Welcome to the PianoPod. I'm Yuki Misong.
Hi everyone, I'm Clara Zhang.
For anyone listening or watching our show for the first time, so happy to have you.
Clara and I are both classical pianists and piano teachers from New York City.
This podcast is for anyone who plays the piano for fun, loves listening to the piano music,
or for someone who is currently pursuing a career in piano or works in the industry professionally,
or who is just simply curious about the world of piano music.
In each episode, we interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the music industry.
Before getting started, we want to thank our listeners for tuning in.
Please read our show or review on Apple Podcasts because every reading review will help people find our show.
For this episode, we invited Mr. David Jones from the UK.
David is a piano theory chorus creator. The name of the course is called Piano Zone,
recently published and recognized by the London College of Music Examinations.
Yeah, I'm really excited about this episode. In the description of this piano course,
David said the chorus comes with fully animated coaching for children to practice at home.
Wow, this is so new and sounds so exciting.
I know, right? And it turns out David also is a film composer and TV composer producer,
as well as a director of a music school in the UK.
Wow, that's really amazing. I'm really curious to know how all his background helped create his piano music theory courses.
Yeah, well, there's only one way to find out. Let's get the show started, shall we?
Yep, let's do it.
You're listening to the piano part where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
We're very excited to introduce our guest of episode number eight, Mr. David Jones,
piano theory course creator as recognized by the London College of Music Examinations, film composer for movies such as Out of Time,
co-creator, composer, songwriter, music producer of the new musical animated edutainment TV series, Rhythm Warriors.
Mr. Jones recently released a new piano music theory course for young students called Rhythm Warriors Piano Zone,
presented at a three day online event called the Ultimate Music Business Summit, which took place a few weeks ago.
The summit is an annual online event for music entrepreneurs to gain cutting edge ideas and information.
Mr. Jones is also the director of a London based music production company, Preston Music Production and Preston Music School,
the largest independent music school in the UK.
David, we're so happy to have you today and thank you for joining us from England.
Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Great to see you.
Wonderful to see you. And so how is England? How is, you know, a COVID situation? Any latest news?
To be honest, I well, first of all, I spend about 120 hours a week in here and it looks like I'm in space. I'm safe.
I don't get out much.
Yes, same. It's like you're in space. Oh, I love it.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's bad in so much that I mean, there's there's all kinds of dreadful, dreadful stories out there.
But all we can do is do our best, look after each other, stay safe and take precautions we can.
Exactly. But I'm glad you're well. And so, David, you're I consider a true 21st century musician.
I mean, you know, we musicians wear so many different hats and but not as many as you do.
And you're not only a musician, composer, but producer of a show, course creator, educator, director of music school, etc.
So we're very curious about your life and career.
And we would love for you to share some stories and secrets of success so that the young musicians will be so inspired and motivated by you to practice more and pursue a career in this.
Challenging yet most wonderful and fulfilling music industry.
So, David, first and foremost, you just launched a new piano course, you know, Rhythm Warrior Piano Zone.
And congratulations. And we would like to start from there.
As Clara mentioned at the beginning of this episode, you described to us this piano courses.
It is recognized by London College Music Examinations and it comes with fully animated coaching practice for young children to work on at home.
You also described to us that this course will help piano teachers to retain their young students as they are so observed with their lessons and practice.
So, David, what is piano zone?
So the first release of piano zone will be an ebook, which you can do either on your laptop or your tablet, even your phone, granted, a bit smaller on your phone, but you could do it.
And the neat thing, I mean, and it is a hard, it will be a hard book as well, but the very first release is the ebook version.
As you say, it's recognized by London College of Music Examinations. I don't work for LCM by the way, I should make that clear from the perspective. We're not on commission by them.
There's no, there's no financial, you know, benefit one way or the other.
This arrangement has purely come about because I have created courses for London College of Music in the past.
I've written lots of exam material for them at all grades, all piano pieces. Piano is my first love, piano is my passion.
And the educating specifically of little ones because of the benefits that it brings to little ones, because I love that.
Possibly because I've got the same sense of humor as four year olds. Maybe that's why I'm here. Maybe that's why I'm here.
That's what you need help for, right?
What Piano Zone does is it's based on a new cartoon series which is produced by ourselves and Emofront in association with Sparky Animation Studios, clever guys that they are.
And what the cartoon series does is teach children in an engaging way. It's an edutainment series. It educates and entertains.
But what Piano Zone, the course, does is focus specifically on piano using core ideas from the show, teamwork, a sense of community, always about doing your best.
If you always do your best at all times, what can anybody else ask for if we do our best?
And so these wholesome messages are very gently spread through this as you learn real music remotely.
You could do the course without a teacher. It would be physically possible.
What's so much nicer though is to work on it in a class environment because we use the course in our music school.
And what is lovely is the fact that the whole thing has the vibrant graphics from the show.
So all the characters feature in the book itself.
But then when you come to a key point, you can click play and then the characters will chat you through in an engaging way rather than just say, this is C, play C.
They laugh and joke and play and they're basically teaching each other. And it's this teamwork between yourself, the child at home.
It's your teamwork with the characters from the show that produces the music as a whole. It's taken us a while to develop, to say the least.
I first came up with the idea for the show when my youngest son was 14 months old and he's going to be 16 this year.
