you this
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before. But like I'll take you through my project on Zoom here if that's all right.
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That specific song started with just that lyric that I told you. It was just that one line and then
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I was trying to like put a little melody to it and I just figured you know.
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And then I developed a melody. Once I had that I came back and then I put chords around that melody
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just to like make that little catchy interval fit. And then once I had the hook, which is like the
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harmony or the chorus and that melody and that line and the chords then I built the rest of the
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song around it. Most of my songwriting process starts with the chorus or the hook. So let me see
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if I can show you here. Here's the song I wrote the other day. This is one of the instances.
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Can you see my screen here? Yep. And you're still able to hear me. That's good. Okay. Yep.
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This is one of the instances where a lot of hard work paid off and I was able to make this song
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so quickly because I've been working and studying logic, which is this program for
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a couple of years now, a year or two. And my knowledge of just general music production has
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increased so much over the last year specifically as I've self taught myself how to use this by
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just watching videos online. I made this entire song tonight. And you can see there's a lot that
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goes into a into one song because as I expand this, these are all separate instruments. And I'll
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show you what that sounds like here. But there's vocals, there's guitars, there's synthesizers,
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there's MIDI drums and stuff. This was all born from that one lyric that you asked me about.
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Just I canceled all my other days through their numbers all the way. Did you play just the vocals?
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Start with the vocals. I'll play just the vocals here. Yeah, I'll show you what like a little track
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like this sounds like. I'll take you to the hook. This is what I told you about this is that little
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snippet. Oh wait, sorry, that's the guitars. Did you hear that though? No. Okay, here.
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And there might be an issue. Bear with me for one second.
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Share sound, that's what I wanted to do.
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Sorry for the dead air. That's okay. That's not a radio.
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All right. Okay, can you hear this?
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Nope.
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Darn it. That's all right. It might not work. I've had issues sharing audio in the past, but
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the visual cue is or the visual aid is somewhat helpful too. Yep. This is how my logic program
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works. It's super easy to do stuff in it because like I say, you don't need to know music theory.
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You don't need to know how a time signature works, all that stuff. I can just take my microphone and
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I can record each one of these tracks that I highlight here is a different audio recording.
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These are all my vocals in this folder here. There's, you can see 10 tracks. I was just able to just
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have stuff come out of my brain into the program. And then if I wanted to record some, here I've
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got a synthesizer here. Look at this. This is a perfect example of me not having to know
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how music theory works because there's a tool in this program that I can pull this up and then it
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puts it into a piano score right there for me. So I can have all the music if I want it to then
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give this to someone who knows traditional music and play it. I could just print this out. I could
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give it to them. But with my limited knowledge of music theory, that's not a barrier for me at all.
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Here's the drum track. You can also put that in notation if you like. Yeah, that is really interesting.
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Yeah. And so what about the guitar one? Can you put that? Now that's a, and if you might be able to,
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but I'm not, I probably know 20% of what this program has to even offer. I said right now,
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I don't know of a way that you can. Okay. Do you play your own guitar? I do. Yeah. So this song
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is very acoustic guitar heavy and then like rock sound heavy. So I was able to play the acoustic
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guitar for a lot of the verses. Like this would be a verse right here, this yellow section I
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highlighted. And then in the, in the hook, there's some light acoustic guitar, but then I added a
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lot of like MIDI synthesizer stuff here to really give it like a heavier sound. And that's just like
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a combination of instruments that I figured out after years of tweak or tooling around in logic
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and garage band. For the bass, you use a synthesizer and it gives you a string bass sound. Is that
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how? Yes. This is, this is the string bass right here. And it sounds like I can go in this program
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and then choose from all sorts of different basses. So like I chose the liver pool bass,
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but there's muted bass, pick bass, all these options on the left here. And that's just,
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you know, in one category, there's all these drum kits, guitars. And you use a keyboard to do the
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bass? Yep. So this is how MIDI works is I just hook it up to my electric keyboard that I have
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sitting right next to me here actually. Got a shirt on it right now. Yep. I see it. And then
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you can just do whatever you want. So I'm like, I'm able to play a thousand different instruments
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by only knowing one, the piano, because I can just hook it up to my computer and then rip,
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which is so valuable to me because I can fill out an entire like musical landscape with very
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limited knowledge. I could play a little bit of guitar and a little bit of piano, but my brain
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is able to work unimpeded. What do the vocals look like, the score for the vocals? The vocals,
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I mean, again, with most audio tracks in this, there's not a way that I know of to like transpose
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it or what's the word, just put it into musical notation. Okay. But these are all my vocal tracks
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here, these highlighted ones that you see. At the end, I've got one, two, three, four, five, six,
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seven, eight, nine, and then 10 here with these two backup vocals, 10 vocal tracks going at the
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same time. I've learned this is a strategy to make your vocals sound like really unified and
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distinct and it really makes the project sound great. You're double tracking, meaning you're
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on each one? Very good. Andy, good job, Gold Star. What's interesting is when we think of the Beatles
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back in the 60s, you've got more power on your dinky little thing than they had back then.
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I was watching the Beatles documentary get back on Disney Plus the other day,
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and it's about them recording their final studio album, getting ready for a show, and they brought
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in an eight track recording device from George Harrison's home studio. And that was a big deal.
