The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 188 Drew Forde: The Extra-Classical Musician

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Explore the future of classical music, dive into industry growth, and redefine your role as a musician with Drew Forde, That Viola Kid. Drew shares insights on navigating the classical music industry's business landscape, sparking creativity through music education, and much more. Join the journey of growth in the creator economy and discover the limitless possibilities in the world of music. Book your free consultation with Renée HERE Download the transcript from this episode HERE     MORE ABOUT DREW FORDE – THAT VIOLA KID: Website: https://thatviolakid.com/ Drew's Newsletter – Grace Notes: https://thatviolakid.com/gracenotes YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf25l5VFL3N20nH7L2gZeqQ   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThatViolaKid Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatviolakid X: https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2FThatViolaKid Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/ohsnapitstvk Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ohsnapitstvk   Mind Over Finger Click www.mindoverfinger.com/coaching to book your free consultation with me. Visit MindOverFinger.com for my online courses as well as free resources on peak performance. Connect: https://www.youtube.com/@MindOverFinger https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfinger https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme:  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson.

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast, episode 188. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. René-Paul Gaultier. Hello everyone, I hope you're doing amazingly well. Today, get ready for an incredible ride with a true creative powerhouse. Drew Ford, the genius behind That Viola Kid on Instagram, is with us. Drew is not only an accomplished performer, but also one of classical music's most recognizable personalities. He's been recognized

by outlets like Thrillist and Strings Magazines, and he earned the title One of the Titans of Classical Music Instagram from National Sawdust Log. As the creator of the hip-hop string quartet Whole Soul, Drew pushes the boundaries of string playing. In the realm of popular music, he's shared the stage with A-listers like Adele, Alicia Keys, and Kanye West. He's a very active recording artist, having contributed to the Beatles' final song, Now and Then, and John Legend's Grammy-winning album, Bigger Love, among many other projects. And his playing is featured in major motion picture soundtracks like Avatar, The Way of Water, and TV streaming series such as Stargirl and Fargo. Drew is a very versatile artist, and his diverse collaborations include

artists like Mac Miller, Hozier, and John Legend. In our conversation, we're diving deep into the world of today's music, talking about everything from creativity and growth in the industry to how musicians can expand their roles. If you've ever wondered about the future of classical music, Drew shares great insight on that topic as well. We're also exploring the connection between music education and Spartan creativity. He takes us through his own musical journey. He shares his views on business development in the classical music industry, and he discusses thriving in the creator economy. I believe you're going to walk away truly inspired by what Drew shares with us today. And before I hand over the mic to Drew, I want to remind you to join me inside the Mind

Overfinger Facebook community for a series of live conversations on how to create your ideal performance. Go to facebook.com slash groups slash mindoverfinger and catch all the secrets on the tools you need to experience the type of performance you're capable of giving. From how to plan to how to practice and most importantly, how to powerfully transition between the practice room in the stage, I have the complete blueprint for you. So join us live or catch the replays inside the Mind Over Finger community at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger. Also, pre-enrollment is open for a new cohort of the Music Mastery Experience. If you're ready for the next stage in your career, I'm here to help you get there. So go to mindoverfinger.com

slash MME for all of the info and book your free call right now to log in all the pre-enrollment bonuses and let's plan together for your best year yet. All right, you can find all those links in the show notes and also in the show notes is the link to the transcript of this episode, so you don't need to take any notes. And now you're ready to sit back, relax, and let's explore the Limitless Possibilities in the World of Music with Drew Ford. Let's go to the show. Drew Ford, it's so exciting to have you on the show. Thanks for having me, Renee. I'm excited for the conversation. Drew, I find it hard to believe that anyone out there would know who you are,

but for the very few who might not know, I would love to hear more about you, about that journey, how it unfolded for you and what that looked like for you. So where would you like me to start? Cause I can go, I can go all the way back, you know? Well, this is the beauty. I like to live a lot of freedom for my guests. So where do you want to start? Northside hospital, Atlanta, Georgia. Nah. Um, so I was, uh,

