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The Trombone Retreat
The Trombone Retreat
Trombone Timo tells us what a TikTok is
In his first podcast interview, Trombone Timo aka Tim Maines as we've always known him hangs with Nick and Sebastian and describes his crazy world of trombone in social media.
We talk about how he went about building his prodigious following, his goals with his platform (you might be surprised), the power social media can have to galvanize arts organizations and how underutilized it still is!
We talk about his summers at the Trombone Retreat getting lost and causing a stir with small businesses and how we're not shocked he's doing what he's doing.
Limited edition first batch JSV Signature Mouthpieces by Verus are now available for pre-order at Houghton Horns! Use limited time pre-sale offer code JSVPRESALE for 10% off at checkout!
Also introducing special features with Patreon: www.patreon.com/tromboneretreat
Learn more about the Trombone Retreat and upcoming festival here: linktr.ee/tromboneretreat
Hosted by Sebastian Vera - @js.vera (insta) and Nick Schwartz - @basstrombone444 (insta)
Produced and edited by Sebastian Vera
Music: Firehorse: Mvt 1 - Trot by Steven Verhelst performed live by Brian Santero, Sebastian Vera and Nick Schwartz
Thank you to our season sponsor Houghton Horns: www.houghtonhorns.com
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It's insane.
Speaker 2:Oh, listen to that deep voice. Oh look, at me.
Speaker 1:I have a fancy little thing in the background. What's it say on?
Speaker 3:Oh no, it's actually inverted. So it says go practice which, speaking of which, did you practice today, or hey, I?
Speaker 1:woke up 30 minutes ago.
Speaker 3:We're asking the question here, tim, sorry, I'll never do that again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had to do that in the beginning. I actually I love those memes. I send them anytime. I see those things pop up on social media. I just send them to my students. I don't care if it's 7 am. Hey, nick. Yeah, I just want to say I'm sorry about your Detroit Lions. Moving on, hello darkness, my old friend, moving on the pain of expectations and being taken away. It's, it's, it's terrible. They should be proud of their season.
Speaker 1:Ah yeah, life goes on.
Speaker 2:But also what the hell was your coach doing?
Speaker 1:You keep Dan Campbell's name out of your mouth.
Speaker 2:Former Cowboy Dan Campbell hey Tim, I don't know if you knew this is a football podcast, so are you prepared for all your hot takes?
Speaker 3:Well, I was about to say that the UT Longhorns had a great season. We also had an unfortunate last game. We lost at the very last second but we should have won, but maybe next year it's been. They haven't been good my entire undergrad or even my masters until this year, so we went through about three coaches. I feel your pain, nick. I feel it.
Speaker 1:Let out your feeling I don't remember asking about the Longhorns.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:I didn't ask about the Lions either. We're talking about professional football, oh wow. No that I watched that game. Go yell Bulldogs. Oh, is that the Bulldog Is?
Speaker 3:that what they are. No one even talks about the Bulldogs at the school music. They might as well not exist. You're not in the Yale marching band. Oh, I wish sometimes Yale School Music student will get to play in the marching band, but they never hit me up and I have marching experience. So there is an actual marching band there is, and they have a conductor with a baton conducting everyone, which is very. The Harvard versus Yale game is very interesting to watch because they both directors, have a baton, like it's classical music, which.
Speaker 1:I find fascinating. Does the Yale marching band take it seriously, or are they like the Stanford marching band?
Speaker 3:I think they take it seriously.
Speaker 1:The Stanford marching band. I mean they have people playing on sinks and stuff like that, like literally.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah that we didn't. I didn't see anything at that level. I was tempted to jump in when I visited way back in the day, but then I didn't, and I think it was good that I didn't, but I think anything for views. I think the views would have been there for sure. It would have sustained my livelihood that much more.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 3:So there's our intro marching band podcast. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Football marching band you covered all. It is the fifth position, where all your dreams come true. That's my new tagline. You like that, nick?
Speaker 1:I do like it.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, timothy J Maines. Your Timothy J Maines in my phone for some reason. Is that your your middle name?
Speaker 3:The second oh, the second, but J A Y A, many, many is J Like the name J. Yeah, like.
Speaker 2:Blue J oh wow, that is how you tell the ladies.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't think that really helps when you have a trombone in your hand. But yeah, I guess I sometimes do that.
Speaker 2:You just like as quickly as possible, like subtly, show them how many followers you have and act like you're not trying.
Speaker 3:Surprisingly enough, that tends to scare people more than it impresses them, especially because it's like trombone and they don't understand trombone and it's I usually actually like back in a day. I have a girlfriend now, but back in a day I would like I would bring it up and then all of a sudden I'll stop hearing from them like interesting, or they'll be like oh, they'll be like that's interesting and yeah well, imagine it from their perspective.
Speaker 1:10 seconds before you showed them how many followers you had, they were saying, oh, that's the one that goes like this with your arm, and so they have just solidified. Ok, I remember what a trombone is. And then they see you have a bunch of followers and like what the hell, there's that many trombone players out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then, like with all the media, that Twitch streamers and other usually the worst content creators tend to trend on the news as well. So there's that stigma, like usually I have friends who would introduce me as some kind of influencer, which I hate, by the way especially if they say some kind of influencer right.
Speaker 3:No, well, they say like trombone influencer, which is hilarious, but also like even worse, and yeah, it's everything. I will literally get reactions being like oh, I'm like scared of people like you. Wow, what do you do? Can I see your content? Should I be scared? But usually it raises a red flag. Why do you think it scares people? Well, the news they see of other people doing just not okay things, the you'll I don't want to like name names out there in the social media universe, but there's plenty of people who will start trending, even on mainstream news, like I remember there was a Twitch event at New York and they literally disrupted tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that person got arrested Exactly, I think, put it, I think he's in jail now I have no idea.
Speaker 3:I haven't followed up.
Speaker 1:Well, he was saying was he was going to give away a PS5 or an Xbox one or something like that. Right, that what it was. And it was down in Union Square and there was like thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of damage to buildings and cars and stuff like that. Because all these people showed up and then, yeah, he basically got charged with inciting like a mob and then, because of all the damage, that that alone I think is like a misdemeanor. But if it gets carried to a certain extent, where it like stops traffic and it causes actual like financial damage, then it becomes like a felony and that's what happened to him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and never mind. Like all the business, all these businesses, like lost during, like the stuff you can't measure, as like damage which really sucked and so that's.
Speaker 3:But that's the stuff that people who aren't familiar with social media see in corporate news or just like wherever they get their news from, they usually just see like the most iconic negative moments. So I think that's in people's head, but also I think, you know, there's like the personality trait as well as what's up, guys, it's trombone, t-mobile and subscribe like people like associate, and I think what I'm doing is not necessarily that, but a lot of people associate being a YouTuber as that.
Speaker 1:So there's that to think about Back up about 15 seconds. It's trombone, timo. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's German, did you think it was?