It's been a long journey, but the development has been fantastic.
What started off as a little idea has been taken by Emile, Hans and Sparky just to another level.
What excites me most is not what it is, it's what it does.
It's what it brings benefit wise to music teachers around the world, piano teachers around the world and their students.
Because as you guys were saying before, there's an inherent benefit.
There is a beautiful, beautiful inherent benefit to teacher and student whereby if you start a student at four or granted younger, but this course is designed for four.
If you start a student at four, then as I'm sure you guys, you guys will know this, you guys are expert absolutely in this.
From the ages of four to six, this is when a child's perception of music and beat is at one of its most formative stages.
There's good cases to say that rhythm comes earlier, absolutely.
But specifically the quantitative element of pitch.
How does a child actually process their understanding of pitch?
Our course uses so many key factors that we've developed over the years, that we've researched over the years.
We've taught over 15,000 students at Preston Music School since we started.
We have a little bit of experience in this.
Particularly in that age group as well.
And seeing so many different children of so many different learning styles and all their abilities and all their personalities and their characteristics.
And seeing which systems work best for them.
And this all comes together in the course.
And I am delighted to say that last Wednesday, after 15, 16 years work on this thing, we ran the book, the animated part of the book in class for the first time.
It worked 100% exactly how we, I mean, obviously we've been testing, measuring, testing, measuring, testing, measuring.
But the finished version, it just worked wonderfully.
And the point was that the children sat and took all the information that they'd learned in their lesson.
Remember it's a two-way thing.
The lesson part, your teacher's teaching and using the course.
And then what the animation does is the animation helps to support the work that goes on in class.
And this wonderful two-way thing is the fact that if a teacher will spend $50, for example, on an advert, their cost per acquisition,
if they're running ads to gain students, and of course they only retain them for a month,
then they're going to be losing money. They're going to go out of business.
And our core focus at Presto has been and always will be fun, quality of service, value to the customers in everything that we do.
But we have a business mind on it as well. We actually run a music school business builder program.
And this helps teachers around the world to grow their student numbers.
As I say, we've used it to teach 15,000 students.
If you take a student on at the age of 16, we're not saying for a second you shouldn't do that.
Not at all. But of course, if you took them on at four, those same students,
then the long-term value that you can bring to a student is immense, especially when you start so young.
From a personal point of view, they got so much more out of it.
But from a value perspective, because it's win-win. The student is gaining so much.
The teacher should be gaining so much both financially from a professional perspective, from an emotional perspective.
And so from the age of four, what happens is this course helps to retain the student.
Why will a student keep coming? Because they love their lessons and they're making awesome progress.
Why is this happening? Because the teacher is delivering the best lessons possible
because they're wonderful teachers bringing their own personality, they're bringing their own characteristics,
they're bringing their own teaching style because you can use this course however you wish, use any course however you wish.
But the student is also being encouraged to teach by two nutty characters in the cartoon.
And the children want to progress and it's a beautiful upward spiral.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much, David. That was amazing.
So I was watching some cartoons from your website and it was so much fun. I love the cartoon.
You know, as you say that as a piano teacher, we kind of have this luck that we can be children for the rest of our lives.
So I just want to be clear to our beautiful listeners in the US and for those tuning in from other countries beside the UK.
Can you explain what's LCME?
Yeah, sure. So the London College of Music is the largest music education establishment in the UK.
And they do both all manner of music. It's a school in London, but they also have an examination department as well as a separate department.
And London College of Music examinations are only one of four in the UK that are actually government body recognised.
So if you want to study anywhere in the UK and gain globally recognised results, globally recognised examinations, there's only one of four that you can use.
But in particular, the only one of those that's actually recognised by a university as in a figurehead university, the only one is London College of Music.
So it really is, if not the, a top flight music education establishment and separate exam department.
And that's different from ABRSM, right?
We have. Yeah, so ABRSM is another board, ABRSM, they're a fantastic body.
We actually use ABRSM as well. There's four exam boards, four main ones that are recognised by the government.
And we use three of them because we use them for when it's specific, it fits the needs of the individual.
So we never, our philosophy has always been that we teach with the students, we never teach at the students.
We assess them, we assess their learning styles, and we have a very strong assessment led learning system.
So everything we do is in partnership with them and our education system knits together in turn with the exam board as well.
So, for example, if they have a particular set of specific requirements that ABRSM would suit them better for whatever reason that may be,
or Rock School is the other exam board, if that suits them better, we'll do that.
But I would say that perhaps 85 to 90 per cent of our exams are actually done through LCM.
Thank you so much for explaining that really clears up because, you know, in the United States, we're more familiar with ABRSM.
I think they have this, you know, exam systems and everything internationally.
In Asia too.
Okay.
Guys, can I just say something that's really interesting from the perspective of perception in that my or all my exams when I was growing up,
when I was when I was little and I was doing all my grades, they were all ABRSM.
So I was I was indoctrinated into ABRSM, which is fine.
It was just it's the only thing I knew.
So I did all my grades with ABRSM.
And the only reason that I started to enjoy more the LCM material in their exam syllabus was purely around what did I want for my students?
What kind of educational direction did I want to go in?
And I just found LCM for the for the more sort of I'm not going to say pop and rock.
I'm not going to say that because that makes it sound like LCM is purely pop and rock.
