Algorithms, Trolls, and Battling Creative Burnout ft. TAETRO

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:24:23

Chris

Welcome to Orchestrated a Musio podcast where we discuss the past, present and future of music creation to explore exactly what it means to be a musician in the modern era. I’m Chris Hazel and this week on the Pod, we’re kind of branching out a little bit. So far we’ve kind of stuck to the corner of music that we know and we’ve talked about navigating a career in the world of music for television, movies and video games.

00:00:24:23 – 00:00:50:14

Chris

And we’ve talked to some of the industry’s leading creators, but that’s only one very specific avenue toward a career in music. And the truth is, these days, there are so many ways for a musician to build a sustainable creative life, many of which require nothing more than some gear, curiosity, skills and the Internet. So on today’s episode, we’re diving into one of the top platforms for music creators YouTube.

00:00:50:16 – 00:01:16:21

Chris

Hundreds of millions of people with every interest you could imagine visit YouTube every day. And if you’re a music creator looking for your audience, there’s almost no better place to find them. But as with anything else, the platform comes with its own challenges, its own strategies, and its own potential pitfalls. So to guide us through approaching YouTube with the right mindset, we’re joined by electronic music producer and YouTube creator Tatro.

00:01:16:23 – 00:01:50:06

Chris

Since around 2014, Tatro has been using YouTube as the main platform to launch his music career. And in that time, he’s developed a large and highly engaged musical community, a life sustained by his creativity and most importantly, a unique and incredibly applicable perspective on what it means to be a music theater. In today’s increasingly online world. And honestly, even though his insights are in the context of YouTube content creation, they’re pretty universally valuable to just about any creative in any medium, on any trajectory.

00:01:50:08 – 00:02:10:18

Chris

So I’m really excited for you guys to listen real quick before we jump in. If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or you just want to drop us a line, you can email us at orchestrated at Musio dot com. If you’re a music creator and you’re looking for amazing sounds, head over to Musio dot com to get a huge collection of some of the world’s best virtual instruments.

00:02:10:18 – 00:02:32:17

Chris

Completely free for 30 days. And lastly, if you like this conversation and you want to hear more like it, please don’t forget to read review like. Subscribe, share or follow. You know, all of that stuff. We really enjoy being able to share these valuable conversations with music creators like you, and the more positive feedback the algorithm gives, the more music creators will share the part of it.

00:02:32:19 – 00:02:38:16

Chris

So without further delay, let’s talk YouTube music creation with teacher.

00:02:38:18 – 00:02:40:14

Taetro

Is my mic level okay and everything?

00:02:40:16 – 00:02:42:21

Chris

Yeah, everything sounds good. Yeah. Cool.

00:02:42:21 – 00:02:55:04

Steve

I’m a little concerned about mine because of my mic is at a weird angle because my my, my mikes stand broke and so is tape nicely taped together. So I think this is just a sign that I need to get an awesome seven B?

00:02:55:06 – 00:02:58:16

Taetro

I think so. Well, we’ll pretend you have one. We want to sing. There we go.

00:02:58:16 – 00:03:01:12

Steve

Yeah, it’s off camera, so, you know. Yes, it’s okay.

00:03:01:14 – 00:03:03:07

Chris

He’s got the seven big.

00:03:03:09 – 00:03:05:17

Steve

And he’s using a windscreen for it. Yeah.

00:03:05:17 – 00:03:09:03

Chris

Yeah, exactly. It’s double protection.

00:03:09:05 – 00:03:09:20

Steve

Yeah.

00:03:09:22 – 00:03:11:06

Chris

Thanks for coming on the show, man.

00:03:11:11 – 00:03:13:18

Taetro

Hey, thanks for having me. I’m stoked for this.

00:03:13:19 – 00:03:35:11

Chris

One of the reasons why we wanted to have you on is because I feel like we share a common goal, right? We want to, like, inspire music creators and give them information and tools and things like that to sort of help them navigate their creative vision. It used to be that, you know, the options for musicians were pretty limited, right?

00:03:35:11 – 00:04:02:20

Chris

Like you had a handful of routes that you could take in terms of having a music career. You could go to school and learn that way or you could, you know, be a session player or you could do the artist thing and grind it out and like hope something happens. But in today’s like online world, there are so many more options out there that I think aren’t necessarily maybe the most obvious ones that come to mind when someone starts out for sure.

00:04:02:22 – 00:04:13:13

Chris

Streaming platforms and social media and livestream, meaning there are just so many routes that a musician can take in terms of making a living with music.

00:04:13:13 – 00:04:31:20

Taetro

Like I say, it’s like one of the best times to be alive, to be an artist. Of course, with all of this, like added opportunity and added ways of getting your stuff out there and making it as an artist, there come more ways of exploitation or being able to get exploited as an artist. But there are definitely so many more pathways for an artist today to like.

00:04:31:20 – 00:04:36:16

Taetro

Yeah, not like we say, make a living, but just sustain the work, you know?

00:04:36:18 – 00:04:56:21

Chris

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And one, and one of those is one of those main ways is YouTube for sure. Right? So definitely that’s why, that’s why we wanted to bring you in because you’ve been able to build a, a community and a career using that platform. I mean, I think I checked it out. You had like you have 320,000 subscribers and I don’t.

00:04:56:21 – 00:05:15:07

Taetro

Look at that number anymore. That’s like a subscribers is like such a vanity metric. So I care about the people who are like coming back to every video and like cheering me on during a livestream or whatever. So I know everybody sees those big numbers and they think like, that means something. But in reality, like it doesn’t change.

00:05:15:07 – 00:05:27:07

Taetro

Like we know how algorithms work doesn’t matter if I have 300,000 or a million subscribers, the algorithms going to choose to show my videos to however many people it decides to show them to, You know what I mean?

00:05:27:09 – 00:05:28:05

Chris

Yeah.

00:05:28:06 – 00:05:54:18

Taetro

But. But yeah, I’ve been doing this for a long time. So over the course of that journey made different genres of videos, shows and, you know, shared my work as an artist, but also shared the ways I make the work as an artist. You know, I want to teach as well. So it’s been a great platform to be on and I do feel like I want to continuously scream about it to every artist or every person who’s just starting like, Hey, like you’re going to be making stuff.

00:05:54:18 – 00:06:13:23

Taetro

Just document the journey, share what you learn, share it on YouTube, because like there’s a clear pathway for monetization, like a way to actually sustain your work If you grow a decent sized community. So it’s really worked out. It’s taken many different shapes and forms over the past few years, but I’ve been doing it for a while, so I guess that says something about the platform.

00:06:14:01 – 00:06:21:04

Chris

I want to know more about that, about that journey for you. So like, how long have you been doing YouTube? Just to just to kick it off?

00:06:21:06 – 00:06:48:00

Taetro

That’s a good question. I would say it’s it’s hard to say, like when I started because I mean, YouTube, you guys probably remember back in the day you just upload stuff to YouTube. It wasn’t this like thing where people went for content every single day. It was more like a video hosting site or whatever. But, you know, by the time I was finishing college, I was a music major in college and I had been doing these electronic music performances with different MIDI controllers and Ableton Live.

00:06:48:02 – 00:07:09:04

Taetro

And my singing recital had this performance of a track called Rain. But the video of my actual recital didn’t come out that great. So I went back home after that and shot a video of doing the same performance again. And I uploaded that to YouTube and that was my first YouTube video on the Tatro Channel in 2014. I think.

00:07:09:04 – 00:07:31:06

Taetro

I think it was like just after graduation. So like it just became like a repository for performances for a little bit. I crafted some more performances and I would post them and then I kind of left it alone for a bit. I kind of got into my teaching career, like teaching as a music director in different nonprofits and afterschool programs.

00:07:31:06 – 00:07:48:23

Taetro

And then at some point during that journey, I was working with all these young people who are like making great music, like teens that are just like phenomenally talented. And we had like studios that they could make their own music in. And that was like super inspiring for me. And I was like, Man, I need to get back on my artist stuff.

00:07:48:23 – 00:08:05:07

Taetro

Like, I need to like, make sure I have my own pathway for, you know, a creative outlet. So I went back to the YouTube channel and I realized that, yes, I could keep making performances. I definitely want to do that. But a lot of people are asking me questions, like actually asking me like, how did you do this?

00:08:05:07 – 00:08:30:07

Taetro

What gear did you use, How did you route it all, that kind of thing. So that kind of probably probably in 2016 like is when I started like doing YouTube, quote unquote. That’s when I started, you know, not just doing the performances, but also doing the tutorials, experimenting with live streaming, all those things. And it’s always been a blend of I want to share my work, I want to share like my performances, my music, etc..

00:08:30:11 – 00:08:47:00

Taetro

And then I also want to answer all the questions. I want to want to share with you how I did this, to just make it easier for people because it used to be super frustrating. You would see these amazing performances online and you’d have no idea how to accomplish it unless you were like pausing and then reverse engineering.

00:08:47:05 – 00:09:00:10

Taetro

they showed the laptop screen for like a second pause, zoom in, super blurry, that kind of vibe. So that was always a thorn in my side when I was trying to learn these things. So I just always want to be sharing what I know.

00:09:00:16 – 00:09:25:02

Chris

What was that like for you? Because I remember I can relate to that entire trajectory in so many ways, right? Like YouTube for me for like ten years was just a repository for like performances or music videos or things like that. What was it like for you to make that shift in your mind to being like, Okay, I’m going to do the YouTube thing?

00:09:25:04 – 00:09:30:18

Chris

And, and what were some of the challenges that you encountered when trying to make that shift?

00:09:30:20 – 00:09:58:15

Taetro

I think the thing that I realized was, well, look, anybody can upload stuff to the Internet, like anybody can make a SoundCloud account, anybody can, you know, upload a video to YouTube. The difference that I started to see was super community driven stuff. And then I would see returning names like people returning to my channel, you know, coming back after watching some videos.

00:09:58:15 – 00:10:16:23

Taetro

And like I started to realize, there’s like a bit of a community forming here. So I thought that that was way more powerful, you know, as an artist. When I thought about what I enjoyed doing. The main thing even still today that I enjoy doing as an artist, is making the music like the literal process of making the music.

00:10:17:00 – 00:10:38:13

Taetro

Yeah, and I think so far, if we want to talk about a time to be alive as an artist, I can’t think of another time in history where that part of the creative process was like monetizable. So, you know, like you’re either like making the track to sell or to, you know, put out and, you know, market around.