I pretty much started viola when I was 12 in middle school, and I don't know what it was. I'd always wanted to kind of play music and vibe out to the records that my mom and my dad would play when we were cleaning the house or on a long road trip. um and so i i i i like was introduced to the violin and the the viola through school trips in elementary school going to see the atlanta symphony and i always thought okay that's kind of cool that was hard though i don't know if i would want to spend time doing that and then all of a sudden fifth grade fast forward to fifth grade and we're in our libraries like during the scholastic book fair there's like harry potter posters everywhere this teacher named amanda sellers at the time her name is amanda moran nowadays uh she gave a presentation of like

uh here's what you can play after your first year in orchestra she started playing pink panther and spongebob and adam's family and i was like oh she knew her target audience right and she she sprinkled on if you stay in if you stay in orchestra from sixth grade and you stay in in seventh grade seventh graders get to go to disneyland and i was like disney world sorry disney world disney world in florida disneyland in los angeles i swear i'm not from here well i've never been to either so you've never been to either oh you got to renee okay okay okay if you ever come visit we got you got to go we got to go to uh disneyland sounds good i'll take you up on that okay cool all right so anyway this is the carrot right this is the carrot that's being

held in front of me and so i was like okay let me join and so uh the first day of like orchestra class we have the petting zoo as you know and uh i didn't feel i was like non-plussed just like whatever these are all cool i don't care and everybody started saying that the name of their instrument around in the circle and i was like maybe 75 through the circle nobody said viola and i was like man okay i'll save i'll play viola and everybody's like and there's like maybe two or three more afterward because viola is like that dirt instrument and so i've kind of carried that first introduction into viola of like the the gasp and like are you sure about that and i've tried to lean into that for my entire life so um that's

how it started and then as soon as i picked it up and played it i was hooked i was like wait this is this is kind of interesting okay but it's hard but when you get good it sounds good you know well i agree with that what you don't know is i i'm a violinist but i would love to play the viola i've actually purchased a viola i still don't play it but one day for sure but i should have been a violist i just love that instrument i mean any day you want to start hit me i'll give you i'll give you a good introduction i think the problem with viola is like the repertoire doesn't get good until like 1900 or like 1880 or something you know it takes a while so you got to start with the good stuff what i find really fascinating

about your story well a few things but that introduction that that teacher created when you said she knew her audience yes i hope that the teachers out there are taking notes you have to make it enticing for kids to join like what a fabulous way to present instruments to kids I'm telling you a trip to a theme park is a really good carrot to get through the first year because it's painful what's what's the payoff right unforgettable experience so yes unforgettable experience I love that and it's interesting what you say too about how you were the first who mentioned the viola and then after a few people joined in yeah like sometimes you just got to raise your hand and then the people who might have not done that without that incentive

join in it's initiative really has more power than you think yeah i think that's very fitting for what um you know kind of um i actually don't even know the word in english for this auspicious is suspicious what it is because that's kind of the career you're leading right now is I feel like you're someone who raises his hand and starts movements am I wrong I you kind of have to if it is to be it's up to me you can't really do it alone but getting started really helps and so like when i was in college i was like man how am i gonna make a career as a musician like people don't even they don't even know what a viola is they like mispronounce it so what am i gonna do like i want to have kids i want to be a dad i want to like build a legacy

become financially free these are all things that i want but i i'm tethered to this like this instrument what could i possibly do yeah and the the answer was build an audience and so i was like okay let me let me work on doing that and so then began the uh multi-year pretty much the full decade of just like working on becoming a better content creator working on trying to become a better violist and like telling that story uh and the longest story arc i could think of yeah i want to get back to this can i take you back however to from school to to college what made it so that you wanted to do this as a profession and then went to college i it was it was kind of a coin flip because i wanted to do science but that didn't have money