And that is not the case because you can do your in the same way that ABRSM is classical piano.
LCM has a classical piano syllabus as well.
There's just some really neat, creative educational ideas that are going on with LCM.
And I really enjoy that.
I have a very inclusive philosophy with life, very positive philosophy.
You know, I want to really talk more on that because I think music education, especially in the United States, I don't know about the UK, but we're really slowly changing or rather quickly
because the genre is not just limited to classical music and then, you know, as I feel like I'm the front runner or front person of this music education because I teach young children and then I get to know in firsthand of market, right?
What they want, what they need in terms of music.
And, you know, as much as they love this traditional approach to things, but also, you know, what they listen to is not really traditional.
They listen to so many different music.
So to relate to that as a music teacher, as a piano teacher, we kind of have to go above and beyond what's been taught traditionally, right?
Yeah. So we I have so many questions with that because, you know, I want to compare, you know, the US versus UK.
I don't think we have that much difference in that, you know?
So, yeah, but let me just I want to ask more questions with the rhythm warriors because I saw the clip of it.
The music is fantastic.
And then the character is just they are adorable.
And, you know, I have a niece and nephew, my nephew is five and my niece is about to be two.
And they watch, you know, edutainment.
I did not know there's a word exist edutainment like that, but they watch shows like this on, you know, Amazon or whatever.
And they learn about words to some of them are music related.
And then my niece just learns nursery songs quickly from cartoons.
And so I think it's exciting.
And so first is rhythm warriors are available right now for anyone to watch or not?
Not at the moment, only because this has been a wonderfully exciting long road.
And the book is the very first release.
So whereas normally the the cartoon potentially might come out first, we we we had all this in place.
This has been something that this is a long and well researched development of the cartoon itself, but also the books.
The book just happens to be coming first.
But as I say, the actual book itself is animated as well.
So when the book is released, you'll be able to do that.
But but all your viewers can register to be first to gain access to have a look at it in the first instance.
If it's appropriate to do so for you to be able to share the link, we can I can supply that to you.
And then people can click on that and then learn more about it as the whole thing comes out, because we've included as well a training program as well so that teachers can.
Yes, by all means, you could just use the course.
There's there's nothing there's nothing in there that a piano teacher would not recognize.
Of course, of course you would. It's music.
And it's open to teacher internationally or just in.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
So so any any teacher around the world can use it.
In fact, interestingly, our teaching system, we only train people outside the Warrington area.
We won't have anybody in the Warrington area because the training is so powerful, we'd actually set up competition for our own school.
So sorry, Warrington guys, but it could use they could use the course books.
They just wouldn't have access to the business builder training because when people take it up, they they instantly have tons more students, you know, I mean, one of our teachers has got 220 students a week.
Another of our teachers just short to 200 and over 220 a week.
Another she I know another teacher has just short of 200. The next one down has about 175.
These are all teachers who have gone through our program because we do things slightly differently.
It's very traditional, very, very traditional in what we are imparting.
So I'm a classical pianist at heart.
And so my love initially came about through playing Bach and Mozart. That's what that's where I started.
I mean, granted, I like as an eight year old, I didn't connect with Mozart straight away.
But as an eight as perhaps a seven year old, I started to really enjoy pop music and so on.
And then when I started piano lessons at eight.
Yes, but Bach and Mozart with the with the two composers that I really latched on to first, I would say.
What we then did very, very long story short, because I had a terrible time at school.
I hated school. I had a few great teachers. Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
I had a few great teachers. Yeah. My music, my music teacher at school, she was awesome.
And my main piano teacher, Ray, thank you, Ray.
My main piano teacher when I was going through my school got wonderful, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant teachers.
And there was a particular situation at college. So nothing to do with Mrs.
Miller, nothing to do with Ray. I had a really bad experience at college with and I'm going to be I'm going to be very polite and diplomatic here.
But certain situations at school just did not fit my learning style with my hand on my heart.
I hate hate says, but I felt like a failure. I was made to feel like my learning style didn't count
because I was really good at working things out by ear. My oral skills were pretty good.
I won't say they were awesome. I'll just say that they were pretty good.
And it just meant that when I saw the minute that my sight reading was terrible, my sight reading was really poor.
I could read music, but my sight reading wasn't right. But the moment that I realized something key, the moment I realized the unique thing in music.
I'm sure you guys know about it, but I'm going to chat anyway.
But there's something unique about music that means it's the easiest subject for anybody in the world to learn.
And the moment I realized that I found reading music so much easier because I could then see the patterns and shapes that I could hear.
And the moment that fell into place, my progress started to zip up a bit.
And the second my teacher spotted that, they basically said, well, I was cheating. That's not how it works. You've got to read the music.
Well, but I understand it this way. Yeah, we can't do that. So I was made to feel like a failure and a fraud.
And I nearly gave it. I nearly gave up music completely. I've said this many times.
If I can make if I can make the success from where I started from, then anybody can.
So the message to any student who might be struggling on piano at this stage is, you know, if you're stuck on something, then find somebody who will unlock music for you in your learning style.
Somebody who's as you guys are here sharing the joy of music. You guys are like the epitome, the absolute forefront of positivity and helping students understand, you know, music.
You think you think about how music actually connects with people. People like listening to it.