00:10:38:17 – 00:10:57:00

Taetro

And then you’re either going out and touring, which obviously like generates revenue or you’re selling merch, etc., like live performance. Even though I love filming live performances, I don’t always love going out and performing live. But if I can do it from the comfort of my own home and make a video out of it, that sort of thing, it’s it’s really cool.

00:10:57:05 – 00:11:16:08

Taetro

So I was just trying to align with like, Hey, if I want to be this independent artist and this is the thing that I really, really enjoy, then YouTube’s a perfect spot for it. I can form community around what I’m doing and never have to leave my house if I don’t want to. And I can actually monetize the part of the process that I love.

00:11:16:08 – 00:11:34:20

Taetro

Like the Let me show you how I’m making this track. Let me document the process of making this track. At the end of the day, if I finish a track and I like it, great, I’ll put it out. I hope other people enjoy it. I hope the audience engages with it. But like right now, actually today I just released a single and then next month I will release an album.

00:11:34:22 – 00:12:04:11

Taetro

And I got to say that this process of releasing this stuff is my least favorite part of the process. It’s such a different thing, like it’s an analytical process. It’s a very like fine detail oriented process. And of course it’s like it’s part of being an artist. Like you want to finish the work, you want to give it to the audience so they can complete the work, but it’s nowhere near the same as the creative flow and the passion that I feel when I’m just sitting down making new stuff.

00:12:04:13 – 00:12:28:11

Steve

That brings up a really interesting point about how the process is showing the process of creating music and having YouTube be like kind of the first way that that was really done for the masses in order to prior to that, if you wanted to see how that sausage was being made, you had to have a connection at a studio and then get them to let you in to a recording session or a production session.

00:12:28:13 – 00:13:01:13

Steve

And before that it was if you know, if you wanted to hear an orchestra rehearsing or a band rehearsing, you had to know someone in in the band and go and sit in and listen to the jam session. And for, for the longest time, the commodity of the products that was music was such a mystery to people the same way that a lot of like paintings and films and other pieces of art that are not shown until they are published and you don’t really get that opportunity to see what the creative process was like.

00:13:01:13 – 00:13:26:23

Steve

And so it became this this out of reach thing. And I think one of the reasons that the number of music creators and other creative individuals in the world is growing well, first of all, I think everyone’s creative. I think it came, you know, your creativity came free with your humanity, but it also is something that more and more people are identifying their need to do stuff creatively and they’re seeing more and more, this is possible.

00:13:26:23 – 00:13:47:06

Steve

Or I can go and I can learn how to do this, whether it’s woodworking and building your own tables or making electronic music or composing for video games or learning how to play your favorite songs on piano. All these just for fun. Just for fun. Just to go to go to an open mic night or to sit in your room and be the only one who ever knows about it.

00:13:47:06 – 00:14:05:20

Taetro

My father has been teaching himself how to play piano for the past few years, and it’s just like it’s purely a hobby for him, purely just the thing he can do on his own. And I think part of the reason he’s able to do that as he’s able to, you know, engage on the Internet, I don’t even know who he watches are like where he gets most of the stuff.

00:14:05:20 – 00:14:26:19

Taetro

But yeah, exactly what you said. Like arts, they can have a mystification about them and that’s okay. If you purely want to be a consumer of the art and you don’t care how the sausage is made and you just want to enjoy it. Of course, I think there’s levels of while sometimes my brain is like constantly trying to deconstruct like anything that I’m consuming, but not everybody has that brain.

00:14:26:19 – 00:14:48:23

Taetro

So it’s okay for that mystery to be there. But just like you said, demystifying it for the people who think, I want to do that. Like we live in a time now where like, I took up painting as a hobby, like watercolor painting, and I can watch so many classes online for free and, like, get to be, like, a pretty moderate amateur at painting like that.

00:14:49:01 – 00:15:07:10

Taetro

That’s awesome. So on the flipside of that, if you’re an artist out there, I think just sharing what you know with people is a it makes our world better. I think more artists better world. So I could be an artist that just like hides everything and only releases the music and doesn’t talk about, you know, tries to get keep.

00:15:07:10 – 00:15:24:23

Taetro

And I really want to combat against that, though. I think like we shouldn’t be gatekeeping, we should be sharing like there’s young people out there, there’s older people out there who want to be able to do things and enrich their lives in some form of art. And you know, us as artists, let’s let’s make it easy for people to do that.

00:15:25:01 – 00:15:52:02

Chris

Yeah. Well, and it’s also the the piece about to when you see the finished product, when that’s all you see, you don’t understand the work and the years of, of exploration that goes into that finished product. Right. And so like you know, yes, people can look up and see how to do things, but they also get an understanding of the fact that, like, if this is something that you want to do, it’s something that’s what I put time into.

00:15:52:02 – 00:16:00:16

Chris

Yes. Yeah. And I feel like I feel like it’s really easy for people to get discouraged if they’re just seeing like the best of the best of your work that you have to.

00:16:00:20 – 00:16:19:03

Taetro

Over and you get people believing that, these artists only exist because they have a natural gift, right? Yeah, right. I think that’s especially true in the US. Like American Idol, like, that’s the whole thing. It’s like, this person was just singing on the subway and they had such a beautiful voice. They got discovered and, you know, like, that’s the narrative that we write a lot around.

00:16:19:03 – 00:16:44:14

Taetro

A lot of the artists that are popular, especially in the West. And I feel like I’m completely not a naturally talented, gifted person. And I feel like there’s a lot of work that goes into this. And I think most of the artists that I know, of course, I think that they’re very talented, but I also know how hard they work and like how much time and effort and practice they put into what they do.

00:16:44:16 – 00:17:04:06

Taetro

And I hope that, you know, from the indie artist perspective, I think we’re constantly a lot of independent artists are constantly sharing the reality of what it is like, but I hope that carries through to more of the mainstream culture as well, because yeah, we want to see that more authentic journey and it’s better for people to see that more authentic journey.

00:17:04:08 – 00:17:29:07

Steve

Yeah, it’s it’s better in a lot of ways and you know, soapbox moment, I think it’s an oversold dream that people get discovered by by the people who are in charge, who sit in the boardrooms, who write those multimillion dollar contracts. And it’s it’s not nearly as common as people are led to believe. It always involves lots more connections that existed before that.

00:17:29:07 – 00:17:35:20

Steve

You know, if you became a have you became a breakout teen idol superstar, it’s because you had parents who.

00:17:35:21 – 00:17:37:01

Taetro

Your parents knew something.

00:17:37:06 – 00:17:57:01

Steve

Like that. And I’m not throwing shade about that. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing. It’s great to have those connections, but but to to foster the idea that anyone can do that specifically is is irresponsible because it is much more attainable to spend the time and learn to do these things on your own. And it’s much more enjoyable.

00:17:57:01 – 00:18:20:03

Steve

And that’s really, I think the point that where we’re getting at is, you know, don’t think about it as like a one and done thing, because oftentimes those breakout stories, they end up a lot sadder than than we want. You know, they either become one hit wonders or they have other you know messier things happen. But there’s often there’s like a one and done kind of mentality, which is not the way that music is.

00:18:20:03 – 00:18:23:18

Steve

You don’t just write one song, you don’t just play one. Yep. One piece of.

00:18:23:18 – 00:18:59:13

Taetro

Music. I think about that so much and it’s why I encourage people, any artist that you really love when you start liking that artist, when when they pop off for you fall. Just even if you if they continue to put out work and you don’t love the work, at least watch what happens to them over time. Because when you look at artists over a long period, especially, especially like a lot of major label artists, you know, leave out the Beyonce is the Taylor Swift’s cultural icons, but other artists that you might consider, they have made it because, they did a big tour or they got a big record deal or whatever.

00:18:59:15 – 00:19:27:09

Taetro

Follow them long term enough. And I can think of some artists that I loved from my high school days that I don’t know if they still have a career in music, even though they were superstars back then. And that is the reality. Sort of bring it back to the YouTube thing in terms of sustainability for an artist. For me, I can just put out a few videos a month, do some live films, connect with my community, and does it look like I’m a celebrity?

00:19:27:09 – 00:19:53:16

Taetro

No. Does it look like I’m some superstar? No. However, I’m able to pay all of my bills through the act of like creating my art and sharing it online. So I think like the most important part of that is what do independent artists now consider to be success? And if you only looking to those big stars as that’s what it means to be successful, that can be hugely defeating.

00:19:53:20 – 00:20:19:01

Chris

Absolutely. I would I would say that if that is your metric for success, you’re actually kind of setting yourself up for failure, because the truth the truth of that is that there are very there’s a very, very small swath of people that will ever experience that form of success. And there’s so much other success that you can have that fulfills you that will be probably more fulfilling than having that success.

00:20:19:01 – 00:20:28:21

Chris

Right? Because you also hear a lot of people that or a lot of artists that function on that level that talk about how empty that success feels. Yes, when they.

00:20:28:21 – 00:20:58:19

Steve

Attend, that’s also a process we don’t see. There are YouTube videos about how to become a breakout star because no one wants that, no one wants to give tours of that particular sausage factory. They don’t want they don’t want that curtain peeled back because then they’d have to admit, this is because, you know, the parents bought the first recording session and Ryan, you know, paid the giant, paid the record label half a million dollars to to make sure the song was successful.

00:20:58:19 – 00:21:20:12

Steve

And so then, you know, and various strings got pulled. And that’s not a reason that anyone should give up on on a career and I think that’s really the difference that I’ve been reflecting on this a lot and it came up in the last podcast and it’s a theme of what we’re talking about now, viewing it as a career versus a a job or a gig or a one and done thing.

00:21:20:13 – 00:21:44:20

Steve

And so one of the questions that I wanted to ask you is about how you keep things interesting and beyond just the fit, like doing a couple of streams a month or creating a few tracks and that there are other things you do that are outside of that, right? Like auctioning things off and doing other other art, artistic and creative things that are still under the umbrella.

00:21:44:20 – 00:21:53:12

Steve

So can you talk a little bit about how how you get inspired to do those things and where that where that how that kind of ties into everything that you’re doing?

00:21:53:13 – 00:22:15:02

Taetro

Yeah, I think the beauty of leaning more into doing a community driven thing rather than trying to be like a viral, you know, YouTube creator or something like that, is that I feel more of a freedom to go in different directions rather than just, here’s this new piece of gear, everybody. It does this and it does that and it costs this much.

