December 12, 2024 • 60 mins
What if pursuing your creative passions could completely transform your life? Join us as we explore the life-changing journey of Patrick Boylan, a multi-talented musician, app developer, and actor who found his calling in California's vibrant artistic landscape. From the bustling streets of Los Angeles to the creative turning point sparked by a friend's advice, Patrick's story is a tale of self-discovery and the pursuit of a dream. Discover how he transitioned from acting and serving tables to turning piano into his day job, and how the contrasting cultures of California and his hometown of Chicago have shaped his artistic perspective.
Patrick candidly shares the personal challenges that have informed his art, from navigating the complex dynamics of being the youngest child in his family to finding a more supportive environment in Los Angeles. We delve into his impressive musical journey across six instruments, revealing how necessity and passion have guided his path. With a refreshing openness, Patrick discusses the importance of creating a nurturing space for artistic expression and how relocating to LA gave him the freedom to truly explore his talents beyond the constraints of his upbringing in Chicago.
Finally, we uncover the innovative world of Museflow, Patrick's music education app that challenges the conventions of traditional piano lessons. Patrick's entrepreneurial spirit shines as he discusses the app's evolution and potential expansion to other instruments, offering learners a gamified and intuitive approach to music. Whether you're an aspiring musician or a curious listener, Patrick's insights and personal anecdotes provide a rich tapestry of creativity and innovation, promising inspiration for anyone looking to pursue their passions with determination and flair.
Special offer from Patrick Boylan:
Coupon code for MuseFlow: MISTA50
Gets anyone 50% off of MuseFlow for life.
MuseFlow's website: http://museflow.ai/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome back to one-on-one with Mr U.
I'm your host, of course, Mr U,and we have a good friend,
multi-instrumentalist, appdeveloper, actor, a host of
other things.
Patrick Bowling is in the house.
How are you doing, brother?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm great.
How are you doing man?
What an intro tune.
That was like soul and funk andlike ooh, that was nice.
I love that.
That was like soul and funk andlike ooh, that was nice.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I love that.
Well, I'm glad to have you here, man.
I'm excited to hear what youhave to share.
I think our listeners will betoo.
I've been kind of pumping youup, man.
You got so much of a backgroundthat a little something for
everybody, so I'm excited tohear how this goes over in the
conversation.
Man, we're going to talk abouta lot of different stuff, but
first off, man, first off,thanks for jumping on.
Appreciate that a lot.
Your excitement, and especiallyin our pre-publishing meeting,
(01:08):
was infectious, man, to say theleast.
Tell me a little bit about yourtime in California briefly.
We'll get into a lot moredetails as we move along.
But life in California, what'sit like?
You can go into politics, youcan go into culture.
What's life like in California?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It to politics, you can go into a culture.
What's life like in California?
It's interesting, I will sayit's kind of like isolating,
because we are in this likeliberal bubble.
You know we really are, and soall my friends, a lot of my
family out here, they're alllike very, very liberal, and so
we're, you know, shocked whenpeople think differently than we
do, and I think it goes bothsides.
You know it like totally goesboth sides do, and I think it
goes both sides.
You know, like totally goesboth sides.
(01:46):
And LA is like a cleardefinition of like a liberal
bubble where, like, you'resurrounded by that echo chamber,
you know, and I think there areplaces in America where it's
the same on the other side, andso it's an interesting situation
.
Coming back to Chicago for youknow, cause that's where I grew
up and being there forThanksgiving, all these diverse
opinions I love those moments,though, where we can come
together and discuss things.
(02:08):
But look, I love LA.
I like feeling free, I likefeeling like I can be who,
utterly, I am just the weird, Idon't know excitable human being
that I am.
I like feeling able to do that.
So that's what I like beinghere.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
That's interesting that you feel like you can do
that in California and not inother places.
I don't know if we have time toget into that, but it just
that's a very interestingthought.
If I can find a way to squeezeit in, I surely would try to do
that.
But one thing that was veryinteresting to me that I want to
bring up hopefully I haveWesley's consent.
But you talked about yourturning point where something
(02:45):
she said to you helped you kindof change everything.
I did ask you to adjust thelanguage that she used to, kind
of Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah,for our audience.
I got family and nieces andnephews and a whole bunch of
other folks that listen.
So I want to make sure I covermyself accordingly here, but
share what you can about, aboutthat turning point where you are
in your life before, where's wegave you the advice and how did
(03:08):
that trigger or catapult you towhere you are right now?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was an actor.
Well, I still am.
I do a bunch of stuff, um, alot of voiceover, a lot of
commercials, some TV and filmhere and there whenever I can,
um.
But throughout my first sixyears here in LA, that's what I
was doing.
I wanted to do the actor hustle.
I wanted to come out here andbe an actor, and that's all I
wanted to do.
And then I got really burnt outat year six because I wasn't
(03:34):
getting creatively fulfilled asmuch as I wanted to.
It feels amazing collaboratingwith people and acting and doing
your thing and being, I don'tknow, just being that part of
myself filling that, right.
But I wasn't getting that on aregular basis.
I was getting it sporadicallythroughout the year and here and
there, here and there, and thenthe creativity dipped in, my
self-confidence dipped, and thenI got another gig and then it
(03:56):
was just a roller coaster, right.
And so I was just super burntout by the whole thing, right.
And so then you knowno-transcript, and three months
(04:36):
later I got my first gig.
I was an after-schoolaccompanist at this program.
That was all about musicaltheater and choir and stuff like
that.
And then I got a couple ofbackground jazz gigs at
restaurants, playing for theirdinner service.
And then I got my piano barthat I play at Tramp Stamp
Grannies is the name of it.
It's a weird sort of musicaltheater vibe, it's just very
(04:58):
specific and it's so perfect forme.
I love that place.
For me, I love that place, andso I was able to actually quit
my serving job at that point anddo piano, acting, voiceover,
like the whole thing, full time,like piano became my day job,
so to speak, you know, and itwas all thanks to Wesley really
pushing me over the edge there,you know.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
She's got the overbarrel now going forward.
Huh yeah, all hard drives havenow going forward.
Huh yeah, all hard drives haveto be good, right, as hard as
you are, brother.
Okay, so that makes sense to me.
I mean because Californiaalways seemed to be I don't know
if it's still the same now, butit always was a hub for
entertainment, a place where youwould go to live your dreams.
Everybody from the Midwest,they would either go to
(05:43):
California or they would go toNew York.
It was like no in-betweenreally.
But in California sorry, excuseme, in Chicago.
Your background is sointeresting because Chicago was
a place where, for myinteractions with friends and
people who I've known gone toschool with, that was a place
where 3-Ear was pretty prevalent.
You know what I'm saying.
I always talk about the uh, theawesome that you did, uh,
(06:05):
teaming in the shoe out there.
I know about that.
What began your love fortheater?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I started when I was eight years old.
My first joke on stage was whenI was eight.
Um, my dad was an actor at adinner theater here, well, in
Chicago, not here in LA, but inChicago, um and uh.
And so he was there during theday, he raised us, he was our
main caregiver throughout theday.
And then, we know, we, my, mydad, brought me, brought me and
my sister, to the dinner theaterand we sat there drinking
(06:33):
Shirley temples, watching himrehearse with his friends,
before the show actually started.
And then, you know, as the showstarts going around six o'clock
, you know they're starting toget ready, they're going off
into the back and getting ready,my mom comes and picks us up
and, like, takes us back homeand makes us dinner and all that
stuff and puts us to bed.
So that was our childhood, forthe majority of our childhood,
before we went to school.
Okay, um, and so, having thatbe the environment that we were
(07:00):
in, you know, it was naturalthat, like, my dad was, like,
what do you want to?
Are you interested in acting?
Are you interested, you know?
And so he put me in.
He was doing a show at thisdinner theater.
It was a rotating show and theshow that they were doing this
year or two years or whateverwas called gangster town and it
was a bunch of Chicago guys, youknow, in their pinstripe suits
(07:20):
and my language, over here goingthe prohibition area and
they're like, hey, with theirtommy guns and whatnot, and
they're like you know, so you'reshooting the barrels and all
that stuff, right?
And so they're like, you know,let's have, uh, this
eight-year-old kid come on up tothe stage.
This is the son of one of thegangsters, the son of david
(07:41):
boylan.
You know, let's have him comeon up.
He's gonna tell to tell you ajoke, all right, great.
And so I come on up and I gotthis little tiny little
pinstripe super top hat and I'mlike all right, everybody.
So I'm going to roll my tie upRight and I'm going to stick it
right here.
I'm going to roll up the firstone, great, roll at the bottom
one.
I'm going to drop them.
(08:01):
And I'm going to ask you allwhich one do you think is going
to drop first?
Get to the bottom first.
Do you want to get a top one orthe bottom one?
And everybody was like it's thetop one, it's the bottom one.
I'm like, okay, here I go and Idrop them both and I go oh it's
a tie, because it's a dumb,stupid joke, but like fantastic,
(08:22):
it went over great.
So stupid joke, but likefantastic, it went over great.
So I don't know.
That was like.
That was the moment where I waslike, oh, I can get a laugh, I
can make people laugh on stage,oh, no, all it takes is one.
And so I was bit by the theaterbug ever since, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I love it.
That's an incredible story.
I love it, the timing guns andthe whole gangsta thing.
I just it's a new york themetoo, I think, but I love that
totally.
Yeah, I love three out of twoas well.
Uh, but you shared about thechallenges of being the youngest
child.
I can't really relate to thatbecause I'm the oldest, but my
wife is the youngest of 13, soI'm not really going to be
shocked by anything you say tome.
(09:04):
Oh wow, I totally get that.
But tell me why you think thatwas pivotal in some of the
decisions you've made over theyears.
Why do you think that played apart?
Because things that happened tous kind of fuel our future
actions.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So tell me how you think that made a difference or
was pivotal for you in thedecisions you made over the
years.
I mean, I hate to get it downor bring it into a negative
light, but honestly, everythingin the scope of my life I am
grateful for, even though theymight be negative, they brought
me to this place and where I amnow, and I honestly wouldn't
want to be anywhere else, right?
So I I don't know, I'm theyoungest child and I don't know
(09:44):
if your, your wife, actuallyagrees with this, but I was
always the scapegoat, I wasalways the reason things were
going wrong.
I was always yeah, okay, okay.
That's like a thing, right,where the youngest child
sometimes it's the middle, ifthere's a middle, but most of
the time it's the youngest childthat gets like blamed for all
the bad stuff that goes on in afamily, and so I got that myself
(10:06):
.
I felt like I couldn't really bewho I was.
I couldn't express my, mymyself, in the fullest, you know
, and I don't know if that's alot of me or if that's a lot of
them.
I do think it's kind of a bitof both, right?
Um, cause I rebelled a lot whenI was, you know, a kid and I I
think that it was a hand, it wasa, it was a two way street here
(10:27):
, right, I was being influencedby my family and I was doing
certain things, uh, in responseto my family, but also because I
was just me and, and so then Irealized like, okay, chicago
doesn't really feel like theplace where I can truly express
my inner self, who I am to mycore, place where I can truly
(10:47):
express my inner self, who I amto my core.
And again, I don't know ifthat's a lot of my family or if
that's me projecting ontoChicago itself.
I know Chicago is a great place.
I love being from there.
I would totally live there if Ididn't have this baggage inside
of me, and so that was a bigthing why I moved out to LA.
I mean, I also got likerepresentation right out of
college in LA, and so I wasreally lucky thing why I moved
out to LA.
I mean I also got likerepresentation right out of
college in LA, and so I wasreally lucky about that and I
(11:09):
have family out here, so it waskind of a no brainer Right.
But the biggest thing for me isthat I just don't feel like I
can truly just be myself and Iknow that's a complex that I've
got and I know that's notaccurate Like I could be myself
in Chicago if I dealt with mytrauma.
But that's just where I'm atright now, you know.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
What would it take for you to be able to live in
Chicago?
Now, I don't mean live at yourfamily's house, because if
you're 40, 50 years old that'dbe weird, but if you're just
living in Chicago, what would ittake for you, in your mind, to
be able to live in Chicago, haveyour own house, whatever it is
kind of still feed from thoseplaces that energize you as a
(11:49):
musician and an artist and whathave you?
What would it take for you tomove from California to Chicago?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Probably a job.
A job, yeah, I'd probably haveto get employed there somehow
and then be like okay, now Ihave to live there.
There's some piano bars outthere, there are some theaters
out there, like if I get a gigat steppenwolf, for example
that's, that's one of the majortheaters in chicago um, and it's
a possibility that they might,they do cast out of la sometimes
, okay.
(12:16):
So you know, that's a, that'salways a possibility in my life.
Um, I don't have to activelyseek out those jobs.
Sometimes they come to to me.
That's happened for New York,that's happened for Atlanta,
that's happened for you know,it's not happened for Chicago
yet.
So that would be a majorcatalyst for me.
To move back to Chicago wouldbe I get a job in Chicago, but
(12:38):
and then I would actually haveto, like, deal with my baggage
because of that.