That's normally the first thing that people come to or they like to play it. Some people generally like to write it down. They actually enjoy the process of the visual side.
So if you think about the three main learning styles that we have as well, we can either be our learners, kinesthetic learners or visual learners.
So we're either listening to it, we're hearing it or we're playing it. So the ways in which music exists are the three ways that we could potentially learn it.
The minute they all lock together and you can find a student's least path of resistance to get them to excel. It unlocks music for them and away they go.
So when I say anybody can find music is the easiest thing. If you've not found your easy access to music yet, it doesn't mean that you won't.
That's right. So we all have to, I'm sorry to interrupt for a second.
All I was going to say is in my opinion.
I see. I see. Well, I mean, it's very inspiring to hear different perspective of how you start this course, right? Your own journey.
So I'm also very, very curious because I also sometimes think about my studio is a little unique, you know, so I really started with philosophy.
So I'm curious, what is your core philosophy of your course?
Fun. Yeah, fun.
Yeah, access the fun first, if fun comes first, then the minute you can show, and we'll talk here specifically about the younger students. If we can have fun in the first five minutes, then the child is thinking what's next.
Or if we can have fun in the first 30 seconds, the child is thinking, oh wow, it's cool. What's next? What's next? You know, what's I'm reminded of Nightmare Before Christmas.
You know, what's this? What's this? They want to know what the next thing is. And again, you have this wonderful upward spiral of positivity.
So fun first, but right in that very first lesson, because I still enjoy teaching, so I still start my own classes and I enjoy teaching.
Do you teach 200 students as well?
No, no.
You don't have the time now.
I used to, but I've really brought my student numbers down now just so that we have the time to, as much as anything, mentor the other teachers as well. We do ensure that the teachers have all the support that they could possibly require.
And I've got to make space for it somehow.
And these are group classes, I assume. They're not individual classes, right?
And I'm glad you've asked, yes. And we do it to purposefully focus on the benefits of group tuition.
What's been lovely over the years is conversations with parents or other educators, where they say, you do one to one lessons, don't you? As if to say that is the pinnacle, the best version.
It depends on the students. And I know, I know that one to one lessons are best for certain individuals because that is what they want, it's what they need, it's a direction that they're going in, they've got something in mind, and there are teachers that can deliver that.
Well, also later on, right? In the very beginning, it's actually nice to have in the group.
Yeah, yeah, without without a shadow it out. Yeah, yeah, certainly. Because, because there are the needs of the individual, in my opinion, become more precise as you as you go further.
So for argument's sake, by the time you once you've gone past grade eight, and the students and the diploma and so on and so forth. And there's always going to be scenarios where particular students are really niching down and really focusing on the pinnacle of performance
and expression, so on and so forth, all the things that come with with with play. So without shadow of a doubt, yeah later on, one to one. Our group sessions are purposefully designed to make the most and maximize the benefits of group tradition, because you're playing as a band, you're playing with your friends, you know, you think about how many, you think about how many children play music to a really high level.
And in my school, when I was in high school, I was, and still am the only person that worked to a particular level within music.
And there was 1500 students that's one in 1500. And, and we did a measurement just before lockdown we did a calculation. So, so I was one out of 1500. Just before lockdown we did a calculation, we were achieving the same model with one in every 13 students in our area.
So it meant that the, the capability of exposure and reach and the benefits of music and confidence that that brings in children was much greater now so I feel as though that's a success in the fact that we've got students who are getting distinctions in their exams, you know,
from piano to grade eight by the time they're 15 and 16, you know, to be getting distinction at that age, to that level. Great.
And you're saying, yeah, the age group start at four years old, and then it goes on all the way to 16 or college?
Well, we teach, we teach all the way through, we've got, we've got students who are retired, so we teach all ages, straight through.
Okay, so we as in this course or you're at your school?
Well, my, my school of which I'm the director of, we use, we use our piano course because we wrote it with so in fact the course came first.
I'm just, I'm just looking around actually to see if I had a copy of it to hand but I don't, there you go. So we wrote the course before we opened the school we were commissioned to create it by London College of Music.
We basically, we've been approached by a particular organization, I don't think I can maybe say the names.
But I don't know if I can or can't so I won't.
But just in case, so we've been approached by a particular body to create a course because our course was ticking boxes.
I never understood this. The fact that piano had been taught to me in one particular way, which I thoroughly enjoyed for, you know, a good chunk especially with my lessons with Ray.
Thanks Ray.
And, and then when I started teaching, I had the opportunity to teach keyboard as well. So there was a lot more music theory involved in that because you were playing chords right from the beginning.
Yes, now I had a good experience of chords. But the idea of putting the theory of chord knowledge, right into lesson one. This is a chord of C in the key of C.
And so for example you think of an Alberti bass you think of broken chords in the left hand, it's a chord of C.
So if somebody if somebody have shown me. I first started Bach's Prelude in C when I was 10. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and I got about three bars into it. I hadn't started my lessons with Ray at this point I hasten to add.
I started Bach's Prelude about the age of 10 there, there about three bars in, and it was just sight reading to me it was because it's a load of notes, let's call a spade a spade. It's a bunch of notes.
So from a key learning style perspective, the minute that you realize that the whole thing is connected, and we simply have a chord of C, move into and so on and so forth and you can now start to track through the harmony in there as well.