Speaker 1:Timo, excuse me, I thought blue and the red, white and blue.
Speaker 3:Wow, okay, cool. Well, I went with something international, because Tim is actually cannot be pronounced in certain countries, really, actually. Yeah, I know, in Japan, when I was at Pacific Music Festival, there's people who literally just called me Timo, because there's no Tim, they'll go like team yeah. Like team. But I even study a little Japanese and there's nothing that ends with an M like that, like Tim, when they do the U, yeah Right. So, oh, my God, I had a fun time.
Speaker 2:I had no idea you were such a man of the people.
Speaker 3:Oh well, that's what I strive to be. In fact, I studied for two years because I was supposed to go again and then the pandemic happened, so they pushed back a year, and I'm like this is the perfect opportunity to learn a little bit and go back. And because the people in Sapporo and Hokkaido were like so kind, this is great, yeah, it was just on. It was like out of this earth really, and so, yeah, I learned the language for two years and then PMF canceled again in 2021, just because it was like more of a cultural thing too, whereas other festivals were able to open up for them. It was like a very strict, like we cannot, yeah, you have like foreigners into our country.
Speaker 1:I was supposed to go to Japan that summer too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was actually like there was ITF and Osaka Right, and I like finaled in two of those competitions and I'm like let's go.
Speaker 2:Humble breath.
Speaker 3:Free flight and Osaka rocks too. I'm like, are you kidding? I would have just gotten a free flight to Osaka and then just fly to Sapporo, and then none of that happened. And I'm really sad, but it's okay because you want to talk about it, you want? To.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, I'm good Welcome to the Pandemic Fallout podcast. All of our hopes and dreams got lost, one by one, from 2020 to 2022.
Speaker 2:Hey, that was this podcast, heyday. That's where we really found our stride.
Speaker 3:That's when I submitted the review on the third. I got featured on the third podcast. I'll never forget, Is that true?
Speaker 2:Oh right, you like Marshall Gilks? You don't order again in oh my, you don't order again in.
Speaker 1:This is what he says. You don't order again in tonic. You order again in tonic.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember what your quote was. Let me find it. I remember you write I got locked and loaded. It's called Google. It's a passion. It's asking today what the hell's going on.
Speaker 3:You just may find my pronunciation Well. You know what?
Speaker 2:After getting mine wrong, by the way. Pronunciation that's all you just said. Did you just pronounce?
Speaker 1:pronunciation incorrectly. Okay, by the way, in Asia I'm also. I have the same problem with you, Tim. Nick, it's Nick and sometimes it's Niku.
Speaker 3:Wait, which one are you? That sounds even more interesting than Nick, to be honest. I would like that if I were you.
Speaker 2:Did you use like a fake name, right?
Speaker 3:Sure, possibly. I think this was on Apple podcasts. I think I was trying to be subtle and then put, like some shark, fins on there.
Speaker 2:Did you? Oh, was the subject of your comment. Brian Santaro wrote this. What does the review say? Mr Shorts is one handsome dude. His ingenious sense of humor compliments Sa Bastion KSMR level commentary perfectly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 2:Yes, saris, this podcast sure makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. Quick quest what fundamental? Oh, you asked a question. It was actually a serious question. Yeah, sending healthy vibes your way. It looks like you couldn't find a shark so you did a dolphin in eyes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, appreciate that, five stars, appreciate it, wow yeah that was right in the middle of the pandemic. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The only dolphin in our group is Paul Pollard. Oh, he is.
Speaker 3:Oh, and what reason. Clean shaven.
Speaker 1:Well, he has. No, it's moving on. He swims like a dolphin. Yes, there we go. That's definitely the reason, and it's not something else.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's great podcasting Nick.
Speaker 1:Some things you keep in your private life. John Sebastian Vera.
Speaker 2:Tim, you are in the family. You are a trombone retreat alumnus. How? Many Did you go twice in person? Yeah, and then I think you were on the online retreat as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like 2017, 2019 and a summer retreat thing, man. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember you sparring with Coetro on the Creston or something on the live stream. You're just enjoying it. You're like, how well can I play this?
Speaker 3:Well, the Haie Flas did come out, so that was a victory. We're not going to talk about anything else.
Speaker 2:No, you sounded great. And he was like oh man, I got to really demonstrate. Now I know it sounded really good.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:No, but we've known you a long time and once we started seeing the stuff you're creating, part of us was, like I'd say, a little surprised, but also not, because we knew your personality the whole time and how. Just everything at the retreat was an adventure with you. So we just never knew what would happen. We ran into you at Yale and we talked about you, left a random review in this little small town restaurant and they got really mad.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, the waitress was being a little sassy with me and I thought they totally deserve a two star review. Little did I know at the time that when the boss of the store sees that two star review, it's that employee that's going to get the flack for it. And so that was. Did you name the employee? I thought very possible, but this was sophomore year in undergrad, it was probably like a 16 year old girl like working a summer job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how does it feel that you probably made a 16 year old cry and almost a little drunk? Okay, she was definitely not 16. I'm telling you, a lot of those people working there are in that high school 16 to 18 year old range. Oh dear.
Speaker 3:Well, I fixed the situation. I took the review down and or I changed it to a five star review and then it was later taken down by the boss, and that was right after I got lost. After my audition I heard about this.
Speaker 2:We'll fix it right now. Dog and Suds in Montague, michigan, is a national treasure. We'll just say that that's our favorite places. Was apparently Well they opened up another one, didn't they?
Speaker 1:They opened up like a food truck slash, like a little brick and mortar. They don't have as much on the menu but they have the hits. Tim put them out of business. Food Coney Dog is any time of day, any meal. They like Coney's.
Speaker 2:Michigan. And yeah, and then you. Sorry, then you got lost. I just found you. You just started walking around the neighborhood after something.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So like I completely whiffed the first few notes of Tuba Mirum, which were like the very first notes of the mock audition y'all have, and after that moment I just was like I just couldn't handle that level of failure, so I just immediately stormed off. After my audition I just somehow knew I wasn't advancing to the next round and I stormed off and I just headed in a random direction and I go to look at my phone and this is where I messed up. My phone was completely dead so I had no opportunity to figure out where I was, and the roads at Montague are like miles long without any other like turns, mind you. So like I spent probably two hours and I even visited a local middle school to ask a parent like where the heck? I was Not suspicious at all. I'm just glad I look really young and like maybe a little bit innocent, like aesthetically, because like I think, little did they know who I become.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, like someone was very graciously helping me, they're like yeah, you look a little lost. I'm like I am lost.
Speaker 2:And by the time I got back, I'm more waiting for one.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm attending a Tramone retreat at a church I don't know the name of, so when I was playing the Mozart Requiem.
Speaker 2:The response wasn't as good as I wanted it.
Speaker 1:I lowered my thirds too much.
