The Musician Centric Podcast
Two professional violists, Liz O'Hara and Stephanie Knutsen, explore diverse perspectives in the music field through conversations together and with friends. Whether gaining fresh insights from industry innovators or laughing their way through a show like Mozart in the Jungle, Liz and Steph hope to inspire musicians, particularly freelancers, to feel a sense of agency in their lives.
**Note: This podcast was formerly titled the ViolaCentric podcast**
The Musician Centric Podcast
Extra-Classical with That Viola Kid, Drew Forde: Strategies for Success in the Modern Music Industry, Part 1
Stories? Questions? Thoughts? TEXT us here!
Ever wondered how to carve out a successful career in music, with or without the classical repertoire? That Viola Kid, Drew Ford, rejoins us to unravel the secrets of thriving as an "extra classical musician" in today's dynamic industry. We start off with a little Valentine's Day banter and a nod to the eerie allure of "True Detective," but the real heart of our conversation is Drew's savvy advice for musicians navigating the economic challenges and opportunities of the modern landscape. Whether you're a musician feeling the pinch or a music lover curious about the industry's inner workings, you're in for a treat!
Drew doesn't shy away from the tough topics—we're talking hard numbers and the stark financial realities for those in the classical music trenches. We talk about knowing your worth and the art of negotiation for better compensation, while also serving up some fresh takes on personal branding and direct audience engagement. If you're itching to connect with your fans on a deeper level or to navigate the music industry with finesse, tune in for strategies that hit all the right notes.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Drew's newsletter, Grace Notes: https://thatviolakid.com/gracenotes
wholesoul, a string quartet with attitude: https://www.wholesoulmusic.com/
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Our website: www.musiciancentric.com, for merch, joining our email list, and contacting us with stories and feedback!
Episode edited by: Emily MacMahon and Liz O’Hara
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Did you have a nice Valentine's Day? Yeah, it was really nothing happened. This is married life for you guys.
Speaker 2:The most romantic thing I've done this week around Valentine's Day is start watching the new true detective season Whoa that is romantic, take notes. Are you watching it? No, oh, my goodness, is it good? It's so creepy. Yes, OK. So, far so good, I'm only halfway through the second episode right now, but it's all done now. They're all done.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you can binge it If anybody wants to see Scary Creepy Gore. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know there's time and place. There is a time and place and it takes place in Alaska, at the tip of the Arctic Circle, where they have basically this period of time for almost two weeks, where it's like the sun doesn't rise, it's just dark. So a lot of people kind of go in a little nutty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, as would I. That makes sense. Yeah, if I could didn't see the sun for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so far I'm in and I'm like who chooses to live here?
Speaker 1:Why do people live here?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question, there's so many other places to live If you're in Alaska or the North North, let us know.
Speaker 1:Do you think Liz Hill has an?
Speaker 2:answer to this.
Speaker 1:Maybe she's from Alaska.
Speaker 2:Yeah, should ask her.
Speaker 1:Alaska Heights. Alaskans, you have to Alaska. I think Alaska Heights better.
Speaker 2:I do too. Ok, do it for the record.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Musician-Centric podcast. We are two freelance violists living and laughing our way through conversations that explore what it means to be a professional musician in today's world. I'm Steph.
Speaker 2:And I'm Liz, and we're so glad you've joined us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:I'm watching this completely different thing called Platonic.
Speaker 2:Ooh, oh, yes, that's right On Apple. You're telling me about this. Oh my god, it's so funny.
Speaker 1:Seth Rogen and Rose. What's her name? Burn?
Speaker 2:Burn From like their neighbors' days. Oh, I don't remember that movie yeah they were married couple and they were.
Speaker 1:OK, they are really funny together. They are. This show is really funny. I highly recommend. It's not for children. But SFLC yes not suitable for children. What's the premise? So they were best friends back in college and they've since parted ways and she became a mom. She has three kids. She's married to this lawyer guy. She's, like you know, very suburbia and he became a brewmaster and opened up a brew pub, and so he's like kind of not failure to launch, but like a man child.
Speaker 2:That's also so millennial.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, yes. So the premise is that they're now 40 years old, they come back together and they're fast friends again and they're going through life like helping each other through these moments and it's hilarious. I will definitely check that out.
Speaker 2:They're just really funny. I will definitely. That is like the antidote to true detective.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, yes, it makes you, it makes my husband and I laugh out loud.
