1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,020 You're listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry 2 00:00:11,020 --> 00:00:17,360 about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century. 3 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:20,000 Welcome back to the PianoPod for our season finale. 4 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,000 I am Eric Hunter. 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:23,680 I'm Yukimi Song. 6 00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:26,320 And I'm Clara Zhang. 7 00:00:26,320 --> 00:00:32,760 Today our guest is Ben Lottie, a classical pianist and head of piano at ToneBase.com. 8 00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:37,320 Ben is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the Shepard School of Music at Rice University. 9 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:41,440 He debuted with the Austin Symphony at age 17 and was a prize winner in the Yamaha Young 10 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:46,180 Performing Artist and Kingsville International Piano Competitions, among others. 11 00:00:46,180 --> 00:00:49,480 He has performed at concert halls around the world, including Carnegie Hall's Wild Recital 12 00:00:49,480 --> 00:00:51,800 Hall and Alice Tully Hall. 13 00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:55,520 Prior to joining ToneBase, he taught at Bard College and worked as an assistant to the 14 00:00:55,520 --> 00:00:58,160 well-known radio host and lecturer David Dubal. 15 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:00,120 Ben, thank you for being with us today. 16 00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:01,760 Eric, it's my pleasure. 17 00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:02,760 Thank you so much. 18 00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:05,600 Clara, Yukimi, thank you so much for having me. 19 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:06,600 Welcome. 20 00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:07,600 All right. 21 00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:13,320 So we are really excited to talk about ToneBase, which has been making waves this past year. 22 00:01:13,320 --> 00:01:16,520 For anybody who doesn't know, can you explain to us what is ToneBase? 23 00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:17,600 What do you guys do? 24 00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:24,880 Well, the mission of ToneBase is to democratize music education, which is a loaded phrase. 25 00:01:24,880 --> 00:01:27,720 So let me unpack that a bit. 26 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:32,280 Essentially, actually, this resonates a lot with what I heard you guys talk about in your 27 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:39,380 introductory episode, which is this phenomenon of piano teachers and practicing pianists 28 00:01:39,380 --> 00:01:44,060 feeling the sense of isolation from one another in their craft. 29 00:01:44,060 --> 00:01:48,600 It's not like doing sports where you're on teams and it's very communal and there's 30 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:49,760 crowds all the time. 31 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:56,320 There is an often talked about separation between the solitude of the soloist and honestly 32 00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:02,200 the teaching craft too and the audience and the sort of end results. 33 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:09,240 So that alienation, I think, is just one thing that we're trying to push back against with 34 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:14,480 ToneBase in our own way and in a new medium using new technologies. 35 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:21,860 So democratize might just mean create more accessible and affordable opportunities for 36 00:02:21,860 --> 00:02:29,560 piano lovers, amateurs, piano teachers spread out wherever they might be to be able to enjoy 37 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:37,480 some of the top artists, top performers, top professors from conservatories and concert 38 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:43,560 halls around the world with the kind of intimacy that we might only get if we get to attend 39 00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:46,080 a conservatory and even then not so much. 40 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:51,160 I mean, even then it's like, okay, I went to a Murray Pariah master class and I sat 41 00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:56,000 in the 18th row and maybe I got to shake his hand after, but with ToneBase there's a sense 42 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:00,680 of, well, we don't have Pariah yet, fingers crossed, but there's a sense of being able 43 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:03,960 to actually be right there in the room with them. 44 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:12,080 So it's really helping to deliver a very specialized art form and craft to the masses, if you will. 45 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:14,200 So can you tell us a little bit about your offerings? 46 00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:18,760 It sounds like you have lessons, master classes, how does it work? 47 00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:19,760 Sure. 48 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:21,360 I could show you a little bit if you like. 49 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:22,960 Yes, if you would like to show us that. 50 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:26,960 If my screen sharing chops are good. 51 00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:30,520 So I just landed on the ToneBase dashboard. 52 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:35,200 I'm already logged in, so I'm a subscriber, but because I work for ToneBase, I don't have 53 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:36,200 to pay. 54 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:45,480 And there we see Seymour Bernstein teaching me Férolise, as he says appropriately, correctly. 55 00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:47,000 And why is that there? 56 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:49,320 Because it happened to be the last thing I watched. 57 00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:56,800 So when you land on the page, you get a variety of offerings and videos. 58 00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:59,840 And if you come to browse, you'll see that we have different categories. 59 00:03:59,840 --> 00:04:05,480 There's lessons, progress tracks, courses, and then you can sort by composers and artists. 60 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:10,280 So just to maybe take you through a little bit, if I wanted to watch a repertoire lesson, 61 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:14,760 for example, on, I don't know, name a composer, Clara. 62 00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:15,760 Chopin. 63 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:16,760 Chopin. 64 00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:18,640 Oh, I think we have some Chopin. 65 00:04:18,640 --> 00:04:21,760 So I'm going to go to Romantic Repertoire here. 66 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:27,400 And I don't know, there's some, I like to look at the list. 67 00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:28,920 There's our Chopin offerings. 68 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:32,120 And oh, look, there's Garak Olson teaching the first ballade. 69 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:39,480 So I can now watch one of the great Chopin interpreters of the last half century and 70 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:44,800 the only American ever to win the Warsaw International Competition Prize. 