Speaker 3:It was literally that I'm like back when my world was just to a Miram and, yeah, by the time I got back, none of y'all were there and there was no one there.
Speaker 2:You went to another dimension.
Speaker 3:I'm like asking someone for a charger and by that time, like I eventually like made it to where you all were. I think there was a hang.
Speaker 1:I went to a brewery and that's a solid guess that shows how on top of it we were.
Speaker 2:We were just like missing a student. We're just like going on to the bar.
Speaker 3:You guys weren't even that surprised to see me when I came. I came and you're like, oh you're here. Like where were you? As if I didn't spend the past five hours completely lost. And there was an entire mock audition that took place and I didn't even know if I advanced. So I was like that would be embarrassing if I advanced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would have been awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, that would teach you not to walk away.
Speaker 3:Right, and I never did.
Speaker 1:I had an audition in Helsinki While I was sure I wasn't in advance and I walked away and the proctor came running after me down the street and was like where are you going? And I was like no way I advanced. That was terrible. And they were like you did advance, you're in the finals. And I was like what? So I came back and took off my coat and unpacked my trombone. You're like five beers in. I was on my way to the bar. Luckily they caught me just before.
Speaker 3:That could help. Maybe I haven't tried it, but it wouldn't.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's a point of diminishing returns. I was going to say it wouldn't hurt, but there's definitely a point when it would hurt.
Speaker 3:We do not condone drinking before auditions, but but I am curious. Please let us know, Tim I think I'm going to frame this.
Speaker 2:I guess you found your host family's Facebook or something and you used him to message us when you were lost, like Larry Lundquist, and so I'm just going to frame this Hi, it's Tim, can someone pick me up from the church? I got lost. We didn't see it for a few months. Yeah, I'm feeling helpful.
Speaker 3:I forgot about that. I don't know if you can read it. Oh my gosh, oh my god. I must have been so defeated in that moment. I still feel defeated, really Well from that moment From that one mock audition.
Speaker 2:That meant nothing.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, not like I don't want to carry it with me, but just bring it up again, like it brings out those defeated feelings.
Speaker 2:But that's why we do it right. I mean, it's to make it feel like a real experience as possible as we can, and you can totally mess up and fall on your face and it does not matter at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the next time I took it I advanced the next round and yeah, it was like solid improvement. I didn't win. I didn't storm out and get lost either.
Speaker 1:Yes, what would have been really good is if you, in the second round of the auditions, you stood up and said play this in reverse and tell me if you can recognize it too.
Speaker 3:I, oh my god, that trend. Honestly, it frustrates me how well that does. But you go to TMEA and then you do that once and then all of a sudden you have 15 million views on it and you're like OK, cool, Thanks, YouTube.
Speaker 2:Can we start some sort of riot at TMEA and get you in trouble? Get the news involved.
Speaker 3:I sort of did that last time. Actually, I recruited like 50 trombone players to blast a theme in. As I later found out, the quiet section Ooh.
Speaker 2:There's a quiet section.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't know, and everyone's anymore. I'm trying to sell stuff and I can't hear my own voice. Right now I'm like, trust me, this is for a fundraiser for the fine arts and I still have to man. That video is supposed to come out, but I had a video editor that kind of just sat on their hands and promised me they would get it done and it never got done. So I'm struggling to now get that done before the next one in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2:Tim is accepting applications for video editing.
Speaker 3:Like genuinely, though, just all I need is a video editor that can just execute the job without me having to babysit them and be like wait a minute. This is actually the bare minimum level of work you did. Let's take it to the next level, and then I'm writing PDF paragraphs and essays.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm going to break this down for you, timo. Those people exist. They're going to cost a lot of money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, the cool thing is I recently got into the business of hiring my friends to make content. So when you see friends with me now, I used to not pay them because it didn't make sense financially. But now I'm at the point where TikTok has a new monetization program and YouTube is increasing the amount of money they pay creators through ad revenue. That I found out I did this through my time at Norfolk. If I just hire four or five musicians and we just make a piece of content, I'll actually come out in the green from my investment and I'll have a business expense that I can write off later. So I've just been starting to do that a little bit, even just on a very simple level, not high production, but just something that's just fun and it gets the musicians paid, I get paid and we also have a great time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're working with your friends, there's nothing better and that's awesome, because you just never know, yeah, it can be awesome working with your friends, but if you don't actually pay them, then because they know you, they can be like oh, I'll just do it whenever or I'll get to it. And if you actually have, hey, I value you, you value me and I trust you and I trust you understand like the vision I'm going for. Like that's the thing editing these podcasts. Like I've had to learn how to do that and I'm not at the point where I fully trust someone to understand what we want and the way I want it to be edited. I know that's partly my fault, but like Same, I have to let someone do it. They really have to. It's not just there's sure there's a million people that are capable and understand how to do it, but do they understand what you're going for? And I don't have to babysit them and they're not annoyed if I have detailed notes or something.
Speaker 3:The worst is when, like, they charge hourly and then they get rewarded for not doing the best job. I spent like almost half a thousand dollars and I'm like you got rewarded for me doing that, but I agreed to the terms. I had to put my foot in my mouth.
Speaker 2:Did you edit when you first started doing it?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I edit like 90% of the content at this point still, and I'm still looking. I'm not like actively looking, but I'm so open to somebody helping me out. It just has to make sense and they have to be somebody who's on the same wavelengths, and I think that's really hard to find, especially in the like podcasts, youtube ecosystem. Is this like a very specific like how do you clip something from a podcast and like it's actually interesting and it looks good too, and then you can get an organic reach through that? Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe you'll get a million emails from this now, or maybe I, you know, I want to put it past this podcast. This is my first real podcast, which is super exciting.
Speaker 1:This is no kidding. That surprises me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I haven't been asked much. We'll have you back. Maybe they're all afraid of you.
Speaker 2:They're all afraid.
Speaker 3:I do get that impression or either afraid or speculative. What do you mean speculative? I feel like Tyson was like what I said before, what I'm doing is very like not the normal thing to do and, as a result, it can either get straight to your head or you can let it influence you or make you be acting certain ways, and I think that can cause some people to be like who is this guy? Who is he actually? I don't know if I trust him. That's something that I'm not sure I trust him. That's something that I hope to build. I hope to build trust as time goes on. What's my platform and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I imagine it can go the other way too. When you have a following, there's probably a lot of people that want to take advantage of that too, like in the opposite way and come at you for disingenuous reasons.
Speaker 3:Yeah, luckily I didn't have to deal with that too much with my friends. So it does change how people behave around you sometimes and I do notice that people definitely and I noticed this was other people who are doing the same thing I'm doing in this music sphere People pay attention a lot and they definitely analyze you in the background.
Speaker 2:But you have to let that go right Because you're so public.