in it either that's just so i i definitely didn't i wasn't about the the whole capitalism game uh back then i it was a 50 50 coin flip and i figured or i reasoned i could always come back to science later if i got bored with music yeah you know my body is going to deteriorate deteriorate faster than my mind uh little did i know you know it's not really deteriorating as fast as i thought it would which is good um but yeah i'm glad i made the this decision so well the reason being is i love to do it and i i hate to tell this story because it it's it's like pretty formative but I don't want this person to have the credit for creating for me creating what I've created I want to take full credit on that but there was a teacher that kicked me out of her studio her

teaching studio the summer before senior year of college and it was accompanied with a letter that was just like you don't have what it takes to be successful in the music industry like I'm rescinding my recommendation for you to get a scholarship to get a new instrument and like it was just like whoa and and it was it was this blowback because I was working hard and I was at a summer festival at that time learning chamber music like because that's my passion my passion is was never to be in an orchestra but she was trying to forge me into that and i didn't want to be that i always wanted to be like a soloist chamber musician so that plays viola but so our our react our future visions of me didn't align and so she decided to kick me out

and i've always kind of had that in the back of my mind that she didn't believe in me um it was really good fuel um and i think i've used it up so i feel okay now but that was a that was always in the back of my mind and that's amazing how what we make events mean impacts our life i was in the coaching session this morning with my music master experience participants and this is something we were talking about that when something happens there are the facts and then what we make it mean. And for you, it appears that it was a juncture and right. We just met. So you could tell me if I'm way off, but it was a juncture and something happened and you use that for you instead of against you. And I think that is so inspiring.

Part of it is I kind of, I've never had a problem with like envisioning my future. what do i want to be what what what what do i need what makes me happy and can i do that in the future i've never had problems thinking about that and her perspective of me her vision of me was so unrecognizable that i couldn't allow her to have power over me and i think that might get in the way of some people where somebody else's vision for their future is different than their own but they they kind of like retract or recoil when people express a difference of vision but i've realized that you know they don't have to live my future i have to live it so if we disagree we're just gonna have to disagree because i'm going towards this thing and you're

not even seeing the same thing is that a little too woo-woo or does that make sense no i think that embodies agency over one's life that's perfect yeah yeah no and I think that's something that people really really to hear because you and I are going to talk about this but the the world of classical music I feel is both needing to change and is changing but there are still so many people out there that enter college with dreams of a career in music, but are someone letting themselves being guided or drifted towards a vision that is not their own. So I think it's really, really important for them, for all of us to hear that because life doesn't stop after college, right? Throughout our entire lives, we have vision and it's so important to have that

that agency that I was just talking about. If I take you back to what you're mentioning in terms of asking yourself what you wanted and realizing that you needed to build an audience, can you walk us through that a little bit? How that you came to these realizations? Well, I didn't do it alone. I I've, I'm always looking. I think opportunity is everywhere. You just got to have your eyes open and have your mind open. Not so open that your brain falls out. I learned that one the hard way. But having an open mind to new information is good. So I, the reason why my brain fell out, this realization came from being roped into an affiliate marketing company. They had a conference in Columbia and the keynote speaker was named Gary Vaynerchuk. and that was the day i met gary v uh didn't meet him but i saw him speaking from stage and he kept the the one thing that i remembered that he drove home is like whether you like it or not

you are a media company now if you make facebook status changes you are a media company baby and And I was like, what? And that kind of expanded my mind to what I could be. And what I, so often we're told you're just a violist. You're just a violinist. You're just a cellist. But it's really quite the opposite. We're very multifaceted and it's just a part of who we are.