You know, yeah, I think thatwould be one of the main things.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, okay, I'm glad you didn't say deep dyspecia,
because I don't care for that.
I'm not a deep dys guy.
But before we get into our nextquestion, if you guys are
listening to our broadcast today, patrick has a lot of insights
and a lot of different things.
We'll be talking about a lot ofdifferent topics.
Drop those questions in thecomments section under this
(13:08):
episode and we'll go ahead andfire them off at him.
He just made some of the workwith today and we'll hit those
questions when they come through.
But thanks again for listeningto our show.
All right, so if you're a rarebreed and you play six
instruments, which is likereally, really crazy to me, I'm
like I'm struggling to learn one.
You talked about that Plusbeing an accomplished singer.
(13:29):
For those aiming that high intheir life or in their career,
tell us how you came to thedecision to learn so many
instruments and how did you doit?
It sounds like it's a lot tohandle.
Sometimes people position likeit's a lifetime of learning.
How do you do six instrumentsand still be able to be
(13:50):
proficient?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, yeah, I mean a lot of it was out of necessity.
I learned piano first.
That was my first instrumentthat I learned.
That gave me a great foundationfor understanding how chords
are created, how music iscreated.
Like, all the way down to thebasics of music is made out of
notes, duration of that note andsilence.
(14:13):
Okay, at its core, that is whatmusic is.
And pitch, how high or low doyou want that note to be?
And then let's combine them,all those those different
factors, a pitch, a duration forthat pitch and silence.
That's it, that's all thatmusic is made out of right, and
you could add harmony in there,you can add all of these
(14:35):
different elements, but at itscore.
And so that's what.
That's what piano really taughtme.
And so I was able to understandinstruments and musicality and
music and how it's written, allfrom the get-go, because I
learned piano as a major.
That was a major foundation forme.
After that I had to learn.
I wanted to learn clarinet.
I got into it in middle school.
That was my second instrument.
My third instrument, that wasyour first.
(14:57):
Yeah, I didn't enjoy it.
It's not cool, yeah.
No, it's not a cool instrument.
No, it's not.
Um.
And then the.
The third instrument was voice.
I mean I, I, I always sang, butthen I never really sang, you
know, uh, in anythingsemi-professional or like an
organized situation.
(15:18):
Um, that was because I got intomusicals and whatnot in high
school and then I did choir andthen barbershop and then
magicals, like I did.
I did all the all of the I, Ireally I burned it at both ends.
In high school I did theater atnight and I did choir and band
in the morning, and then atdifferent seasons I did the
(15:38):
marching band and I.
So it was like I really burnedit at both ends, right, um.
But then then after that,acoustic guitar happened,
because a good, because I gotinto a folk musical in in
college and and I had to learnhow to play guitar harmonica was
another part of that too like Ihad to learn it for that folk
musical, right.
Um, I had to learn upright bassfor a different musical.
(15:59):
I had to learn mandolin for adifferent musical.
It was all these musicals wherewe were like taking folk
instrumentation and putting thaton stage, so that the actors in
the band were there on stage atthe same time, and I was the
music director for those plays.
I was in the band for them, Iwas an actor in it, whatever it
(16:20):
may be.
I'm like, yeah, I could pick upthat instrument, no problem.
And so I picked it up becauseout of the need and also because
I had a great foundationbecause of piano, right.
And then the same thing with thesousaphone.
Like going back to high school,that was another one where my
sousaphone tuba, right, it's thewalking tuba, you know where
(16:42):
the whole, like brass, goesaround your head and the thing
is right up here like and youplay, you play like this, that's
the sousaphone right and youcan walk with it.
There's the same thing.
There was like gosh, 10clarinetists in marching band at
that time and my band teacherasked the two six foot tall, six
, two tall guys seeing hey, canyou do you want to switch over
(17:04):
to sousaphone for this season?
We only have one right now.
We at least need three.
So if you guys could go on overthere and play sousaphone for
this semester, that'd befantastic.
And we're like, yeah, sure,we'll learn, no problem.
And so we learned sousaphonefor that.
So, like it all came fairlyorganic, like that.
You know how long?
How long did that take to learnsousaphone two months because I
(17:25):
because, again, I had thefoundation of like, okay, that's
what music, that's what westernnotation looks like, the way we
write music.
Okay, that's that's what itlooks like.
I know what the clef is.
We we learn in bass clef what,what sousaphone, how to play
sousaphone.
So I already knew the clef andthen all I had to learn was the
fingering and how to shape mymouth, which I already kind of
(17:49):
knew how to like adjust my whatis called embouchure.
I already knew how to do thatbecause of clarinet.
So I was like okay, I alreadygot the dexterity of my fingers,
I already got somewhatunderstanding of, like, how to
change my mouth and myembouchure.
Okay, great, all I need tolearn is how to actually
associate the note that is rightthere with my finger position.
That's all I need to learn.
(18:10):
And so that's it, because Ialready learned all the other
things before that how to readmusic, how to adjust, how to
play all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, I hope we had time to get into more of that.
I find it interesting.
I hope the listeners do,because I'm geeking, I love
music, so I'm just totally in onthis, but you also do narration
for audio books.
A man of many talents.
I have a good friend Excuse me,he's an actor like yourself.
He's done several movies.
He is a musician, he's a saxplayer.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I forget what sax.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I think it's a tenor sax, but I'm not totally sure on
that.
So he's into sax, but he doesaudio narration too.
What got you into that room?
Was it out of necessity, or wasthere some kind of a long-term
plan you had for that?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, it was kind of a mix of both.
Actually, it was out ofinterest and out of necessity.
Covid happened and all my pianogigs shut down, all the acting
gigs shut down.
I had a great, I had a prettydecent reservoir at the time of
savings and I was also getting alittle bit from unemployment
and all that stuff, and so Ididn't really like, truly need
it, but I'm actually extremelyhappy that I pursued it.
It was.
It was what I call my my firstmeditation of COVID, cause I
(19:25):
feel like it was a blur, myfirst meditation of COVID
because I feel like it was ablur.
You know that pandemic and wewere alone and I had phases and
one of them was learning how tonarrate audiobooks and building
my studio.
I built my in-home sound studioright.
So it was partially out ofnecessity, because all my gigs
ended, and then also out ofinterest, out of being like I
(19:46):
still want to be creative duringthis time.
How do I possibly do that?
Oh, let me, let me see if I cando audio book narration Right.
And so I started doing it thenand, yeah, it just kicked off.
It was.
It was a perfect combination ofI know a lot of musicians that
are audio book narrators as well.
There's something about it thatis number one.
We're all storytellers at theend of the day, whether you're a
musician or an actor or anaudiobook narrator right, and
(20:10):
our ability to tell stories, ourability to emote via our
instrument, whether that's asaxophone or your voice, your
interest in a line like amelodic line, you know you can,
you can see the direct parallelbetween words on the on a page
that are in a sentence and theway that that line flows and a
(20:30):
melodic line.
Within music, there's a certainpattern, there's a certain lilt
to it.
It's very musical, right.
And so I found that my, myability to play, play
instruments and emote through myinstrument in that regard, were
very, very similar to telling astory in audiobook narration.
It was the same kind of thing.
So it was a perfect storm.
(20:53):
It was a perfect combination ofmy skill sets.
I just decided to pursue itbecause of that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I mean just the amount of entrepreneur ventures
or new ventures that peopleengaged in during 2020, the
numbers are astounding.
I'm like I mean it's crazy.
Right, 2020 is podcast canstart in 2020.
The friend I was telling youabout that's a acting
instrumentalist.
Guess when he started 2020.
(21:17):
Yeah, Amazing that a pandemiccan make you become more
creative.
And and bet on yourself I it'skind of hard to mentally fathom,
but all right, so let's keepmoving.
So what's a day in the life inLA for you with somebody with
your kind of abilities?
Give me a typical day for youwith all that you do.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I'll wake up, I'll have breakfast with my wife,
I'll sit here and look throughmy day.
A lot of the times I time boxmy days.
So I've got the morningreserved for audio book
narration.
I go to the gym in theafternoon, in the early
afternoon, so I narrate untilabout one o'clock.
Whether I have a couple ofmeetings for Museflow, the music
(21:58):
education app that I'm building.
I've got a couple in themorning sometimes and then I'll
narrate throughout the morninginto the early afternoon and
then I'll come back.
I'll eat lunch and then I'llget into Museflow.
At that point, um, I really digdeep into, uh, what I'm I'm
supposed to be doing forMuseflow, whether that's a
podcast or whether that'swriting a blog post or talking
(22:20):
with educational institutions or, you know, interfacing with our
users.
Currently, like I, I get intothat Right know, interfacing
with our users.
Currently, like I, I get intothat right, um, and then uh, and
then and then throughoutthroughout the week, like,
auditions will pop up.
Um, I'll have to spend sometime on those.
Other gigs will pop up, likeyesterday, I just spent, uh,
half of a morning on acommercial shoot.
(22:41):
I spent the morning on acommercial shoot, so I I had to
adjust some things aroundbecause of that.
And then on the weekends I goplay at my piano bar, or during
the week, or during the weekendsI've got some other gigs here
and there for piano.
That's kind of the weirdamalgamation that is my life
right.
I've got all these differenttime boxes and I fill them with
(23:02):
a certain things that I do,whether that's audio book,
narrating, auditioning whichhappens randomly film shoots, um
and then uh, muse flow, andthen piano at night on the
weekend.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
You stay busy, man, that's.
That's not a bad thing, that'spretty good.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
All right.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, yeah, got to stay busy, yeah Right.
Well, without course, I thinkit's.
It's good for our sanity to bebusy.
I want to get more of the musicand talk more about music flow
too.
But I shared my little sadstory about how I've been trying
to learn the piano for like 35years.
I started off at my home inBrooklyn with a piano that was
way out of tune and mom couldn'tafford to get it tuned.
(23:39):
So I would just play it.
I would play soap opera themeson it, kind of learn how to play
it by ear.
Then I graduated to having ateacher proper themes on it,
trying to learn how to play itby ear.
Then I graduated to having ateacher.
He passed away from pneumoniaand some other complications
with that.
He passed away.
He was teaching me piano.
He was teaching me jazz piano.
(23:59):
Then I had another teacher whogot deployed and never came back
.
There's a long list of allthese different cycles and stuff
I'm not learning.
I tried a teacher to try to dothe self-taught.
It just was never working outwith the profession.
I have a good ear, I know notesand stuff, but I want to know
what the reason was why youstarted the effort of Museflow.
(24:21):
Where did that come from?
I know you've got a lot ofcreativity in your family
background, but for you, why didyou take this uh, musical route
, you think, and how itculminated in the news flow?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
um, I think it's like , well, when I started playing
piano professionally, I I Irealized like, well, I'm not
your typical pianist.
I don't read music verbatim, Iread it, I can read it, um, and
I can play it and I can learn itto perfection.
But that's not always the funpart for music.
For me, the fun part of musicis making decisions on what
(24:54):
you're playing and how you'replaying it, whether that's
crescendo or decrescendo.
How do you want to play it loud?
Do you want to play it soft?
What emotion do you want tobring to the audience?
And how do you do thateffectively?
Through your instrument,through playing your instrument,
making those musicianmusicality choices.
That's the fun part of playingmusic Right.
And so I got there much fasterby.
(25:15):
I did take eight years oflessons.
Yes, I hated every minute of it.
I did not like the traditionalway that we teach music, which
is here's a skill, let's goapply.
Your teacher gives you a littleskill, whether that's a note or
a new rhythm, and then theygive you a song or two to go
home and practice that.
And then come back to yourlesson the next week and your
(25:39):
teacher stamps approval or saysno, you've got to go home and
practice those again.
You didn't practice enough andso that journey didn't really
work for my, my brain, you knowI didn't.
I got bored, I got frustratedbecause I wasn't learning in in
this sort of compound way.
I was only learning that newskill in the context of that one
(26:01):
specific song.
And so once my teacher retiredno fault of my own, he just
retired.
I was a terrible student, buthe didn't just quit on me, he
retired, he quit on everybody,he quit everybody.
He was like I'm done with this.
I ended up going to my parents'sheet music and finding little
(26:24):
phrases, little motifs, littlepatterns that I really enjoyed,
just whether that felt reallygood in my hands or whether that
sounded really good in my ear,it didn't matter.
And then I closed the sheetmusic, I had it in my brain and
then I just improvised aroundthat phrase, putting that little
phrase in different contexts ofeverything that I knew.
I inverted them, I put in theleft hand, put in the right hand
(26:45):
, I changed the key, I changedthe time signature, I just
really messed with them so thatI really learned them to my core
.
And then I just did that again,I did that again, I did that
again and all theseimprovisations were completely
different because of that onespecific phrase that I took Cut
to college.
I realized when I was the onlyacting major that could play
(27:06):
piano at my alma mater, allthese acting majors kept
throwing music in front of me.
Went to a concert, go toconcert halls all the time and
like or practice rooms, and andthey just kept throwing music in
front of me, being like hey,can you play this song?