So from that theory to the piece, the music really is beginning to unlock.
I think it's a huge and a classical versus many different genres because you know right now I am studying a little bit more about other method books and just comparing and just popping out the fact that they are integrating more jazz music, pop, rock music into method
books. So what do you think of that.
I would always give full credit to any course creator, author at all, because anybody who puts their life work or anybody who puts their true passion together and and and collates it in a manner whereby they say, this is music for me.
This is how I put music forward I give full full credit to anybody who attains and achieves that. So I would not be disparaging to any to any course or book at all. Having said that, and there's no book by the way, but no.
But what I would say is that if I didn't think there was something missing, then we wouldn't have created our course so I think that's fair to say as well.
But the perspective and how we created the course comes from us it's it's our experience. I would say that the first thing that I wanted to ensure was that it was intuitive.
How can you, how can you make sure that every point, you have full comprehension of the student, I give you, I give you a perfect example. So our theory course, again recognized by London College of Music as a, you know, as a great online
course, and it will guarantee you pass a grade five theory first time that's how confident we are and if you, if you fail, they don't. But if you failed your grade five theories of results of this course we'd pay for you to do it again.
That's how passionate we are about making sure.
I love that.
Yeah, no messing about. Yeah.
Let's have it.
We'll take a student from zero to grade five in under six months, and we'll guarantee that first time past.
And one of the things that we're currently just working on at the moment is just a really slightly repitching of how modes work.
When you look at how modes are taught in my humble opinion. I always feel as though the students perspective isn't necessarily taken into account, especially that students perspective, whereby they don't know what you're going to show them,
everything is easy when you already know the answer. So from an educator's perspective, I'm going to show you these things, and I know it's easy because I understand it.
Well that's not fair. And again in my humble opinion that's not fair on the student. So, our interpretation of how we teach modes starts from the viewpoint that you already know this you already know a major scale, you've been doing that since.
You know, a pure or natural minor we use the word pure a lot in the UK for a natural minor. There's two modes, a mode is just a different is it just a different starting point for your scale and then slowly but surely we say well why would we use the notes C and E and G in my melody on a chord of C.
Well they're the notes from the chord. What other notes can I use you can use passing notes. All right, okay so I'm going to base my melody on C, E, G and put passing notes in between. And so all the pieces that you've been playing since you were little or whenever you started
have been doing this, you've got a chord of C in your left hand, and your melody is based on broken chords effectively with passing notes, and maybe a little bit of chromaticism too.
But what happens is, the moment that you move to D minor you now center that melody around broken chord of D minor with some passing notes but it doesn't keep returning to C.
It's home point is the notes of D minor, it could, it could return to C, because you're the composer and you can make your melody or do whatever you want.
But where does it feel like it wants to return to it wants to return to D. So basically you play from D to D, all the white notes in the key of C, that's a mode, it's just a different home point.
So we always teach from the perspective of, here's one thing to know, let's, let's, let's know that let's learn it let's, let's hear what it sounds like let's practice clapping it let's be very practical with it let's look at it in the notation and when
we've established that, then we'll then we'll build in a manner to which every student, it hopefully will access it in their learning style.
I'm so eager to know, Wayne can we see this, just even the glimpse of your course and then the, you know, everything.
The, the PR, the Presto courseware, and all, as in the old so the Presto courseware is from the age of seven. That's, that's available. We can pop the link in the, in the, in the chat or the, the link to within it within the podcast.
I'll put the link in that so that people can find that you can contact us directly through Presto music school.co.uk. But I think the best way is probably through our music school business builder, because that helps teachers to yes get access to the
Presto courseware, but also any training materials in there as well, because we don't want to just train the teachers to the philosophies and the principles behind the book, we want to help them grow as well so our business builder course helps them to grow their
student numbers as well, but do it in a way which is appropriate for them. We're not, we're not mercenary we're not.
We're not focused on the money we're focused on the quality and the fun and the value. And then by doing a good thing, people can grow their music profession, but they're sharing the benefits of music with more people.
Well that's a win win. What's wrong with that. That's good. Yeah, that's not absolutely, absolutely. So, and also when can we see this rhythm warriors piano zone.
Yeah, sure. If you go to if you go to rhythm warriors.com, then you can actually anybody can see the teaser trailer that we prepared for that.
You can find rhythm warriors on Facebook. Hey look at that they're at the alien band and they've got their own Facebook page.
So you can you can do that. But realistically, oh, oh, definitely this year, definitely this year.
But as I was perhaps alluding to just before we started the podcast today.
There is a very exciting opportunity which has presented itself to us. And so we've just slightly paused, whilst we just finalized that opportunity because it will enable more children, and more teachers around the world to gain more support, which is nice.
So if we've got the opportunity to help more teachers use the system. If we've got the opportunity to help more children benefit from the system, I don't get me wrong, if there's a course that I'm not disparaging to any of the course some teachers will have their own
course for four year olds and it works really well for them and that's wonderful. And that's, that's ticking the box that our course was designed to do. We're just trying to do a good thing.
Yes, there's a business behind it. Of course there is, but we are generally trying to do a good thing. So what the new opportunity is, is something that will help even more so. So that's, that's why there's a slight pause and that's why I can't give you a date.
Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah, just keep us posted.
Yeah, we're very interested. Who is your target audience, more specifically and tell us.