71 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:45,800 Can you hear that? 72 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:47,720 Are you hearing that? 73 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:48,720 Or is it just me? 74 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:49,720 Not yet. 75 00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:52,080 I think you didn't share your sound, maybe. 76 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:53,080 That's fine. 77 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:56,240 So you see Garak there, an hour and a half lesson on one of the most famous, cherished 78 00:04:56,240 --> 00:04:57,240 pieces. 79 00:04:57,240 --> 00:04:59,280 And this is just one of hundreds of videos we have. 80 00:04:59,280 --> 00:05:02,520 So that's just a little taste. 81 00:05:02,520 --> 00:05:07,200 But you see right there, I'm right next to Garak, who, you know, I just, when I directed 82 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:12,040 Garak, I just pressed his on button and he just poured out this, you know, long form 83 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:16,480 structured lesson about this piece that he's known intimately ever since he heard Rubenstein 84 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:19,420 play it in Carnegie Hall like 50 years ago or whenever. 85 00:05:19,420 --> 00:05:24,400 So this is not something you can get everywhere or really anywhere. 86 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:26,080 YouTube doesn't have it. 87 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:29,200 Masterclass.com doesn't have it. 88 00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:36,360 There's no real way to experience that level of like very thorough, detail, high quality 89 00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:43,120 insights and inspiration into this music that we love and also have resources, a score available 90 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:49,080 and tools to take notes and in addition that we've created, you know, with space for annotation. 91 00:05:49,080 --> 00:05:51,880 So that's just one sampling. 92 00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:53,940 There's other kinds of offerings. 93 00:05:53,940 --> 00:05:59,000 There's progress tracks, which help you progress from maybe beginner to intermediate levels 94 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,640 in various musicianship categories and technique. 95 00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:06,160 There's interview features that I've just had the absolute honor and privilege to do 96 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:11,680 with some of the great legends of piano and I hope to do more of those. 97 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:17,080 I just did one recently actually and we have got a big release in a month with Emmanuel 98 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:21,000 Axe and so that's a big deal. 99 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:23,760 And just, we can talk about him if you want later. 100 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:27,720 Got to meet him and work with him and he's just the most special person in the world. 101 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:31,720 So anyway, my job is I'm really lucky and but most importantly, tone based, I think 102 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:35,640 is important thing and you can get a taste of it there. 103 00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:40,600 And I really recommend it highly to music lovers, pianists, piano teachers, just watching 104 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:45,440 these great artists teach and speak their craft is invaluable. 105 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:53,920 It's very educational for our level of pianists too, but also seems like you're reaching out 106 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:58,240 to beginner intermediate levels. 107 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:05,080 So and it's not only educational, but also quite entertaining because I so particular 108 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:10,080 one that I remember was John Kimura Parker. 109 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:16,480 He was actually doing his lecture from his home studio, I think. 110 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:19,040 It's actually that's his studio at Rice at the show. 111 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:20,040 Oh, I see. 112 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:21,040 Okay. 113 00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:22,040 But he makes it very homey. 114 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:23,040 He's got a couch in there. 115 00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:26,680 He's got all of his Star Trek memorabilia all over the walls. 116 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:29,800 So it feels like it's his home office. 117 00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:30,800 Yes. 118 00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:35,480 And it feels like he's really giving you a lecture right next to you. 119 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:36,480 Right. 120 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:43,600 That intimacy that you're creating and he shares his personal anecdotes with the piece, 121 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:44,840 connection to the piece. 122 00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:48,000 So it's very actually quite entertaining. 123 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:56,160 And I saw not only his lectures, but also Fred Tsu, who was our guest of the show a 124 00:07:56,160 --> 00:07:58,040 couple months ago. 125 00:07:58,040 --> 00:07:59,960 And then yes, and he's incredible. 126 00:07:59,960 --> 00:08:09,400 So I saw a lot of incredible unique things on tone base, very distinctive about from, 127 00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:15,320 let's say YouTube, because before Tom base, I used to go to YouTube and look for more 128 00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:20,920 materials to learn from, from these old, all these big names like a listers, right. 129 00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:28,240 But now with Tom base, I think it's more like very well organized. 130 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:34,480 But also I feel like I used to go to summer camp and then, you know, after I graduate 131 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:40,280 from masters in Europe or something, and then I have to pick which summer camp I want to 132 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:44,840 go to because there is the famous teacher on this summer camp, but there's another 133 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:46,720 teacher I want to study with on. 134 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:52,160 But now with this tone base, I feel like I just get to choose from the home screen with 135 00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:54,160 the click of a button. 136 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:55,160 That's one of the goals. 137 00:08:55,160 --> 00:09:01,400 I hope if we keep growing and expanding and I'm able to attract as many of these great 138 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:05,640 artists as I can, that it really will feel like, you know, not that people will choose 139 00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:07,160 tone base over summer festivals. 140 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:10,800 If anything, it should help facilitate people to want to go to more and more festivals because 141 00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:14,080 they'll be able to meet these artists on tone base first. 142 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:20,680 But yeah, it should be basically a little microcosm of our whole piano world or piano 143 00:09:20,680 --> 00:09:21,680 universe. 144 00:09:21,680 --> 00:09:23,800 You know, that's a little ambitious. 