I really want to practice it.
Hey, can you play this song?
I really want to practice it.
It's a bunch of musical theater.
I realized my parents had abunch of musical theater and I
was doing this type of learningwith musical theater pieces.
(27:31):
And so I realized, oh my gosh,all these phrases that I've been
playing my entire life in theseimprovisations are popping up
in all these different piecesthat they're giving me, that my
college cohort were giving me,and so I was able to read that
music pretty darn well.
I was able to sight read thatmusic so that I could.
(27:53):
I'd never seen this song before, but I was able to play it
because I had learned thosephrases outside of the context
of one specific song.
I learned it in the context ofmy body and these improvisations
and the music context that Ialready knew.
So I was able to play thatphrase Cut to now I have 700
(28:13):
songs on my repertoire list.
It's actually not a lot comparedto my cohort, the pianists that
play at my piano bar.
They've got 2,000, 3,000 songsright.
But I've really specified theniche that I'm really good at,
which is this musical theaterjazz, um, pop rock, millennial
stuff, right.
So, um, I'm really good at likethat.
(28:36):
But then you go back to theeighties and the seventies.
I'm like I don't have a lot ofstuff like that.
But anyway, point being is likeI realized I realized that I
was able to actually play thesesongs pretty darn well.
I was trying to build up myrepertoire list because I was at
the piano bar and I was like,oh man, I know so many of these
songs because I've only heard itmaybe once, and now I'm able to
replicate it because I alreadyknow the skills that are
necessary to play those songs,because I had learned them
(29:00):
outside of just one specificsong.
So I was like, maybe there's away to way to.
You know, boredom is the beautyof of creativity.
You got to be bored to becreative sometimes, and so I was
bored.
One day I was just like man,what if there's a way?
What if there's a way to teachpeople the way that I taught
(29:22):
myself?
And that was the birthing pointof muse flow.
So what we end up doing is wegive you music you've never seen
before at your certain skilllevel.
Okay, whether that's onespecific one note, one note,
both hands and three rhythms.
That's where we can start youfrom.
Okay, and we teach you how toread music, how to play piano,
in seven minutes, okay, and wethen we immediately get what?
(29:47):
Stop it.
No, it's true, it's what we do,right.
Seven minutes, we got you.
We teach you how to read music.
We teach you how to play piano,how where to put your, where to
put your hands and how to playa key and what pitch and what
duration are.
Okay, we teach you thosefundamentals and then we
(30:09):
immediately get you playing.
Okay, that's what's called justin time learning, where you
learn the kinesthetic need.
Okay, here's the new skill,here's the thing, and then you
immediately go apply it.
Okay, we use that as like abasis for everything we're doing
in muslo.
So we give you that one, thatnew skill.
That's a, that's one, that's atthe beginning.
It's three rhythms, one note,both hands.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
We got you there.
We saw you go.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Music just goes across the screen.
You keep playing it, you keepplaying it.
We've gamified it a little bit.
You've got 95% accuracy orhigher.
You get what are calledchevrons, which is, you get a
little green.
You get another little green.
You play another phrase at 95%accuracy or higher Great.
You play another phrase at 95%accuracy or higher Great.
You get another green.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
You do another one, another green another one,
another green boom, you pass thelevel Music and video games at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Millennials, are you listening?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, so, and then?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
we build you from there, right.
We build another note, we buildanother note, we build another
rhythm, we build another timesignature.
We just keep building it outfrom there, from one note, we
spread it across the piano andso by the end of 26 lessons
you've got 14 notes, three timesignatures and four rhythms that
(31:21):
you can play.
And we also have music, likeactual songs, right, that get
unlocked after every level.
So you immediately go fromlearning the skill,
kinesthetically learning thatskill, to applying that skill
immediately to songs that getunlocked.
So, yeah, that gamification,that sort of application, that
just-in-time learning, that sortof flow state where we meet you
, where your skill level is thechallenge versus the skill, yeah
(31:41):
, all of those kind of elements,combined with all of this
generative music that neverrepeats, that is always at your
level, yeah, all of thatcombined is what muse flow is,
and nobody teaches music thisway apparently not.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I got a couple more questions on this as well.
All right, so you mentioned inour pre-production meeting that
in high school, by 85 percent ofmusic students drop off because
of how they're being taught.
Now when I hear you talkingabout learning in seven minutes,
I'm like okay, I'm going almostinto the late 30s in years I'm
(32:18):
trying to figure this out.
So immediately I'm tantalized.
I'm like, okay, seven minutescompared to almost 40 years is
awesome.
It makes sense.
But how long does the MuseFlowprogram have?
A length of time that it wouldtake you to complete it.
That means there is a beginning, obviously, but is there an end
as well?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
No, that's the whole point, though.
It's that it's constantly.
You can constantly work atcertain things with MuseFlow.
It's an eco.
We're giving you an ecosystemof ecosystem of tools, and you
decide what you want to practiceon.
There is a guided curriculum,yes, but we don't put a time
limit on how long that's goingto take you to complete, because
(32:59):
that's really up to you.
The goal with Museflow is toinspire you to go and want to
practice every day.
Yes, that is the goal, right,because we make it fun, we make
it engaging and we make itactually more effective, right?
So we want you to practiceevery day, but some people don't
.
Some people decide to practiceevery other week.
(33:21):
Some people decide to practiceevery two days, every three days
, whatever it may be.
It totally depends on you.
The use cases from use flow ispretty vast and we're realizing
that practice every two days,every three days, whatever it
may be, it totally depends onyou.
The use cases from use flow ispretty vast and we're realizing
that as we're building and aswe're talking to our users.
It's actually really, reallycool.
Some people have alreadycompleted the curriculum.
They've already completelycompleted, but they still tap in
every day and I'm like why?
(33:43):
And I look at their data andI'm like, okay, they're playing
for like 30 minutes a day at thehighest level of difficulty.
They're just playing the musicthat generates, that never
repeats.
Okay, why are they doing this?
So I reach out to them and I ask, hey, what are you doing?
Like why, you know what are yougetting from this?
(34:03):
And they come back with thisjust a whole mess of an email.
And they just it's just streamof consciousness.
And they're like, hey, so I'vegot a really difficult job and
all I want to do when I comehome is just veg out.
But instead of watching TV oror go scrolling doom scrolling
on my phone, I play Museflow andit allows me to lock into the
(34:25):
present, it allows me to forgetabout my worries, time becomes
irrelevant and I'm just there,locked into the game, and I just
play and I just go, and I'mlike that's so amazing to me
that the application of Museflowis, yes, you can learn how to
play piano, but it's also thislike flow state inducing I can
(34:49):
get out of my life for a littlebit and just immerse myself in
music for a while.
I'm like that's so cool, that'sso cool.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
That's very cool.
That's very cool.
I got a two-part question.
One is the expectation of timeto become proficient using your
program, and two I blank blankedout the second question.
Oh yeah, I know this.
So when a person enters yourprogram, do they in at some
(35:17):
point, own the program and thenno longer having to pay into it?
How does that work?
For those that may be listening, that may be interested in your
program?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
that's two great great questions Tell me like.
Explore the first one just alittle bit more with me.
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
When you started the program, I would think that you
had a place somewhere where yousaid you know what the person
should be proficient by thispoint if they're doing all the
things that we have set in place.
So is there a place in theprogram, even if it's an amount
of time?
I have to think in terms oftime I don't know how much to
ask that question, but in termsof time, if it's four months,
(35:53):
six months where the personshould be proficient using the
tools that you've given them, isthere a place?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
We don't think about shoulds, we don't think about
you should be doing this or youshould no, no, no it's.
Do you want to?
You know, are you interested?
You know we're not telling you,we're not.
The whole thing about muse flowis not externally putting these
forces on you.
It's say it's not putting thesesort of these external
(36:21):
guidelines on you.
It needs to all come fromwithin, and so that's what we're
trying to inspire within you.
Is this want, is this desire tobecome better at the tool at
that, that playing yourinstrument right?
So the questions of should yoube this proficient at your
instrument in x amount of timeis just so irrelevant to muse
(36:44):
flow itself, to the ethos ofMuseflow and what we're creating
.
That like no, we haven't eventhought about it.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
No, Fair, that's fair enough.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Okay, yeah.
And the second part is do theyactually own any of the music
that they're playing, like anyof the songs, for example?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I didn't mean that, I'm sorry.
I mean like, is there a pointwhere they have paid into the
program enough that we didn'thave to pay any more and they
actually have access to theprogram?
I guess like lifetime access,is that how you describe it?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
No, we've got it's a subscription based model, and so
we've got a monthlysubscription, we've got a three
month subscription and thenwe've got a annual subscription.
But, that being said, like Ilove to give you and your
audience a discount code, ifthat's cool.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
If they're interested in that.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
that'd be awesome, I'd love to give you guys a 50%
discount code for life.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It's right now we're at 24 99 a month, and so I'd
like to give you guys a 50%discount, which is like 20,
which is 12, 12, 49 a month, andso I'd like to give you guys a
50% discount, which is like$12.49 a month.
I think, or $12.99 a month orsomething like that, and so,
yeah, I would love to give youguys that, and so what do you
want that to be?
I?
Speaker 1 (37:58):
would say in the comments section in the YouTube
episode, and I would justreshare it and kind of promote
it, because if they watch it,they may they may have missed
what you just said.
So I want to make sure thatthey can find it somewhere in
Prince, they can grab it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But yeah, what text do you want?
Can we do a Mista 50?
Yeah, m-i-s-t-a 5-0 as theactual discount code.
Or we could do U-50.
Why U-50?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
No, they're probably going to misspell that Okay so
Mista50.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
M-i-s-t-a 5-0.
And I'll say, like you don'thave to do this inside of the
app itself, but just so peoplecan see it and pull it out
quickly, let's make it all caps.
So the m-e-i-s-t-a all caps umfive zero.
Just so people can like that'sthe discount code, cool, I'll
apply it right here, sort ofthing.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
We'll work that out at the end of the episode or
offline, because this is a greatidea.
Thank you for offering that.
That's really amazing, oh mygod, of course I.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I want people to use the app.
I want to hear what you thinkBecause, again, the user
experience that we've beengetting, the feedback that we've
been getting from our earlyadopters, is huge.
It's revolutionary, and so atleast that's what people are
saying.
I'd like to prove me wrong.
Okay, I want you to prove mewrong.
In a way, it's a scientificmethod.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Like I said, I've been at this for a long time, so
even myself personally, outsideof being the host of the show,
I'm thinking like I think Imight want to prove you wrong.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Please, I want you to .
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I'm probably one of the worst cases.
I'm bruised and battered yeah,in this arena.
So if you can practice, you cando anything.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I love that.
What a challenge.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, I think I think I'm that not because I can't
learn.
I'm a really fast learner.
I know a lot of music butstaying with it and and having
teacher not bail on me is likethat's a challenge.
But say, for example, the nextpatrick borland right, and they
want to learn to be amulti-instrumentalist like you.
(40:05):
Can they use Museflow to dothat?
All the different instruments,tuba and trombone and piano.
Can they use your program tolearn all these instruments?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Not right now.
We are only for piano right now.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Makes sense, but later down the road.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
We do want to make this for all common instruments.
So at that time, as we add moreinstruments, I think the next
one will be guitar or the nextone will be drums.
So once we add more instruments, yes, the whole goal is to make
this applicable, this type ofmethod of teaching, applicable
(40:42):
to every single one of theinstruments.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, I won't share my guitar story because I'll
bring the whole vibe down andpeople will be more sad than
they probably already are byhearing my sorry story.
But if, theoretically, I wasable to become proficient in
piano, would that make it easierto learn guitar, or is it vice
versa?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I think it's easier to apply the skills that you
learn in piano to otherinstruments.
You know, you've got there'ssomething about the piano that
makes it easier for you to learnother instruments, and I think
it's the fact that we've got 10fingers and we've got 88 notes.
Okay, 10 fingers and we've got88 notes.
(41:24):
Okay, the permutations of thatare infinite.
You can play different rhythmswith different parts of your
fingers, different parts of yourhands.
You can play multiple noteswith one finger.
You play in all the differentkeys.
Okay, a lot of instruments areonly specific to one key.
Or you can play in all thedifferent keys, but it's a
(41:44):
monophonic instrument.
That means single note.
That's a tuba, that's aclarinet, that's a flute.
You can only play one note.
That's a violin.
Sometimes that is a polyphonicinstrument, poly, multiple notes
, phonic sound.
You can play two notes at onetime with a violin, but you
can't play 10 notes at one timewith a violin.
(42:06):
Same thing with guitar.
You've only got six strings, soyou can only play six notes at
one time on a guitar.
Again, with piano, you've got10 notes that you can play,
sometimes even 12, becauseyou've got two fingers, two
thumbs, that can play two notesat one time, so 12 or 14,
whatever.
My point is that reading music,playing notes, playing harmony,
(42:33):
understanding harmony and howone might fit in one note might
fit in with that in that harmony.
All of those are applied to allthe other instruments.