We actually do a free training session on this so I encourage everybody to register. In fact, it's an hour long. It's quite this training session is quite in depth.
It's an hour long session. Yeah, yeah, it's an hour long training session, it's completely free. What it does is it helps teachers to ascertain their ideal target student because you were asking that Clara about you know who, who do we, who is our ideal student.
And one of the pitfalls that we see why piano students so piano teachers don't necessarily grow is because they will quite often say I'm a piano teacher, I teach piano, who wants piano lessons.
So in some ways they focus on something that they do as opposed to the target audience, because we focus on our, on our, our dream student first is exactly what you're asking there.
So our, our dream students initially in the first instance, we started teaching primary school children, anybody who yes of course had an interest in music, but interestingly what we tried to do was show how easy music can be that was our first point of call.
How can we make music accessible. So what we wanted to do was attract or at least present music in a way that was accessible, so that children could identify themselves in an advert in a presentation in whatever the case may be, however we were connecting
with them, whether it be social media whether it be in the press whatever it is, and they would say that's me, that that that child is doing what I want to do and look how easy it is, because we show them how they could do it.
This is you.
This is where you want to be. This is how we get you there. And as soon as the child at their own level at their own level of comprehension as soon as they can spot that link.
Right, then the parent wants them to do it the guardian wants them to do it the child wants to do it.
And then it's a win win.
Well, I assume you are marketing marketing this to the teachers as well as to the students. Right, so I'm curious how do you market yourself. What's your strategy.
Yeah, yeah sure. So, everything is different. Every marketing strategy is different depending on who the, the end client end user and teacher is so the marketing for the teachers is different to the marketing to that because we, we train music schools
as well. So when music schools want to boost their numbers, we will, our strategy for helping them is different because everything is results driven.
We only ever work by application. So for example when we're helping teachers, we want to have a conversation with us. We're a friendly bunch, you know we encourage everybody to jump on a call with us and let's find out if we're a good fit, because if we are
a good fit, then we would want to work with them and be honest they would want to work with us because if we're a good fit, it's a win win.
I wish I wish that when I was first starting. I wish I knew what I knew now. I wish that we had.
Don't we all. Yeah, I wish that we had all our systems in up in place because our systems are so comprehensive now it's literally.
It's very human, but it's a this do this do this it's an action plan we never we're never stuck for what to work on next we always know exactly what we're working on.
But we can show teachers what that system is or at least help them with their existing system but we need to know where they are at in that system.
Because we turned our mess into our message. We turned all our failings, my failings, my situation, and I, I trained and I researched and, and I'll be honest, I, I still suffer from imposter syndrome, I am very familiar with imposter syndrome 100%
We're classical musicians right.
And I do, and it's, and it's because you think yeah we shouldn't I be doing it properly. I'll give you a perfect example.
I admire you guys more than I can put into I mean I've been very chatty today but I admire you guys more than I can put into into words because in so many ways, I see you guys at the pinnacle of, you know, where are we heading, where, but the question is going to be where, where, where do we as individuals
want to be heading. So in so many ways you guys are doing the thing that I had a vision of what my idea, my dream goal would be.
You, you have a skill set that I, I recognize I thought right, that's, that's going to be really hard work for me, because I can recognize I've got different strengths here. My strengths and my passions are going to be more in helping four and five and six year olds get inspired into music, and how, how can I grow that.
So my natural direction of where my career went, ended up being helping more teachers to scale their business to grow and grow and grow.
And when we say, you know, how do we market that when we speak to a teacher. Yeah, just very very brief on this subject when we speak to a teacher we make sure it's a good fit because if it is, then that win win is a no brainer.
We don't need them with it tends to be word of mouth. That's a big, that's a big part of it, because the amount of business that is generated through social media, purely through word of mouth, tends to keep us more busy than anything so we've never run an ad for music
and the actual business builder is only being available from January for the first time ever. We've been using it for the last well since 2003, we've been building it since 2003, and we've only made it public for the first time this literally this month, so we've never had to market that.
So, David, do you think the COVID effect or help shape the business, you know, eventually do you think that COVID was a part of this creation coming into tuition, you know, what, what do you think?
Yeah, I mean it's, it's a sad state of affairs in so much that has impacted so many, so much, and we, I have very very close very dear friends who have had a loss as a result of COVID, and that is very deep and very movingly and it impacts us of course.
What I would say is that we adapt humans, and we are naturally adaptive and resilient bunch.
You know, the sun keeps coming up, we keep moving forward. And so I don't want to make light of how bad some people have had COVID, and there's no but and there's no however to that, that is just like a statement in its own right so my thoughts, and my best wishes go to everybody who has
been in that capacity. When COVID hit, we had to shut our school, and potentially, that was the end of our business. We used literally, I mean I just walled myself up in here for about two weeks I think, literally thinking, wow, how is this going to work.
Now, as it had turned out in the January, when it started, even, even before the last weekend in January, when you could see the route that this was taking.
We thought right, if we do have to shut down, what do we do. So we managed to put online lessons in place. The day after we should lock down so they have the lockdown we went remote because we've put everything in place enables to support that.
But the growth element, and this is something that all your viewers and listeners can really capitalize on. We pulled together a variety of resources that we had and training that we've done previously.