Speaker 2:Very lovely. I love it. So we talked with Drew. We had Drew back.
Speaker 1:Drew has been back and we were really thinking about this really seriously, like who can we bring back from our earlier seasons? That has new stuff going on, and I will tell you this about Drew he always has new stuff going on. This guy is always pivoting, he's always shifting, he's got his finger on the pulse of the music industry and he's always inventing a new path. So you, he was a natural choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, he's so thoughtful and I think it's part says the things that need to be said, but it's also just kind of like drawing conclusions from outside places that he can relate to our industry and just makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Like he just makes a lot of sense with these things he's discovered and, I think, struck or excited about the fact that we had this conversation the last time he was on about money, like essentially about the value of money, and that when you create things, you basically create new value and new value brings money. And it just blew my mind and it was this seed that then I kind of have been just growing with ever since that conversation. It really stuck with me and he was blogging back then and he had written a really eloquent blog about that whole concept. And then here we are two years later, a little over two years later, and he's got this. He's taking it next level, basically right, he's just like taking that concept and saying we need to use this to our advantage, this concept that, like everybody has something new and creative, because everybody's voice is different, and how can you specialize yourself in a way that you can be there for everybody? In other words, the extra classical musician which, again, he blogged so brilliantly about.
Speaker 1:Yep, he's got great pointers for musicians that are up and coming and that are taken straight from the business world. So what skills do you need now as a musician in order to carve your own path? And so he talks about those. He talks about his extra classical musician idea, like you mentioned, so I think you're really going to dig this. So let us know what you think. Yeah, and enjoy part one of this conversation with Drew Ford.
Speaker 2:Located in a historic mansion in Tacoma Park, maryland, you might get the impression that the team at Potter violins are as formal as the breathtaking building that they work in, but when you go inside instead, you'll find the most relatable, skilled and friendly staff.
Speaker 1:Yes, the people at Potters are what really make it a special place. I love visiting because I know that whoever I work with is not going to make me feel like I'm crazy or just being picky. They're kind of like your favorite bartender. They're great listeners who give you what you need without judgment.
Speaker 2:Yes, their technicians are not only super talented, creative and resourceful, they take the time to collaborate with you so that the process of getting your instrument at its best really feels like a partnership.
Speaker 1:So if you're in the area, definitely stop by and introduce yourself to Chris, rob Kimberly, derek Jim, melissa and the whole team, or visit PotterViolinscom to find what you need online.
Speaker 2:It's so fitting, then, that their shop is in this beautiful old house, because the staff at Potter's really makes it feel like home.
Speaker 1:Drew Alexander Ford, known online as that viola kid, has a reputation not only as an accomplished performer, but also as one of classical music's most recognizable personalities. Drew was called the Future of Our Field by Sphinx Organization president Afa Dworkin, and as the creator of hip hop string quartet Whole Soul, Drew aims to expand the limits of string playing, Highly sought after in popular music. Drew has shared the stage with A-list stars like Adele, Alicia Keys and Earth, Wind and Fire, among many others. Recording viola for the Beatles' final song, now and then, is the crowning achievement of Drew's budding recording career. When he's not on the concert stage or in the recording studio, Drew shares his entrepreneurial experiences with students from institutions like Harvard, MIT, Cleveland Institute, the Juilliard School, and he's served as a consultant and presenter for a range of organizations, from local not-for-profits to Fortune 500 companies. And in addition to all this, he has the distinction of being the very first repeat guest on our podcast.
Speaker 2:So add that Isn't that your crowning achievement?
Speaker 3:Let's go the top, that's the top yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm changing it now.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're the sweetest, change it now I'm going to tell my publicist.
Speaker 1:Welcome back. I'm going to tell the publicist Welcome back. We're so thrilled.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me Thank you, Steph.
Speaker 1:So what inspired us asking you back other than that you're just an awesome, amazing guest is that we saw your sub-stack article on the future of classical music and the hot takes abound, the most provocative being that there's no money in classical music. So I loved that headline. I mean, I thought that was totally clickable, totally relatable to what we're all going through right now, and I wondered if you could just tell us about how you came to write this article and what it means to you.