So that's one of the reasonswhy piano is like a foundational
instrument.
That's why all monophonicinstruments, instrumentalists,
actually have in universitycurriculums piano pedagogy
(42:56):
classes.
So you're like there's a reasonwhy piano is a foundational
instrument and I think it has todo with the amount of notes
that you can play.
The breadth of music theory,the breadth of musicality, the
breadth of technique that youcan learn on the piano is quite
vast compared to otherinstruments.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Makes sense.
Makes sense If you guys arelistening or watching us or both
.
Please drop your comments ifyou have any for Mr Borland.
He has a wealth of knowledgethat you can clearly see.
Drop your comments, if you haveany, for Mr Borland.
He has a wealth of knowledgethat you can clearly see.
Drop those questions, if youhave those.
If you think about him later on, drop them in the comments
section.
We have your view of thisepisode.
So I had a whole lot morequestions, but I don't think we
have time to get into it.
(43:35):
We're coming to the back end ofthe show, but what do you think
in brief, if you could tell mereal quick, where do you think
in brief, if you can tell mereal quick, what do you think
that your entrepreneurial bentcomes from?
We talked about a little bit inpre-production, but I'm sure
you got a great story for that,for what I remember.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I don't know if it's a great story.
I think the, the justification,the the whole thing is like,
okay, as an actor, as like, uh,my parents were freelancers.
You know, my mom worked in news, my dad was an actor, my dad
moved over to stage management,my mom went to be a writer, um,
and so you're like, all of thesethings, they're all freelance
(44:08):
jobs, they're all 1099 gigs,they're not w2 and and they all
had to really care about payingtheir taxes and and taking care
of their finances and doing allof that.
All of the business aspect ofbeing a freelancer kind of comes
second nature to me.
I think I'm lucky for that,because my wife comes from a
family of nine to fivers andshe's a writer.
(44:30):
She's utterly hilarious.
She's one of the best comedywriters here in LA, in my
opinion.
You look at her and she'sstruggling with the business
side of it all because she's soused to seeing her parents have
deep consistency in their livesand I'm used to living with a
schedule in the chaos of life.
(44:50):
So I don't know if if I gotlike this entrepreneurial bent.
I think my my mindset of likefinding solutions to problems.
I'm a big problem solver and Ifinding solutions to problems.
I'm a big problem solver and II guess it just came naturally
to me.
Man, it just came naturally.
I think I'm lucky that way.
Um, I'm not thinking about like, okay, what is a product that I
(45:12):
can make that will solve aproblem?
No that's not how I'm thinkingabout it.
I think about it in terms oflike okay, what's a problem that
I needed a solution for?
The problem that I needed asolution for was to learn how to
play piano in this differentway.
If I had that when I was a kid,I would be a completely
different musician now and Iwould be significantly better.
(45:32):
So that's the product that Imade.
I made something that I, as achild, would want to use.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And I made it for every age.
That's just a good version ofentrepreneurship A problem that
you personally had to deal withor your children had to deal
with, and you saw, you witnessedit, you watched it and you were
the final way to solve it forthe next generation.
That's what you're talkingabout, you're it?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
brother.
Thanks, man.
So people will be like we thinkabout.
I've heard entrepreneurs talkabout they go to business school
and they're like I don't have alot of like issues that I want
to solve in the world, so let mego look for an issue and try to
solve that with a product andthen make people want it.
No, that's like the wrong wayin my opinion.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah I don't, I don't , I don't mean them this.
We're talking about twodifferent hard parts this year.
Yeah, I got five.
Of course, I want to rapid fireto you.
Give me about two minutes orthree at the most, apiece.
Knock it out the mostchallenging song you ever sung
and why.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Stephen Sondheim's Happiness from the Musical
Passions.
The melody is everywhere, it'sall over the place and it's a
wonderfully complex relationshipthat they're talking about.
They're both cheating.
It's a duet and I like to singit as a solo.
(46:59):
So the melody is justeverywhere, it's all over the
place and it's all really reallycool because it all really solo
.
So the melody is just every,it's all over the place and it's
all really really cool becauseit all really makes sense with
what's happening underneath it,the accompaniment that's
happening in the orchestra pitor the piano.
So it all makes a lot of sensewhen you put it all together.
But just singing it is verycomplex and the story that
you're trying to tell is a verynuanced, difficult story to try
(47:21):
to convey.
They're both cheating story totry to convey.
They're both cheating on eachother and they're both talking
about what is happiness, andthey're talking about in the
context of happiness is x, no,happiness is y, no.
Happiness is z, no, happinessis l, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, o,
j, k, l.
It's right there.
That's what happiness is.
And so you're like whoa, it'skind of all over the place but
like again, in the holisticsense of that song.
(47:42):
It makes complete sense, and soto do it justice is really
difficult.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Okay, happiness by Stephen Sondheim Noted.
All right.
So what's the most challengingsong you ever had to play on
piano, and why?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I learned the beginning of this song, called
Yellow Jacket, by Sean Martin.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
The reason why it's the most difficult song for me
to have to learn was because hewrote the perfect version of
what he wanted to hear.
So me just kind of messing withit a little bit Did it.
It didn't do it justice.
I'm always looking to make thesong the best version that it
can be, and me just messing withit and not playing it perfectly
did it an injustice, and so Ihad to learn that perfectly.
(48:33):
And then I and it's verydifficult, it's very jazzy, it's
beautiful, it's gorgeous myhands were like completely
stretched on the piano trying todo this and they were all over
each other and it was like it'sthe most beautiful thing that
I've ever had to learn and it'salso one of the most difficult
things that I ever had to learn.
So I had to play it perfectlyand then I'd add the musicality
on top of it.
How do I want to play that?
(48:54):
You know, I want to slow downat this one moment because it's
absolutely gorgeous, or it'scoming to the end of a line, a
melody, and so I had to makethose decisions on top of a very
difficult, technical, jazzysort of chord structure and
chord progression.
The beginning of the song theYellow Jacket by Sean Martin
(49:14):
easily.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
And what genre is that piece?
Jazz fusion, jazz fusion, okay,okay, all right, three more
questions.
You don't have to push throughthem, but they may require a
little bit of thought.
I told you about this one, soI'm gonna ask you about that.
So be ready.
If music was no longer anoption and you couldn't do
anything regarding yourdeveloping apps, what's patrick
(49:35):
doing instead of those twothings?
Speaker 2 (49:38):
I landed as a sociology major.
That's what I landed on.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
I couldn't believe this man said that to me.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
So I was an acting major for a little bit.
I didn't like how my alma materwas teaching acting.
That's a whole different storybut I can go into that.
And then I pivoted over tosociology.
I loved every minute of thatand it actually influenced the
way that I act a lot.
I'm able to see a characterfrom the outside in looking at
the institutions that thatcharacter lives within and see
(50:06):
how that affects their being,you know, and how they go
through the world.
It's a really cool analysis.
Um and so the inside out, theoutside in approach, is really
really cool for me.
The the society versus thepersonal.
I love that and how oneinfluences both.
Right, I think it would be somepart of a research team at a
(50:29):
university.
I got pretty far at my almamater.
I was a research assistant andI was a teacher's assistant.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
And so.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
I've got some background in research.
I've got some background inqualitative research.
Quantitative, I coulddefinitely go to a master's
degree for that, but qualitativeI'm pretty well up there and I
do love thinking about societyin that way.
So I would love to do somequalitative research.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Man, you are a man of many talents.
Can you build space shuttles aswell?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
No, do not.
Do not trust me in any possibleway to build a space shuttle.
Look, I'm not curing cancerhere.
I'm just trying to entertainthe populace.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
That's literally all I'm trying to do here, you know
you are doing it, man, I meanyou, you're doing it.
So where where's patrick fiveyears from now?
If he had his way, where is he?
Speaker 2 (51:19):
building this app.
We've got a way.
Where is he building this app?
We've got a um.
We've got a uh, headquarters insan francisco or la?
There's a shot, there's a.
There's a space right down thestreet from me that I would
actually love to take over um,but there's a design agency
that's there right now and socan't do it.
I want them to retire, I wantthem to get out of there and so
(51:40):
that I can create ourheadquarters right there.
That would be amazing.
It would be working on this appfull time.
It would be working with thepeople that I'm working with.
I love the friends that I'mbuilding this with and they're
very fun.
They're very funny.
I just came from a meetingtoday, right before this podcast
, and we were all just laughingour butts off and building
something cool.
(52:01):
You know, like that's what lifeis all about, in my opinion,
and so enjoy the journey, andI'm enjoying the.
I'm enjoying this journey a lot, so it'll be working all right.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
so last question that we're gonna ask well, I have
some advice.
So two pieces of advice.
So the first one if you made apiano school dropout, they could
be like me or worse.
If worse is the alphabet, don'thave a lot of time, don't have
a lot of money, how would youadvise them to grow their craft
in playing the instrument whenyou know all those factors play
(52:32):
a part Passes, appointments,time, finances.
I want you to be theircounselor, but how would you
advise them on how to moveforward and continue to grow
their craft with all of thesefactors in the way?
Speaker 2 (52:48):
They want to build their piano skills.
Honestly and I'm not justsaying this because I'm building
the product that I wish I hadthat inspired me when I was
exactly at that point it wouldbe Museflow.
It really would be.
And I'm not saying that justbecause, like I'm the person
that built that are building.
No, I'm literally saying thatbecause I wish I had it when I
(53:09):
was at that point.
That allows you to try to findwhat you love about playing.
It allows you to explore somany different parts of who you
are as a musician and what youenjoy about playing, and it does
(53:29):
it in a fun, engaging, gamified, immersive sort of way.
And I would think it would bethat and if you don't like it,
again prove me wrong, but Ithink that that is a really
great way to kind of tap into itand see what you love about
playing your instrument and thenfollow that, follow that
passion, lean into that.
(53:51):
That's why we're doing it inthe first place, you know.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
So, yeah, you slow even if, even if you don't feel
like you're entrepreneurial, I,I stand here, uh, as your new
friend and I'll tell you thatyou have that For the people who
are listening excuse me, thepeople who are listening that
have a desire to do somethingbig, even if it's not as big as
(54:15):
Museflow, and they have a lot oftalent, they have a lot of
ability, but they don't have theresources.
They may not have peoplesupporting them like you may
have.
What's your advice for peoplewho want to build something that
helps somebody else and theyjust are not feeling the push or
need a boost?
How would you encourage thosepeople that are listening right
now?
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Start small, stay small.
It's a motto that I abide by.
I've had to abide by because wehave this grand vision from use
flow.
We've got a Bible that is likea hundred pages long that we've
written, that has every singlefeature laid out for, for the,
for the, for the app.
Um, it's very grand, it's verybig, it's very um, but it's also
(54:57):
very specific.
I would say pare it down to itsminimum viable product.
Your MVP, okay.
Pare down your idea from thegrand, beautiful vision that you
have to what is that valueproposition that you give to the
market?
Why are you making it?
What are you changing and whatis that one specific feature
(55:20):
that changes the world foreverybody else?
Build that.
Okay.
Don't build your grand vision.
Build your proof of conceptfirst and then put that out into
the world.
Post it on Reddit into thethreads that are necessary.
Put it out there into the world, right, get it out there so
people can try it, so you canget feedback.
That sort of process, thatiterative process, is key for
(55:42):
any entrepreneur, in my opinion.
So, build your proof of concept,build your minimum viable
product Minimum is the key andget it out into the world so you
can start user testing thatimmediately so you can start
getting feedback.
You know, that's the goal.
That's what we had to learn howto do, and we were taught that
by the software engineers thatwe brought on as co-founders.
(56:03):
They were like, whoa, this istoo big, it's going to take
decades to build.
Nope, we can't do it.
We need a minimum viableproduct and we need to get that
onto the world.
We need to start making moneynow, and so we did that within a
we did that within six monthsand now we're a year.
Now we're a year after that andwe've got 40 people that are
paying for it.
You know, yeah, so it's a slowjourney, is also a big thing,
(56:26):
but build your minimum viableproduct first.
That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
I just came out of a meeting that had some of those
same vibes to it and that adviceis definitely transferable, so
I appreciate it so much.
It's called stay small.
I love this.
Ladies and gentlemen, patrickBolin multi-instrumentalist
entrepreneur no matter what hesays music teacher, scientist,
(56:50):
pre-shadow builder, potentiallythe man is brilliant and so
grateful to have you on.
And really, on top of that,beside all that, I'm grateful to
have met you.
Yeah, you too, man.
The disconnection is definitelysomething that is not
accidental.
So I really appreciate it, man,and I definitely appreciate
what you shared earlier.
So, for all you guys that arelistening that are interested,
(57:12):
whether it be on this liveepisode or on the replay, pat
just offered to offer 50% off ofMuseFlow, which is a very, very
generous offer.
So if you're interested inmusic, especially in the piano
realm, take advantage of thisoffer.
It'll be posted on everywherewhere the episode is shown on
social media and on our YouTubechannel.
(57:34):
He'll post all the informationin the comments under the
episode.
Please grab hold of that.