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If you could have eight tracks in a song, record a bunch of different stuff simultaneously,
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that's drum, guitar, bass, a few vocal tracks, and then you get some extra stuff to work with.
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That was a big deal. Look at this. I got here on my project, 38 tracks, and I'm just some kids
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sitting in his bedroom. The tools are so much more accessible and so much wildly powerful
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nowadays. So much more. Why do you double track your vocals? Good question. That's double tracking
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is a technique where you can see like, here's two orange tracks. It's the same exact vocal line
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for these orange tracks. So it's the same melody, harmony, blah, blah, blah. But one of them, I pan
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all the way to the left ear and when I pan all the way to the right ear. That way it's like two
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different people speaking in each different ear. That adds so much more of a fullness to the sound.
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And it, like I say, it helps you understand, helps the listener understand what I'm saying,
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because you get more consonants, just more notes. So I've got like, here's the orange is going to be
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the melody. The green is like the low harmony, dark green is high harmony. And then these blue
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tracks down here are like the backup vocals. And how do you know what harmonies, how do you know what
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notes to sing with the harmonies? How do you know what sounds good together? This is another example
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of me being really lucky to have had so many experiences. So I am at the point where I can
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just pull from past experiences. I haven't lived in a vacuum my whole life and I can create, I can
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innovate because I was in choir for most of my life in college was, I was in a very good college
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choir. And that was maybe one of the biggest things that brought my musical understanding to the next
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level. It took me about four years to learn how to read music to some extent, and I've forgotten
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that, but I'm a big ear listener. And so just like listening to how different chords locked in
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in choir, and how like, you know, music flowed, I just absorbed a lot of that knowledge. So I'm
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at the point now where if I hear a good melody, I can just a lot of times on the spot as it's
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happening make up a harmony that sounds good. And then, yeah, I make the, I make the harmony on the
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spot basically, and then I can tweak it. Here's a tool that you might want to see this. This isn't
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exactly like the, what's the word for scoring? This isn't like the scoring that you saw where
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there's like notes on the staff. But each vocal line you can see here, you're not going to hear it
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because of, because of the audio issue. But these are the notes that I'm singing. So after I record
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something, if it's not exactly what I want, I can tweak this and go, does I can't set all my other
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days through my numbers all the way? If I want this to go up to here, then I can bring up there.
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And then it'll, it will play that back in the recording as me having sung that note.
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It's hard to like kind of visualize, but Mr. Smarty pants, I want to, you said something,
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I want to put you to a test. I'm going to sing a melody and I want you to sing a harmony with it.
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Okay. Okay. Just be a short one.
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I saw you standing alone without you dreaming my heart without a love of my own. Okay.
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An easy third of just blue moon. You saw me standing alone. That really sounds shitty.
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It's not good over the zoom. Yeah.
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Have you been lying to me? That sounds horrible. No, no, no. If we were a person that would sound
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beautiful, you really put me on the spot there and I delivered. Oh, your emo music,
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your emo music. Oh, I don't know your career. Oh, that's horrible. My career was ruined on
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the Andy Johnson reading podcast. It's called the reading instruction show with Dr. Andy Johnson.
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Sorry. Yep. And I want you to know I get tens of listeners. Whoa. Not up to the dozens, Eshalon yet?
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Tens means 20, 30 or 40. Okay. No, I attract some listeners. I have an audience, nothing like you,
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who probably get more listeners in one silly podcast, Wiggling Your Hips, and I get in five
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years of podcasts. But that's a statement on our culture, isn't it? What is the statement?
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People would rather engage in a tall skinny man wearing diapers than a short bald man talking
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about things that impact society. Oh, yeah, likely. Yep. On the shallows. All right. Well,
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I'm getting bored with you now. Can you turn off your screen or take that away? Yep.
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Because I want to... All right. This is the big finish. This is where you say something significant.
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Tell them how much that I write your material because I am a registered
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comedologist. Oh. And because of the people in this room right now, raise your hand if you
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were voted class clown. That proves it. Darn it. Mandy's got that one accolade to hold over my head.
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I've been doing it for how many years now? As long as I can remember about...
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Ever since you remembered, that has been something that you bring up to me.
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And this is something you told me. Jokes get funnier if you tell them many, many times.
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Didn't say that either. Like 27th time. It's just funnier than the 26th.
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Andy's going... There's a quote. I don't know who said it, but
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my brother Gus will say it all the time. Quantity is a quality in and of itself.
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So that's what Andy's relying on for his humor. Yes. Quantity. Very good. Speaking of humor,
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I'm doing Dancing with the Stars here in Mankato on February 10th. If you're listening
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from Mankato, there are tickets still available. Okay. And it's for the Red Cross. And you can
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make a donation for poor people. Remember poor people? I do. Yeah. So is that a yes or you're
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going to make a donation? Oh, I can make a donation. Oh, man. What time is it? 9.36. I really got to be
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going. All right, sirs. Thank you. This has actually been pretty good. I loved it. It went
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better than I thought it would. Wow. You must have had pretty low hopes for it. Well, I didn't get to
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show you my song. Next time when you figure out how to do, you know, to share, that is still
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intrigues me and that would be really good. Sure thing. Well, yeah, it was a breeze doing this
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podcast. So I hope it does well. Thanks for having me, Andy. You're welcome.