Speaker 3:At this point, yeah, you gotta let it go. But I do notice, do people come up to you? Yeah, are they coming up to you and being nice to you just because you have this platform, or it's because they want to collaborate, and if they feel like they don't get everything they want from you, are they going to retaliate against you or something. There's only that doesn't happen really ever that often, but it has happened once where I was just like, oh my gosh, that was scary, that's moving, yeah.
Speaker 2:And are there, like, are there hate comments that you see every now and then there's always people that say dumb shit, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, so most of the comments and I'm really grateful for this are really positive and even if I don't feel the best about the playing, the comments tend to be really positive and it's just. It's less about the playing and more about just the feeling you get, just consuming the piece of content and however it's presented to you. There are always some hate comments, although I think that's just a sign that you're doing well, to be honest, first off. But the hate comments there's been a couple times and I won't name names, but not even on my content, but there's been some pretty famous musicians, at least famous in, like, their performance fields, will comment something negative and you're like, oh, what, like, why are you like this and this? Hey, people who?
Speaker 1:do that. Can you stop doing that? It just doesn't help anybody.
Speaker 3:Well, I guess my main point is I would we all just treat each other like more kindly and at least, even if you have something to say, maybe you can be like hey, like, maybe that's not how you do it, but like here, let me show you how it's done and then you can do another video collab or something.
Speaker 3:So I noticed that was another person's profile, like some jazz musician that commented on their video, and then I was like I responded to it, being like man, you should like collab with us and teach us how it's done, because I just think that this whole hemisphere of classical music performance, jazz performance it's still really secluded from like mainstream media and I think we got to be doing everything we can to like break down those barriers. Personally, and I really, with my platform, I really hope to connect the mainstream world and get them to just at least pay attention to what we do, because we put so many hours and so much effort behind our craft and sometimes we create these videos, we create this content to just like a very small community of people and I wish everyone can just have more people interested in what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a difficult task because for multiple reasons the two are separated, not only in the people making the content slash music but the people who digest in that that the two different kind of realms that you just broke down are different. But not to say it's impossible, but the Venn diagram overlap is small, as you said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and those people saying things. You have to know that says way more about them than you when they're making comments. But it's the state of everything that, how people will talk to each other when they're not looking at them in the face. But one thing and you were talking about it earlier that made me think about this, when you were just being open about how your mock audition didn't go well so many classical musicians were so obsessed with perfection, and that's our job and that's how we get employed. We're constantly comparing ourselves to others and trying to be the best version of something, playing the same excerpts, and it's a recipe for misery in a lot of ways. And on social media, a lot of classical musicians are afraid to do anything because you can't not be perfect all the time and there's constantly people judging you and you'll just straight up post like you messing up in a concert.
Speaker 3:Yeah, forget to take my mute out. Oops, yeah, should have done that?
Speaker 1:Was it you that did one where you stole your colleagues mute? Yeah, moller tube rehearsal, that's a classic one. That's one of my favorite moves.
Speaker 2:What makes you feel, in a way, I feel like people connect more to you when you're willing to show that you're. Because I'll say that this you're a very talented trombone player. I know there's a lot of people that just know you from some goofy videos, but you're a very good trombonist. You've gotten to the treat very easily. You've done very well. Everyone that I've known that's played with you has been very impressed. But at the same time that you're like hey, like I screw up.
Speaker 3:Oh, well, thank you so much. I feel like I always I'm doing something to screw myself over just by accident sometimes. But I think having that vulnerability out on the open and just saying it's okay, it's really powerful for people and also realizes like people also realize that, hey, this is like something we're supposed to be passionate about and we're supposed to enjoy while making. And I honestly found that throughout my own process of posting that I'm realizing more and more is, oh, like I can have my own voice and relax a little bit and just play like I want to and play like myself. And I found that through trusting that decision to do that, I sound better and I sound more like myself and I sound less like I'm trying to be somebody else.
Speaker 3:So I think, yeah, the perfection thing is it's really there's so many. I know my girlfriend goes to New World and they talk about social media and everyone's super afraid and or they don't know how to get into it too. And I don't think you need to be big on social media to support your own career and to start getting students, to start giving yourself the tools to be your own self employed musician in the 21st century, which I find can be a little tricky to do if you're not networking with the right people or if you're not in not even like close to that network.
Speaker 1:Realistically, sebastian and I are not that much older than you, but when it comes to technology, we might as well be 300 years older than you, just because of like. When we were at your position in life, social media it existed, but it wasn't the thing it is today. It wasn't a vehicle you could use to actually grow into something like lucrative or a way to even get students or so like a tangentially lucrative both, I suppose. So it wasn't talked about as a serious thing when we were like the idea that it's being talked about in at a place like New World. I'm sure they talk about it at conservatories too to a certain extent, and it's probably going to only grow from here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think just now. I think orchestras are starting to look at social media. I know for a fact that the CEO of New World and in fact you can see it in the New World's posting cycle or a schedule, where they're actually now starting to experiment. They're starting to post more because they're realizing that this is the easiest way to get your craft, to get your organization in front of as many eyeballs as possible for free. And I really love seeing orchestras post. I don't care what the quality or what the third take is or whether or not it's optimized for the algorithm. I love seeing them put their stuff out there. San Francisco Conservatory is killing it on.
Speaker 3:TikTok on Reels Minnesota Orchestra is killing it right now. I'm seeing Boston Symphony starting to do stuff. I see New York Phil starting to do stuff and it's I love seeing that and it's. But it's something that's only just starting to happen and I think, like Nick said, like everyone in these orchestras never grew up with social media or anything resembling it, and so there's it's hard for these orchestras still to promote their orchestra because people are really they look at social media. I didn't even know like professional string quartet groups. Like when I was at Norfolk there was like some string quartet groups that were adamantly like we can't have anything on social media unless it's our best right, perfect playing. But social media isn't about that.
Speaker 1:And so there's that disconnect. They're treating it like like it's like a recording, Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is tricky because a lot of the people that run, say, a major orchestra. They know their bread and butter is their subscriber base, which may be of an older generation that may not use social media as much, and so they're like why should we invest all this time in this for these, maybe younger people that might not show up consistently or whatever. But it's just again, you're, it's a free way to reach as many eyeballs as possible. I like the way you put that and maybe you will develop a new audience that you haven't. My question is when did for you, when did this start becoming like? Because I knowing you, I imagine I could have seen you just starting to post funny videos because you enjoyed it. I didn't think I. I'm willing to guess that you didn't just start out being like. I have a business plan and this is how my TikTok will grow from zero followers to bajillion. When did it start being like? Oh wow, I could actually do something with this.
Speaker 3:Well, it was December 2020 when I first started an actual TikTok account and actually on the first video well, second video, technically I posted with me pranking my friend with the straight mute during the mall or two rehearsal. That was your second video. That was my second video.
Speaker 1:I had no idea, I just I thought that was in the middle of the pack.