I'll be sharing and promotingit on my social.
You do the same as well, sir,and again, thank you, man.
This has been a blessing tohave you on and I hope it's not
the last time that we do this,but we're definitely gonna stay
in touch because we got a lotmore to talk about.
But this is fantastic man.
(57:54):
Any closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (57:57):
No, I love your vibe man.
I think this has been a reallycool conversation and I love the
friendship.
Um, you're great and I I bet Ithink your audience you know
your audience, the audiencefollows the host and and you're
you're so awesome, so I thinkthat your audience is also
awesome.
So I appreciate all of you thatare listening and I appreciate
you.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
You said so appreciate you.
Yeah, man, we're gonna stay intouch, but thank you for your
time on this one.
This was fantastic.
We're out of here.
Have a great day, guys.
Thanks again for listening.
Welcome back to one-on-one with Mr U.
I'm your host, of course, Mr U,and we have a good friend,
multi-instrumentalist, appdeveloper, actor, a host of
other things.
Patrick Bowling is in the house.
How are you doing, brother?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm great.
How are you doing man?
What an intro tune.
That was like soul and funk andlike ooh, that was nice.
I love that.
That was like soul and funk andlike ooh, that was nice.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I love that.
Well, I'm glad to have you here, man.
I'm excited to hear what youhave to share.
I think our listeners will betoo.
I've been kind of pumping youup, man.
You got so much of a backgroundthat a little something for
everybody, so I'm excited tohear how this goes over in the
conversation.
Man, we're going to talk abouta lot of different stuff, but
first off, man, first off,thanks for jumping on.
Appreciate that a lot.
Your excitement, and especiallyin our pre-publishing meeting,
(01:08):
was infectious, man, to say theleast.
Tell me a little bit about yourtime in California briefly.
We'll get into a lot moredetails as we move along.
But life in California, what'sit like?
You can go into politics, youcan go into culture.
What's life like in California?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It to politics, you can go into a culture.
What's life like in California?
It's interesting, I will sayit's kind of like isolating,
because we are in this likeliberal bubble.
You know we really are, and soall my friends, a lot of my
family out here, they're alllike very, very liberal, and so
we're, you know, shocked whenpeople think differently than we
do, and I think it goes bothsides.
You know it like totally goesboth sides do, and I think it
goes both sides.
You know, like totally goesboth sides.
(01:46):
And LA is like a cleardefinition of like a liberal
bubble where, like, you'resurrounded by that echo chamber,
you know, and I think there areplaces in America where it's
the same on the other side, andso it's an interesting situation
.
Coming back to Chicago for youknow, cause that's where I grew
up and being there forThanksgiving, all these diverse
opinions I love those moments,though, where we can come
together and discuss things.
(02:08):
But look, I love LA.
I like feeling free, I likefeeling like I can be who,
utterly, I am just the weird, Idon't know excitable human being
that I am.
I like feeling able to do that.
So that's what I like beinghere.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
That's interesting that you feel like you can do
that in California and not inother places.
I don't know if we have time toget into that, but it just
that's a very interestingthought.
If I can find a way to squeezeit in, I surely would try to do
that.
But one thing that was veryinteresting to me that I want to
bring up hopefully I haveWesley's consent.
But you talked about yourturning point where something
(02:45):
she said to you helped you kindof change everything.
I did ask you to adjust thelanguage that she used to, kind
of Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah,for our audience.
I got family and nieces andnephews and a whole bunch of
other folks that listen.
So I want to make sure I covermyself accordingly here, but
share what you can about, aboutthat turning point where you are
in your life before, where's wegave you the advice and how did
(03:08):
that trigger or catapult you towhere you are right now?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was an actor.
Well, I still am.
I do a bunch of stuff, um, alot of voiceover, a lot of
commercials, some TV and filmhere and there whenever I can,
um.
But throughout my first sixyears here in LA, that's what I
was doing.
I wanted to do the actor hustle.
I wanted to come out here andbe an actor, and that's all I
wanted to do.
And then I got really burnt outat year six because I wasn't
(03:34):
getting creatively fulfilled asmuch as I wanted to.
It feels amazing collaboratingwith people and acting and doing
your thing and being, I don'tknow, just being that part of
myself filling that, right.
But I wasn't getting that on aregular basis.
I was getting it sporadicallythroughout the year and here and
there, here and there, and thenthe creativity dipped in, my
self-confidence dipped, and thenI got another gig and then it
(03:56):
was just a roller coaster, right.
And so I was just super burntout by the whole thing, right.
And so then you knowno-transcript, and three months
(04:36):
later I got my first gig.
I was an after-schoolaccompanist at this program.
That was all about musicaltheater and choir and stuff like
that.
And then I got a couple ofbackground jazz gigs at
restaurants, playing for theirdinner service.
And then I got my piano barthat I play at Tramp Stamp
Grannies is the name of it.
It's a weird sort of musicaltheater vibe, it's just very
(04:58):
specific and it's so perfect forme.
I love that place.
For me, I love that place, andso I was able to actually quit
my serving job at that point anddo piano, acting, voiceover,
like the whole thing, full time,like piano became my day job,
so to speak, you know, and itwas all thanks to Wesley really
pushing me over the edge there,you know.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
She's got the overbarrel now going forward.
Huh yeah, all hard drives havenow going forward.
Huh yeah, all hard drives haveto be good, right, as hard as
you are, brother.
Okay, so that makes sense to me.
I mean because Californiaalways seemed to be I don't know
if it's still the same now, butit always was a hub for
entertainment, a place where youwould go to live your dreams.
Everybody from the Midwest,they would either go to
(05:43):
California or they would go toNew York.
It was like no in-betweenreally.
But in California sorry, excuseme, in Chicago.
Your background is sointeresting because Chicago was
a place where, for myinteractions with friends and
people who I've known gone toschool with, that was a place
where 3-Ear was pretty prevalent.
You know what I'm saying.
I always talk about the uh, theawesome that you did, uh,
(06:05):
teaming in the shoe out there.
I know about that.
What began your love fortheater?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I started when I was eight years old.
My first joke on stage was whenI was eight.
Um, my dad was an actor at adinner theater here, well, in
Chicago, not here in LA, but inChicago, um and uh.
And so he was there during theday, he raised us, he was our
main caregiver throughout theday.
And then, we know, we, my, mydad, brought me, brought me and
my sister, to the dinner theaterand we sat there drinking
(06:33):
Shirley temples, watching himrehearse with his friends,
before the show actually started.
And then, you know, as the showstarts going around six o'clock
, you know they're starting toget ready, they're going off
into the back and getting ready,my mom comes and picks us up
and, like, takes us back homeand makes us dinner and all that
stuff and puts us to bed.
So that was our childhood, forthe majority of our childhood,
before we went to school.
Okay, um, and so, having thatbe the environment that we were
(07:00):
in, you know, it was naturalthat, like, my dad was, like,
what do you want to?
Are you interested in acting?
Are you interested, you know?
And so he put me in.
He was doing a show at thisdinner theater.
It was a rotating show and theshow that they were doing this
year or two years or whateverwas called gangster town and it
was a bunch of Chicago guys, youknow, in their pinstripe suits
(07:20):
and my language, over here goingthe prohibition area and
they're like, hey, with theirtommy guns and whatnot, and
they're like you know, so you'reshooting the barrels and all
that stuff, right?
And so they're like, you know,let's have, uh, this
eight-year-old kid come on up tothe stage.
This is the son of one of thegangsters, the son of david
(07:41):
boylan.
You know, let's have him comeon up.
He's gonna tell to tell you ajoke, all right, great.
And so I come on up and I gotthis little tiny little
pinstripe super top hat and I'mlike all right, everybody.
So I'm going to roll my tie upRight and I'm going to stick it
right here.
I'm going to roll up the firstone, great, roll at the bottom
one.
I'm going to drop them.
(08:01):
And I'm going to ask you allwhich one do you think is going
to drop first?
Get to the bottom first.
Do you want to get a top one orthe bottom one?
And everybody was like it's thetop one, it's the bottom one.
I'm like, okay, here I go and Idrop them both and I go oh it's
a tie, because it's a dumb,stupid joke, but like fantastic,
(08:22):
it went over great.
So stupid joke, but likefantastic, it went over great.
So I don't know.
That was like.
That was the moment where I waslike, oh, I can get a laugh, I
can make people laugh on stage,oh, no, all it takes is one.
And so I was bit by the theaterbug ever since, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I love it.
That's an incredible story.
I love it, the timing guns andthe whole gangsta thing.
I just it's a new york themetoo, I think, but I love that
totally.
Yeah, I love three out of twoas well.
Uh, but you shared about thechallenges of being the youngest
child.
I can't really relate to thatbecause I'm the oldest, but my
wife is the youngest of 13, soI'm not really going to be
shocked by anything you say tome.
(09:04):
Oh wow, I totally get that.
But tell me why you think thatwas pivotal in some of the
decisions you've made over theyears.
Why do you think that played apart?
Because things that happened tous kind of fuel our future
actions.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So tell me how you think that made a difference or
was pivotal for you in thedecisions you made over the
years.
I mean, I hate to get it downor bring it into a negative
light, but honestly, everythingin the scope of my life I am
grateful for, even though theymight be negative, they brought
me to this place and where I amnow, and I honestly wouldn't
want to be anywhere else, right?
So I I don't know, I'm theyoungest child and I don't know
(09:44):
if your, your wife, actuallyagrees with this, but I was
always the scapegoat, I wasalways the reason things were
going wrong.
I was always yeah, okay, okay.
That's like a thing, right,where the youngest child
sometimes it's the middle, ifthere's a middle, but most of
the time it's the youngest childthat gets like blamed for all
the bad stuff that goes on in afamily, and so I got that myself
(10:06):
.
I felt like I couldn't really bewho I was.
I couldn't express my, mymyself, in the fullest, you know
, and I don't know if that's alot of me or if that's a lot of
them.
I do think it's kind of a bitof both, right?
Um, cause I rebelled a lot whenI was, you know, a kid and I I
think that it was a hand, it wasa, it was a two way street here
(10:27):
, right, I was being influencedby my family and I was doing
certain things, uh, in responseto my family, but also because I
was just me and, and so then Irealized like, okay, chicago
doesn't really feel like theplace where I can truly express
my inner self, who I am to mycore, place where I can truly
(10:47):
express my inner self, who I amto my core.
And again, I don't know ifthat's a lot of my family or if
that's me projecting ontoChicago itself.
I know Chicago is a great place.
I love being from there.
I would totally live there if Ididn't have this baggage inside
of me, and so that was a bigthing why I moved out to LA.
I mean, I also got likerepresentation right out of
college in LA, and so I wasreally lucky thing why I moved
out to LA.
I mean I also got likerepresentation right out of
college in LA, and so I wasreally lucky about that and I
(11:09):
have family out here, so it waskind of a no brainer Right.
But the biggest thing for me isthat I just don't feel like I
can truly just be myself and Iknow that's a complex that I've
got and I know that's notaccurate Like I could be myself
in Chicago if I dealt with mytrauma.
But that's just where I'm atright now, you know.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
What would it take for you to be able to live in
Chicago?
Now, I don't mean live at yourfamily's house, because if
you're 40, 50 years old that'dbe weird, but if you're just
living in Chicago, what would ittake for you, in your mind, to
be able to live in Chicago, haveyour own house, whatever it is
kind of still feed from thoseplaces that energize you as a
(11:49):
musician and an artist and whathave you?
What would it take for you tomove from California to Chicago?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Probably a job.
A job, yeah, I'd probably haveto get employed there somehow
and then be like okay, now Ihave to live there.
There's some piano bars outthere, there are some theaters
out there, like if I get a gigat steppenwolf, for example
that's, that's one of the majortheaters in chicago um, and it's
a possibility that they might,they do cast out of la sometimes
, okay.
(12:16):
So you know, that's a, that'salways a possibility in my life.
Um, I don't have to activelyseek out those jobs.
Sometimes they come to to me.
That's happened for New York,that's happened for Atlanta,
that's happened for you know,it's not happened for Chicago
yet.
So that would be a majorcatalyst for me.
To move back to Chicago wouldbe I get a job in Chicago, but
(12:38):
and then I would actually haveto, like, deal with my baggage
because of that.
You know, yeah, I think thatwould be one of the main things.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, okay, I'm glad you didn't say deep dyspecia,
because I don't care for that.
I'm not a deep dys guy.
But before we get into our nextquestion, if you guys are
listening to our broadcast today, patrick has a lot of insights
and a lot of different things.
We'll be talking about a lot ofdifferent topics.
Drop those questions in thecomments section under this
(13:08):
episode and we'll go ahead andfire them off at him.
He just made some of the workwith today and we'll hit those
questions when they come through.
But thanks again for listeningto our show.
All right, so if you're a rarebreed and you play six
instruments, which is likereally, really crazy to me, I'm
like I'm struggling to learn one.
You talked about that Plusbeing an accomplished singer.
(13:29):
For those aiming that high intheir life or in their career,
tell us how you came to thedecision to learn so many
instruments and how did you doit?