00:22:15:02 – 00:22:33:11

Taetro

Go check it out. Like those videos are fine. They’re informative. They definitely help people. And I love gear, Don’t get me wrong. I love you can see from behind me is a bunch of gear, like an unnecessary amount of gear. So I’m always down to share that. But it’s always based on, you know, my passion level. Like I always want to play with a new toy.

00:22:33:11 – 00:23:02:10

Taetro

Yeah, great. I always want to like, you know, show it off a little bit. And if I can help people by showing off what that new toy does, fantastic. But if I feel like playing games on my stream or if I feel like showing everybody how I can, how I can paint like I talked about before, or if I feel like I want to have a big community event where people can come together and I can actually platform other independent artists from around the world, then I can do that because it’s completely community driven.

00:23:02:10 – 00:23:19:23

Taetro

So like in part of the idea of, you know, being in service to others, like wanting to share my, you know, artistic point of view tutorials and all that kind of thing. Even better, if I can bring in groups of other artists from around the world, because every time I do a livestream, people share where they’re watching from.

00:23:19:23 – 00:23:47:00

Taetro

It’s literally like every country, not every country, but like across the world at a single time on a single livestream. And that is hugely inspiring for me. So trying to direct that energy to, you know, some good causes. We do a charity every year for the Music and Youth Initiative, which they build great free music programs for young people in afterschool programs like doing that kind of thing.

00:23:47:00 – 00:24:07:04

Taetro

It just like, I wouldn’t still be doing this if I couldn’t do those things, you know what I mean? Yeah, Yeah. And to to be to be able to do those things and go in different directions and not always go for the thing that you know is going to bring some viral success. It takes a different, it takes like a little bit of a shift in what you define as successful.

00:24:07:09 – 00:24:33:22

Taetro

Like I guess if you look at my channel, you’ll see videos that have such a range of views, like you’ll see videos that have like 2000 views, you’ll see videos that have 100,000, you’ll see a couple videos that have a million views. Now, what I see, unfortunately for a lot of artists is that once they get a taste of that, like, 500,000 views, 1 million views, once they get a taste of that, you start to notice something.

00:24:34:03 – 00:25:01:10

Taetro

They start to do that same thing over and over and over again. Right. And of course, if we think about what we just talked about before, like the long tail of a career in music, of a career as an artist, how could you stay sane doing the same thing over and over and over again? And also, if you trained your audience to expect that what happens when you change as a person and decide, I want to try something new?

00:25:01:12 – 00:25:21:07

Taetro

So I don’t see the viral success thing chasing the viral success thing as a very sustainable career model. And so I constantly that the shift in the going in the different directions in trying new things, it’s the only way that I could sustain doing this long term. And it’s the only reason I think that I’ve been able to stay doing this long term.

00:25:21:07 – 00:25:45:04

Taetro

It’s like a shift in priorities, a shift and a shift in what you define a successful. Because if I thought every video that I put out, I have 300,000 subscribers, but this video got 2000 views. If I had to feel depressed about that, I wouldn’t be able to do this. Instead, I just feel confident like, okay, if 2000 people watch the video, it’s probably positively impacted at least 50% of them.

00:25:45:06 – 00:26:03:03

Taetro

And if I’ve positively impacted a thousand people, then I feel good. And I made a video that I’m proud of that I like when I put out a video, I don’t know how it’s going to do. I might have a guess, I guess is usually wrong. And I think anybody who makes videos will tell you that, I put in no effort and didn’t expect this video to be great and it popped up.

00:26:03:10 – 00:26:12:15

Taetro

I put so much time and effort into this video over here and nobody saw it. It’s more of a mental training, if anything, being able to sustain this for sure.

00:26:12:21 – 00:26:30:02

Chris

And that’s a that’s a really good point and one that I want to I want to press on a little bit more. I know that when I when I did my YouTube channel, I had a couple of videos that had really good success on them. And it was exactly what you just said, which is like, I didn’t really expect these ones to pop off.

00:26:30:07 – 00:26:49:03

Chris

For some reason they did. And then the ones that I thought I was like, this is going to do really well. They didn’t. But one thing that I found a lot I’m not a very online person. I don’t like social media, which is weird because I’m a director of brand marketing. I should I should be on social media more and monitoring it.

00:26:49:05 – 00:27:00:09

Chris

But I don’t like spending a lot of time on my phone. And what I ended up finding was like when I would release videos, I was glued to.

00:27:00:15 – 00:27:01:18

Taetro

Refresh, refresh.

00:27:01:20 – 00:27:31:16

Chris

The analytics page and just be like, Well, how is this one doing next to my other top ten videos or whatever? And I feel like there’s a real opportunity for a dive in mental health when you time when you take a step into trying to be a content creator and you’re dependent on this algorithm, it’s hard to separate the idea of, you know, whether or not your video is a good video from the idea of whether or not I’m in rhythm.

00:27:31:16 – 00:27:48:11

Chris

Exactly. How do you navigate that? Like as a as a content creator who’s been doing this for as long as you have, especially for creators who are just getting into it now and they’re maybe glued to their screen? Sure. How do you suggest navigating that?

00:27:48:13 – 00:28:06:00

Taetro

Well, there’s like two parts of it, right? There’s one part of it where you do you need to approach it like it is work. If you are trying to build something that sustains your career as an artist, you do need to build some discipline in there so that you view it as work, meaning you’re paying attention to what works on social media.

00:28:06:00 – 00:28:33:09

Taetro

You can’t completely be like, Well, I’m an artist, so I’m just going to do it my way and we’ll see. Like there’s certain things that you can do to showcase your work authentically, but still make sense in the venue of social media. So that’s fine. So I want to say I’m a person that hates social media. However, exactly what you just talked about, the idea of being glued to your analytics, you do need to have a clear North star for yourself.

00:28:33:15 – 00:28:51:01

Taetro

You cannot possibly have a North Star that says, I want to get 500,000 views on every video. It’s not a worthwhile North Star. So like, what is your actual mission as an artist? Do you want to be sharing your work with an audience? Yes, of course. Do you want to help people? Do you want to be entertaining people?

00:28:51:01 – 00:29:19:22

Taetro

What is your goal? So like, if you’re North Star is entertaining people, you shouldn’t even be looking at the view count. You should be looking at, did people laugh at my joke in the comments? Are people talking in the comments about how they enjoyed this? And it doesn’t matter if 100,000 people, 100,000 people viewed that. If ten people in the comments like talk about how much it entertained them, how much they loved your video, then that should be what is giving you sort of like the gratification and the motivation to move forward.

00:29:20:02 – 00:29:40:14

Taetro

So to solve that problem, actually of the refreshing of the analytics and stuff like that, I don’t have any social media apps on my phone at all. I have a second device. I have just an iPad that has all my social media on it, including the YouTube studio app, which is the app that you use to like check your analytics and stuff.

00:29:40:19 – 00:29:58:03

Taetro

So when I put out a video, everything is scheduled ahead of time. Even the Instagram posts are scheduled ahead of time. I know that the video is going out, but I don’t I definitely don’t check it within the first hour. I might check in on it a little later in the day. Even better, if I can resist that urge and not check it until the next day.

00:29:58:05 – 00:30:25:17

Taetro

Yeah, so like I had to completely break that because, you know, we used to have a relationship with the Internet where we went to the Internet and now the Internet is everywhere. So like it’s always in our pocket and we have to really like, build things to keep ourselves in check. So like me, not having the social media on my phone means anytime I leave the house, I cannot check my analytics analytics, I can’t check my messages, can’t check my comments, I can’t check anything.

00:30:25:17 – 00:30:49:03

Taetro

Besides, if somebody texted me or if I got an email right, it’s completely transformed how I interact online. So when I talked about Northstar before, my northstar is I’ve of course I want to positively impact people. So after like looking at, you know, years of doing content, knowing like the numbers and the history and everything, I should at least be reaching a thousand people.

00:30:49:09 – 00:31:09:16

Taetro

And I think my content is pretty positive. So I’d like to positively impact a thousand people with each video. And then I’d also like to share my art and or share a way of, you know, helping people within that. So that is like totally up to me. Like, do I feel like this video is helpful for somebody or do I feel like it authentically showcases my art?

00:31:09:20 – 00:31:22:14

Taetro

If the answer is yes to me, then I’m happy. And then if it reached and positively impacted a thousand people, then I’m happy. If it gets 500,000 views, fantastic. But I’m not more happy.

00:31:22:16 – 00:31:32:11

Chris

Yeah. No. Well, yeah, it’s it’s not necessarily the view count or how many views it got. It’s, it’s what are the people saying in the comments. How are people responding to this.

00:31:32:11 – 00:31:33:05

Taetro

It’s the community.

00:31:33:09 – 00:31:34:11

Chris

That you put out. Yeah.

00:31:34:13 – 00:31:36:02

Taetro

It’s why community matters so much more.

00:31:36:05 – 00:32:01:14

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. It makes a huge difference when you’re looking at the right metrics for the right, the right results because yeah, it’s very it’s very when looking at any analytics dashboard of any kind is really easy to, to say, to make false assumptions about what is causing certain certain behaviors. And like you mentioned earlier about people who get one breakout video that that the algorithm blasts it out to everybody.

00:32:01:17 – 00:32:19:19

Steve

They start doing that exact same video over and over because they don’t want to they don’t want to risk, I like I have to do it exactly the same way and get the lightning to strike again. But it probably won’t for reasons that because it probably did in the first place for reasons that had nothing to do with the.

00:32:19:21 – 00:32:21:09

Taetro

Out of your control completely.

00:32:21:10 – 00:33:00:10

Steve

Yeah. Things that things that have nothing to do with with what you as the creator did so making sure that you’re staying in your in your lane with stuff that makes you happy as the creator and keeps you engaged and interested and enjoying the process. That’s that’s one of the things that when people get into doing any kind of professional career in music, it’s it, I think from the outside in, from the non-musician perspective, it’s easy to think that it’s all fun and games because music is enjoyable process, but it’s easy for a non-musician to say that because they don’t know that a lot of what they don’t see and hear is is stuff that’s

00:33:00:10 – 00:33:39:05

Steve

frustrating, stuff that doesn’t sound very good, stuff that that we’re not proud of how we performed that stuff that that and you know, a lot of I think there’s also a tendency to think they they played that line on that instrument once. They must be able to do it exactly that same way every time where they, they you know, made this that, you know, perfectly executed, complicated drum fill on the beat pad once they must be able to do that at will and stuff equally complicated and you know even for the best most talented most skilled professional musicians who do perform with that level of quality most of the time, the every time doesn’t

00:33:39:05 – 00:33:45:11

Steve

exist. You know, like because of the that’s just not the way human performance of music works.