Speaker 3:No like. It was posted on Instagram and it got 700 views, some likes, and I decided to repost it on TikTok because I was. But the thing is I already have funny videos like in my photos library. I already had some things to experiment with and I always knew in the back of my head people would tell me they would go up to be. You have a YouTuber personality. That's how I feel around you. Have you ever considered doing anything? And I always say yes, but yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 3:But because of pandemic I had more time, so I posted that video me pranking my friend with the straight mute and it got 3 million views, like within a few days. And I was you're like what's going on? I the adrenaline that went inside me. And when I saw I was like are you kidding me? This is reaching this many people. And then I posted me introducing the orchestra at PMF in Japanese, just as my next video. That got like 500,000 views and I'm like what the heck is going on here? And at that point, because I knew I've always, almost exclusively, consumed YouTube content, which I think gave me the inclination and the know how to like how everything works a little bit, so I just I just started making content and following this one guy, robert Benjamin, on YouTube, who will give you some like simple, cheap tricks on how to like and like a schedule, like you got to be posting one to three times a day and stuff like that. So I just went gung ho because I had all this extra time and that's when Nyan Cat started to happen, where I just every day played Nyan Cat a little bit faster.
Speaker 3:And that trend because at this point YouTube shorts was just coming out and it was at the point where you couldn't just hit, go to your phone and say create short, you have to put it at a certain like. Going to video editor, put it at a certain dimension and then in the title and the description, right, hashtag shorts. And if you didn't do that, it would not count as a short. And I remember this coming up and I was watching a gaming channel and they were like I am about to hack the algorithm. If you have ever thought about becoming a creator, this is the single best time to do it, because YouTube is pushing shorts like crazy. And so I just went like crazy and so I put my Nyan Cat series on YouTube shorts and that resulted in about a week, me getting 10,000 subscribers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember talking to Randy Haas during my Northwestern lesson just being like, yeah, I just been playing Nyan Cat. And so for us old, what is Nyan Cat? Okay, so it's a 2000 and one, I think, meme where it's a pop tart cat farting rainbows. It's just in the hat's an animation on the screen and it's just, it's a tune that goes.
Speaker 1:How do I remember that? I remember hamsterdancecom. That's way before your time. Tim Sebastian knows what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Usually Nick is very up to date with all the anything relating to farting so that's true.
Speaker 1:I consider myself a fartist.
Speaker 3:I love that, but yeah, it's a pop tart cat. And I immediately moved on to the Mario Cart lick after that and people were fan of that and I think. But the funny thing is it's like at that time I still had that. I had that feeling everyone else has where I like I did not post Instagram, I'm like I'm not going to tell people, I'm doing this, I'm going to let people find me because at that point I'll probably already be successful and they'll have to respect it a little bit, but I'm not going to tell people. And it took a lot of courage for me to just be like, all right, screw it, I'm posting Instagram. And it took about a year since that point. So I was doing YouTube and TikTok but I did not do Instagram. And then, after a year, when I was about to go to Music Academy, I was like, all right, screw it, I'm just going to post all my old content onto here that I know it does well Then. So that's how I got established on all three platforms.
Speaker 2:Really I remember that because I remember like you were doing all the tic-tac stuff and I'm like, oh, he's not on Instagram. And then you joined and we were friends and you had just like 500 followers or something. I'm like, oh, wow, it's just completely different platform. And then it just shot up by posting all the same stuff and I imagine there's a lot of transference of people that follow you on tic-tac, that would want to follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 3:Yes, but they're actually like. I find that they're completely different ecosystems. Some posts do incredibly well on YouTube, but not well on TikTok, and vice versa. Like Instagram will do incredibly well for certain reels and will really nuke some other reels For reasons I don't understand, but I actually find that these communities don't really intermix too much. There's people who follow me on all platforms, but I think majority of people only see me on one platform.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, I don't know if this is true for you, but I know it's true for you. It's true for everyone to different degrees. If you go around and ask a group of 100 people, do you watch all three platforms? And they say yes, you have a group of 100 people that say yes, you're going to find that everyone's going to have one that they prefer the most, by probably a large margin. I know what I watch the most of. Sebastian knows what I watch the most of. What does it go for it? Tiktok, tiktok, for sure.
Speaker 2:It's a younger generation, right? You give like a school concert in front of a group of like elementary school kids and you're like hey or middle school kids. You're like, raise your hand if you're on Facebook, and it's like none of them, and then raise your hand if you're on Instagram, it's like some, and then you ask about TikTok and all their hands go up.
Speaker 1:Well, that's also an interesting thing right there, sebastian, just saying who's on. They could technically have an account, but consider themselves not to be on Facebook. Right, and that's part of the interesting equation too, but Facebook is definitely not even in the conversation. It's crazy, because they started the game. Well, I've been.
Speaker 3:I have a Facebook too. It's not as big of a following. I don't know if you've seen it, but all I do is post memes there and that's what resonates most, like my normal content doesn't even trend as much, but when I post memes they're all over, but there's like a Facebook shorts, right or reels or something.
Speaker 2:What's it called?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there is, but I think it's a lot more cutthroat.
Speaker 3:I think actually like the preview of your clip, like the first three seconds where you can actually see the real move a little bit, actually dictates more how well your video is going to do than the actual video itself and I think, judging by like some of the content I post, it seems like that's the case just because me playing buckaroo holiday and having the camera immediately go to someone cracking up. I think that's why that's one of the very few reels that actually does really well on my Facebook channel and there's a balance, right.
Speaker 2:I'd be curious what your inner dialogue is like, because if you fully only think about what is going to get the most possible views ever, do you start to lose what's the most fun for you, like, say, you post something that you really love and you had a ton of fun doing, and it gets barely any engagement. It's still fine, right.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad you asked that, because I'm actually I'm right now I think I'm at this four-kno-road with where I can take all my content and yet optimizing for views is definitely like a race to the bottom with yourself. I mentioned. This was like put this in reverse. Every time one of those videos in the back of my mind, I'm like this is so stupid, this is so dumb, but this does so well. And I always, when I collaborate with people, I always want at least one video to do well, so I use this as an introductory.
Speaker 3:Okay, let's get in front of camera. That was super easy, right, let's do it. Let's take another take, then I'll post it and we'll get 11 million views on TikTok. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds about right and yeah, but in the back of my mind, I truly want to make more substantial content and content that is less of a cheap thrill for whichever person stumbles upon my content, and I want it to be something where it builds community but also gets people hooked into what I'm doing and have it connect to more of my mission of connecting the fine arts to mainstream media. In the back of my mind, like I recently did clapping music, but I slapped the mouse piece instead. I love that. That did terribly.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's such a good idea.
Speaker 1:I like that yeah.
Speaker 3:I had so much fun doing that and I spent hours making it. I probably spent about six to eight hours like just moving every tap to be something that is rhythmically somewhat recognizable, Cause it's really hard to and it hurt your hand too. Oh, my God, my pain. You're probably bruised. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:I'm like hitting the mouse piece over and over and I'm like geez Well think about how much of your audience like even if they're classical musicians knows what clapping music is. You know it's a niche piece for a niche, like an even smaller niche audience, unfortunately.