It sounds like it's a lot tohandle.
Sometimes people position likeit's a lifetime of learning.
How do you do six instrumentsand still be able to be
(13:50):
proficient?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, yeah, I mean a lot of it was out of necessity.
I learned piano first.
That was my first instrumentthat I learned.
That gave me a great foundationfor understanding how chords
are created, how music iscreated.
Like, all the way down to thebasics of music is made out of
notes, duration of that note andsilence.
(14:13):
Okay, at its core, that is whatmusic is.
And pitch, how high or low doyou want that note to be?
And then let's combine them,all those those different
factors, a pitch, a duration forthat pitch and silence.
That's it, that's all thatmusic is made out of right, and
you could add harmony in there,you can add all of these
(14:35):
different elements, but at itscore.
And so that's what.
That's what piano really taughtme.
And so I was able to understandinstruments and musicality and
music and how it's written, allfrom the get-go, because I
learned piano as a major.
That was a major foundation forme.
After that I had to learn.
I wanted to learn clarinet.
I got into it in middle school.
That was my second instrument.
My third instrument, that wasyour first.
(14:57):
Yeah, I didn't enjoy it.
It's not cool, yeah.
No, it's not a cool instrument.
No, it's not.
Um.
And then the.
The third instrument was voice.
I mean I, I, I always sang, butthen I never really sang, you
know, uh, in anythingsemi-professional or like an
organized situation.
(15:18):
Um, that was because I got intomusicals and whatnot in high
school and then I did choir andthen barbershop and then
magicals, like I did.
I did all the all of the I, Ireally I burned it at both ends.
In high school I did theater atnight and I did choir and band
in the morning, and then atdifferent seasons I did the
(15:38):
marching band and I.
So it was like I really burnedit at both ends, right, um.
But then then after that,acoustic guitar happened,
because a good, because I gotinto a folk musical in in
college and and I had to learnhow to play guitar harmonica was
another part of that too like Ihad to learn it for that folk
musical, right.
Um, I had to learn upright bassfor a different musical.
(15:59):
I had to learn mandolin for adifferent musical.
It was all these musicals wherewe were like taking folk
instrumentation and putting thaton stage, so that the actors in
the band were there on stage atthe same time, and I was the
music director for those plays.
I was in the band for them, Iwas an actor in it, whatever it
(16:20):
may be.
I'm like, yeah, I could pick upthat instrument, no problem.
And so I picked it up becauseout of the need and also because
I had a great foundationbecause of piano, right.
And then the same thing with thesousaphone.
Like going back to high school,that was another one where my
sousaphone tuba, right, it's thewalking tuba, you know where
(16:42):
the whole, like brass, goesaround your head and the thing
is right up here like and youplay, you play like this, that's
the sousaphone right and youcan walk with it.
There's the same thing.
There was like gosh, 10clarinetists in marching band at
that time and my band teacherasked the two six foot tall, six
, two tall guys seeing hey, canyou do you want to switch over
(17:04):
to sousaphone for this season?
We only have one right now.
We at least need three.
So if you guys could go on overthere and play sousaphone for
this semester, that'd befantastic.
And we're like, yeah, sure,we'll learn, no problem.
And so we learned sousaphonefor that.
So, like it all came fairlyorganic, like that.
You know how long?
How long did that take to learnsousaphone two months because I
(17:25):
because, again, I had thefoundation of like, okay, that's
what music, that's what westernnotation looks like, the way we
write music.
Okay, that's that's what itlooks like.
I know what the clef is.
We we learn in bass clef what,what sousaphone, how to play
sousaphone.
So I already knew the clef andthen all I had to learn was the
fingering and how to shape mymouth, which I already kind of
(17:49):
knew how to like adjust my whatis called embouchure.
I already knew how to do thatbecause of clarinet.
So I was like okay, I alreadygot the dexterity of my fingers,
I already got somewhatunderstanding of, like, how to
change my mouth and myembouchure.
Okay, great, all I need tolearn is how to actually
associate the note that is rightthere with my finger position.
That's all I need to learn.
(18:10):
And so that's it, because Ialready learned all the other
things before that how to readmusic, how to adjust, how to
play all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, I hope we had time to get into more of that.
I find it interesting.
I hope the listeners do,because I'm geeking, I love
music, so I'm just totally in onthis, but you also do narration
for audio books.
A man of many talents.
I have a good friend Excuse me,he's an actor like yourself.
He's done several movies.
He is a musician, he's a saxplayer.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I forget what sax.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I think it's a tenor sax, but I'm not totally sure on
that.
So he's into sax, but he doesaudio narration too.
What got you into that room?
Was it out of necessity, or wasthere some kind of a long-term
plan you had for that?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, it was kind of a mix of both.
Actually, it was out ofinterest and out of necessity.
Covid happened and all my pianogigs shut down, all the acting
gigs shut down.
I had a great, I had a prettydecent reservoir at the time of
savings and I was also getting alittle bit from unemployment
and all that stuff, and so Ididn't really like, truly need
it, but I'm actually extremelyhappy that I pursued it.
It was.
It was what I call my my firstmeditation of COVID, cause I
(19:25):
feel like it was a blur, myfirst meditation of COVID
because I feel like it was ablur.
You know that pandemic and wewere alone and I had phases and
one of them was learning how tonarrate audiobooks and building
my studio.
I built my in-home sound studioright.
So it was partially out ofnecessity, because all my gigs
ended, and then also out ofinterest, out of being like I
(19:46):
still want to be creative duringthis time.
How do I possibly do that?
Oh, let me, let me see if I cando audio book narration Right.
And so I started doing it thenand, yeah, it just kicked off.
It was.
It was a perfect combination ofI know a lot of musicians that
are audio book narrators as well.
There's something about it thatis number one.
We're all storytellers at theend of the day, whether you're a
musician or an actor or anaudiobook narrator right, and
(20:10):
our ability to tell stories, ourability to emote via our
instrument, whether that's asaxophone or your voice, your
interest in a line like amelodic line, you know you can,
you can see the direct parallelbetween words on the on a page
that are in a sentence and theway that that line flows and a
(20:30):
melodic line.
Within music, there's a certainpattern, there's a certain lilt
to it.
It's very musical, right.
And so I found that my, myability to play, play
instruments and emote through myinstrument in that regard, were
very, very similar to telling astory in audiobook narration.
It was the same kind of thing.
So it was a perfect storm.
(20:53):
It was a perfect combination ofmy skill sets.
I just decided to pursue itbecause of that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I mean just the amount of entrepreneur ventures
or new ventures that peopleengaged in during 2020, the
numbers are astounding.
I'm like I mean it's crazy.
Right, 2020 is podcast canstart in 2020.
The friend I was telling youabout that's a acting
instrumentalist.
Guess when he started 2020.
(21:17):
Yeah, Amazing that a pandemiccan make you become more
creative.
And and bet on yourself I it'skind of hard to mentally fathom,
but all right, so let's keepmoving.
So what's a day in the life inLA for you with somebody with
your kind of abilities?
Give me a typical day for youwith all that you do.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I'll wake up, I'll have breakfast with my wife,
I'll sit here and look throughmy day.
A lot of the times I time boxmy days.
So I've got the morningreserved for audio book
narration.
I go to the gym in theafternoon, in the early
afternoon, so I narrate untilabout one o'clock.
Whether I have a couple ofmeetings for Museflow, the music
(21:58):
education app that I'm building.
I've got a couple in themorning sometimes and then I'll
narrate throughout the morninginto the early afternoon and
then I'll come back.
I'll eat lunch and then I'llget into Museflow.
At that point, um, I really digdeep into, uh, what I'm I'm
supposed to be doing forMuseflow, whether that's a
podcast or whether that'swriting a blog post or talking
(22:20):
with educational institutions or, you know, interfacing with our
users.
Currently, like I, I get intothat Right know, interfacing
with our users.
Currently, like I, I get intothat right, um, and then uh, and
then and then throughoutthroughout the week, like,
auditions will pop up.
Um, I'll have to spend sometime on those.
Other gigs will pop up, likeyesterday, I just spent, uh,
half of a morning on acommercial shoot.
(22:41):
I spent the morning on acommercial shoot, so I I had to
adjust some things aroundbecause of that.
And then on the weekends I goplay at my piano bar, or during
the week, or during the weekendsI've got some other gigs here
and there for piano.
That's kind of the weirdamalgamation that is my life
right.
I've got all these differenttime boxes and I fill them with
(23:02):
a certain things that I do,whether that's audio book,
narrating, auditioning whichhappens randomly film shoots, um
and then uh, muse flow, andthen piano at night on the
weekend.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
You stay busy, man, that's.
That's not a bad thing, that'spretty good.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
All right.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, yeah, got to stay busy, yeah Right.
Well, without course, I thinkit's.
It's good for our sanity to bebusy.
I want to get more of the musicand talk more about music flow
too.
But I shared my little sadstory about how I've been trying
to learn the piano for like 35years.
I started off at my home inBrooklyn with a piano that was
way out of tune and mom couldn'tafford to get it tuned.
(23:39):
So I would just play it.
I would play soap opera themeson it, kind of learn how to play
it by ear.
Then I graduated to having ateacher proper themes on it,
trying to learn how to play itby ear.
Then I graduated to having ateacher.
He passed away from pneumoniaand some other complications
with that.
He passed away.
He was teaching me piano.
He was teaching me jazz piano.
(23:59):
Then I had another teacher whogot deployed and never came back
.
There's a long list of allthese different cycles and stuff
I'm not learning.
I tried a teacher to try to dothe self-taught.
It just was never working outwith the profession.
I have a good ear, I know notesand stuff, but I want to know
what the reason was why youstarted the effort of Museflow.
(24:21):
Where did that come from?
I know you've got a lot ofcreativity in your family
background, but for you, why didyou take this uh, musical route
, you think, and how itculminated in the news flow?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
um, I think it's like , well, when I started playing
piano professionally, I I Irealized like, well, I'm not
your typical pianist.
I don't read music verbatim, Iread it, I can read it, um, and
I can play it and I can learn itto perfection.
But that's not always the funpart for music.
For me, the fun part of musicis making decisions on what
(24:54):
you're playing and how you'replaying it, whether that's
crescendo or decrescendo.
How do you want to play it loud?
Do you want to play it soft?
What emotion do you want tobring to the audience?
And how do you do thateffectively?
Through your instrument,through playing your instrument,
making those musicianmusicality choices.
That's the fun part of playingmusic Right.
And so I got there much fasterby.
(25:15):
I did take eight years oflessons.
Yes, I hated every minute of it.
I did not like the traditionalway that we teach music, which
is here's a skill, let's goapply.
Your teacher gives you a littleskill, whether that's a note or
a new rhythm, and then theygive you a song or two to go
home and practice that.
And then come back to yourlesson the next week and your
(25:39):
teacher stamps approval or saysno, you've got to go home and
practice those again.
You didn't practice enough andso that journey didn't really
work for my, my brain, you knowI didn't.
I got bored, I got frustratedbecause I wasn't learning in in
this sort of compound way.
I was only learning that newskill in the context of that one
(26:01):
specific song.
And so once my teacher retiredno fault of my own, he just
retired.
I was a terrible student, buthe didn't just quit on me, he
retired, he quit on everybody,he quit everybody.
He was like I'm done with this.
I ended up going to my parents'sheet music and finding little
(26:24):
phrases, little motifs, littlepatterns that I really enjoyed,
just whether that felt reallygood in my hands or whether that
sounded really good in my ear,it didn't matter.
And then I closed the sheetmusic, I had it in my brain and
then I just improvised aroundthat phrase, putting that little
phrase in different contexts ofeverything that I knew.
I inverted them, I put in theleft hand, put in the right hand
(26:45):
, I changed the key, I changedthe time signature, I just
really messed with them so thatI really learned them to my core
.
And then I just did that again,I did that again, I did that
again and all theseimprovisations were completely
different because of that onespecific phrase that I took Cut
to college.
I realized when I was the onlyacting major that could play
(27:06):
piano at my alma mater, allthese acting majors kept
throwing music in front of me.
Went to a concert, go toconcert halls all the time and
like or practice rooms, and andthey just kept throwing music in
front of me, being like hey,can you play this song?
I really want to practice it.
Hey, can you play this song?
I really want to practice it.
It's a bunch of musical theater.
I realized my parents had abunch of musical theater and I
was doing this type of learningwith musical theater pieces.
(27:31):
And so I realized, oh my gosh,all these phrases that I've been
playing my entire life in theseimprovisations are popping up
in all these different piecesthat they're giving me, that my
college cohort were giving me,and so I was able to read that
music pretty darn well.
I was able to sight read thatmusic so that I could.
(27:53):
I'd never seen this song before, but I was able to play it
because I had learned thosephrases outside of the context
of one specific song.
I learned it in the context ofmy body and these improvisations
and the music context that Ialready knew.
So I was able to play thatphrase Cut to now I have 700
(28:13):
songs on my repertoire list.