00:33:45:12 – 00:34:06:10

Taetro

So and I know you all interact probably a lot with people closer to the classical world, you know, in scoring and in that world, there’s such, there’s so much more context for what you just talked about, the practice is behind what it takes to get to that performance level, right? You know, music school, the institution of music school.

00:34:06:12 – 00:34:34:05

Taetro

Everybody knows you spent X amount of hours in the practice room. You perfector instrument. It’s very technique focused, etc.. Yes. One thing that I’m trying to drill down on more for myself is the idea that that exists in music production and in electronic music too, because there’s not the context for that. Currently, we don’t have, because of the way electronic music evolved at the institutions of higher education are not keeping up with it very well.

00:34:34:05 – 00:35:01:18

Taetro

Like institutions tend to do not be able to keep up with current things well. So people learning it don’t have that context of like, no, you need to practice for 8 hours before you’re going to be able to play this well. Whatever the number is, I don’t think it needs to be super dogmatic. So some of the things that I will show like for for my channel members, like I’ll post videos of my rehearsal texts or I’ll post videos of like me messing up a bunch of times.

00:35:01:19 – 00:35:20:16

Taetro

And that sometimes is like for me as an artist, like I have artist friends that I really admire their work and I’m like, Can you just when the next time you’re practicing, can you just set up a camera and just film yourself practicing? You don’t have to talk or say anything or perform or do anything. I just want to see what your practice session looks like because we don’t have that.

00:35:20:16 – 00:35:39:21

Taetro

And electronic music, it’s like, So it’s too new and it’s, you know, not institutionalized in the same way that the classical side is. So it’s difficult, but I want to communicate that more to the audience so people don’t just I have so many people that come to my channel, they see one of my videos, they buy a MIDI keyboard.

00:35:39:23 – 00:35:54:19

Taetro

They have no idea how to play the piano, right? No idea how to use a door. I don’t know what the thinking is when they buy the piano, but I get the comment that’s like, I just bought this and I realize I don’t know anything at all about what to do with it. So I want to help people get there.

00:35:54:23 – 00:35:58:16

Taetro

But I also want to help people understand like what it takes to get there.

00:35:58:18 – 00:36:24:19

Chris

Well, and that that that applies to anything, right? So it applies to music. Yeah. But it also applies to content creation. It applies to, you know, exploring these different avenues, succeeding, failing, you know, posting a video that doesn’t do very well that nobody sees or everything that we were just talking about, learning from things that don’t do well and all of that.

00:36:24:19 – 00:36:53:08

Chris

And so I want to kind of backtrack a little bit here. You were using YouTube as a repository for your performances. You decided to engage with YouTube on its terms as you know, making YouTube videos. There are so many other things, so many other skills that you have to develop, not just music. And I’ve noticed that your videos are usually very beautifully shot.

00:36:53:12 – 00:36:54:23

Taetro

Thank you. I appreciate that.

00:36:54:23 – 00:37:00:06

Chris

You have you have some some cinematography chops going on in your.

00:37:00:07 – 00:37:01:23

Taetro

Video that far. But thanks.

00:37:02:01 – 00:37:09:18

Chris

You know, was that something that you were always interested in? Was that something that you picked up along the way as you were engaging with YouTube?

00:37:09:20 – 00:37:45:21

Taetro

When I started doing YouTube, like when I started and decided, okay, I’m going to do tutorials and performances, the whole thing. I absolutely hated the video aspect of it. Yeah, like I tried to get by or I got by doing the bare minimum so I would shoot the videos on my Galaxy Note seven an Android phone. I’d upload the footage into Google Drive and then I had a really crappy iPad at the time and I would download those videos from Google Drive, import them into iMovie on the iPad, edit them on the iPad and then, hi, hi to the dog.

00:37:45:23 – 00:37:49:03

Steve

Hey. Yeah. So my roommate’s dog is getting antsy.

00:37:49:03 – 00:38:11:12

Taetro

But yeah, so like that whole process that I just talked about was because I really hated the video aspect at first and I wanted to do the bare minimum when it came to interacting with that. I like, I knew I wanted to make a tutorial, but I hated process. Over time I started to realize like, I actually like movies a lot.

00:38:11:12 – 00:38:30:10

Taetro

I don’t know. I say I like movies more than music. I think music for me as a means of expression is always number one. But maybe as a consumer of art, I actually maybe like consuming movies a little bit more to the point where like I can seem like directors commentary and things like that. So, so like that kind of deeper aspect of things.

00:38:30:15 – 00:38:55:19

Taetro

So once I had that kind of like self-awareness and self-realization, I guess I started thinking of it more like, the video is actually an extension of the music. It’s extension of the art. So if I can go to a beautiful location and shoot this performance, or if I can, you know, just make this mundane tutorial look a little more interesting, it’s actually part of the work.

00:38:55:19 – 00:39:11:02

Taetro

It’s not this chore that I have to do in order to get the work out there. It’s like part of the craft and I think a lot of people a kneejerk reaction, I think for a lot of people who hear like, if you’re a musician, you have to make content, but I just want to be a musician.

00:39:11:02 – 00:39:39:08

Taetro

It’s like, okay, that’s fine. There are avenues for you, or maybe don’t have to make any content or whatever. But if you step back and think of yourself holistically as an artist, like isn’t it great if you could like produce a little short film that features your music that like is interesting and like you can have creative input not only on the sound but the visuals, you know, like to me it’s just part of the art, But I totally understand for some people where it’s just they don’t have that passion, but I do.

00:39:39:08 – 00:39:45:13

Taetro

So I’m thankful that I do. And you know, I’ve grown to really love the video aspect and the production aspect of the whole thing.

00:39:45:15 – 00:39:57:05

Chris

So what was it like for you when you when you decided to start focusing on that aspect of it? What were the steps you started to take in order to implement the video aspect into your.

00:39:57:05 – 00:40:11:06

Taetro

It’s like, okay, step one, learn a little bit about cameras, get a little bit of a better camera, stop shooting on the phone. if I get an iPhone, it’s going to look a little better. Okay, let’s try that. if I get a little like a point and shoot camera, like maybe I can make things look even better.

00:40:11:06 – 00:40:34:13

Taetro

Or what does this lens do? Watson And filter what are frame rates? It was just it became part of the thing because I don’t know. I think every artist probably feels this way, but I’m never like content with what I’m making, you know, I’m never content with the level that I’m at really. Like I have this just drive that.

00:40:34:13 – 00:41:00:10

Taetro

Like if I have the space and the time to make things a little bit better, I will try to make things a little bit better. That comes with the music and the video aspect of what I do. So it was just like that. It’s just like you learn a little bit every time. If you go back, like I keep all my old videos up so if you sort my videos by, you know, reverse chronological, you can see what the production looked like back then and maybe scroll a little bit further down.

00:41:00:10 – 00:41:14:21

Taetro

You’ll see you get a little bit better and then scroll to present day and hopefully it looks like it’s the best it’s been. But hopefully, you know, two or three years from now or whatever, the stuff that I’m putting out looks even better or is like improved in some way. But that but that’s the constant journey that I’m on.

00:41:14:21 – 00:41:28:05

Taetro

It’s like a back to the numbers thing. If you’re North Star is like, I want to get a certain amount of subscribers or views or whatever. Like that’s so not fulfilling because by the time you get there, it’s like you got there now what?

00:41:28:07 – 00:41:28:20

Chris

Yeah.

00:41:28:22 – 00:41:42:06

Taetro

So if you’re fulfilled by actually just doing a little better every time, it’s like so much more motivating and so much easier to just keep making stuff and feel good about making stuff. Not that I always feel good 100% of the time. I want to make that clear.

00:41:42:12 – 00:42:09:10

Steve

But I think that’s a really important point because a lot of our audience is in the the group of composers for film video, games, animation, other other media projects. And so the music that they’re that they’re often creating is functional. And I think it’s such an important piece too. I said this on the last podcast that as you’re developing your career, it’s really important to understand the media for which you’re writing.

00:42:09:12 – 00:42:33:05

Steve

And I mean, I agree 100% Develop your cinematography chops and learn how films are shot. Develop your video editing, video editing chops, create a little short film and, do the music for it yourself. That process will teach you so much about composing for film. If your goal is to be a composer and you want to compose your film, understand the language of film better, be able to.

00:42:33:05 – 00:42:54:07

Steve

And then and then as a career building step, you then have something that you can show prospective prospective directors and clients you’re going to work with. This is a film that I made and did the music and sound for myself. I understand. And you know, here’s my demonstration to you that I understand all of these things in a way that that we’ll be able to work together.

00:42:54:09 – 00:43:16:03

Steve

You know, that’s that that to me is, is if nothing else, it’s skill development. And there’s always synergy between different skills that you develop. If you develop your video editing chops, you learn something about how music editing works. If you develop your composing chops, you’ll learn something about how dramatic pacing works for when you’re video editing or writing a screenplay or whatever it is.

00:43:16:05 – 00:43:41:10

Steve

Understanding when you do your own sound design and dialog, editing, understanding how to write better, more intelligible dialog, or as you know what, all these things that elevate little aspects of your craft. And I think it’s it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of that stuff. But part of the reason that it’s in a career long objective is you can pick one thing to focus on each time you do a project.

00:43:41:13 – 00:44:01:20

Steve

You know, I think something about that that’s coming through for me as you’re as you’re speaking, is that you seem to really enjoy feeling like you’ve learned something new or practiced something new or developed a new skill in some way. And it’s not just about doing the same thing over and over, even though you can distill it down to the thing that you love doing is creating music.

00:44:01:20 – 00:44:10:13

Steve

So as long as you have that, as you know, but there’s so much to be explored throughout that that it stays interesting as long as as long as you want it to be.

00:44:10:15 – 00:44:30:12

Taetro

In a way. Like I have been doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve been making music and making videos for like years, the year after year of year. So like, I don’t know, like you have to be I think of all these artists, you know, that have been around for decades or like you see, like actors and, you know, any cultural celebrity that has been involved in the arts.