Yeah. And you've done that in such a creative way. I mean, I've been following you for years, years. I remember joining Instagram at the beginning when it was just pretty pictures at the time and like quickly, quickly you took over as that viola kid. Yeah, I was trying to figure it out. And I still kind of cringe because that's like 20-year-old Drew, but I'm 32. So I'm just a very different human now. And I look back at that human and I'm like, you're such a kid.

uh no but what an amazing record of of growth and evolution yeah that's amazing i'm thankful for instagram yeah yeah speaking of instagram you posted several weeks ago a blog entry you have a great blog and i'm gonna put the link of that blog in the show notes and you talk about being extra classical. And I really thought, okay, he needs to come here on the show and talk about that because that is a different way of seeing things. And that's what we need these days in 2024. We need all of the ways of seeing all of the things. I think we have the ability right now with the technology that we have, I feel like a lot of the gatekeepers are gone. And the only thing stopping us really is our imagination or our willingness maybe to follow our intuition at

times. So extra classical, can you talk to us a little bit about that? This is a thesis that is, thank you so much for the wonderful introduction to this idea. It's something that is formulating in real time. But I've always imagined that we as string players are particularly narrowly siloed in the music industry at large. We're not songwriters. We're not really producers. We're not really like we hire producers. We have agents. We don't really have many string player like contractors at the level of like the non-musician like community, right? So it's really interesting how we are so narrowly siloed in our skill, whereas we delegate the essential parts of business to other people who, and when

you do that, you open yourself up for risk, risk of being taken advantage of, risk of being decoupled from your actual economic value that you're delivering. So it's a whole mindset shift that I think we need to approach as string players, number one, but also number two, I really feel that the way string players connect with music can expand. And let's go on a quick trip. And this is kind of like what I'm trying to do with Whole Soul, my string quartet. We have in music, you have a few different, when you're talking about pop music, we're not talking about classical music we're talking about commercial music pop music other genres blues derivatives jazz hip-hop r&b so you have a rhythm section so drums and the bass percussion extra

perks weird sound effects right creating a rhythmic vibe a groove right you have a leads section which is like a singer or a lead instrument like an electric guitar and they're they're creating the melody and they're they're front facing and they're the part that everybody hums right you have the pads which are the chordal cradle it shows the the the harmonic narrative as it develops right and and so you you see where this is where strings reside strings reside in in the chords when you're playing non-classical music we sometimes we'll have melody especially in an intro or an outro or maybe a bridge there'll be a breakout string section but it's the strings are so close to the vocals that in like the harmonic frequency range that if you

play them at the same time one of them has to give and usually if there are words it takes more priority in music so strings are often back right we occupy we occupy the leads and the pads But we never occupy the rhythm section, which is interesting. That's like 33% of the composition of music that we're not giving value to with our current technique. So I've been diving down the rabbit hole of, you know, Daryl Anger and like bluegrass and fiddling and learning the percussive chopping techniques that have been created for decades, just not popularized. And I'm like positing a notion that we need to incorporate this education in the broader scope of string pedagogy. If we want to at least create more opportunities for ourselves as string players to participate in the music industry. Now I'm advocating for creating my competition and like people are going to take, you know, bread off my plate, but that's okay. Like I care more about the string art and I care more about like, you know, having people of color like me being seen in our element and having a way for us to connect to the string instruments. Because the one criticism they get from the classical music community often is that hip-hop or rap is not music. And that is so uneducated a stance. It's baffling that even people like Wynton Marsalis have said it.

so i i think that the technique needs to catch up a little bit to the massive innovation that's happened since 1750 you know and that's what that's what i want to apply with you know my technique and with my messaging and with my string quartet yeah i love that and i think that when people give themselves permission to do this often by seeing people like you taking action being change makers i think it's very empowering because a lot of time if people want to maybe approach uh you know just try something new and they do what you said at the beginning which is maybe hire a team or hire producers, you're kind of at the mercy of their knowledge and their perspective. And that can cause a lot of indecision and confusion. But when you

educate yourself and begin to have an understanding of the entire scope of the operation, this is when your own true voice can really start to come out because you have power over your message in in all aspects of it all dimensions right and you can make better decisions this is actually super lining up with a book that i just checked out from my local library it's called range by david epstein essentially the thesis of the book is that as we move farther into the future and automation of repetitive tasks continues, we will, instead of being specialists, we will need to actually be more generalists, understanding a wide array of topics and having built experience with many different aspects of life and actions

and be able to it'll allow us to make better decisions and synthesize information better i'm only in chapter three but it's it's very scientific he he takes a lot of historical and sociological uh studies from history talking about like uh grandmaster chess players and how when you change the rules slightly of a chess game they become less than an amateur it's more of just like playing out the game over and over and building experience rather than you know situational awareness and situational like flexibility it's it's very complex i'm still synthesizing my thoughts about it but i think that's what an extra classical player is it's Somebody who understands the many different aspects, production, composition, improvisation, many different genres, understanding many different genres.