Speaker 3:You're right, but it's on. I saw a long form YouTube video get three million views using animation of notation and people seem to be really into it. Now I do recognize that it's super niche, so I was just hoping that more people would be interested in the just the rhythm and all of it. But it's just was something. I spent eight hours making it and it got. It was like on YouTube. It ranks your videos how well they perform I don't know if you're familiar and it was like 10 out of 10. It was the worst video you post in a while, got like 20K views, which is, for me, it's just like low, and so I'm like dang, that's a bummer, youtube's just give up, stop wasting our time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but then you post something like put this in reverse takes two seconds, and they're like we're gonna give you 15 million views. Also, every six months we're gonna just pump up this like you count by another million and you're gonna put in another hundred bucks in your pocket just like passively, and I'm like, okay, sure, I'll sell my soul a little bit just so I can keep doing, keep taking risks in these other adventures. So I'm saying a lot, but yeah, it is like whenever you see me do something that seems like it's a really cheap and easy video to make part of my soul's dying for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also, if you put it in business terms, you could argue you're in your growth phase, like you're building your core audience and then, once you establish even more of what you want, you can do more of what you want because you've gained their trust in a lot of ways. But I always imagine like you get to a certain follower account on YouTube and you just start getting these like random secret invitations to back alleys where there's some crazy party behind golden doors and If I had to any crazy parties other than the how and horns.
Speaker 3:a little dinner, hey, we're gonna have them. Yeah, we'll be there, but not you, Nick. Never, never, you're not invited. No, I do get a lot of scam emails and at first I almost fell for one, but it's pretty easy to suss them out and like filter through all of that, and I was. I'm fortunately in a position that I do occasionally get like brand deals that are insanely lucrative. I almost feel bad.
Speaker 2:You shouldn't you're helping, but you're helping them Right.
Speaker 3:I just I'm like man. It's just, I'm so grateful to be doing what I'm doing and, honestly, people tell me I should be getting paid more from these brand deals. But I just I'm like man. I can't believe that I can just make a video for one platform that probably really doesn't even matter, and the company is just gonna pay for all of it. And it's crazy where we live in.
Speaker 1:I've just been in a couple of videos with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they did really well. People loved you.
Speaker 1:I can act like a crazy conductor. I'm pretty good at that and also talking smack about trumpet players is very natural for me. That was one take, one take. One take, that's what they call me.
Speaker 3:We're supposed to do another one in the future, so I look forward to all of that. We are Like we being me or you and oh well, brass, which I thought was like. I don't know if you. I was told otherwise.
Speaker 1:The reason I say that is there is a world that Barb Barb Josling came up to me and was like, oh, we're gonna do another video, Would you like to be in it? And I said sure, and absolutely forgot. So that's why I said it that way, Cause there is a possibility that I'm supposed to be in it and I know about it but forgot about it.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's okay, there's nothing planned out, but we do want to get the Met Opera conductor involved and he's a very busy man.
Speaker 1:That's that that you know, Yannick. Oh, that one. I thought you meant the conductor in the video, because I was there.
Speaker 3:Oh well, you can also be Maestro. We can have a battle of the Maestros. How about?
Speaker 1:that I'll battle you. I got size on them, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:Conductor versus conductor. Exactly there we go. Do it like street fighter style. Oh, yeah, honestly, yeah, just, I can see a couple of like conductor moves as like fighting moves, almost like Harry Potter, like there's like things coming out of the wand. We have to do a Harry Potter thing. Now that you said that, actually like I'll learn after effects, I'll make something happen.
Speaker 2:Use your bass drum. I know didn't know if I would love it. Use your bass drum bone as a baton.
Speaker 1:Can you do the? Can you do the the? What do you call it? The cheleste and not cheleste, so we call it, yeah, the cheleste part from Harry Potter. He played on the trombone, all like the 32nd. I was like oh.
Speaker 3:Well, actually I did that, but I tailed it with Weezer at the end, so it modulated the major key.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I did appreciate that, because not I would guess that I was going to ask you like, if you described your core demographic like slightly younger, like high, would you say high school age, I think.
Speaker 3:I think the most enthusiastic group out there are the younger kids, I think high school, early college and middle school, although when I look at statistics, granted, it's easy to, as a kid, have an parental account and view stuff, but the numbers tell me that about 50% are under the age of 23. And then every the other 50% is actually older than that. And I think it could either be parents watching or I do have like a strong, like international reach where I'll get pockets of all throughout the world.
Speaker 2:Is there a random country that just is. You can't. If you step foot in that country, they're just going to go crazy. Trombone Timo super fans.
Speaker 3:Maybe, like Spain or like the Philippines, let's go on a trip, just see what happens. You're going to. You're going to see a TMEA. How crazy it is, it's just like out of this world.
Speaker 2:I'm excited we're going to have fun, what we can do some weird there too.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. Just again, we're not that much older than you but technology wise, we were so much in a different world, at least like where we were when you were. We were your age. There was just none of this happening. And Sarah Goldberg she works with MAP at Julia Pre-College and some of these kids when they see her Sarah plays trombone on. Sarah plays trombone on yeah, sarah plays trombone exactly they. They have a little bit of star syndrome when they see her. And I would love for you to come in, just randomly, come into my brass class at Pre-College. I think some of these kids would actually lose their damn minds.
Speaker 3:I would love to make that happen. Honestly, sarah and I were both we've attended the same string quartet concert of all places and that's where we like met and I was like we're both just wait, are you? Sarah plays trombone? Wait, are you trombone, timo? This is wild. Like that even happens with like other people in the business, cause it's so small. They're like oh my.
Speaker 2:God and you're like no, I actually have a real name. It's team Exactly. Yeah, throw them all off. And yeah, I'm gonna have Tim's gonna come talk to my Cleveland Institute class, so that'll be fun. But yeah, I wanted to ask about the well I was saying about Weezer, which I very much appreciated. As someone who's grew up on that those albums and like I've seen them live, that was a little nugget for us people and our older millennials, as we just-.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually when I did a sweet child of mine but I like cut out every note and I put the apple ear buds straight up my bell. That's when the older audiences like they'll, like they see me in person and they're like I love that. That was amazing. And that's not the one that gets like a million views, but that's like the one I guess that does pretty well still and that's the one that gets me the in person reaction, which is the ones that I like the most, to be honest.
Speaker 2:I think one of the first ones I saw was the Lizzo one. Can you cause it's so short, but can you explain the context of like how that came to be?
Speaker 3:Oh my God. So South by Southwest in Austin. I was in Austin a couple of years ago and one of my influencer friends I have two influencers, friends that all live in the same house in Boston, one's a fitness influencer and one's a car influencer and they just came to South by Southwest and these guys were just sneaking in to like essentially every single event and they just brought me along to this Lizzo event. Granted, I had a trombone on my back and security didn't even really check for it. I could have literally been packing heat, but I was just packing a trombone.