00:44:30:14 – 00:44:48:10

Taetro

A lot of them, you see like, it’s kind of weird. They’re doing something different now. And it’s like, yeah, because the last thing you remember seeing them in or the last thing you remember them for is something 20 years ago. They’re a different person now. But I just like I have my notebook in front of me. So like, I remember anything you watch with like Ridley Scott or whatever.

00:44:48:10 – 00:45:23:00

Taetro

I watched so many, like behind the scenes with Ridley Scott, the director, and he there’s so much good behind the scenes stuff, but he always talked about how he does like little Ridley Grahams, like little storyboards and stuff for his films. But I just like started doing that for my videos and it’s like, first of all, it feels good to, like, sketch out an idea not just in words, but in pictures, but also it elevates the end product because it’s been more thoughtfully designed and more thoughtfully like because I’m not just making entertainment right?

00:45:23:00 – 00:45:38:19

Taetro

I’m trying to get an idea across. I’m trying to present my work as an artist. So just finding more thoughtful ways to do that. But again, like if I had the mentality of like, I’m just a musician, I can’t, you know, I’m just a musician, I don’t want to make little sketches. I don’t want to like, think about how I’m visually represented.

00:45:38:19 – 00:46:04:03

Taetro

Like, I definitely encourage all artists, whether you work in a like a very functional environment or not, or whether you have a little more freedom, like think of yourself holistically as an artist. If I think of any of the artists that I admire their more, no matter the medium of focus that they have, whether they’re a designer, whether they’re a musician, whether they’re, you know, a composer, they have some level of big picture vision.

00:46:04:05 – 00:46:21:03

Taetro

And exactly to what you were saying, Steve, about, you know, knowing a little bit about each area that you’re working in, it makes you a better collaborator and makes people more likely want to work with you because you can, like, better communicate what the end goal is of the whole creative project, especially in a team environment like that.

00:46:21:03 – 00:46:39:04

Taetro

Like I can film composition and game composition, I think it will elevate your work dramatically and it might make you feel like you’re going a little bit slower if you’re if you’re a musician and you suddenly are spending time focused on video, you might be like, Well, dang, I could make like so many more records if I didn’t have to make a video.

00:46:39:04 – 00:46:44:22

Taetro

And it’s like, maybe, but probably not actually like, right. And also, who would care.

00:46:45:00 – 00:47:14:19

Steve

Right? Who would know exactly the you can’t insist yourself into into success in that way. You can’t just say I’m I am a successful music producer. If you’re not successfully producing music, you know, then that’s right. But I read an article a few years ago that was about reinventing yourself and making career pivots. And one of the things it talked about was this this concept of always be developing new skills, but never necessarily abandoning the old ones.

00:47:14:19 – 00:47:38:10

Steve

When you have the when you when you add something new to your toolset, it’s not it’s not forsaking everything that you did up to that point. It’s finding finding a new avenue for something else that’s that’s enjoyable, you know, I mean, editing skills are not just are not isolated to music or movies or film or photo editing or dialog editing.

00:47:38:14 – 00:48:01:00

Steve

It’s similar concepts used in all of them. And the underlying idea of making something look nicer, sound nicer, flow, have better timing. All of those aspects transcend that. The media form really. They and they go down to the human experience of it. And and one of the other things that this article said was when when can I start saying I do X?

00:48:01:04 – 00:48:18:11

Steve

And the answer is today, right now, if you decide that that’s what want to start doing and you want to add a new skill tier to your toolset, you can start saying that you do that right now. Take one step towards that. Do do literally anything to to begin that journey. And now it’s a part of you.

00:48:18:12 – 00:48:39:16

Taetro

Yeah. The other thing about adding all those skills to the tool belt is like, even though I have all these outward even I do all the social media stuff, like I, I’m pretty creatively introverted, so like I prefer to be working on my own by myself doing these things and of course sharing them. But the creative process is usually very introverted for me.

00:48:39:18 – 00:48:59:09

Taetro

So if I’m going to be like that, I pretty much don’t ever want to have to ask somebody for help. I feel like the worst thing I could do is ask somebody for help. Not not because I feel too good to ask somebody for help because I. I strongly not want to inconvenience the people around me. I don’t want them to feel like I’m imposing on them, that kind of thing.

00:48:59:15 – 00:49:18:03

Taetro

So like every tool that I add to my tool about how to edit photos, how to do a bit of graphic design, how to make my website, how to make my videos, you know, like now I just become closer and closer to becoming this, like, fully independent, creative. The work could be better if I hired all star mixing and mastering person.

00:49:18:04 – 00:49:27:17

Taetro

Yeah, probably. But maybe to myself to like To what? Like who wouldn’t? Who would notice the difference? That mixing mastering Engineer.

00:49:27:22 – 00:49:29:08

Steve

Yeah, that’s mastering.

00:49:29:08 – 00:49:30:02

Taetro

Engineer. Right. Right.

00:49:30:02 – 00:49:31:20

Steve

If you gave them the A-B comparison.

00:49:32:00 – 00:49:48:07

Taetro

Yes, exactly. But like, my point is like, at what point does it actually make a difference? You know, like right now, like just people will consume your work and the ones consuming your work don’t think like that. They’re not they’re not constantly thinking about how the sausage was made. Many of them are not.

00:49:48:12 – 00:50:11:16

Chris

One to think it’s a good thing to have an understanding, even if you do work with other people. Yeah, it’s a really good thing to have an understanding of how that works. I remember my band back when I was like in my late teens, early twenties. We mixed a lot of our own records and my my bass player was the mixing engineer and I have a little bit of synesthesia.

00:50:11:18 – 00:50:37:04

Chris

I think of audio or sounds in terms of shapes. So I used to try and communicate to him how I wanted the mix to sound. By drawing a picture, I’d like, Yeah, the drums are like this bowl and the base is like this pillar that’s coming out of the bowl. The guitars are like these clouds that are floating around the top of the pillar and it took him, you know, the years of us working together and being in a band together.

00:50:37:04 – 00:50:40:19

Chris

For him to be able to interpret exactly what it was that I was saying.

00:50:41:00 – 00:50:41:21

Taetro

Yeah, but.

00:50:41:23 – 00:50:50:05

Chris

It wasn’t until I started mixing my own stuff that I, I began to understand how to communicate that. Like, you’re.

00:50:50:05 – 00:50:50:21

Taetro

Translating.

00:50:50:21 – 00:50:52:22

Chris

In practical terms your language to.

00:50:52:22 – 00:50:54:04

Taetro

Like everybody else’s language.

00:50:54:09 – 00:51:24:10

Chris

Exactly. Yeah. You know, this bowl means I want a cut in this frequency range or something like that. And so having that understanding is a really good one to then take and collaborate with other people on. Yeah. And then just also in terms of, you know, going back to what you guys were saying about doing other forms of, of art, I’ve always been a big believer in the idea that creativity is not necessarily conscious of how you’re using it.

00:51:24:10 – 00:51:50:13

Chris

It’s just conscious of whether or not you are, and especially if you’ve spent your life, you know, pursuing or engaging with one form of creativity that can get really stale. And especially if you do it on your own, you know, teacher like you, I’m a pretty introverted creator. I haven’t recorded or created a record with another person in over a decade now.

00:51:50:13 – 00:52:15:03

Chris

And all of the records that I release, I do completely on my own from start to finish. But one of the things that I do miss about being in a band is the fact I am only as good as my own limitations when it comes to the music that I can write. Collaborating with other people can bring in these other ideas that can then expand your boundaries or expand those limitations for you.

00:52:15:05 – 00:52:38:07

Chris

And I think the same can be said about just creativity in general. You know, if you’re a music creator and you’re singing, that’s all you do is you make, all you do is make music. You might get bored with that. But if you start painting or you start making videos that actually might inform your creative process in a way that you never thought it would because now you have a different perspective.

00:52:38:09 – 00:53:05:06

Taetro

Yeah, right. And it makes you like being a beginner at something again. Like especially if you’re a musician and you’ve been playing music for a long time. I found that when I took up painting I was a better beginner, first of all, because I understood better, like the process of learning how to do something. But I also was able to think like a beginner again, which is something I’m thinking a lot about lately, especially with the way like social media platforms change and shift.

00:53:05:07 – 00:53:37:05

Taetro

YouTube is different from when I first started. So like, how does what I’m doing need to change or how can I adapt to the current landscape to make sure, you know, I’m reaching and impacting the people that I want to be reaching and then taking on this new hobby, like painting, thinking like a beginner. Now you approach your, your main medium, like music or whatever it is, and you remember some things, you remember some like some things that you haven’t thought of since you were a beginner because you’ve been so steeped in it.

00:53:37:05 – 00:53:55:09

Taetro

All this time, you know, And that is like a really, really valuable thing, even if it’s just going to be a hobby, even if it’s not like you remember, I used to have this old Windows 95 computer in the in my house family computer, and once in a while my dad would do this thing called like fragging the computer.

00:53:55:09 – 00:54:12:10

Taetro

Like when it would get slow, he would drag the computer yeah. And I don’t know if this is true, but I would would I remember. It’s like, okay, the computer’s working. And as it’s working and running, it’s kind of just putting files in all these the places that it’s convenient in that moment, but not the most efficient places and then frag it.

00:54:12:10 – 00:54:36:14

Taetro

It takes all those files and it puts them back into the places so everything can run more smoothly. Whenever I’m doing something that’s not music related, whether it’s video games or whether it’s like painting or like, you know, watching a show on Netflix, I feel like my brain is d fragging, like it’s taking all of those little anxieties of those things that I wish I did differently about this mix, wish I did differently about this video.

00:54:36:16 – 00:54:57:08

Taetro

It’s kind of like filing them all appropriately because my brain is like completely out of that world. Video games especially, I can completely lose. I’m focused on a mission, a goal. Maybe I’m playing with friends. I’m completely out of the the that part of my brain that that artist part of my brain for the most part in that time.

00:54:57:11 – 00:55:18:04

Taetro

So when I come back feeling refreshed, you know, it’s like it’s totally different creative approach than if you’ve been sitting in like banging your head against the wall. So that’s why I worry about some of the the folks out there who are just a little too rigid in their in what they believe they need to be doing in order to be considered an artist.

00:55:18:04 – 00:55:25:19

Taetro

You know, sure, people become too concerned with that and they become ultra rigid and they begin, you know, kind of overdoing it.

00:55:25:22 – 00:55:48:20

Steve

Yeah, I think that’s a really great point. Keeping your mental health up is so important in in this this this industry. It’s very draining, working on music sometimes and it’s very draining when you’re when you’re putting yourself out there to the world on YouTube and getting feedback from people dealing with trolls, there’s at.