And how to best serve the music as a string player. Because sometimes all you need is a little choppy chop. You don't have to throw a virtuosic solo on it. How do you serve the music better? And that's kind of what I'm learning right now. How do you serve the music better? I really like that. How would you, let's say, put together a how-to guide to get started as an extra classical musician for someone who's listening right now?

And they sound very, you know, not they sound, they feel very excited about what you just shared, but they don't know where to begin. What would be a good place to start? That is really, really tough to answer. Um, if you wanted to just be me, you would start learning about photography and videography and editing and making content. So you have a channel to share your work, but that doesn't have to be the first thing you do. Yeah. Um, if you're like me you're you're you like know how to record um you know how to do some basic mixing like if it's you're in a pinch you could do a little bit of mastering but you like not quite sure like you just need to have the levers you need to be able to control the levers of your message and then

you would also be spending time listening to music that really brings uh joy to you and it may not just be classical like it could be like screamo it could be death metal it could be prog rock it could be the blues it could be celtic fiddling like whatever it is like lean into it and and find a record that you really like and just try to replicate it replicate the playing bit by bit i would also say listen to other instruments watch other instrumentalists i've actually gotten better at my rhythm by just watching drummers because there's some drummers they have such economy of motion that they're just grooving it's not even calculated they're moving their body at a tempo and everything's just happening and it's smooth and so i'm learning

how to move my bow with more more more complex groove in mind which has been interesting an interesting project it's it's fascinating um looking at guitarists and realizing oh they play with shapes they're not looking at their frets they're just playing shapes and i realized oh i have to be more methodical about how i play double stops and chords when i play bach and so now i'm getting better as a player because i'm realizing oh shapes so i'm like starting to understand these different things and so my plan is you know through a newsletter grace notes i'll be providing some of these resources um as i develop them and as i develop them for my students so i didn't mean to get into like an educational role or anything because i don't really feel like

that but i definitely want to like share kind of my experience i think it's it's fun it's different it's refreshing yeah as I was listening to you I was amazed at how apt we are at making connections and I would almost tell these people if you want to get started just start anywhere because anything that you're exposed to will spark something in you your brain is brilliant I once heard someone say if they could manufacture the brain no one could afford it it would be too expensive um so by exposing yourself to anything you'll have these these little spark of inspirations and the brain is so good at making all of these connections that something will come out of it it's interesting also in this book uh range by david epstein um he he he uh cited some

studies of uh people in russia right around the russian revolution when there was this mass industrialization in the city centers but it was much slower in the more rural areas What was really interesting is the people in the city centers started seeing their IQ levels rising because just the level of systems and the ideas that are presented in cities had an impact. Coffee, you know, coffee consumption and stuff like that. But in the rural areas, they didn't have the same objectivity as city people. So they would, so when, when researchers would go into the rural areas of Russia, they would like draw a circle that's not filled in and they would ask them what that is. And they said, that's the moon. But then they would color it in and they would say, that's like a wheel or something. Like they didn't, it was just, it was just interesting how they perceived the world. Now, what was interesting is when what the city dwellers developed was more of a relational understanding of the world, like how are things like each other? Not how they're different, but how are these things like each other? And that actually made them more capable of understanding more complex concepts. So what's really interesting is I think the more you learn widely, the more connections you see among different things, and it allows you to make more complex thought processes and decision making, which is a compelling claim.