145 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:24,800 We have a huge repertoire. 146 00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:26,640 We're never going to teach all those pieces. 147 00:09:26,640 --> 00:09:31,440 We have there's, you know, a thousand great concert pianists, at least, you know, touring 148 00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:32,440 the world right now. 149 00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:35,760 We'll enroll only ever going to get, you know, a portion of them. 150 00:09:35,760 --> 00:09:38,280 But at the same time, yeah, that's that's you came. 151 00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:44,360 That's one of the ideas is that this is a way to experience that in-person festival 152 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:47,800 conservatory concert hall experience. 153 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,040 But sort of, you know, with a click of a mouse. 154 00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:56,240 In my opinion, I also feel like you're protecting all the artists because YouTube is basically 155 00:09:56,240 --> 00:10:01,040 it's free unless they get sponsors or something. 156 00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:05,120 But you know, classical music is usually a niche base. 157 00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:14,000 So I feel like with the millions of postings on YouTube per day, I guess our content, the 158 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:17,520 content that I want to watch is pretty much buried. 159 00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:24,720 So you are tone basis actually helping all these artists of their content and copyright. 160 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:26,920 I feel like I think so. 161 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:30,800 And I mean, YouTube is just it's everything. 162 00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:32,960 It's it's too much, which is great. 163 00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:34,520 I mean, you could get lost in it. 164 00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:35,880 We all do. 165 00:10:35,880 --> 00:10:37,360 And it will always be a resource. 166 00:10:37,360 --> 00:10:42,840 I mean, I think it'll be be with us forever until until the apocalypse, perhaps. 167 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:48,520 But before then, YouTube, of course, still has its limitations. 168 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:55,600 And it sort of requires these other premium platforms to complement it so that maybe you 169 00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:59,440 notice a tone based video on YouTube or you see an artist you like and then you Google 170 00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:03,400 them and you say, I want to find more and I want to find the highest quality. 171 00:11:03,400 --> 00:11:04,920 Where can I get that? 172 00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:09,720 And that's where something like tone base or master class or Netflix or any of these 173 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:14,160 premium subscription video content platforms, whether it's entertainment or education, come 174 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:20,000 in handy for a relatively modest price compared to a lot of things we pay for. 175 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:25,960 You can get this just sort of extensive access to something that YouTube can't achieve on 176 00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:27,120 its own. 177 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:29,160 And that way we can be a business. 178 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:35,880 We can pay our artists fairly and also be able to promote them in a way that is like 179 00:11:35,880 --> 00:11:41,140 you said, you give me is probably lost a little bit with the sort of YouTube effect of everybody's 180 00:11:41,140 --> 00:11:45,320 stuff being diluted and sort of lost in the mix. 181 00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:49,760 So here's a way that we can say, no, no, no, in this place, there's something special happening 182 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:55,360 and we can promote that and then take it back to social media and Google and and even YouTube 183 00:11:55,360 --> 00:12:00,480 and say, hey, guys, it's like let's we want to share this with with the world, too. 184 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,800 And we want to invite you to to come in and experience it. 185 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:09,560 So Ben, I wanted to ask you, you guys have this incredible roster of artists right now. 186 00:12:09,560 --> 00:12:16,120 I mean, so you showed us there's an hour and a half long lesson with Garak Olson on Chopin. 187 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:19,820 For most people, the only way to get close to him would be to go to one of his concerts 188 00:12:19,820 --> 00:12:23,280 if he happened to come to your city that you live in. 189 00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:28,360 And then you've got other huge names like Leon Fleischer, Gary Grafman, Seymour Bernstein. 190 00:12:28,360 --> 00:12:30,480 How did you guys get started? 191 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:36,760 Let me start with the piano platform because the the actual the pilot platform, if you 192 00:12:36,760 --> 00:12:39,360 will, was is for classical guitar. 193 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:42,360 And that was actually right two years before piano. 194 00:12:42,360 --> 00:12:48,480 And I was hired once the company raised enough funding to expand to help launch the piano 195 00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:49,480 platform. 196 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:54,360 And it came on in the spring of twenty nineteen and the first four to six months of my job 197 00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:57,960 was almost exclusively trying to recruit artists. 198 00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:07,000 So for every Garak Olson I got, there were 20 equal artists who didn't respond or said 199 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:08,000 no. 200 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:11,220 Now, I always treat the door as being open still. 201 00:13:11,220 --> 00:13:14,840 And actually, some of those artists, including Maniacs, I was able to return to. 202 00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:16,180 He never said no. 203 00:13:16,180 --> 00:13:19,600 But what he said was, why me, I'm so he's so modest. 204 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:22,800 You know, I don't know what I could offer you that would be useful. 205 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:25,520 And then we weren't able to put something together. 206 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:29,120 But two years later, when I was able to show him what we did with Garak, what we did with 207 00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:34,680 Leon Fleischer and others, I mean, I was able to I was just more experienced and was able 208 00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:36,660 to get somebody of his caliber. 209 00:13:36,660 --> 00:13:38,000 So it was not easy. 210 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:45,380 I mean, it's a lot of emailing and just grunt work of trying to you know, these people get 211 00:13:45,380 --> 00:13:48,080 asked for stuff all the time. 212 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:52,440 You know, they that's why they have agents, you know, and we try to kind of avoid managers 213 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:57,000 to some degree, because we're not going to put up the kinds of, you know, fees that Carnegie 214 00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:59,800 Hall and we're not going to pay them $50,000. 