00:55:48:20 – 00:56:05:01

Taetro

All hours feedback at any time on a video. You could be getting feedback on something you put out five years ago, right? You could be getting feedback about your appearance, you could be getting feedback about your work, you could be getting feedback from somebody who has no qualifications at all to be giving the feedback that they’re giving. Yep.

00:56:05:01 – 00:56:05:18

Chris

Yeah.

00:56:05:20 – 00:56:06:18

Taetro

At all times.

00:56:07:00 – 00:56:08:01

Steve

Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:08:03 – 00:56:09:00

Taetro

Just part of it.

00:56:09:02 – 00:56:13:03

Chris

I remember getting comments like who would do that to their ears?

00:56:13:05 – 00:56:14:12

Taetro

Because I have because I have plugins.

00:56:14:12 – 00:56:15:12

Steve

You have gauges. Yeah.

00:56:15:16 – 00:56:19:22

Chris

Yeah. I mean, why would someone do that to their ears? I was like, this is not the point of this video.

00:56:20:03 – 00:56:38:18

Taetro

I mean, the fact that I had my nails painted for a while was like a huge point of contention. It’s like, it’s amazing. I’m here trying to teach you how to do music there and you’re concerned about the color of my nails. Crazy. It does say a lot more about where your head is at and your priorities, you know, But it comes with the territory, I suppose.

00:56:38:18 – 00:56:39:07

Taetro

Yeah.

00:56:39:09 – 00:57:04:01

Chris

How do you manage, you know, how do you manage burnout? Because I feel like, you know, there’s always stuff on YouTube about you need to be posting this often, like once a week. You need to be uploading a video and those kinds of things. You know, to be a content creator requires a lot of creative output that I personally, as a creative person, don’t feel like I always have, right?

00:57:04:05 – 00:57:18:11

Chris

It’s like, yeah, I feel like creativity also requires space and time to sort of digest what it is that you’ve taken in before you can put it out. How do you how do you manage that?

00:57:18:12 – 00:57:41:18

Taetro

Well, I think like again, the nature of what I do, the the documenting, the process of the just making the music and plus the community driven aspect, it allows me to go in any direction that I want to go in on a given day. If today we’re talking about finishing music or whatever, if that’s what I feel like doing, that’s what I’m motivated to do in that moment.

00:57:42:00 – 00:58:09:10

Taetro

That’s what we’re doing. If today I want to start something totally new and I’m going to grab a piece of gear off the wall that I haven’t used in a while, just for the sake of it, I’m going to do that. And the community shows up. So it’s that it’s like being able to go in different directions, but it’s also like I left all the pressure stuff behind like a while ago when when I like, just refined my North Star to be like a thousand views and make sure that I’m proud of the work.

00:58:09:12 – 00:58:32:08

Taetro

If you have those two things like frequency It again, we talked about the long term success of a creative person. We’ve seen lots of examples of creatives who have been who have attempted to do things long term and have done it unsustainably and have had a lot of negative impacts either in their life, like literally where they didn’t survive it or in their personal life.

00:58:32:10 – 00:58:52:22

Taetro

And I have no desire to see that. I don’t know how many more warning signs like public warning signs we need, you know, of a celebrity potentially taking their own life or these you know, you hear about these families, you hear about these independent artists who basically almost didn’t make it through a period in their life because. They were putting so much pressure on themselves.

00:58:53:03 – 00:59:09:19

Taetro

None of that is worth it to me. None of it like if I if I see somebody say, like, you need to post this much on YouTube, we need to post this much on Instagram and make sure doing it this time, it’s not worth it. I’ll go get it. I’ll go. I’ll be a postman. Like I don’t need to make music at night and I’ll go work for the post office.

00:59:09:21 – 00:59:10:12

Chris

Yeah.

00:59:10:14 – 00:59:38:09

Taetro

Instead, like, okay, like I’m going to do what I’m comfortable with doing and I’m going to go find the people that like what I’m doing. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like any any medium of art, any kind of music, all of that, you can find your people, you know what I mean? You can find people that dig the same thing you do, but you should also be realistic about like if you if you make I’m going to make something up like space core banjo, jazz, opera music.

00:59:38:11 – 01:00:01:14

Taetro

The Jets are awesome audience for that is me. And so we have we definitely have an audience of one already, but I would say the general audience for that versus an EDM audience. For instance, if I said EDM, I could get a lot more people to raise their hands, right? So like if you’re doing something that’s cool and unique in that you’re passionate about, then you should view it from that perspective.

01:00:01:14 – 01:00:21:14

Taetro

It’s cool and unique and ultimately the pool of people you’re going to be reaching with that is smaller than if you happen to or do a certain other thing. And that’s the same thing with YouTube. If I felt passionate about, you know, whatever is viral on YouTube about at the moment, I would do it. But instead I’m just going to do what I’m passionate about.

01:00:21:20 – 01:00:44:16

Taetro

And if that cycle, if those planets align someday, where suddenly the thing that I’m already doing is suddenly something that’s super popular, that’ll be great. But if not for now, I’ve got my community, I’ve got my supporters, like any traditional independent artist, has, you know, the level changes all the time, but it’s not worth like the burnout thing.

01:00:44:21 – 01:00:58:03

Taetro

It’s not worth burning out. It’s not worth you risking your mental health for the sake of keeping up or like keeping up some appearances or setting some unreasonable, unattainable goal that you never had control of in the first place.

01:00:58:09 – 01:01:15:09

Chris

With that, with that in mind, have there ever there ever been like times where you’ve thought, you know what, I don’t really want to make any videos this month and then taking a month off? Or do you just feel constantly motivated to to make that content?

01:01:15:11 – 01:01:19:05

Taetro

I always feel constantly motivated to things.

01:01:19:07 – 01:01:20:09

Chris

01:01:20:11 – 01:01:50:11

Taetro

I don’t want to I don’t want to say constantly motivated to make things because I don’t want people to think like, I’m for that grinds lifestyle, you know, that’s not what I’m saying. But it’s like in the, in the vein of sustainability, I’ve made it so make things, whatever that may be, If that’s a video piece of music, doing a livestream or whatever, I’ve made it so that those things are not difficult and not a heavy lift in that I don’t feel pressured to do them.

01:01:50:13 – 01:02:06:03

Taetro

So it doesn’t matter. Like some some months I might say, I’m going to make a video every week this month or today I woke up. If I wake up and I say, I want to do an actual livestream this week, I’ll go live. Or I got this new thing. Let’s make three videos about it because I love it so much, whatever.

01:02:06:05 – 01:02:31:08

Taetro

But it’s also like, I really have only one thing I’m working on this month and that’s great. Like, like, but I’m always creating something so there’s been some time where I’ve spent away from home, out of the country, and I’ve still been able to make stuff, you know? And it’s not because I felt pressure to make stuff, it’s because I enjoy making stuff and I enjoy connecting with my community.

01:02:31:10 – 01:02:48:01

Taetro

So like, I want to be super clear for people listening that it’s an I don’t think it’s about the grind. So that’s not what I’m saying. You have to grind, you have to do it no matter what push through. But it’s more about making systems in your life so that doing the thing that you love is easy to do.

01:02:48:07 – 01:02:59:15

Taetro

Making stuff should be easy to do. It’s not always easy, but you should have mechanisms around you that like whenever you feel like making something you can, it’s not like an arduous process.

01:02:59:17 – 01:03:15:05

Chris

So I guess I’m asking this more for myself because I haven’t I haven’t uploaded anything to YouTube and I think close to ten months on my channel and you’ve seen my videos, you’ve seen them. Yeah, I throw myself through a portal. And so it’s like it’s it’s very heavy.

01:03:15:05 – 01:03:16:01

Taetro

It’s a lot of work.

01:03:16:01 – 01:03:48:18

Chris

Yeah, preproduction, post-production. And I had a lot of fun doing it and I really enjoyed making it. But then once I started working at Museo, I’m also a dad. I was doing these three things and I was like, I don’t have the energy at all to put into this. How important do you think it is for people to sort of give themselves that grace where if they do hit that, that point where they’re like, Hey, I need to take a step back from this?

01:03:48:20 – 01:04:05:03

Chris

How important do you think it is for them to be able to do that? Like, because I know for me what I’ve been telling myself is YouTube is always going to be there. Yes, I have this audience that that I’ve amassed through these months that I was doing it, and I do feel some kind of obligation to them.

01:04:05:03 – 01:04:23:13

Chris

But at the same time, it’s like we’re all human beings and I need to, you know, keep my internal mental status sustainable as well. And my creative output sustainable as well. So like to anybody that might be feeling that. Me What do you say to them?

01:04:23:15 – 01:04:48:16

Taetro

The sustainability is all that matters. Because if you instead said, I pushed through and I kept making a video every week and it was arduous. And Casey Neistat I think is a good point of reference. We all know Casey Neistat, so famous vlogger, one of the pioneers in video creation on YouTube. This is why I remind people, watch people’s full careers and listen to what they say.

01:04:48:16 – 01:05:05:03

Taetro

Find every podcast that people go on, listen to what they say about what’s actually happening, because every podcast, Casey Neistat, goes on when he talks about the period of his life when he was vlogging every single day, when all of us would have looked at him and said, Wow, this guy’s super successful. I want to be just like him.

01:05:05:03 – 01:05:23:20

Taetro

He’s and now he’s super rich. As a result of it. He goes on podcast now and talks about how his marriage almost fell apart and how his personal life was in shambles because of that. So what folks have to realize is that if you don’t have balance in your life, not just in your creative medium, you’re making a choice.

01:05:23:20 – 01:05:37:21

Taetro

You’re making a choice. Maybe there are many people who said, doesn’t matter, the ends justify the means, but not everybody’s getting the same ends. Not everybody’s going to end up like Casey with, you know, you know, a hugely successful career. He got lucky.

01:05:37:23 – 01:05:41:02

Chris

And the do the ends justify the means? You know.

01:05:41:04 – 01:05:56:09

Taetro

Absolutely don’t if your life look you just talking about like having your family and like having a good career and a good job and you wouldn’t be doing that. You wouldn’t have a family if you weren’t passionate about having a family. You wouldn’t be in your job if you weren’t passionate about the work. So we are whole people.