It's actually not a lot comparedto my cohort, the pianists that
play at my piano bar.
They've got 2,000, 3,000 songsright.
But I've really specified theniche that I'm really good at,
which is this musical theaterjazz, um, pop rock, millennial
stuff, right.
So, um, I'm really good at likethat.
(28:36):
But then you go back to theeighties and the seventies.
I'm like I don't have a lot ofstuff like that.
But anyway, point being is likeI realized I realized that I
was able to actually play thesesongs pretty darn well.
I was trying to build up myrepertoire list because I was at
the piano bar and I was like,oh man, I know so many of these
songs because I've only heard itmaybe once, and now I'm able to
replicate it because I alreadyknow the skills that are
necessary to play those songs,because I had learned them
(29:00):
outside of just one specificsong.
So I was like, maybe there's away to way to.
You know, boredom is the beautyof of creativity.
You got to be bored to becreative sometimes, and so I was
bored.
One day I was just like man,what if there's a way?
What if there's a way to teachpeople the way that I taught
(29:22):
myself?
And that was the birthing pointof muse flow.
So what we end up doing is wegive you music you've never seen
before at your certain skilllevel.
Okay, whether that's onespecific one note, one note,
both hands and three rhythms.
That's where we can start youfrom.
Okay, and we teach you how toread music, how to play piano,
in seven minutes, okay, and wethen we immediately get what?
(29:47):
Stop it.
No, it's true, it's what we do,right.
Seven minutes, we got you.
We teach you how to read music.
We teach you how to play piano,how where to put your, where to
put your hands and how to playa key and what pitch and what
duration are.
Okay, we teach you thosefundamentals and then we
(30:09):
immediately get you playing.
Okay, that's what's called justin time learning, where you
learn the kinesthetic need.
Okay, here's the new skill,here's the thing, and then you
immediately go apply it.
Okay, we use that as like abasis for everything we're doing
in muslo.
So we give you that one, thatnew skill.
That's a, that's one, that's atthe beginning.
It's three rhythms, one note,both hands.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
We got you there.
We saw you go.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Music just goes across the screen.
You keep playing it, you keepplaying it.
We've gamified it a little bit.
You've got 95% accuracy orhigher.
You get what are calledchevrons, which is, you get a
little green.
You get another little green.
You play another phrase at 95%accuracy or higher Great.
You play another phrase at 95%accuracy or higher Great.
You get another green.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
You do another one, another green another one,
another green boom, you pass thelevel Music and video games at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Millennials, are you listening?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, so, and then?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
we build you from there, right.
We build another note, we buildanother note, we build another
rhythm, we build another timesignature.
We just keep building it outfrom there, from one note, we
spread it across the piano andso by the end of 26 lessons
you've got 14 notes, three timesignatures and four rhythms that
(31:21):
you can play.
And we also have music, likeactual songs, right, that get
unlocked after every level.
So you immediately go fromlearning the skill,
kinesthetically learning thatskill, to applying that skill
immediately to songs that getunlocked.
So, yeah, that gamification,that sort of application, that
just-in-time learning, that sortof flow state where we meet you
, where your skill level is thechallenge versus the skill, yeah
(31:41):
, all of those kind of elements,combined with all of this
generative music that neverrepeats, that is always at your
level, yeah, all of thatcombined is what muse flow is,
and nobody teaches music thisway apparently not.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I got a couple more questions on this as well.
All right, so you mentioned inour pre-production meeting that
in high school, by 85 percent ofmusic students drop off because
of how they're being taught.
Now when I hear you talkingabout learning in seven minutes,
I'm like okay, I'm going almostinto the late 30s in years I'm
(32:18):
trying to figure this out.
So immediately I'm tantalized.
I'm like, okay, seven minutescompared to almost 40 years is
awesome.
It makes sense.
But how long does the MuseFlowprogram have?
A length of time that it wouldtake you to complete it.
That means there is a beginning, obviously, but is there an end
as well?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
No, that's the whole point, though.
It's that it's constantly.
You can constantly work atcertain things with MuseFlow.
It's an eco.
We're giving you an ecosystemof ecosystem of tools, and you
decide what you want to practiceon.
There is a guided curriculum,yes, but we don't put a time
limit on how long that's goingto take you to complete, because
(32:59):
that's really up to you.
The goal with Museflow is toinspire you to go and want to
practice every day.
Yes, that is the goal, right,because we make it fun, we make
it engaging and we make itactually more effective, right?
So we want you to practiceevery day, but some people don't
.
Some people decide to practiceevery other week.
(33:21):
Some people decide to practiceevery two days, every three days
, whatever it may be.
It totally depends on you.
The use cases from use flow ispretty vast and we're realizing
that practice every two days,every three days, whatever it
may be, it totally depends onyou.
The use cases from use flow ispretty vast and we're realizing
that as we're building and aswe're talking to our users.
It's actually really, reallycool.
Some people have alreadycompleted the curriculum.
They've already completelycompleted, but they still tap in
every day and I'm like why?
(33:43):
And I look at their data andI'm like, okay, they're playing
for like 30 minutes a day at thehighest level of difficulty.
They're just playing the musicthat generates, that never
repeats.
Okay, why are they doing this?
So I reach out to them and I ask, hey, what are you doing?
Like why, you know what are yougetting from this?
(34:03):
And they come back with thisjust a whole mess of an email.
And they just it's just streamof consciousness.
And they're like, hey, so I'vegot a really difficult job and
all I want to do when I comehome is just veg out.
But instead of watching TV oror go scrolling doom scrolling
on my phone, I play Museflow andit allows me to lock into the
(34:25):
present, it allows me to forgetabout my worries, time becomes
irrelevant and I'm just there,locked into the game, and I just
play and I just go, and I'mlike that's so amazing to me
that the application of Museflowis, yes, you can learn how to
play piano, but it's also thislike flow state inducing I can
(34:49):
get out of my life for a littlebit and just immerse myself in
music for a while.
I'm like that's so cool, that'sso cool.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
That's very cool.
That's very cool.
I got a two-part question.
One is the expectation of timeto become proficient using your
program, and two I blank blankedout the second question.
Oh yeah, I know this.
So when a person enters yourprogram, do they in at some
(35:17):
point, own the program and thenno longer having to pay into it?
How does that work?
For those that may be listening, that may be interested in your
program?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
that's two great great questions Tell me like.
Explore the first one just alittle bit more with me.
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
When you started the program, I would think that you
had a place somewhere where yousaid you know what the person
should be proficient by thispoint if they're doing all the
things that we have set in place.
So is there a place in theprogram, even if it's an amount
of time?
I have to think in terms oftime I don't know how much to
ask that question, but in termsof time, if it's four months,
(35:53):
six months where the personshould be proficient using the
tools that you've given them, isthere a place?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
We don't think about shoulds, we don't think about
you should be doing this or youshould no, no, no it's.
Do you want to?
You know, are you interested?
You know we're not telling you,we're not.
The whole thing about muse flowis not externally putting these
forces on you.
It's say it's not putting thesesort of these external
(36:21):
guidelines on you.
It needs to all come fromwithin, and so that's what we're
trying to inspire within you.
Is this want, is this desire tobecome better at the tool at
that, that playing yourinstrument right?
So the questions of should yoube this proficient at your
instrument in x amount of timeis just so irrelevant to muse
(36:44):
flow itself, to the ethos ofMuseflow and what we're creating
.
That like no, we haven't eventhought about it.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
No, Fair, that's fair enough.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Okay, yeah.
And the second part is do theyactually own any of the music
that they're playing, like anyof the songs, for example?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I didn't mean that, I'm sorry.
I mean like, is there a pointwhere they have paid into the
program enough that we didn'thave to pay any more and they
actually have access to theprogram?
I guess like lifetime access,is that how you describe it?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
No, we've got it's a subscription based model, and so
we've got a monthlysubscription, we've got a three
month subscription and thenwe've got a annual subscription.
But, that being said, like Ilove to give you and your
audience a discount code, ifthat's cool.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
If they're interested in that.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
that'd be awesome, I'd love to give you guys a 50%
discount code for life.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It's right now we're at 24 99 a month, and so I'd
like to give you guys a 50%discount, which is like 20,
which is 12, 12, 49 a month, andso I'd like to give you guys a
50% discount, which is like$12.49 a month.
I think, or $12.99 a month orsomething like that, and so,
yeah, I would love to give youguys that, and so what do you
want that to be?
I?
Speaker 1 (37:58):
would say in the comments section in the YouTube
episode, and I would justreshare it and kind of promote
it, because if they watch it,they may they may have missed
what you just said.
So I want to make sure thatthey can find it somewhere in
Prince, they can grab it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But yeah, what text do you want?
Can we do a Mista 50?
Yeah, m-i-s-t-a 5-0 as theactual discount code.
Or we could do U-50.
Why U-50?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
No, they're probably going to misspell that Okay so
Mista50.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
M-i-s-t-a 5-0.
And I'll say, like you don'thave to do this inside of the
app itself, but just so peoplecan see it and pull it out
quickly, let's make it all caps.
So the m-e-i-s-t-a all caps umfive zero.
Just so people can like that'sthe discount code, cool, I'll
apply it right here, sort ofthing.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
We'll work that out at the end of the episode or
offline, because this is a greatidea.
Thank you for offering that.
That's really amazing, oh mygod, of course I.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I want people to use the app.
I want to hear what you thinkBecause, again, the user
experience that we've beengetting, the feedback that we've
been getting from our earlyadopters, is huge.
It's revolutionary, and so atleast that's what people are
saying.
I'd like to prove me wrong.
Okay, I want you to prove mewrong.
In a way, it's a scientificmethod.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Like I said, I've been at this for a long time, so
even myself personally, outsideof being the host of the show,
I'm thinking like I think Imight want to prove you wrong.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Please, I want you to .
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I'm probably one of the worst cases.
I'm bruised and battered yeah,in this arena.
So if you can practice, you cando anything.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I love that.
What a challenge.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, I think I think I'm that not because I can't
learn.
I'm a really fast learner.
I know a lot of music butstaying with it and and having
teacher not bail on me is likethat's a challenge.
But say, for example, the nextpatrick borland right, and they
want to learn to be amulti-instrumentalist like you.
(40:05):
Can they use Museflow to dothat?
All the different instruments,tuba and trombone and piano.
Can they use your program tolearn all these instruments?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Not right now.
We are only for piano right now.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Makes sense, but later down the road.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
We do want to make this for all common instruments.
So at that time, as we add moreinstruments, I think the next
one will be guitar or the nextone will be drums.
So once we add more instruments, yes, the whole goal is to make
this applicable, this type ofmethod of teaching, applicable
(40:42):
to every single one of theinstruments.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, I won't share my guitar story because I'll
bring the whole vibe down andpeople will be more sad than
they probably already are byhearing my sorry story.
But if, theoretically, I wasable to become proficient in
piano, would that make it easierto learn guitar, or is it vice
versa?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I think it's easier to apply the skills that you
learn in piano to otherinstruments.
You know, you've got there'ssomething about the piano that
makes it easier for you to learnother instruments, and I think
it's the fact that we've got 10fingers and we've got 88 notes.
Okay, 10 fingers and we've got88 notes.
(41:24):
Okay, the permutations of thatare infinite.
You can play different rhythmswith different parts of your
fingers, different parts of yourhands.
You can play multiple noteswith one finger.
You play in all the differentkeys.
Okay, a lot of instruments areonly specific to one key.
Or you can play in all thedifferent keys, but it's a
(41:44):
monophonic instrument.
That means single note.
That's a tuba, that's aclarinet, that's a flute.
You can only play one note.
That's a violin.
Sometimes that is a polyphonicinstrument, poly, multiple notes
, phonic sound.
You can play two notes at onetime with a violin, but you
can't play 10 notes at one timewith a violin.
(42:06):
Same thing with guitar.
You've only got six strings, soyou can only play six notes at
one time on a guitar.
Again, with piano, you've got10 notes that you can play,
sometimes even 12, becauseyou've got two fingers, two
thumbs, that can play two notesat one time, so 12 or 14,
whatever.
My point is that reading music,playing notes, playing harmony,
(42:33):
understanding harmony and howone might fit in one note might
fit in with that in that harmony.
All of those are applied to allthe other instruments.
So that's one of the reasonswhy piano is like a foundational
instrument.
That's why all monophonicinstruments, instrumentalists,
actually have in universitycurriculums piano pedagogy
(42:56):
classes.
So you're like there's a reasonwhy piano is a foundational
instrument and I think it has todo with the amount of notes
that you can play.
The breadth of music theory,the breadth of musicality, the
breadth of technique that youcan learn on the piano is quite
vast compared to otherinstruments.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Makes sense.
Makes sense If you guys arelistening or watching us or both
.
Please drop your comments ifyou have any for Mr Borland.
He has a wealth of knowledgethat you can clearly see.
Drop your comments, if you haveany, for Mr Borland.
He has a wealth of knowledgethat you can clearly see.
Drop those questions, if youhave those.
If you think about him later on, drop them in the comments
section.
We have your view of thisepisode.