And it's literally, if you look on the book, it says Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, saying that it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something. It's specialization is the future. I'm paraphrasing, but on the book, Range, he's quoted as saying, I've never been so delighted being told I was wrong. And so it's really fascinating. Yeah. Okay, Range, David Epstein. David Epstein. I'm going to put a link in the show note. That sounds fascinating. It's actually a great segue in another question that I had for you, because all of these connections that you're making, all of these really amazing experiences that you are not only creating, but also being exposed to as a result of creating your own unique path, unique path.

I was reading on your bio and it said that you were called the future of our field by Sphinx organization president Ava Dworkin. Can you tell us a little bit in your opinion, what do you see for the future of classical music? I see the future of classical music being similar to right now. like an important museum of like the art that came before us hundreds of years ago it's it's crazy how i feel so connected to people that have been dead for hundreds of years it's kind of wild like how i feel so much tenderness for shostakovich so much empathy for his struggles right i feel for mozart never feeling that level of connection or or financial stability i don't want to live his life you know you know what i mean um that being

said i think that orchestras if we're just talking about orchestras because that's like classical music that's kind of where it's relegated to in one silo right i think it reflects more of the culture of today i think it's going to have more outreach to artists who are creating art today and being more of a megaphone of the music of our times. I think that's possible. I think it's work that's already being done. I just see more of it. I see it being more accepting.

And I think when this decision happens, people, the children of today are gonna be able to develop a relationship with their orchestra that lasts their lifetime. But if you're not presenting something to them that captures them, that targets the audience that they want to get, they're not going to receive or earn that audience. I think that even for string players, the future of our music is we are playing in all the genres. We are making interesting music that is for our time. I have

a dream i don't know if i'll ever do it but i would love to write a hip-hop symphony one day that would be so sick but i don't think it would be i don't think it would be like mauler i think it would be super different so i these are things that you know i can't really think too much about because i'm trying to pay rent you know yeah yeah you know capital capitalism be capitalizing on my butthole on these cheeks no for real because there are a lot of factors during our time that are that are bothering the music industry in general you've got inflation you've got wars across the the ocean you've got possible recessions you've got higher interest rates so donors and businesses aren't making as many profits so because they're not making profits

they don't need to you know shelter those profits with donations right they so we just have to realize where we fit into the macroeconomic landscape and realize you have to make decisions you know how are you going to survive when uh you know things when the government isn't making sure that you get paid like it is in europe that's how it is in america we just you know if you can't get that orchestra job it's really hard to make a living and so i'm trying to figure out how do we how do we do that maybe i can help people understand how to do it yeah that's a question that i ask in the round of rapid fire question and if you want we can transition into this but it's your show i'm here for you that's right all right let's do this i'm making an

executive decision let's go I ask guests you know what a life what their life looks like what does that look like for you to have this this extra classical aspect of your life performing making a living can you tell us about that a little bit about my life yeah what I'm doing. I'm a freelance musician here in Los Angeles, California. So I do a lot of random things. I'll do a lot of studio sessions for many different things, video games, indie artists, major label artists, motion pictures, television. I'll perform live at some of the bigger venues like Hollywood Bowl from time to time with pretty big artists. I'll sometimes do award shows. sometimes I'll teach kids. Sometimes I'll let go and play for, uh, um, for charity here, there.

Um, and, and, and what I'm really focusing on now is like building my businesses. It's not enough to just kind of freelance and fly by the wind. I'm glad I'm able to do that. I'm thankful, but it's hard to scale because your time, once you've maxed out on time, you've maxed out on income when you're playing the earned income game. I'm transitioning into playing the equity game where I own businesses that generate revenue. And sometimes that's asynchronous to me being present or even delivering the value myself. The system, the business that I'm building can deliver value to other people. And so that's kind of what I'm developing on two fronts, Wholesale Music LLC and my own creator business. So I'm getting clearer about what my objectives