Speaker 2:Hey, you were packing heat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, once Lizzo heard that slick trombone playing. But there was a huge line to meet for Lizzo at this conference. There was like there's so many conference rooms with people coming in doing their chat and we just snuck right into the Lizzo one. We bypassed the entire line as soon as the event before concluded. We just intermingled with all the people that were leaving and then just walked right in.
Speaker 3:I didn't even know who Lizzo was and knew she played the flute. That's the one thing I had. I've seen her play the flute and I'm like huh, there might be some potential here. But my friends were doing a video on their own channel and they really wanted to meet Lizzo or at least get a picture with her. So after the event they walked up and they were trying to get her attention. Lizzo, lizzo, picture she gets a million of those. So she wasn't paying attention to those guys and at a certain point I was just like screw it, I'm taking out my trombone and I just hold a trombone really high in the sky and I'm like Lizzo, it's a trombone. And she was like surprised.
Speaker 3:But then she was just like play something Meanwhile, like the security guards are like glaring down Like this was like a huge security issue and I proceeded to play Timmy trumpet, but I completely whiffed the first note and it was probably the worst performance on a trombone.
Speaker 3:I didn't even know what I was gonna play you had the spirit, though I had no idea what I was gonna play. In fact, the second song, the do-dee I don't even know what it's called do-dee. I didn't even know the notes to that. So, like in the audience, I'm like if I'm gonna play for her, I need to know these notes and I'm like how do you figure it out somehow? And yeah, that happened. And then afterwards my friends were like ecstatic and we got the picture with Lizzo and but yeah, it was like the most ram thing that ever happened in my life. And I got on Lizzo's TikTok actually that's amazing With that. That was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So right before you're like, oh shit, maybe she'll want me to play something, you just like, in your head you were like I'll play this and you just figured it out real quick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that TikTok brand, I'm like all right, what's like a easy hit. And she started getting down, started dancing to it, which I appreciated, but yeah, that was the sloppiest performance.
Speaker 2:I felt so bad. Oh, come on, come on, that's a perfect example. It doesn't matter, it was like the spirit of it, right?
Speaker 1:Whatever she was like play a Lizzo deep. Cut no A side don't make these slides.
Speaker 3:I didn't know any list of songs Exactly, so I'm like what am I doing here?
Speaker 2:And what if your friend didn't videotape it? Would your social media heart just melt?
Speaker 3:Oh, that well, some. Luckily there was a bunch of people's cameras there, so like I would have gone in the video. But yeah, there are moments where I wish there was a camera on for sure, and I always think about them and they haunt me to this day.
Speaker 2:Just don't turn to one of those people that what do you call them, the streamers? That, like literally your 24 seven, just walk around with higher else? Yeah, oh my God, that's a deep, that's a deep cavern, you should jump on the bandwagon of doing NPCs.
Speaker 3:Well, I actually really love NPC TikTok Really yeah.
Speaker 1:So cringy. Well, guys, I mean nuts, what's NBC? It's just fun. What is that? Someone, non playable character.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh, those are awesome. I like those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for the glusy. Thank you for the glusy.
Speaker 3:Oh, not. Oh, I'm not thinking of the live streams. I was thinking of like you run into a Skyrim character and they're just like mouthing words, and then there's text that comes up.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a whole different thing. I'm talking about the live streamers.
Speaker 2:Oh, the people that like pay money and they have to react in the moment. That's so cringy.
Speaker 3:I had a streaming arrow and I got bored, so I just committed to one of those, and it did pay more, for sure, but at the cost of your soul. So, like we said, there you go.
Speaker 2:Hey Nick, do you want me to ask Tim a quick core question?
Speaker 1:Quick core.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with our core series?
Speaker 3:No, I haven't heard.
Speaker 2:Okay. So on this new fifth position, casual whatever, this podcast is so core. You can just ask any question on the internet to the world that you're wondering, and so I just did some deep dive searches on core questions involving the trombone. So here's the newest one I found. I'm not sure who this is from. Is there any way to play the trombone high notes easily? My friend says it's easy, you just have to blow it. That's what I'm doing, and still, comma, it makes that quacking noise. It's not the trombone, it's my lips.
Speaker 3:That's a very correct assessment, because I was going to say if you're sucking at high notes, just take the mouthpiece out of the instrument and just buzz it Like you're probably buzzing the wrong pitch. I guarantee you're buzzing the wrong pitch and even if you are playing the right pitch, there's a way to play it really well and there's a way to play it where you're just like doing whatever and it's usually it goes sharp. Try to be flat. I dare you.
Speaker 1:I dare you? You answered that more seriously than I thought you would, I suppose.
Speaker 3:Yeah, see, this is the difficult things. I'm really goofy, but then when I get to lessons I'm like no, like I'm very hard, and I get really into it seriously, no, I meant not because of who you are, but because that question was so ridiculous. Oh well yeah.
Speaker 2:My favorite is the first sentence that says is there any way to play the trombone high notes easily? That's always like fifth graders you just have to blow it. Yeah, the quacking noise is probably not what you want. But then he answers his own question it's not the trombone, it's my lips. Yeah, exactly, thank you for your lips. Well, we solved that, quora. Put it on the board. Do you find it difficult to balance? Because you're getting is it a certificate or a doctor to yell right now.
Speaker 3:It's. They call it an MMA, which is Master of Musical Arts, mixed martial arts.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly that is yeah. We did talk about how the trombone can be in a weapon. So is it hard to? Because I can't imagine. I imagine some of these TikTok videos you can just rattle off real quick, but some take some planning and a lot of editing. Is it tough balancing being a student?
Speaker 3:It's really tough. Honestly, the toughest part, I think, is just because I'm going to school, because I wasn't really happy with my trombone playing and I spent hours practicing but making content that distracts from the journey, from the process, and it drains your chops and it drains your, drains you mentally. And it's also hard because everyone you shouldn't think like this, but you can't help but think like this because what you do is very public, that your friends are going to be watching and you're going to be surrounded in a community of people who all know who you are and will make remarks or remind you that you're doing social media. So you're, you get in this headspace where you're like, you feel like there's a lot of pressure to to make something out of your playing, to make something out of your craft, to and just to like actually be a positive influence and not something that everyone is just is hating. So, yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2:Who knew Tim was so deep? Nick, I know you didn't think I was deep. Hey, no, I didn't know, not at all. Well, I have thought that about you. I was like because I always heard the talent and you're you're always just very outgoing and funny on stage, but I knew there was a layer underneath all that where you're very thoughtful and I feel like not everyone gets to see that part of you. So that's why podcasts are great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I really appreciate being on here and this has been a really fun time for me. Yeah, man, more of these if I get invited or whatever, we'll have you back.
