You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Special Guest: Rick Beato Part 1

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

We're honored to have a very special guest on this episode of You'll Hear It: Rick Beato! In part 1 of Peter's wide-ranging interview with Rick, the two discuss how he got his start on YouTube.You can check out Rick's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzchWatch "Learn This Famous Jazz Tune in 5 Minutes" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtuVhaaNd-IAlso be sure to take a look at Rick's rant video mentioned in this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0iJSPAj-8sFinally, see what Rick's up to by following him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickbeato1/?hl=enWant every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsdhVXE5ovILike those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Oh, see, you're not here. You're missing some big time stuff today. So next time you make a little trip to Japan, you better think about that, buddy. I'm Peter Martin, and you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. We have a very, very special guest today. Mr. Rick Beato, what's going on, Rick? What's up, Peter? How are you? I'm doing good. This is actually take two. We were just joking about this. This is, as our listeners know, This is very rare, but I was so excited as we started the interview that I didn't even give you a chance to talk much, and I was just blabbering on. So we're doing take two here, but I'm so excited to have you here. And like I said before, we have, there's probably about 1% or less of our audience that doesn't know who you are through, you know, mainly through your YouTube channel called Everything Music. And, you know, for those of you that haven't followed Rick much, you may know about some of his, like, really big videos, but I want to dive into a few of those, but to some of the more jazz-oriented stuff that some of our listeners may not know that you've delved into. So if that's cool,

I was going to kind of bring up some of those. But just a real quick background on Rick, he's like the real deal here. He's done a lot of stuff. I mean, he's produced country hits. He plays a number of instruments. He is New England Conservatory trained. Now, that's big time. That's big time right there. Because you actually got your degree, though. You got a master's from New England? I did. Yeah, that's awesome. And then, you know, you've put it, you've taught at a number of different levels.

You've played, you've produced. You've got the studio happening down there in Atlanta. You've got the YouTube channel. And so much to ask you about. But maybe we could kind of start a little bit towards the end and work our way back if that works for you. And that is the YouTube channel, Everything Music. Can you just sort of talk about what was the impetus behind that, how long you've been doing it, and kind of your vision for? it. So I started out in the summer of 2016, so just a little over three years ago,

one of my interns came in one day, and you should start a YouTube channel. And I said, what? And he said, oh, I said, what would it be about? And he said, talk about everything that you know, that you know about music theory, history, recording techniques, anything, anything that you, that you talk about here. And I said, eh, nobody's going to, watching a guy with white hair on YouTube. He goes, no, no, no. And then I said, well, I don't even know how to use a camera. I don't know how to edit video.

He goes, I'm going to teach you. Come in tomorrow and make your channel trailer. So the channel trailers, you know, where you talk about what your channel is going to be about. So we made a list about all the different things. You know, we're going to talk about music theory and ear training and film scoring and jazz improvisation and, and, you know, all different things, popular music, recording techniques and uh i started and made one video then i made two and then i made 344 videos the first

year and hit 100 000 subscribers about a year after and then you know you know two years after that so it's been just over three year right at about the three year mark i hit a million subscribers i'm almost at 1.2 million right right right right so let's just talk about like the organization growth of your channel because I think somebody you know now we have all these people saying okay we're going to start a YouTube channel and follow this playbook and I think there's probably I'm sure there's a lot of music people that think that they can follow the the Rick Biotto playbook on how to build this up but the the variety of subjects that you've covered is is really startling I mean in terms of like deep dives on harmony you know the whole you know what makes Bach great

following him down to his, you know, his home in Germany and the whole thing. And then he went to Leipzig. You went to Leipzig, yeah. But I mean, it's, it's, you kind of did everything wrong in terms of what a marketing YouTube profession would say as far as like, just stick to this one niche and everything. That's right. But it's working. Yeah.

That's, I think that's the whole success of it. Is I did everything that they told you not to do, I did. Yeah. Well, I'm going to throw one idea out there that I, that I think that it has meant, and I mentioned this to you on the phone. other day that has really contributed is your quality level is at a very high level. And I think that, you know, a lot of people think now, yeah, if you have a, you know, cute kid falling in a bush or a dog playing the piano, whatever, that's how you get a lot of YouTube views. But I really believe

when it comes to this, I mean, you know, you're not having to sell anybody on how great music is. People love music. It's like, you know, a winemaker didn't have to sell them on the concept of wine. They just have to have a nice label. But I think even for our listeners, our very astute, sophisticated jazz snobs, you know, members of the jazz police force that listen to our little podcast here would see, well, okay, I'm going to give an example here, and we're going to link to some of these videos

because I want, I mean, you've got stuff that's like, you know, everybody knows the kid ear training stuff and the 20-grade fills, and those are all awesome. But there's one that I found, which is called Learn, and we're going to link to this below, learn this famous jazz tune in five minutes, where you go through and basically teach how to play so what on the piano.

And, you know, in some ways, there's a lot of jazz pianists that can do that. But I got to say, you did something with the baseline. Like, you are swinging on that baseline in a way that we very rarely see in jazz tutorials online. And so, like, that's what I'm talking about quality. I mean, you don't even talk about it.