are to achieve the life that I want in the future. But you kind of have to learn about business. You kind of have to learn about how money works. There's a lot of steps to this. And I've been reading a lot of books, especially since the pandemic, I have a whole bookshelf in the closet that I, that I went through just trying to understand it a little bit better. And once you understand the money game, then you can figure out how to construct your plan to achieve what you need. Yeah. Yeah. What, if you feel comfortable sharing, what are these businesses about? What kind of services do you offer? Well, Wholesale Music LLC is my string quartet right now. So we provide string compositional or string arrangement services to individuals. We got

a client out in North Carolina who's getting married. And so she wanted some hip hop arrangements of some J. Cole and Mac Miller. So we're writing and recording those string arrangements for her perform uh via mp3 while she walks down the aisle we don't have to fly out there yeah and we still captured that value and delivered that service so that's really interesting we're also uh performing uh luxury destination weddings uh for high net high net worth individuals um at remote locations and so we're currently looking to uh connect with more luxury wedding planners that are serious about delivering the highest quality string playing on the market and uh the other sector is our live performance where we perform for uh showcases and um for other artists for video

shoots for recording sessions um this is on the dl but we uh we recorded for an upcoming jlo doc with azima ramsey that's that's really exciting um and in our first year we recorded for hosier's album uh unreal unearth so that's wholesome music llc i'm going to try to continue to build that there's a media component that we can build maybe a future label component artist management but let's not get ahead of ourselves and then um on this side i have my personal business my personal brand and I'm building out Grace Notes newsletter as like a way for me to at least start building my creator business and actually having more connection to my audience that is uncorrelated to an algorithm. Because if I'm going to take my limited amount of time that I have now

to make a piece of content and I have 112,000 followers on Instagram and I post it and only 5 000 see it because of an algorithm that that's frustrating because i didn't build i didn't work hard and give up my 20s to build something that doesn't work yeah right so i i definitely the the newsletter is is the carrot for me to i want to respect your email so i'm going to deliver value to your email every friday and that's what i'm doing on my creator business side for now when to get that business building and it has a little bit of revenue from ad sales i'm going to use that to uh hire an editor to help me edit my youtube video so i can get my youtube business back going i just don't have time to take off to like live my life you know and and i do need to

have time to rest so that means it's time to hire and i'm gonna do so aggressively as i scale my income yeah thank you so much for giving us this glimpse as to to what it you know it looks like in in your head in your business i think it's hugely inspiring because it shows how when you put a you know when you put the vision to work and you start to get some knowledge on things that you can do you can really start to create something amazing and i can really sense your passion for it and your interest for it, which sometimes if we're a classical musician that maybe just adhered to the beaten path and what's been done before, sometimes we sense that frustration, this disillusion. It's kind of a little bit of a disempowerment at times. Not always. I know

plenty of musicians who are, you know, let's say freelancers and totally thriving and flourishing and really happy with this so this is for for those who perhaps are not feeling fulfilled let's say um but when you have this sense of vision and it's your business it feels different i i feel the same way with mind over finger i think about it all the time and all of the work that i do there when i create a training when i create a podcast episode it feels so enriching and i feel so connected to everything that I create because it is, it's my baby. And it's wonderful to have that sense of direct impact on my own life, as opposed to constantly wait for jobs offers or requests. So thank you for sharing that. Oh my goodness. The torture of waiting for an email

able to come in am i gonna be able to pay my rent like i cannot i cannot tell you the the amount of anxiety there's a reason why i'm powered by coffee it's the it's that old age-old anxiety of the moment i grabbed my diploma from the juilliard school i was like i am screwed bro what like what do you mean there's no connections to like make money doing this thing that you know if you're going to conservatory and getting a degree in this thing you're batting in the top 10 percentile of people doing your thing because let's be real most people would not even bother so yeah truly pat yourself on the on the back but that's just the beginning you're just getting started okay so um yeah i i i definitely feel that like that cliff that feeling of falling off