So I had a whole lot morequestions, but I don't think we
have time to get into it.
(43:35):
We're coming to the back end ofthe show, but what do you think
in brief, if you could tell mereal quick, where do you think
in brief, if you can tell mereal quick, what do you think
that your entrepreneurial bentcomes from?
We talked about a little bit inpre-production, but I'm sure
you got a great story for that,for what I remember.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I don't know if it's a great story.
I think the, the justification,the the whole thing is like,
okay, as an actor, as like, uh,my parents were freelancers.
You know, my mom worked in news, my dad was an actor, my dad
moved over to stage management,my mom went to be a writer, um,
and so you're like, all of thesethings, they're all freelance
(44:08):
jobs, they're all 1099 gigs,they're not w2 and and they all
had to really care about payingtheir taxes and and taking care
of their finances and doing allof that.
All of the business aspect ofbeing a freelancer kind of comes
second nature to me.
I think I'm lucky for that,because my wife comes from a
family of nine to fivers andshe's a writer.
(44:30):
She's utterly hilarious.
She's one of the best comedywriters here in LA, in my
opinion.
You look at her and she'sstruggling with the business
side of it all because she's soused to seeing her parents have
deep consistency in their livesand I'm used to living with a
schedule in the chaos of life.
(44:50):
So I don't know if if I gotlike this entrepreneurial bent.
I think my my mindset of likefinding solutions to problems.
I'm a big problem solver and Ifinding solutions to problems.
I'm a big problem solver and II guess it just came naturally
to me.
Man, it just came naturally.
I think I'm lucky that way.
Um, I'm not thinking about like, okay, what is a product that I
(45:12):
can make that will solve aproblem?
No that's not how I'm thinkingabout it.
I think about it in terms oflike okay, what's a problem that
I needed a solution for?
The problem that I needed asolution for was to learn how to
play piano in this differentway.
If I had that when I was a kid,I would be a completely
different musician now and Iwould be significantly better.
(45:32):
So that's the product that Imade.
I made something that I, as achild, would want to use.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And I made it for every age.
That's just a good version ofentrepreneurship A problem that
you personally had to deal withor your children had to deal
with, and you saw, you witnessedit, you watched it and you were
the final way to solve it forthe next generation.
That's what you're talkingabout, you're it?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
brother.
Thanks, man.
So people will be like we thinkabout.
I've heard entrepreneurs talkabout they go to business school
and they're like I don't have alot of like issues that I want
to solve in the world, so let mego look for an issue and try to
solve that with a product andthen make people want it.
No, that's like the wrong wayin my opinion.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah I don't, I don't , I don't mean them this.
We're talking about twodifferent hard parts this year.
Yeah, I got five.
Of course, I want to rapid fireto you.
Give me about two minutes orthree at the most, apiece.
Knock it out the mostchallenging song you ever sung
and why.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Stephen Sondheim's Happiness from the Musical
Passions.
The melody is everywhere, it'sall over the place and it's a
wonderfully complex relationshipthat they're talking about.
They're both cheating.
It's a duet and I like to singit as a solo.
(46:59):
So the melody is justeverywhere, it's all over the
place and it's all really reallycool because it all really solo
.
So the melody is just every,it's all over the place and it's
all really really cool becauseit all really makes sense with
what's happening underneath it,the accompaniment that's
happening in the orchestra pitor the piano.
So it all makes a lot of sensewhen you put it all together.
But just singing it is verycomplex and the story that
you're trying to tell is a verynuanced, difficult story to try
(47:21):
to convey.
They're both cheating story totry to convey.
They're both cheating on eachother and they're both talking
about what is happiness, andthey're talking about in the
context of happiness is x, no,happiness is y, no.
Happiness is z, no, happinessis l, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, o,
j, k, l.
It's right there.
That's what happiness is.
And so you're like whoa, it'skind of all over the place but
like again, in the holisticsense of that song.
(47:42):
It makes complete sense, and soto do it justice is really
difficult.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Okay, happiness by Stephen Sondheim Noted.
All right.
So what's the most challengingsong you ever had to play on
piano, and why?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I learned the beginning of this song, called
Yellow Jacket, by Sean Martin.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
The reason why it's the most difficult song for me
to have to learn was because hewrote the perfect version of
what he wanted to hear.
So me just kind of messing withit a little bit Did it.
It didn't do it justice.
I'm always looking to make thesong the best version that it
can be, and me just messing withit and not playing it perfectly
did it an injustice, and so Ihad to learn that perfectly.
(48:33):
And then I and it's verydifficult, it's very jazzy, it's
beautiful, it's gorgeous myhands were like completely
stretched on the piano trying todo this and they were all over
each other and it was like it'sthe most beautiful thing that
I've ever had to learn and it'salso one of the most difficult
things that I ever had to learn.
So I had to play it perfectlyand then I'd add the musicality
on top of it.
How do I want to play that?
(48:54):
You know, I want to slow downat this one moment because it's
absolutely gorgeous, or it'scoming to the end of a line, a
melody, and so I had to makethose decisions on top of a very
difficult, technical, jazzysort of chord structure and
chord progression.
The beginning of the song theYellow Jacket by Sean Martin
(49:14):
easily.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
And what genre is that piece?
Jazz fusion, jazz fusion, okay,okay, all right, three more
questions.
You don't have to push throughthem, but they may require a
little bit of thought.
I told you about this one, soI'm gonna ask you about that.
So be ready.
If music was no longer anoption and you couldn't do
anything regarding yourdeveloping apps, what's patrick
(49:35):
doing instead of those twothings?
Speaker 2 (49:38):
I landed as a sociology major.
That's what I landed on.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
I couldn't believe this man said that to me.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
So I was an acting major for a little bit.
I didn't like how my alma materwas teaching acting.
That's a whole different storybut I can go into that.
And then I pivoted over tosociology.
I loved every minute of thatand it actually influenced the
way that I act a lot.
I'm able to see a characterfrom the outside in looking at
the institutions that thatcharacter lives within and see
(50:06):
how that affects their being,you know, and how they go
through the world.
It's a really cool analysis.
Um and so the inside out, theoutside in approach, is really
really cool for me.
The the society versus thepersonal.
I love that and how oneinfluences both.
Right, I think it would be somepart of a research team at a
(50:29):
university.
I got pretty far at my almamater.
I was a research assistant andI was a teacher's assistant.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
And so.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
I've got some background in research.
I've got some background inqualitative research.
Quantitative, I coulddefinitely go to a master's
degree for that, but qualitativeI'm pretty well up there and I
do love thinking about societyin that way.
So I would love to do somequalitative research.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Man, you are a man of many talents.
Can you build space shuttles aswell?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
No, do not.
Do not trust me in any possibleway to build a space shuttle.
Look, I'm not curing cancerhere.
I'm just trying to entertainthe populace.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
That's literally all I'm trying to do here, you know
you are doing it, man, I meanyou, you're doing it.
So where where's patrick fiveyears from now?
If he had his way, where is he?
Speaker 2 (51:19):
building this app.
We've got a way.
Where is he building this app?
We've got a um.
We've got a uh, headquarters insan francisco or la?
There's a shot, there's a.
There's a space right down thestreet from me that I would
actually love to take over um,but there's a design agency
that's there right now and socan't do it.
I want them to retire, I wantthem to get out of there and so
(51:40):
that I can create ourheadquarters right there.
That would be amazing.
It would be working on this appfull time.
It would be working with thepeople that I'm working with.
I love the friends that I'mbuilding this with and they're
very fun.
They're very funny.
I just came from a meetingtoday, right before this podcast
, and we were all just laughingour butts off and building
something cool.
(52:01):
You know, like that's what lifeis all about, in my opinion,
and so enjoy the journey, andI'm enjoying the.
I'm enjoying this journey a lot, so it'll be working all right.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
so last question that we're gonna ask well, I have
some advice.
So two pieces of advice.
So the first one if you made apiano school dropout, they could
be like me or worse.
If worse is the alphabet, don'thave a lot of time, don't have
a lot of money, how would youadvise them to grow their craft
in playing the instrument whenyou know all those factors play
(52:32):
a part Passes, appointments,time, finances.
I want you to be theircounselor, but how would you
advise them on how to moveforward and continue to grow
their craft with all of thesefactors in the way?
Speaker 2 (52:48):
They want to build their piano skills.
Honestly and I'm not justsaying this because I'm building
the product that I wish I hadthat inspired me when I was
exactly at that point it wouldbe Museflow.
It really would be.
And I'm not saying that justbecause, like I'm the person
that built that are building.
No, I'm literally saying thatbecause I wish I had it when I
(53:09):
was at that point.
That allows you to try to findwhat you love about playing.
It allows you to explore somany different parts of who you
are as a musician and what youenjoy about playing, and it does
(53:29):
it in a fun, engaging, gamified, immersive sort of way.
And I would think it would bethat and if you don't like it,
again prove me wrong, but Ithink that that is a really
great way to kind of tap into itand see what you love about
playing your instrument and thenfollow that, follow that
passion, lean into that.
(53:51):
That's why we're doing it inthe first place, you know.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
So, yeah, you slow even if, even if you don't feel
like you're entrepreneurial, I,I stand here, uh, as your new
friend and I'll tell you thatyou have that For the people who
are listening excuse me, thepeople who are listening that
have a desire to do somethingbig, even if it's not as big as
(54:15):
Museflow, and they have a lot oftalent, they have a lot of
ability, but they don't have theresources.
They may not have peoplesupporting them like you may
have.
What's your advice for peoplewho want to build something that
helps somebody else and theyjust are not feeling the push or
need a boost?
How would you encourage thosepeople that are listening right
now?
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Start small, stay small.
It's a motto that I abide by.
I've had to abide by because wehave this grand vision from use
flow.
We've got a Bible that is likea hundred pages long that we've
written, that has every singlefeature laid out for, for the,
for the, for the app.
Um, it's very grand, it's verybig, it's very um, but it's also
(54:57):
very specific.
I would say pare it down to itsminimum viable product.
Your MVP, okay.
Pare down your idea from thegrand, beautiful vision that you
have to what is that valueproposition that you give to the
market?
Why are you making it?
What are you changing and whatis that one specific feature
(55:20):
that changes the world foreverybody else?
Build that.
Okay.
Don't build your grand vision.
Build your proof of conceptfirst and then put that out into
the world.
Post it on Reddit into thethreads that are necessary.
Put it out there into the world, right, get it out there so
people can try it, so you canget feedback.
That sort of process, thatiterative process, is key for
(55:42):
any entrepreneur, in my opinion.
So, build your proof of concept,build your minimum viable
product Minimum is the key andget it out into the world so you
can start user testing thatimmediately so you can start
getting feedback.
You know, that's the goal.
That's what we had to learn howto do, and we were taught that
by the software engineers thatwe brought on as co-founders.
(56:03):
They were like, whoa, this istoo big, it's going to take
decades to build.
Nope, we can't do it.
We need a minimum viableproduct and we need to get that
onto the world.
We need to start making moneynow, and so we did that within a
we did that within six monthsand now we're a year.
Now we're a year after that andwe've got 40 people that are
paying for it.
You know, yeah, so it's a slowjourney, is also a big thing,
(56:26):
but build your minimum viableproduct first.
That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
I just came out of a meeting that had some of those
same vibes to it and that adviceis definitely transferable, so
I appreciate it so much.
It's called stay small.
I love this.
Ladies and gentlemen, patrickBolin multi-instrumentalist
entrepreneur no matter what hesays music teacher, scientist,
(56:50):
pre-shadow builder, potentiallythe man is brilliant and so
grateful to have you on.
And really, on top of that,beside all that, I'm grateful to
have met you.
Yeah, you too, man.
The disconnection is definitelysomething that is not
accidental.
So I really appreciate it, man,and I definitely appreciate
what you shared earlier.
So, for all you guys that arelistening that are interested,
(57:12):
whether it be on this liveepisode or on the replay, pat
just offered to offer 50% off ofMuseFlow, which is a very, very
generous offer.
So if you're interested inmusic, especially in the piano
realm, take advantage of thisoffer.
It'll be posted on everywherewhere the episode is shown on
social media and on our YouTubechannel.
(57:34):
He'll post all the informationin the comments under the
episode.
Please grab hold of that.
I'll be sharing and promotingit on my social.
You do the same as well, sir,and again, thank you, man.
This has been a blessing tohave you on and I hope it's not
the last time that we do this,but we're definitely gonna stay
in touch because we got a lotmore to talk about.
But this is fantastic man.
(57:54):
Any closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (57:57):
No, I love your vibe man.
I think this has been a reallycool conversation and I love the
friendship.
Um, you're great and I I bet Ithink your audience you know
your audience, the audiencefollows the host and and you're
you're so awesome, so I thinkthat your audience is also
awesome.
So I appreciate all of you thatare listening and I appreciate
you.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
You said so appreciate you.
Yeah, man, we're gonna stay intouch, but thank you for your
time on this one.
This was fantastic.
We're out of here.
Have a great day, guys.
Thanks again for listening.
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