Speaker 3:It's something that, you know, I felt when I was back at Juilliard. I would be called to go to a studio and I'm like, yeah, I'm a Juilliard grad student, you know. It's not like there are a bunch of them lying around, you know, maybe in a marketplace that would afford me a livable wage. But that really was not the case, especially when it came into playing classical music and I just didn't really understand. I was like I thought, in order to make a living, I just had to be good at my instrument. But while I was at Juilliard I started listening to other podcasts and started getting information from other sources like Planet Money and Freakonomics Radio and how stuff works. And I started just listening to a lot of podcasts and learning about economics, learning about the world in general and trying to understand where does classical music fit in? Like the machine of the global economy, how does it fit? And I got to tell you it's really tiny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you haven't seen this chart go on Drew's.
Speaker 1:Instagram or join his sub-stack and there's a chart on there about the little piece of the pie that classical music earns digitally.
Speaker 3:It's a Nielsen report. Nielsen does a lot of market research and they were tackling in this 2019 report. They were tackling music and the gross revenue from sales of digital physical sales and streaming of music by genre, and classical music was dead last at like 1%, less than 1% in many categories. Yeah, so if we are fighting and I think I saw somewhere this was weeks ago, so my numbers a little fuzzy but we're talking maybe low nine figures worth of like we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars total like revenue generated in the whole world for classical music, and so there are a lot more than like a million maybe not a lot more, but there's probably like a million classical musicians who are trying to get to anyone's time across the world.
Speaker 3:Right, so do we all earn $100? Is that really the market cap? Is that overall worth 100 bucks? You know all of the years that we've put together so I was like, okay, why is nobody talking about that? Why are we still encouraging students to go get student debt to then enter a market where they're not even equipped to extract any value or collect any value for their hard work so they can eat? You know, that's the math, wasn't math thing?
Speaker 1:for me, so I had to write about it. Yeah, it's something that we're all, Liz and I, have been talking about. I mean, we're freelancers in the Washington DC area and we're busy, Like we're playing with orchestras, we're teaching, we're doing recording, when we can playing all different genres of music, playing string quartet jobs you know, playing pop string quartet jobs too but if we're at the kind of the top of our field here in the DC area and we're not making those, we're not making really a living.
Speaker 2:I've had this crazy thing circulating in my brain since December, which sort of was the impetus for this conversation, where I had been busting my butt from September to December and I was all over the place and I'd overworked myself and I rescheduled myself, which is a recurring theme in my life that I've always working on.
Speaker 2:However, I think I hit a breaking point because it was so burnt out and I was playing a job in December that I typically like to play, but I was frustrated over certain logistical things that were happening that happen every year and they still haven't been fixed. And I'm in my head like why isn't anybody figured this out yet? You know, like I figured it out, how is no one else figured it out? And I was sitting there and I'm like am I going to do this job for the rest of my life, like this? Is it? As far as like being a freelance classical musician in DC goes, we're at the peak pretty much. And what I've been really interested in too, which is related to this article and this conversation keeps coming up in various ways, is that okay? So we've, like escalated ourselves to this peak, you know, in demand for a freelancer in the DC area, sawed after Sawed after we're super sought after.
Speaker 2:It doesn't translate to more money. It doesn't mean you're going to make a better living. It just means you have a reputation of being able to perform at a certain level and so that like works within your community, but it still doesn't translate to more dollars. In fact, in some ways, when you're considered in demand, then there are certain opportunities that won't be offered to you because they assume you're not available, right? So there's like that whole thing which is so fascinating.
Speaker 2:I don't really worry about that, but it's so funny because I was just literally scrolling through Instagram before we got on and I saw this little orchestra had like one of its first performances here. It's like a startup orchestra and it was all these like young kids who are probably just out of school, like University of Maryland and our various universities around here, and the way they were describing the organization. I was like, oh, this is familiar because I was part of these groups when I was in my early 20s too, and we're all just trying to do the same thing and it's like not increasing our value, which it's huge, like it's such a crazy thing. Such a crazy thing. Anyway, yeah, lots of thoughts about that.
Speaker 3:I think it's really, it's unfortunate. I think it's a multi-pronged issue. I think many people don't understand our work. They think, well, that's a really nice hobby, that's like super cool. I mean, you joined orchestra, you know, at 12 years old, 10 years old, and you just stuck with it. I really wish I had stuck with it, but you know what.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you're doing it.