the cliff but that feeling of falling off the cliff should inspire you to build a plane on the way down that's just that's the only thing you that's the only thing you can do i love that yeah once again it's really attaching the meaning you want to your life circumstances Drew there's two things before I let you go today I'd love to hear a piece of advice that you would have for the listeners don't be afraid to learn about that weird thing that seems unrelated to your art i think we as artists get really at least string artists we get very siloed on yeah i am i am a violinist that's all i do and we take pride in that but i think that's that that actually makes you a commodity so i would really i really want you to realize that looking at other things really

with interest and passion the same that you have for your stringed instrument it'll teach you how to connect the two and the the con having a connection whatever it is my my friend sarah uh sarah jane kenner i think she just got married and i don't know her new last name but hungry musician yes she connects her love of music and food and content creation and and there there is a real deep connection between the two and you can hear it in her sound. It makes her a better player. It makes her a fuller artist. So I would implore that you, you get a little nerdy on something different, put your instrument down.

There'll be plenty of time to practice. Trust me. And then learn something new. I love that. That would be a great actionable tip. Just put the instrument down and go learn something new. Yep. Yes. Do it. All right. Well, I just combined the last two questions into one.

Oh, man. Oh, you're efficient. What's up? Unless there is another actionable tip that you'd like to share. It's it. I feel like I'm just going to be turned into a big old cliche, but I advocate for being committing to being a lifelong learner. because uh the more you learn number one the more you earn hence the rhyme but also it it it give it opens your mind to new possibilities it helps you see things that you didn't used to see yeah and it's it's truly changed my life i i think that books are the biggest hack they're the biggest hack because to do it to write a book especially don't just read anything like definitely do some research and see like what you want to learn and see what people say

about it before you you read but you know the the amount of effort it takes to write a book why would you want to do that right you got to think about that why would you want to do that it seems painful it seems like torture there's a lot of work and you get to read that you get to benefit from all that work that's just such a hack i love it yeah yeah well drew please tell us where we can find you i'm going to have all of these links in the show notes but where is your your preferred place of meeting the audience yeah come through on ig i'm definitely a millennial okay no come find me on instagram at that viola kid i'm on tiktok oh snap it's tvk um youtube that viola kid if you go to my instagram bio if you tap on that

link you'll be able to join my newsletter it's on substack it's called grace notes if you're on substack and you already do that then come subscribe to my newsletter i drop a new newsletter every friday and i combine a a mixture of like lessons from books that i've learned content that I've watched, experiences that I've had, and I'll even throw in a dose of me building in public, me talking about what I've done for my businesses that week. Look, I went to the post office, picked up some mail, got our tax documents today, just stuff like that. But I just feel like from the audience feedback, they've liked the building in public aspect. I think it's kind of cool and like people think that they don't hear from me on social media because i'm just like

chilling no i'm not it's the incubation period i'm yes i'm training i'm in that rocky montage right now in your lab doing all sorts of experiments oh yeah oh yeah yeah and i'm changing my mind constantly so you'll see you'll see me change strategy rapidly because of a new piece of information that, that, that I'm presented with, which is important. You should be malleable. You gotta, you gotta adapt. So. Absolutely. Yeah. Drew, thank you so much for this. I feel that this is a message a lot of people needed to hear. It is so inspiring to see the inner works of your mind, inner workings. And I, I really hope that this is inspiration for people to be just a little bit extra classical moving forward and get interested and listen to

their vision. Thank you so much for using the word extra classical. Let's get it. Yes. Thanks, Drew. Thank you, Renee. It's a pleasure. there you have it i hope you enjoyed this conversation with that viola kid drew ford you can find more information about drew by going to that viola kid.com and you can find all things mind over finger at mindoverfinger.com of course i have these links for you in the show notes. If you found our discussion valuable, share this episode with friends and fellow musicians. Grab a screenshot of the episode, share on social, and with anyone you think might benefit from this conversation. Together, let's inspire and empower even more people on their

musical journeys. All right, that's what I have for you this week. Until next time, much love going your way, and à bientôt. Thank you.