We released an online system that it was our, it was our music theory mastery course, and that enabled us to go global, we set ourselves a target of gaining 1500 pounds, it's about $2,000 there.
So we gained 500 pounds of income in the first month, that was our goal. We actually attained just short of 13,000 pounds. So what's that about, I don't know, $16,000 in three weeks.
This, this is not about the financials, this is purely around adaptability and teachers, your listeners can benefit from this because you can use that system we make that system available it's music theory mastery.
And if teachers. We need to have a conversation about it is something that we talked to our, the teachers that we work with, but they can gain good income and brilliant training for their young students first time pass guarantee as I say.
But that wouldn't have happened without, without COVID.
And so, a teacher's willing, willing, and I'm including myself in this. I don't know everything, I'll be the first person to put my hands up on that. I'm a dreadful dancer, just ask my wife.
So I know my, I know my weaknesses, I've got a lot of them.
There are some things that we're, we're okay after some things that we're all right at. And one of those is a willingness to transform. And this is what we say to our teachers if I if I if we've got teachers who are not gaining new students, for example, or are struggling
as a result of COVID.
But they think about, but I can't learn anything because I know everything. We don't know everything and we're doing all right. The point is that I'm constantly learning. And if a teacher is happy to accept some feedback and go on a transformational journey.
It's not Zen, it's not mystical, we're not going to spend six months meditating. Okay. And there's nothing wrong with that because I, you know, I enjoy that as well.
Sure, it helps.
Yeah, when I say we're going on a transformational journey, we're not going to sit and eat lettuce for a month, you know, it's not, it's not that.
We're going to do some strategic action planning work directly with the teachers help them build their plan. Like Clara was saying we're going to ascertain who their dream student is. Check out that I was with the free training as I say we'll put the link it's the music school business
you can find us on Facebook as well. And as I say, available for the first time, anywhere in the world from January so if you work whenever you see this jump on it quick before everybody else has done it.
Yeah, yeah.
So, learning from all the past experiences and then obviously COVID was like one of the biggest impact in all of our lives, but you are such a visionary you have visions.
So, I'm curious to know, as you're a music educator and a musician yourself and your composer, what do you want your students and users to gain from your course and you hope to influence to be part of raising the generations of the next generation from the course that you're creating right?
Well, the first thing that springs to mind is confidence. It's something that we build into our lessons and our training program in fact our hashtag is positively presto. Everything we do revolves around having a strong can do attitude.
It's critical that as educators, we know that music can help your confidence, providing that you feel confident in doing it. It's no good as knowing that if the students don't understand the thing that you're showing them.
Especially if especially well any age, but if a youngster has a bad experience in their piano lesson because they don't understand something and they feel upset about something they can't do it whatever the case may be.
They have an experience there and then they're potentially being polarized against all the benefits of music and all the benefits of learning an instrument for life. We, if we've done every with hand on heart if we've done everything we can to ensure that a child is progressing as fast as possible
and access the material in a way that suits their learning style. Okay, I understand this. Yeah, I'm enjoying this. This is fun. So fun mixed with this can do attitude it will build their confidence.
I'm delighted to say that a huge chunk of our teachers are actually ex students who've gone through the presto system and very proud of that the fact that these are teachers who were not very calm, not all of them, but a lot of the a lot of the teachers
they've been quite open about this we've done interviews with them where they've said as much. They weren't the most confident of young students, they weren't even the most confident of young adults, or indeed older adults.
The fact that there's a challenge here, it's a piece, it looks really tricky. You know, Jones he said that he's going to teach me how to play I've got no idea how that's going to happen, and then somehow it's like, it's like magic has happened.
That's where the name Presto came from, by the way.
I understand it.
How have I gone from not being able to understand something to being able to understand it.
So what do we hope that our students come away with music, we hope that they enjoy what they do, they will recognize the quality because it's example recognized and so is all their qualifications at the end of it.
As an adult, we trust that they will grow in confidence and have a positive attitude to life in general. I have another question for you I know you also compose right I read your bio, David, and you're composing for films and commercials and you have a production company.
Yeah, yeah, that's the Presto.
Yeah, so, so there's two main divisions of Presto music so there's Presto music school and Presto music production and Presto music production does music for TV films.
So for example rhythm warriors we produce all the music we write it all.
We sing the theme tune we write the theme tune.
So we produce all that here. I'm sat in the control room. Now, you thought I was in space, I am not in space.
You can be very raspy.
No, I'm in the control room here at Presto music production. So, we were in a fortunate position where we can choose the projects that we work on. And so we've been quite selective over the years of what we've done.
We built a bank of a lot of commercial work that we did. So we've worked with Jaguar cars we've had the privilege of working with. Oh, I don't want to go name dropping, but a lot of really great names, and then certain opportunities have cropped up to create
film scores, which when they were presented to some, some were respectfully decline. And so we thought what a fantastic story.
Ah, let's you know let's you know let's do that especially if it's something which really connects on some, if there's some if there's some kind of level that it connects with me on.
So, so if it's been something whereby somebody is downtrodden if there's somebody downtrodden in the story.
And it's about their rise from a track if there's a transformation going on. Then I love that because I want to tell I want to tell that story from a musical point of view.
And we have the honor of working with some phenomenal artists to help us with those scores.
We produce everything here in house. Well, I love, I love film scoring, because that long form gets you to really tell a story. And I don't mind telling you I've cried sitting in here.