215 00:13:59,800 --> 00:14:01,080 Of course, we don't have that. 216 00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:04,360 So it can't be that kind of engagement from our side. 217 00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:10,200 It's still I think, a very fair price that we're paying, you know, depending on the artist. 218 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:14,500 But it's something more that's I think they have to want to do it. 219 00:14:14,500 --> 00:14:18,640 You know, it can't be the kind of thing where their publicist or their manager says do this, 220 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:23,120 because it's going to be good for your public image or something. 221 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:30,120 And so with somebody like Garak, I was introduced to him through Nicholas Rosado, who's actually 222 00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:35,480 the artistic director at 92nd Street Y wonderful organist. 223 00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:39,000 And he knew Garak from organizing concerts there with him. 224 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:40,800 And he set me up with him by email. 225 00:14:40,800 --> 00:14:46,320 Garak happened to be in New York City when I was spring or the summer of 2019. 226 00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:51,760 We met at the Nice Metin on 79th and Columbus, I think. 227 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:54,380 And he was staying at the hotel above there. 228 00:14:54,380 --> 00:14:59,320 And we just talked about piano and pianists for like an hour and a half. 229 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:04,000 And I was just that I could have like died and you know, quit my job that night, and 230 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:05,620 I would have been happy. 231 00:15:05,620 --> 00:15:10,600 But that was just the beginning of a wonderful collaboration with him that extends to this 232 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:11,600 day. 233 00:15:11,600 --> 00:15:12,700 I still am in touch with him. 234 00:15:12,700 --> 00:15:17,520 I called him before the Maniacs, you know, session just to be like, tell me about Manny, 235 00:15:17,520 --> 00:15:20,160 because you've known each other since you were 15. 236 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:25,000 And so I'm just so privileged and blessed to be able to have somebody with that caliber 237 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:33,320 of a pianist and that magnitude of an intellect to offer his time and services for us and 238 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:37,540 be able to share the extraordinary lessons and interviews that he did with us. 239 00:15:37,540 --> 00:15:42,760 So he was a big help at first, but I also, you know, I went to Juilliard, I have connections, 240 00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:45,120 I was able to get some professors. 241 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:50,360 I know a lot of successful young pianists and I just did a lot of cold emailing too. 242 00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:56,380 At some point I was like, all right, let's just find every major music school and conservatory 243 00:15:56,380 --> 00:16:01,680 starting in the United States, but I'm branching out to other countries as well. 244 00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:07,500 And just going to start sending basically the same version of the same email to everyone 245 00:16:07,500 --> 00:16:11,640 and that's how I got people like Simone Dinerstein and Rebecca Pennies and some others. 246 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:13,600 So that worked too. 247 00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:15,600 And getting off the ground was the hardest. 248 00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:19,140 And now that we've launched and established ourselves and people have heard of us, it's 249 00:16:19,140 --> 00:16:23,200 getting easier, but there's other challenges too, because now we have lots of different 250 00:16:23,200 --> 00:16:24,740 priorities, lots of initiatives. 251 00:16:24,740 --> 00:16:29,640 And so recruiting artists is just one of them at this stage, but I'm back at it. 252 00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:36,000 And Martha Argrich, if you're listening right now, no, but anyway, so yeah, that's just 253 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:39,000 that's been a core part of the job and it's not easy at all. 254 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:40,000 There's no magic to it. 255 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:41,000 It's just hard work. 256 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:42,000 Right, right. 257 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:43,000 Yeah, that makes sense. 258 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:48,400 I mean, as a new podcast, we can certainly sympathize, but it does get easier once you 259 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:51,000 have an established body of work to show off. 260 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,480 And I have to say your production values are incredible. 261 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:57,440 I just want to mention that a little bit for anybody who hasn't seen any of ToneBase's 262 00:16:57,440 --> 00:16:58,440 videos yet. 263 00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:01,680 They have a lot of samples on YouTube, great stuff. 264 00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:04,640 Like I'm just the camera angles are so informative. 265 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:10,600 You get the over the hands shot of one of these pianists playing as well as the side 266 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:15,680 angle and just top audio quality, video quality. 267 00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:16,680 Really good stuff. 268 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:17,680 Plus the score. 269 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:18,680 Yes, the score. 270 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:19,680 Exactly. 271 00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,360 Yeah, that is very helpful. 272 00:17:22,360 --> 00:17:27,280 And all of that is part of a workflow with great people and great teammates behind the 273 00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:31,720 scenes and great contractors that I work with around the states. 274 00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:35,540 We're not in a position yet that we can fly a production crew anywhere in the world. 275 00:17:35,540 --> 00:17:46,180 So we have really wonderful collaborators who are videographer and audio crews in different 276 00:17:46,180 --> 00:17:49,880 parts of the country who we trust and rely on and have just done really great work for 277 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:51,000 us. 278 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:55,200 But especially my teammates, I wouldn't be able to do any of this without them. 279 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,760 The scores that you see, the editing that takes place. 280 00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:02,760 I have my hand in a lot of this or most of it. 281 00:18:02,760 --> 00:18:07,720 But ever since the beginning, where I actually did try to do absolutely everything along 282 00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:13,160 with the head of production, Sean Mulholland, we've been able to expand, add more people 283 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:15,200 to the team, bring more people on. 284 00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:22,100 It's really a wonderful group of dedicated musicians and web developers essentially. 