01:05:56:11 – 01:06:16:16

Taetro

We are not just this one thing that we become known for or whatever. And if you make a YouTube channel or if you you’re doing social media, if you’re an artist in any form and you’re putting out work, you have to build sustainability into your life. So the mechanisms for creating should be easy for you in your life.

01:06:16:18 – 01:06:40:07

Taetro

And then part of it is like you might have a creative vision that is beyond your capability, even if it was within your capability in a given moment, even if you were able to make like these crazy YouTube videos or jump through portals, you know, in any given moment or even if there was a time in your life where you were able to, you know, make an album every month, you know, that was true for you at that time of your life.

01:06:40:12 – 01:06:59:19

Taetro

But now it’s time to have a reality check and like, actually consider what’s possible for me now in this moment that would make me feel fulfilled, that would make me having work that I’m still proud of. Where I could still be making stuff, putting stuff out like I want to, but not destroying every other aspect of my life.

01:06:59:21 – 01:07:23:19

Chris

Yeah, well, that’s not always so important. That’s so important as a creative person, whether you’re making YouTube videos, whether you’re a content creator, whether you’re making albums and releasing them. Yes, we are creatives. Yes, we are musicians. You’re a content creator, you’re a this or that. You’re also a human being. And so like if you do something long enough, your relationship to that thing is going to change because you’re going to change.

01:07:23:21 – 01:07:35:06

Chris

You know, I remember when I was 18, I could write a full length record in like a month, 14 songs, boom, No big deal. No, pal.

01:07:35:06 – 01:07:37:16

Taetro

Times are easier back then,

01:07:37:18 – 01:07:40:06

Chris

Yeah. When you’re when when you’re young.

01:07:40:08 – 01:07:41:20

Taetro

When you’re young and have no.

01:07:41:22 – 01:07:42:22

Chris

Time to.

01:07:43:00 – 01:07:47:18

Taetro

Write about all the things and yeah, let all the emotions pour out. Yeah.

01:07:47:18 – 01:07:50:01

Chris

This doesn’t even need to make sense. These lyrics.

01:07:50:02 – 01:07:51:16

Taetro

Yeah. Sounds exactly.

01:07:51:18 – 01:07:52:06

Chris

Yeah.

01:07:52:08 – 01:07:55:01

Steve

Back when we were liabilities with no responsibilities.

01:07:55:01 – 01:07:55:17

Chris

Exactly.

01:07:55:17 – 01:07:56:12

Taetro

Yeah.

01:07:56:13 – 01:08:16:18

Chris

And now it’s like, you know, I. I’m lucky if I can release if I can write and release an EP every two or three years, if I have the, the creative energy to put towards that because it is a lot of creative energy to put into that. And I’m not, you know, I’m not in the same place that I was in.

01:08:17:00 – 01:08:41:12

Chris

And I know that I’ve had a lot of sort of like internal identity struggles around that. It’s like, Well, why can’t I be as prolific as I used to be? But it’s like being okay with the idea that you’re going to change as a person and like giving being kind to yourself, giving yourself that grace to be to change and to not be a creative machine.

01:08:41:16 – 01:09:02:16

Taetro

Yeah, Being aware of the reality around you. Like I have friends that release a single every single month and they’ve got that. They’ve actually got it ready. They’ve got it planned three months in advance, five, six months in advance, and they’ve got that release schedule rolling. Last year I released an ambient album around this time in March. Haven’t released anything until my single that came out today.

01:09:02:16 – 01:09:20:07

Taetro

So like a year later, what am I supposed to feel bad Because I have a friend that releases a track every month and I’m releasing like something once a year. So that’s just my reality. And I’ve made it work and I feel good and I’m proud of my work. Could I try? Could I strive? If striving to release more falls into my goals?

01:09:20:07 – 01:09:39:18

Taetro

At some point, I will build structures and systems around myself so that I can do that. But ultimately it makes me think of two because I know a lot of the audiences, you know, film composing and game composing and things like that classical world. You need to have people around you that are supportive and understand the creative journey that you’re on.

01:09:39:18 – 01:10:00:13

Taetro

If you need to be, you know, in a session that goes from 4 p.m. to midnight, you’re going to miss dinner that night and is your partner okay and supportive with that? I’m thankful that I have a partner that is very supportive of all the creative things that I do. I have a family that’s very supportive of all the creative things that I do.

01:10:00:15 – 01:10:32:05

Taetro

So if my life looks a little different than, you know, relatives that I have that work a normal 9 to 5 or a usual quote unquote career, I don’t feel bad about that. So like, there’s a lot of like life elements that go into it, too, and communicating that with the people around you and making sure you know you are paying attention to if those people around you are being supportive and letting them at least know that, hey, my journey is going to look a little different than the average, you know, typical worker journey.

01:10:32:07 – 01:10:54:06

Steve

I mean, this is bringing up a lot about identity and values. And both of both are extremely personal things that are unique to everybody. And it’s not really up to anyone else what your identity is and what your value structure is. And so going back to you said earlier about people who are like, you have to be putting out this much content, you have to be doing it this much.

01:10:54:06 – 01:11:08:02

Steve

And if you if you don’t do that, then you’re a failure. That’s that. To me, anyone who’s saying stuff like that is automatically not qualified. Yes, exactly. You can maybe you can assume they’re not qualified to be giving any kind of advice that’s.

01:11:08:04 – 01:11:29:17

Taetro

What’s hard about that is the amount of affirmation they will get. So you will see people saying those things and then will see them getting lots of affirmation. Right. You’re see people spreading hate or being trolls and you’ll see them getting lots of affirmation. So it’s easy to feel like every you’re completely wrong. Like you’re the crazy one.

01:11:29:21 – 01:11:30:18

Chris

Yeah, right.

01:11:30:23 – 01:11:53:06

Taetro

But like, if you’re if you’re so true and like, so like, I don’t want to sound, like, overly confident and that like, I have my shit together all the time because I definitely don’t. And I definitely have my own struggles mentally. No one does. But I do take the time to, like, write shit down in a notebook. Like, like the things that we’re talking about, like, like the North Star and how can I make stuff more sustainable and what are some of my goals?

01:11:53:06 – 01:12:22:17

Taetro

That stuff that I write down. Yeah, and I might never revisit it again, but something about writing it down, setting it in ink or whatever, like makes it more real so that when I encounter those situations, you know, this person says I have to do X, Y, and Z to be considered successful, or this person committed and said, I’m a this or I’m a that, I have a solid, you know mindset that that makes it so that doesn’t affect me as badly as it could, you know?

01:12:22:17 – 01:12:23:04

Taetro

Right.

01:12:23:06 – 01:12:27:00

Chris

Because you’ve thought through it and you’ve written through it and you’ve, you’ve considered these things. Yeah.

01:12:27:05 – 01:12:53:01

Steve

And you do it regularly. I mean, I have a, I have a set of seven areas of my life that I try to work on every day. So every morning or as close, not every morning because. Because no one does it. No one does everything they set out to do every day. But most mornings I try to set out seven intentions for the day in each of these different areas physical, creative, intellectual, various professional, different responsibilities that I have, I set out, okay, here is what I’m going to do today that checks this box.

01:12:53:01 – 01:13:20:05

Steve

And then later at the end of the day, I go back through, I say, either I did this or I didn’t do this, but if I didn’t do this thing that I set out to do, I find another way in which I accomplished that because there’s seven areas of life that happen. The time passes either way, whether it whether it’s what I spent, what I intended to spend doing, or another another way in which it was achieved, something happened that that satisfies that criteria.

01:13:20:05 – 01:13:41:07

Steve

And being able to say I did something that made me that that I learned something new. Maybe it was something that I didn’t expect to learn. Maybe it was something that isn’t, strictly speaking, useful or every aspect of my life, but it’s something that I didn’t know when I woke up this morning and now I know it. Yeah.

01:13:41:12 – 01:14:12:10

Steve

And being able to consistently track that and making sure that something is happening that I can feel good about that takes the other that takes the naysayers out of the equation. And anyone who else who’s who’s watching that journey because so much of the time when you when you do things like this to put yourself out there, that becomes your identity in other people’s minds, they see that that last the last thing that they saw you do and maybe and they may not be watching everything that you do.

01:14:12:10 – 01:14:41:07

Steve

They may have seen one of your videos. You know, someone in your in your 320 some thousand subscribers is probably someone who watched one of your videos in the last ten years and hasn’t been following that journey. So they have a different version of you in their mind than you actually are. And there’s a great book called The Four Agreements that talks about not taking anything personally because everyone living in their own version of the world and everything they see and perceive and understand is a reflection of themselves.

01:14:41:07 – 01:14:49:23

Steve

It’s not actually that other person. So no matter what anyone or does, it’s not about you, it’s about them. So don’t listen to the trolls.

01:14:50:00 – 01:15:11:06

Taetro

That’s like super exaggerated online too, right? Because you’d never know what what the person’s onramp was to them getting to you, to them saying the thing that they’re going to say, positive or negative. Right, right, right. So the identity is like something I’ve been thinking a lot about because, you know, my artist name Tatro, that’s my last name.

01:15:11:06 – 01:15:40:17

Taetro

That’s like my literal name. And so my channels name is Tatro. So everything that I make and put out is and basically, you know, everything that I do in that sense because it’s my also my career is so closely tied to my identity and I realize how that’s not true for everybody. Some people have jobs and go to work, and even though they may like their job, they don’t tie that to their identity.

01:15:40:19 – 01:16:05:03

Taetro

They are, you know, something other they would define themselves as something other than what they do every day. And there’s a vlogger that I watch and she you know, she’s a successful vlogger. She does well. She has brand deals, you know, has a popular channel, whatever. And she has been talking about in her vlogs lately how she got a job as a barista just to do something that was completely separate from herself.

01:16:05:05 – 01:16:26:00

Taetro

Yeah. And I’m like, wow, That is like, I think a lot of people think about like, you were a content creator, but now you’re now you’re working at a coffee shop. Like, what are you, a failure, right? Like, right. But that simple perspective shift of like, yeah, I’m doing something because like, not everything I do in my life needs to be tied to my identity.

01:16:26:02 – 01:16:48:00

Taetro

So I’m thinking of that as that’s a daily thing that I’m thinking about is like, does everything I’m doing need to be tied so closely to my identity? Could I have a faceless creative outlet? You know, that was not me or her or whatever and of course, like you said, like people people perceive you a certain way based on what you put out online.