I have right into watching on the screen and crying. I don't want to.
It's an emotional journey it's good.
Wow. You know you have such an already amazing career as a musician you know and, you know, to be able to compose and compose for commercials and films that's like a really dream come true for musicians, yet you're reaching out to the community
and reaching out by, you know, music education, where does this really passion come from I mean, I can feel the heat from the screen, how passionate you are like, you know, so where does this passion come from my family.
I have immense support from my wife when I when I see it as infrequently as I do. And I originally stemmed of course from my parents, who are both musicians.
They don't necessarily play quite as much as they, as they did. But they were, they were great, still are great musicians and teachers to. And what was interesting was that when I was when I was a child.
The one thing I definitely didn't want to be was a teacher, because that's what you don't want to do that. No chance.
And teaching was something that I drifted into.
When I was about 18, there, there about. So with three years I've been teaching.
No bit longer than that.
Yeah, about 18 I started teaching. And what's interesting is the moment I'd not seen my dad teach much because I'd never really been to my dad's school whilst he was teaching, but I'd spent a lot of time at.
Hearing my mum teach for various reasons.
And what I found quite homely, what I found quite inspiring was as soon as I started teaching, I heard my mum's voice. And that connected me in a way to something that I.
It was just innate. It was just something I wanted to do. And I didn't realize that beforehand. And, and the bit that I love the most.
And this would this was like a, this was a lightning bolt. There's two, there's a couple of times in my life that have been clearly the moment when things changed literally life changing moments.
And the one was when I had only been teaching of literally a few days even maybe. And it was the first time when a student just look blank, as if to say, you've explained that but I don't understand it.
I recognize that I thought, I've just explained how I understand it but you don't. So I instantly then started changed what I did instead of teaching how I instead of teaching how I learned.
I taught how they learned. I changed that and it's not rocket science we say this many many times you know it's not rocket science is what we should do the difference is that if we can understand how students can take in that information we can just
change the message, so that they can receive on the same frequency that we're transmitting, and that way then we connect.
And we're that way we retain the students longer as well. And that again is is win win. And that was that was the first time that that was a light bulb moment.
That was that was quite profound.
Any last words or any advice for musicians of the next generation.
Two things I would say, when opportunities, when opportunities present themselves.
Just say yes take positive action, we say that time and time again when when you see an opposite when somebody saying to you, you know, this is this is the field that I work in, I can help you get from his, so, so for example, you know if you wanted to be a, a concert
pianist at the highest level, I'd be referring them to you guys, because because that that's your field that's your expertise. So the next time somebody says, can you please, you know, then I know, I know who can point them in that direction.
You know we all have our strengths we all know that book but yeah take take positive action. And the second thing I would say is, you will never waste a single dollar or pound that is invested in yourself.
So when you can train yourself and boost your skill sets. Take that opportunity, because you're keeping the money, you're, you're keeping the money and growing yourself.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much, David. Spend a really fun time and having, you know conversations with you and learning from you. Thank you. And it's sadly it's time for us to move to the next, the last segment of our show, but it's fun.
So it's called the piano pods rapid fire questions and I would love for you to answer, give us short, short, short as the answer as possible. Question number one. What is your comfort food.
It's pretty good to ball in a
cat or dogs.
Oh, half and half.
Okay.
What is your word or words to live by. Can I go back now I'm gonna have to say dog to the last one because because I'm the dog will kill me if I come over and fight to.
What is your word or words to live by positivity. What is the most important quality you look for in other people smiley face and honesty.
Okay. What is the worst quality in people you want to stay away from selfishness.
Name three people who inspire you living or dead.
Russell Brunson.
Go Russell.
Tony Robbins.
My wife.
Ah, name one piece in your current playlist.
I always, always love any other name by Thomas Newman.
Name one book title in your library. My current read is.com secrets by Russell Brunson.
Oh, yes, yes, I have to read that.
All right, you get only one song or piece to listen to for the rest of your life. What is it.
The intimate so from Cavalier rustic on a last question. Music is blank.
In us all. We just need to find it.
Oh wow.
Thank you.
Name that's the last question. Thank you so much. Can I just add one thing. All those music references when you said what's the one piece of music, my children watching this will just say, Dad, no, it's not.
The answer is actually going crazy by David Lee Roth is our massive Van Halen fan as well.
I have to put those in that kind of quiz. I would have to say those kind of things. Yeah, David Lee Roth and Van Halen all the way. Okay.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for showing up and making this really our podcast show.
It was really exciting. And so this concludes this episode of the piano part. Thank you, Mr. Jones for joining us today from all the way from England and sharing your stories insights and expertise, you can find more information about him at press the music production.com.
And I would like.
And presto music school.co.uk. Okay, got it. And I will make sure to put all these links in the description section and I would like to remind our audience to check out his latest piano course.
Rhythm Warriors piano zone. Thank you to our wonderful audience and fans to tuning in for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please read and review on whatever podcasting platform you use. If you're watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and be sure to subscribe to our channel.
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. The links are in the description below. If you have any feedback for us, please leave it in the comments or direct messages via social media or you can also email us at the piano pod NYC at gmail.com.
We will see you for the next episode of the piano part. Thank you so much. Bye everyone and thank you so much, David.
Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you.