285 00:18:22,100 --> 00:18:27,840 So that brought me to my question, Ben. 286 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:32,280 I think sometimes when you keep on thinking about something that this thing would just 287 00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:33,280 show up. 288 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:38,140 So in the beginning of pandemic, when we first started our podcast, and I remember I keep 289 00:18:38,140 --> 00:18:45,440 on noticing Tone Bass online and online and I registered for this lunch club and all of 290 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:49,880 a sudden I was connected with Abbie, I think, on your team. 291 00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:52,880 And then we were like, oh, wow, Tone Bass. 292 00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:57,000 And so I told these two guys, I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. 293 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:01,000 So he told me a little bit about the behind the scenes. 294 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:08,000 But I want to know what is your role as the head of piano? 295 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:16,840 Obviously you connect all the artists, but how does it work with the programmers and 296 00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:18,160 the technology? 297 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:24,000 I think it's very innovative because as musicians sometimes we are so used to just hiding the 298 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:29,000 practice room and practice, but what you guys are doing are so cool. 299 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:32,720 Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, Abbie is a genius. 300 00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:40,720 I think he's like 24, which means he's one of the founders of Tone Bass. 301 00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:46,680 So just to give a little bit of a profile of these three, because really this traces 302 00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:51,240 back to them and what they started, although a lot has developed since then. 303 00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:56,320 Abbie was the third founder to be added to the sort of triumvirate that began all of 304 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:57,320 this. 305 00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:04,880 But the sort of two original musicians who spawned the idea were Igor Lichman and Chris 306 00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:05,880 Garwood. 307 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:11,840 And they are classical guitarists who met at Yale during their masters studying with 308 00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:14,600 Ben Verdery. 309 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:19,560 And they met in a class taught by a woman named Astrid Baumgarner. 310 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:23,880 I don't know if you've heard of her, but she teaches the music and business class at Yale. 311 00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:27,880 She's a philanthropist, amateur pianist herself, lives in New York City. 312 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:32,680 I happened to have given her a lesson once because she still takes lessons. 313 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:38,280 Her primary teacher is Peter Dugan, who's now the host of From the Top, wonderful pianist, 314 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:42,160 just played with Joshua Bell in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 315 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:44,520 Peter's one of my best friends from way back. 316 00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:52,120 And so when Igor and Chris and Abbie were looking for a pianist to sort of build the 317 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:56,120 platform, they reached out to Astrid, among others, and said, hey, who do you know? 318 00:20:56,120 --> 00:20:58,720 And Astrid said, well, I know Peter Dugan. 319 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:04,240 But Peter Dugan's so awesome and busy, like, you know, he's not going to have time to do 320 00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:05,720 this kind of intense job. 321 00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:07,200 It's a full-time job. 322 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:08,960 It's what I do all the time. 323 00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:13,680 But I, knowing Peter, was looking for a job. 324 00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:16,040 I had my doctorate and I was like, let's put this to work. 325 00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:17,920 Let's apply for the tenure track positions. 326 00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:19,440 Let's do the whole thing. 327 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:20,760 And so it was just good timing. 328 00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:25,200 It was right in the middle of that season when I was waiting to hear back from the Boston 329 00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:30,840 University had a job open, University of Maryland, Baltimore County had a job. 330 00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:34,600 And I'm just like, can I get an assistant professor position somewhere? 331 00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:38,500 And then I get this email and Peter forwards it from Astrid. 332 00:21:38,500 --> 00:21:42,800 And I read the tone-based job description for head of piano. 333 00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:43,800 It just sounded like a joke. 334 00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:47,560 I was like, there's no such job that exists. 335 00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:48,560 That's impossible. 336 00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,520 I also happened to be somebody who always loved media and film. 337 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:56,440 And like every high school project I had in class, I would, I wouldn't make a poster. 338 00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:59,840 I would go edit something on iMovie and just have a fun time. 339 00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:05,100 And I even applied to USC for undergrad because I wanted to do music and film stuff. 340 00:22:05,100 --> 00:22:09,520 So I always was like, will I ever be able to do something in video media again? 341 00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,840 Because it's one of my passions, like dating back to childhood. 342 00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:14,720 So I'm just reading this job description. 343 00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:18,900 It's like, yeah, you need to have at least a master's in piano performance. 344 00:22:18,900 --> 00:22:20,720 You need to be well connected in the piano world. 345 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,440 You need to know the piano repertoire. 346 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,200 You need to have like writing skills and media. 347 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:32,600 And I'm just like, these are the five things that I dedicated my life to. 348 00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:36,980 And so I just, I couldn't believe it because I had no idea what was going to be the next 349 00:22:36,980 --> 00:22:37,980 chapter in my life. 350 00:22:37,980 --> 00:22:40,320 I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. 351 00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:44,900 So I just consider myself extremely lucky that that happened and that I knew people 352 00:22:44,900 --> 00:22:46,560 like Peter. 353 00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:50,960 And this is why you make friends at summer camps and stay friends with everybody and 354 00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:55,040 are nice to people, by the way, it helps your life out. 355 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:56,880 But just that connection really helped. 