Speaker 2:We see that that's our thing is figuring out how to do this more, because the whole word feed the beast right that when you have an audience and they want to hear things, it's yeah, we also have. I have six other jobs that I'm trying to keep happy and I would love to do this all the time. I would love to let people help me do it more. I would love to post more on social media. I just it's. That's the challenge.
Speaker 1:If you feed the beast, you can be the feed.
Speaker 3:See when you have coworkers like that and you should start a profile, nick I'll subscribe.
Speaker 2:Should we have a tick tock? Should we have a trombone retreat tick tock.
Speaker 1:The Sebastian. Yeah, there's no way we should have a trombone retreat tick tock. Why We'll do one video every six months.
Speaker 2:Well, that's well, we can just hire someone Well let me just say that convinced me with Norfolk.
Speaker 3:Ok, here's the thing People don't realize you have an archive of all the performances and whatnot that you've done, ok, so. So with Norfolk, I got them from 500 subscribers to 7500 subscribers just by using old footage from their concerts and I use more popular, more recognizable tunes that would catch the algorithm, because at first the hardest part is getting that following at first, and then, when you start posting other stuff that deviates from, say, vivaldi people, all of a sudden you're getting like tens of thousands of views on really niche concert pieces that really no one has heard of. And yeah, I strongly like you can. Actually, you don't even need to make stuff. You are probably already sitting on a treasure trove.
Speaker 3:A lot of clipable movement, clipable moments, and it's just like a matter of knowing which ones. Even like you have probably a way more, and this is what I'm thinking about with all these orchestras too and everything I'm like. You guys have all the footage and stuff and that could just be like your foot in the door and that's what can get you started and then you can start creating content. That's also fun and you can. Honestly, some of these people like me like in one or two hours I can get I don't know 10 to 20 videos if I really put my mind to it. So like there is so long as everyone gets together in one spot at one point and they do it banging out real quick. But it's like the idea is already set. It's game over it usually does pretty well.
Speaker 2:Have you seen these new AI programs that will like you, just upload all your video and they'll just come up with all these clips for you.
Speaker 3:No, is this for podcasting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or just like whatever content you make and I'm just like that's tempting, but I don't know, I'm skeptical, but it'd be so nice if it comes up with headlines for you. It comes up with it, optimizes it for every social media and it comes up with like captions and man that is sexy.
Speaker 3:That's really interesting. I like using AI subtitles, but I don't never had AI go to next step. I think that's more for podcasts too, but that could be.
Speaker 2:I started using AI subtitles just for fun for some of these podcasts and the views within the first 24 hours doubled. It was hilarious.
Speaker 3:It's the algorithms, very basic and simple stuff like that will be the difference of a thousand and a hundred thousand views. It's just OK.
Speaker 2:OK, well, thanks for hanging out. This was super fun. Thanks for having me, Nick. Is there anything that you would want to say that we think we got it.
Speaker 1:I think we got it all wrapped in there somehow into a tight hour and 15.
Speaker 2:I can tell when Nick is done talking, he'll just start looking at me and not saying anything, so that can mean a lot of things Right now.
Speaker 1:it means maybe I should have skipped that last drink last night. Usually most will slow.
Speaker 2:Most podcasts end with Nick being like guys. I got to go number two in his bath. I mean, every meeting I'm a regular guy. God, I was texting Tim. I destroyed the Yale bathroom, by the way, oh my God.
Speaker 1:He told. He told me that you told me that after I was done rehearsing with Daniela, You're like I'm really glad you rehearsed first. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what we have, we had, we did. We will try to get some New Haven pizza. And I don't like every place. It was like Sunday brunch time, so every place was crowded. Nick was mad that we had to go to a not popular place and then he ordered pizza and it was like not real pizza and there's terrible.
Speaker 3:I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's terrible.
Speaker 1:It's OK, I'll live. Everybody, I'll live.
Speaker 2:So Tim and I will be at TMEA in San Antonio February 7th through 9th at the Houghton Horns table. Come say hi, I believe you'll be there representing Brasswich. Yes, cool, and I'll be releasing my first, very limited batch JSV tender trombone mouthpieces. I've been working on them for almost two years, tested by world class trombonists in every imaginal scenario. I think they're magical Purity of sound, incredible response and articulation. We were searching for the Holy Grail of rich overtones, ring and sweetness, paired with depth of sound, and we found it's available for preorder at HoughtonHornscom February 1st. But yeah, if you guys are around TMEA, if you're not familiar with TMEA Texas Music Educators Association Convention it's the biggest music convention basically in the country. It's bigger than Midwest. It's insanity. I'm really excited because the last time I went I was like an all stator in Texas and I haven't got to go as an adult.
Speaker 1:You had a full brain of hope and a full head of hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, everything was fine back then. Yeah, and just to remind you, the third coast trombone retreat is happening this summer, june 4th through 10th, with international duo Peter Steiner and Constanza Huckvortner Did I say that her last name right? I hope so. You said something and newly tenured principal trombonist of the Cleveland Orchestra, brian Wendell. Final application deadline is April 1st. Visit tromboneretreatcom for everything you need to know. Trombone TMEA is the trombone retreat, so that's all you really need If you enjoy the podcast, tell a friend subscribe everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2:Follow us at trombone retreat on all the social medias and our website tromboneretreatcom, where you can join our mailing list. Follow Nick at base trombone444 and myself at jsvera on the Instagrams and follow tromboneTEMO. See, he's smart, he's just trombone TEMO everywhere. Yeah, so it sounds like trombone TEMO. So if you can't spell that, then you're probably just gonna not ever find them.
Speaker 3:Nope, nope, and that's okay because I'll find.
Speaker 2:You're not wrong, though. Your videos will just appear. Yeah, you've mastered the algorithm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, man.
Speaker 2:Shanyon poster. We are, they just got to Pittsburgh, hell yeah.
Speaker 3:Happy phone, oh the happy well ding ding. Happy orchestra, oh yeah, do you?
Speaker 2:remember that oh man Musical chairs was like. What on earth is this?
Speaker 3:I might apply for that. Yeah, happy orchestra room.
Speaker 2:The social media possibilities are incredible there, though.
Speaker 3:I know. I just I hope they have another opening very soon, if they don't have one already.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, we are proud of you, tim, and we look forward to hanging out more, and I'll see you in gosh in a couple weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, thank you for having me. This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:So what I'm going to do is I'm going to act like your bouncer and I'll be like oh, if you'd like a photo and autograph with Tim, you have to buy a mouthpiece first.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like that. Yeah, exactly, well, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Please be patient.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're going to clip this and I'm going to get canceled. I did introduce myself in Japanese on one of my PMF tapes, so that was good.
Speaker 2:Oh, did that help, we got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know if it helped, but All right, dude.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1:Smash that button so we can stop it.
Speaker 3:Smash that subscribe button, hit that follow button. That's a real pro saying that. Well, that's a real pro saying that.