01:16:48:00 – 01:17:00:14

Taetro

But everything I put out online is not the entirety of my life. There’s a lot of things that don’t share about my life online. And so how could I ever take somebody’s judgment of me so seriously? Yeah, but I know that to be true.

01:17:00:14 – 01:17:35:20

Chris

Yes, it’s funny. It’s literally the reason why I threw my hat in with jumping into a more corporate environment, like why I worked for art often and then why I now work for MUZIO. Ensign examples. I got tired of having everything that I do, be pushing myself out into the world and then like wondering what people how people were going to respond to it, to whether or not it was going to be successful on, you know, in terms of however I may have defined success at that particular time in my life, it’s easy.

01:17:35:20 – 01:17:48:16

Chris

It’s easier for me to just like go be a person on a team that puts these skills to use, that have nothing to do with people’s perception of me. Definitely, you know, Yeah.

01:17:48:18 – 01:18:11:02

Taetro

I still maintain some work outside of my self as Tetro, so I still do some mission driven work where I’m applying all the skills that I’ve learned over the years with like video creation and just like social media staff telling stories. I still do a lot of that that work on the side and I don’t talk it at all on my social media.

01:18:11:02 – 01:18:35:04

Taetro

It’s completely separate from me as an artist and that also helps me stay fulfilled. Like I keep coming back to this idea because, you know, having been to music school, you know, these, these people that they’re their heads down in the practice room at all times, they never stop it. This is who they are. It’s kind of like a one note personality type thing.

01:18:35:06 – 01:18:53:19

Taetro

I highly encourage every artist, every musician, whatever medium. You got to have more than one thing, you know, You got to not just be head like, I don’t want to speak for everybody, of course. So I think that there’s some people that could be one track on something and they’re super passionate and they’re super content with their life doing that.

01:18:53:19 – 01:19:14:06

Taetro

Fantastic. If you’re content with your life, I’m not talking to you, but if you’re feeling some level of like tension, it might be because you’re just too head in the sand deep into the one thing that you’re doing and a more holistic approach I think is going to yield better results mentally at least.

01:19:14:08 – 01:19:40:07

Steve

I think the type of person that you’re describing who’s locked in the practice room is very traditional of the type of classical performer, like a violinist who wants to be the principal violinist in an orchestra and yes, people who are who are going down that road. It’s a great route to go down if you want that. Yes. You just have to understand the stakes are very high it’s extraordinarily competitive.

01:19:40:07 – 01:20:01:06

Steve

There are very few opportunities for that and there’s not a ton of glory in it there. And that’s fine, too. I mean, not everything that that, you know, you don’t have to do everything for the glory. And that’s something that I think can be it’s easy to conflate that. And you look.

01:20:01:08 – 01:20:02:07

Chris

Things happen there.

01:20:02:09 – 01:20:03:13

Steve

Yeah.

01:20:03:15 – 01:20:44:11

Taetro

To bring that back to the YouTube thing. So on another whole underlying thing of as why I chose this career pathway and why it’s working well for me is that it sidesteps most of the traditional gatekeepers. So if you think of that classical violinist who’s going to train every single day for 12 hours a day in a practice room, and that’s their North Star, they want to be principal violinists in whatever or whatever symphony they have control over that and result, even if they are technically fantastic, even if they spend those 12 hours in the practice room every day, it could come to them and another person who did the exact same thing and a

01:20:44:11 – 01:21:02:12

Taetro

person on the other side of the table that says because their you wore blue and the other person wore pink that day, they like pink better and they pick pink. Right. It could completely come down to that. And there’s so many versions of that in music, right? We used to have to how do we get our music on the radio?

01:21:02:13 – 01:21:20:22

Taetro

We have to get to this radio deejay. how do we get our music played on TV? we have to get a record deal. All of these gatekeepers used to exist. Now, what are the number one video distribution sites everybody goes through every day in what is a video? YouTube.com. Anybody can make a channel, anybody can upload.

01:21:20:22 – 01:21:32:00

Taetro

It’s a matter of like reaching those people, finding them, building up your own channel. Of course, you don’t get the $100,000 advance from the label to start that up and to, you know, make that you then.

01:21:32:00 – 01:21:33:13

Chris

Have to pay back.

01:21:33:15 – 01:22:01:12

Taetro

That you’re in debt. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But exactly the good part about that is you’re starting it on your own. You’re not in debt and you’re building something up for yourself. So like, that’s the underpinning there is like completely bypassing gatekeepers, finding the people like what I do and getting direct access to them. So yes, I have a YouTube channel, but I also have Instagram and then I also have a Discord server and then I also have Channel members, you know, like and then I also have a website.

01:22:01:12 – 01:22:22:14

Taetro

So like all of these like multi pillar approach where like if one went down, one would still be standing know, right? Provides a little sense of security. But we started this chat by talking about how it’s one of the best times to be alive as an artist. Of course. And there are definitely more ways that artists can be exploited nowadays.

01:22:22:14 – 01:22:45:11

Taetro

However, there are more ways, I think, now for us to sidestep gatekeepers and craft our own vision for what our career will look like as artists. Because sustainability, it’s not just about making money, it’s not just about being able to pay your bills. It’s about the people who want to consume your work. You owe it to them to be able to to sustain your work.

01:22:45:12 – 01:23:15:15

Taetro

If you can’t keep creating the thing that they love, ultimately you’re letting them down and that’s at whatever frequency you can do it, whatever level you’re able to do it at the people who want your work, you deserve to sustain your work so that you can provide it for them, right? Like if you if you think about it that way, from a non selfish perspective, there’s people that want to consume your work, build a sustain way so that you can keep creating and you don’t just disappear off the face of the earth one day and their favorite artist is suddenly gone.

01:23:15:17 – 01:23:16:10

Chris

Yeah.

01:23:16:12 – 01:23:17:01

Steve

Yeah.

01:23:17:03 – 01:23:25:03

Chris

So we are we’re coming up on our time here together that we’ve, we’ve set aside. But I just want to ask you two more things.

01:23:25:05 – 01:23:26:03

Taetro

Sure.

01:23:26:05 – 01:23:57:21

Chris

One, someone’s listening this right now. It’s a young music creator or, you know, whatever age they’ve just made their YouTube channel. They’ve decided that they’re going to, you know, try their hand at YouTube content creation. We’ve answered a lot of this question already, I’m sure throughout this conversation. I’m pretty sure we have. But just with that premise in that set up, what’s like the one piece of advice that you would give that person that you would want to impart on them as they embark on their content creation journey up.

01:23:57:23 – 01:24:18:00

Taetro

Put your head down and keep making stuff for a while. You’re not going to look at your first video and be like, Wow, you know how people saw this? And then your next video is 50 people, and then if you give up after that, you’re like, It was a fruitful effort anyway. Like, you have to keep going regardless of what you think these micro things are.

01:24:18:00 – 01:24:34:02

Taetro

Because now if you can imagine, I can look at my channel, it’ll analytics and I can look at the past five years of data and somewhere along the line there is a dip. But certain of it I’m not looking at the data, but there’s a dip somewhere. If I had quit at that dip, I wouldn’t be at the higher level that I’m at today.

01:24:34:04 – 01:24:55:19

Taetro

Right? So you’re going to have to just put your head down and keep going. Also. Secondly, you have to be asking yourself, why would somebody watch this? Don’t just make a video for the sake of making a video. Don’t do the like simulacra of art thing where like, you know, what are YouTube videos supposed to look like? So you make it like a YouTube video supposed to look like and you’ve just simulated a YouTube video.

01:24:55:19 – 01:25:16:00

Taetro

Now like make something that somebody would want to watch for some reason, whether that’s educational, whether that’s entertaining, whatever it may be. But also you could just be documenting your experience for now, learning the ways of doing all this stuff. And the practice you’re getting from doing that is enough. So there’s a determination for you to make it there.

01:25:16:01 – 01:25:29:17

Taetro

Are you just documenting your process, currently getting getting your feet on the ground, you know, figuring things out, or are you actually trying to build an audience? If you are trying to build that audience, you should be asking, why would anybody watch this? Why would people come back? You know, that kind of question.

01:25:29:18 – 01:25:36:14

Chris

Okay. And then the last thing, yes, you have your YouTube channel, you do your livestreams. You also have a podcast called Creative Currents.

01:25:36:18 – 01:25:56:19

Taetro

That’s true. Yes. Yes, yes. So I just finished season one since right now I’m like promoting the single that just dropped and the album that’s going to come out next month. I’ve of completed season one, but they’re very evergreen episodes. So if you are interested in more subjects like this, some of the stuff we talked about today, even a creative identity, creativity.

01:25:56:19 – 01:26:06:18

Taetro

Check out Creative Currents podcast. There’s ten episodes waiting for you out there, and we’ll be back with Season two. Once the hectic ness of this, you know, album release and everything finishes up.

01:26:06:22 – 01:26:17:02

Chris

And we’ll put it in the show notes for you guys. Also, where can people just keep up to date with what you’re doing? Where can they get notified about your album when it comes out? All of that stuff for sure.

01:26:17:02 – 01:26:38:13

Taetro

Just keep up with me on all the social media is of course, I post videos a few times a month on YouTube. I’m also live every single week on YouTube. I’m on threads and I’m on Instagram at Teatro to ETR on both those things. I’m always, you know, posting at random times about the things that I’m doing. But, you know, if you want to keep up with some of the stuff, you won’t miss it.

01:26:38:13 – 01:26:40:05

Taetro

If you’re following me, that’s what I’ll say.

01:26:40:06 – 01:26:44:04

Chris

Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show. Manners has been a great conversation.

01:26:44:06 – 01:26:45:19

Taetro

Thanks so much for having me.

01:26:45:21 – 01:27:05:00

Chris

Thank you for listening. We hope you found that conversation inspiring. And thank you to Tatro for sharing his time and his thoughts with us to keep up with to check out the show notes for links to his various platforms. His YouTube channel is full of helpful and uplifting content and he has a fantastic and supportive community that are all sharing their music journey with each other.

01:27:05:05 – 01:27:23:07

Chris

So if that’s the kind of thing that you’re into, I highly recommend that you check it out. If you like this conversation, you want to hear more like it. Please don’t forget. To rate and review every bit of positive feedback helps this podcast get out to more music creators just like you. And it also just helps us know that we’re doing a good job.

01:27:23:09 – 01:27:30:02

Chris

Until next time. I’m Chris Hazel and this is Orchestrated the Music podcast. I’ll catch you on the next one.