356 00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:04,040 And so Igor and Chris and Abhi, they met at the school and just very briefly, Igor and 357 00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:11,760 Chris first started a kind of Facebook, I guess, page that was called maybe practice 358 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:12,760 portal or something. 359 00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:17,980 I don't know the exact history, but the idea there was just let's have great guitarists 360 00:23:17,980 --> 00:23:20,780 film their practice sessions, just like open. 361 00:23:20,780 --> 00:23:26,400 So you have a window in this kind of a, and then they sort of, that was their project 362 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:27,580 for Astrid's class. 363 00:23:27,580 --> 00:23:32,800 And then that summer, I believe they got involved with the Yale management school who sort of 364 00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:34,280 mentored them a bit. 365 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:38,860 And that's when they realized, OK, we need a kind of more intentional business model 366 00:23:38,860 --> 00:23:40,960 here and we need to find a programmer. 367 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:41,960 We need to find a whiz kid. 368 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:42,960 Right. 369 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:46,520 That's when they found Abhi, who was an undergrad at the time, you know, a few years younger 370 00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:48,920 than Chris and Igor. 371 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:54,360 And I mean, he was he could have gone and made instant high salaries, you know, being 372 00:23:54,360 --> 00:23:56,080 a developer for Amazon or wherever. 373 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,120 And he wanted to do something that was his and that. 374 00:23:59,120 --> 00:24:01,640 Yeah, he seemed very passionate to the world. 375 00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:06,200 Yeah, and so just he played piano as a kid, but he leads the product team. 376 00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,280 The product team has expanded now. 377 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:13,160 So we have developers, some of the musicians themselves spread out around the country now 378 00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:19,720 because everything's remote and they're working on the back end all the time just to support 379 00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:27,320 the platform, to encode everything and to just make sure it's a smooth experience for 380 00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:28,440 our users. 381 00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:32,040 And that's that's a really intense job. 382 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:37,200 And I feel for them because I get to be on podcasts talking to you and talking about 383 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:41,120 how I interviewed a man who acts or whatever and had coffee with Garrett Olson. 384 00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:45,320 And none of this would even be seen if it weren't for the invisible people behind the 385 00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:51,200 scenes led by Abhi, who are just working constantly to make sure that it's an awesome platform. 386 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:55,920 So anyway, that's a long winded answer to, I guess, the behind the scenes question, but 387 00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,680 happy to dive in more if you're curious about specifics about how these things actually 388 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,080 end up looking the way they look. 389 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:04,080 Right, right. 390 00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:05,080 Oh my gosh. 391 00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:06,080 Yeah, you keep me going. 392 00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:09,480 I'm more interested in about the technical part. 393 00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:15,720 So you have a team of people who does all the cameras and setting up audios and yeah. 394 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:17,760 So can you just tell us? 395 00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:24,280 So we now do this more and more in-house because finally we were like, hey, let's invest in 396 00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,120 our own studio in LA. 397 00:25:27,120 --> 00:25:31,080 And it actually happens to be in Hollywood, although that's just incidental. 398 00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,040 It's not like we're in one of these famous studios. 399 00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:35,040 We're not Paramount Pictures. 400 00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:40,200 It just happens to be on Gower Street, a block from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, because we 401 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:46,040 found a kind of nice space there that we can convert into a recording studio. 402 00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:47,480 So yes, I'm a Hollywood producer. 403 00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:48,480 That's what that means. 404 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,080 But it's not that fancy. 405 00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,280 It's just very useful and practical for us. 406 00:25:54,280 --> 00:26:00,400 And so finally in-house, we're able to, with the leadership of Sean Mulholland and other 407 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:07,920 wonderful editors and videographers on our team, like Phil is somebody I work with all 408 00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:09,680 the time. 409 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,140 These guys are just like, some of them are musicians. 410 00:26:13,140 --> 00:26:17,680 Some of them are coming from the media or the videography world. 411 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,040 And Phil Engel is just an incredible, like he was making music videos. 412 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,200 He was making videos for like Billboard and stuff before this. 413 00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:26,360 And so we brought him in and he's able to share his talents with us. 414 00:26:26,360 --> 00:26:31,040 And Sean was a classical guitarist, but he's always had a sort of tech interest and very 415 00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:38,440 skilled with just being able to set up microphones and just, he's an audiophile and he just gets 416 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:39,440 this stuff. 417 00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,800 And so they've helped design this set. 418 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,240 They helped run our in-house productions. 419 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,360 Now we use Blackmagic cameras, 4K. 420 00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:50,360 And it's not just 4K, by the way. 421 00:26:50,360 --> 00:26:55,920 It's about lighting, it's about a color, it's about recording in a certain kind of flat 422 00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:56,920 color profile. 423 00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,680 That's so that when you edit later, you can color correct. 424 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:00,680 All of that happens. 