And you definitely don't teach how to swing. You're like just showing, you're like, yeah, you play this, then you move it up a half step. And that's all accurate. But you're hitting that feet. correctly. And I think people that resonates with people, even if they don't know it. Yeah, I don't, I try not to get into, well, some of the videos get into really sophisticated way, way, you know, just kind of crazy detail. But a lot of the times I try to present things

really simply and leave out the complex stuff for the, you know, for the subject matter at hand, if it's learned something in five minutes, you know, like your two-minute jazz videos. I mean, I try and teach something that that people can learn in five minutes. Right. So, you know, I try to stay with it. And feel is something that takes a little bit more explanation. Kind of like I interviewed Vinnie Kaliuta and I said, my first question was,

okay, Vinnie, talk about flow. And Vinny's first thing he said was flow, uh, flow, uh, flow, is the enemy of thought, I think it was. No, thought is the enemy of flow is what Vinnie said. And that was a way into the weeds, but brilliant observation. Then he went into talking about improvisation. And that was a really sophisticated concept there that he got into. But sometimes you need to just kind of stick with one simple thing and don't get into things like feel.

Because that's a whole rabbit hole to go down. Right. No, absolutely. even though it's the most important thing to talk about, you know. Well, but I think just the fact that you played it with the right field, that's super important and missing in a lot of, like YouTube doesn't have a filter when you upload a video about so what. Like it might have a copyright filter, you know, to check if you're stealing,

you know, if you can't monetize. But it doesn't have like a swing filter. And I feel like that's not. It should. It should, right. Let's get that algorithm going. But I think, no, you know, because I know, I know that there's a lot of different types.

There's a lot of young aspiring musicians that follow you and that have learned a lot from you. And I know that they play a lot of different types of music and stuff. So if they do happen upon one of your jazz references or something, that might be their only kind of educational exposure to how to play jazz correctly, unless they're listening to some recordings or something. So I think, to me, the quality level,

and look, jazz is what I know best. I know a little bit of classical, and you're spot on with that stuff as well. But I think that you bring this quality level to all of the different things that you do. And an authentic, real musician, an educator, but a practitioner as well, that to me is the thing that connects all of your videos where they're going in a lot of different directions and a lot of different genres. But this idea of everything music, I mean, music is supposed to be high quality, It doesn't matter what instruments you're playing, what style, what genre.

And it doesn't matter that, you know, anyone can throw a YouTube video up there. It's like, you know, when are we going to have this quality? So I love, I mean, it's been so satisfying for me to go on this deep dive and to kind of have some validation for humanity in that your stuff. And not just you. I mean, there's a whole bunch of people. But I know that, you know, Adam Neely and a lot of these younger guys really look up to you and, you know, learn a lot from you about how to do things correctly. And I know you've collaborated with a bunch of them as well. Yeah.

I actually had Adam in my studio yesterday. His band was in town and we did a live stream here just yesterday. So I've interviewed a lot of YouTubers. I really believe in the community and supporting other channels and things like that. That's been a big thing for me. And I want to give back to however I can and support. people that you know channels that I really believe in and and I love your channel Peter it's amazing and I love your playing and can't say enough good things so oh thank you thank you

and I mean I'm so glad that you know we were able to connect and I'm hoping I know we will be able to some more but like I say it's been oh there was another one I just saw I wanted to ask you about um which is the uh your rant well you have several rant and like those like those Those are really near and dear to my heart because I've made a few and I've wanted to make more. And I feel like you've given me license now, you know, to make some more rants because I'm always feeling that same kind of vibe sometimes. But you're sick of excuses thing when you were talking to one of your childhood friends and then you went. I mean, that thing looked totally unscripted and unedited, which was super impressive. But you went on like a 30-minute diatribe against, you know, people with excuses.

I just got off the phone with them and I just turned the camera on. And that was it, one take. Yeah, that was great. But I mean, it was, I think it kind of speaks to your, what may be somewhat of a natural ability as a storyteller within your videos, you know, to be able to weave an interesting story out of, I mean, everybody gets annoyed with old friends that call it whatever, but you turned it into a story with, you know, a place that it went,

a compelling story and also something that was, could really be edifying for people. listening and trying to get over their own kind of, you know, beyond just this is how you play the melodic minor scale, which you give them that at times as well. But some kind of inspirational, dare I say even self-help, would that be appropriate to throw on there? Yeah, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. That was great. So we're going to link to that one below because I think folks might enjoy that. Would you consider it a rant video? Is that appropriate to call it? That's totally a rant video, yes. Okay. Absolutely. I love rant video. I, I,

I'm a big believer in rant videos. I've done plenty of them. That's the conclusion of part one of my interview with Rick Beato. Tune in tomorrow for more illuminating conversations between Rick and I. We get into some more fun stuff on his videos, Keith Jarrett, a lot of great stuff to come. We are, as always, sponsored by OpenStudio. Open Studio Jazz.com. Go there.

We have some very exciting giveaways coming up. Actually, I think the giveaways might be available now. So go check that out. That's going to be tied in with our big Black Friday Cyber Monday promotion that's coming at you soon. So check that out. And until tomorrow, you'll hear it.