425 00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:01,840 That's why it looks so good. 426 00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:07,240 So it's not just about, like I saw some ad the other day for a new camera that's 8K and 427 00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,280 it says just like film. 428 00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:14,760 If you film at 8K and you have bad lighting and the color profile is off for whatever 429 00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:16,400 reason, it's not going to look good. 430 00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:22,600 It's actually going to look really weird because now it's like 8K and you're seeing very vividly 431 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,080 an image that's very distorted. 432 00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:31,040 So it's an art and a science at the same time to actually make media look this good. 433 00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:37,980 And we're, I'd say we're at, we're second tier to the first tier of HBO and Masterclass.com 434 00:27:37,980 --> 00:27:40,920 and Netflix shows and Amazon shows that you guys watch. 435 00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:42,920 We use some of the same gear. 436 00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,520 We have entry level professional equipment. 437 00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:49,580 But what they're doing, it requires much bigger budgets, obviously. 438 00:27:49,580 --> 00:27:51,520 So I'm very proud of what we have made. 439 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,840 I think it looks fantastic, especially for piano lessons. 440 00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,400 That's not usually something that you get a cinematic experience for. 441 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:03,920 So I'm really happy with where we're at, but it's something that I am meticulous about 442 00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:04,920 too. 443 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:10,280 Like I want things to look as professional as possible and have production values be 444 00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:11,280 as high as possible. 445 00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:17,160 I mean, it's a dream come true for all the artists and pianists, even as a viewer. 446 00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,120 It's a really dream come true. 447 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:20,120 Yeah. 448 00:28:20,120 --> 00:28:23,920 I mean, I think a lot of pianists are used to seeing bums like us in our homes on YouTube. 449 00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,280 So I mean, don't sell yourself short. 450 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,160 I think the quality is incredible. 451 00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:30,160 Thank you. 452 00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,280 I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I'm used to just iPhone videos too. 453 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:37,520 Like I didn't, I'm just lucky that I get to work with people who have access to this equipment. 454 00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:43,160 And I should mention Point of Order Productions, led by Christopher and Mary Smith. 455 00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,520 They've done all, most of our Northeast stuff. 456 00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:47,520 And guess what? 457 00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:52,160 Most pianists live in either New York or Boston or Baltimore or Philly. 458 00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,520 So I've been, you know, between those cities with them, they traveled to the Berkshires 459 00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,080 to work with Manny with me. 460 00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:03,800 They have awesome Canon C500s and really state of the art lights. 461 00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:09,600 And Christopher Smith just got a Canon R5, which has a stabilizer. 462 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,280 So he was able to like do all kinds of motion shots with Manny that aren't without a gimbal. 463 00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:19,040 So like, it's actually still stabilized enough to really feel like you're there. 464 00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:24,560 I don't know if you've seen the fly on the wall video productions that are made in London, 465 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:29,080 but you know, Boris Giltberg and Claire Hoangse have been on them, but you get this feeling 466 00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,420 that you're like right next to the pianist playing. 467 00:29:32,420 --> 00:29:36,840 So we're going to have actually some of that with Manny Axe, which is going to be... 468 00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,440 I could go watch lots of videos of Axe playing right now on YouTube. 469 00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:45,800 But what I can't do is feel like I'm this close to it and that it's even better than 470 00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,220 real life, the picture quality. 471 00:29:48,220 --> 00:29:50,180 So that's, that matters. 472 00:29:50,180 --> 00:29:56,840 You know, it's not directly part of the educational experience, but it certainly enhances it. 473 00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:57,840 It's certainly part of it. 474 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,480 Of course, because you kind of have to have the entertainment quality to it. 475 00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,280 I also want to shout out to those students that are watching. 476 00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:10,640 We have all these young students that eventually turn into teenagers and go to college and 477 00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,480 they don't know what to do with music if they don't major in music. 478 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,060 These are great examples. 479 00:30:17,060 --> 00:30:23,160 These days we're all like, they're all high tech, growing up from a few years old. 480 00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:28,760 If they can come up with ideas like this, or I think tone bass is a great inspiration 481 00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,320 for a younger generation, right, to just brainstorm. 482 00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:33,720 We don't have to be. 483 00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,920 And also just, I have to tell you a little secret. 484 00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:46,120 I was watching you with Samuel Bernstein last night, again, probably for the fifth time, 485 00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,760 and I dropped a little cocktail tear. 486 00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,120 I studied with him when I was... 487 00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:57,160 So I moved here from China to Kansas when I was 17. 488 00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,600 And then at one point my teacher was like, if you want to go to New York, go study with 489 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:02,600 Seymour. 490 00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,920 And so I remember writing this email to Seymour in the library or something. 491 00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:07,920 And he was like, sure, come. 492 00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:12,600 And so I dragged my suitcase, come to New York City from Topeka, Kansas. 493 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:13,920 And he was just so nice. 494 00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:15,320 It was just so nice to me. 495 00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:16,320 Isn't he amazing? 496 00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:17,320 He was just... 497 00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:21,360 The hand, like you guys were talking about the hand. 498 00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:25,640 And then he was like, Clara, Clara, Clara Schumann also touched this hand. 499 00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,360 I was just like, oh my God. 500 00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,320 Well, a lot of stories. 501 00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:35,440 Yeah, there's a reason why he was able to impress somebody like Ethan Hawke at a dinner 502 00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,880 party so much that Ethan Hawke had to drop everything he was going to do for a year in 503 00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,360 order to make a film about this guy. 504 00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,160 He's intoxicating, he's hypnotizing. 505 00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:49,120 He'll be all of your friends and he won't want to be all of your teachers. 506 00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:54,560 He's just completely selfless and giving when it comes to his knowledge of piano. 507 00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,640 And he's one of the few serious... 508 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:03,120 I mean, he's actually weirdly not mainstream in the sense that you're not going to see 509 00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:04,120 him... 510 00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,280 I mean, he has this incredible biography where he quit performing at 50. 511 00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:13,200 He wasn't exactly trying to rub shoulders with all of the giants of piano and the professors. 512 00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,560 In fact, he wrote books very critical of a lot of piano professors. 513 00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,000 There's one called, I think, Angels and Monsters. 514 00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:24,800 And there's a whole lot of monsters in the world in the history of piano teaching, which 515 00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,440 is a whole topic we could discuss. 516 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:28,800 But Seymour is not a monster. 517 00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:33,000 He believes in all of his students and he believes in their potential. 518 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:38,360 And he has, I think, the right philosophy, which is that the job of the teacher is not 519 00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:46,440 to push technique and musicality into a student, but to draw it out of them and to reveal for 520 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:51,560 them, help them reveal what they already know, which goes back to ancient philosophy. 521 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:56,080 This is an idea of education that I believe in too, even if I don't always practice it 522 00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,080 so successfully. 523 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,880 We're often in positions where we feel like we have to teach it into the student. 524 00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:02,640 It's more so wonderful. 525 00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:07,320 And I hope in that session with me, you kind of see it happening to me. 526 00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,320 Oh, for sure. 527 00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:11,440 It's a magic trick. 528 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,040 It's like he doesn't do anything at all. 529 00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:16,520 He doesn't say, that's the moon. 530 00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:18,280 He really does have magic. 531 00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,680 He helps you look at the moon and discover it for yourself. 532 00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:23,320 It's just he's wonderful. 533 00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,800 And he's able to make teaching technique an expressive musical thing, which, of course, 534 00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:29,320 is all of our challenge as a teacher. 535 00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:36,840 How do you make technique into something that's not just athletic training, but at one and 536 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:43,320 the same time, a human expressive act? 537 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:48,920 And I think that mission is so important because, of course, we're always so divided between 538 00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:54,160 this false dichotomy of technique and musicianship or musicality, right? 539 00:33:54,160 --> 00:34:00,160 As if you're supposed to work on your technique first and then sprinkle the musical sauce 540 00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,440 on afterward rather than baking them in together. 541 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:05,360 And he always bakes them in together. 542 00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:07,160 His recipe is always both. 543 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,880 Well, I think he's also just incredibly kind, right? 544 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,040 I remember just all these things. 545 00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,320 Did you study with him before you interviewed him? 546 00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:17,640 No, that's what's crazy. 547 00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:19,560 I met him like three days before that. 548 00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:20,560 I see. 549 00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,320 And it looks like we've known each other for years. 550 00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:23,320 That's how he treats people. 551 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:24,960 And he's not just kind. 552 00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:25,960 He's funny. 553 00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:26,960 He's funny as hell. 554 00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:27,960 Right, he is. 555 00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:32,440 And the jokes in there, just the deadpan. 556 00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,920 Yeah, he's so wonderful. 557 00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:36,520 I can't believe he's 94. 558 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,040 Well, he looks still very young. 559 00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:44,640 You know, my piano tuner, Telly, she's like best friend with him. 560 00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:46,160 So I still get updates from. 561 00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,320 I mean, I was actually at the premiere of that movie. 562 00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,800 My adult student at the time was the PR. 563 00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,480 And I happened to play this concert at Lesztosky and he was there. 564 00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,280 And I had a friend and he was like, oh, Claire from Kansas, you're back. 565 00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:01,280 Where are you? 566 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,760 You know, it's like after all these years, he still remembers you. 567 00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,960 And that's just like, oh my God, you know, how can that be possible? 568 00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:09,960 Anyway. 569 00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:16,080 This concludes part one of our interview with Ben Lottie. 570 00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:20,680 Tune in next time to learn how ToneBase integrates with traditional lessons and their plans for 571 00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:43,680 expanding in the future.