Speaker 3:Good for you here's 20 bucks, it's like oh, good for you, man. Oh, will you babysit my kid please for $50 an hour and teach him the intricacies of bow technique? So it is a marketing problem on our behalf, because we often you know it always comes back to unionizing Like unfortunately, we have so many people who are desperate to make any money, desperate for any visibility, desperate for any you know notoriety, because that's what matters more to them, or matters more to you when you leave school.
Speaker 2:You're just like I just want to be seen doing the thing. Because, like I had everybody tell me that it was a joke. I'm going to start up an orchestra with my friends and we're all going to make $50 for the weekend, but it's our passion and everyone will see us doing it. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yep. But the economics is a true case of us going into this field not understanding business, not understanding negotiation, not understanding value, exchange, leverage, not understanding our real function in society, which is marketing. Music is not, it's a product kind of, but we make other things sexy, we give soul to ideas. So because we don't understand our true power and our true impact, we don't really negotiate. In many cases in the classical music sphere, we don't negotiate to our own benefit. But if you go outside of classical music, when you're talking about the broader music industry, you've got sync licensing, you've got distribution deals, you've got the ability to put your stuff on albums. You can write, you can compose, you can collect royalties for certain recordings with certain contracts which you have to negotiate those contracts. You have to see that if my music's going to be played for a million people, do I really need to take this buyout or is a rev share way more interesting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are just things that most of us have no idea what this world is. So how did you start learning about it? How did you start realizing your worth and what the value of marketing?
Speaker 3:Well, I stopped listening to classical musicians.
Speaker 1:Who were giving you advice.
Speaker 3:It's like what, yeah, who are giving me advice on what to do?
Speaker 3:I just started looking to people who seemed to be making a lot more money in music and they're not classical musicians, they're producers, they're writers, they're songwriters, and so when you understand those economic models, it makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 3:Like labels yes, they put up a lot of the production value, they put up a lot of marketing and distribution, they use their relationships to get your art in front of eyeballs, but then they take a cut of everything, depending on the deal, right when we're all out here playing the game of earned income, we're not thinking about ownership, we're not thinking about earning residual income because we have equity in a certain venture. So I think, just understanding those business principles ownership over wages it's a huge multiplier in leverage and I think that people will have a different experience of this economy if they really kind of understand that. But that being said, we also have to take into account that we are also fighting a commodity game. Like just playing a string instrument, it's not enough leverage to really ask for more money if you don't have a brand associated with it, because if they just need a violinist or if they just need a cellist and then you're too expensive. They're just going to go ask somebody who's going to play it for much less.
Speaker 3:So we collectively have to understand like, look, if I'm taking this gig for $50 in pizza, that means they think they're going to think that's what we're all worth moving forward. So we have to have a conversation amongst ourselves too.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a quote in the article. Gone are the days of the anonymous, anti-social string player and here, here, I'm like all about that. I'm like, yes, every single person that we share a stage with has their own voice, Like they have something in them that makes them separate from the other person sitting on stage with them, and we just are not encouraged to think that way when we're trained in the orchestral world and there's a lot of us doing the work, Like I would say there's a lot of us doing the work to try to get to this point, but it's still the minority of the group of us, the demographic of classical string players out there. But it's funny because I was telling Stephanie, I was excited to talk with you about this because the last time we talked, you were the first person that I really understood the concept of money being a thing that can be created when something has value.
Speaker 2:My mantra for this entire year is that my energy is actually my most valuable currency. That just because I'm gonna get paid $1,000 to do this job doesn't mean it's the right direction for me to go. It's because if it's taking away my ability to express myself or to do something that's authentic with my own energy, then it's probably actually gonna drain more than just my bank account. I had to play around with this a little bit and it's a scary concept for a lot of people to wrap their heads around, but it is 100% true. Last year I was offered a gig that I used to do that did not pay me enough and I had left because it didn't pay enough. And when I got asked to come back, I said sure, but here's what I'm gonna need. And they said, okay.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 2:Okay, sounds good. That's great. We'll pay you that much. What do we gotta do to keep you?
Speaker 3:And you were no longer a commodity, because you knew your value. You asked for and they were like, okay, we're gonna meet you there.
Speaker 2:Thanks, but it takes practice Absolutely. That's amazing Entrepreneurial skills. Most people don't feel they have the agency to speak like that when they get a job offer right.
Speaker 1:So it's a longer game too. It's not like the day to day. Am I gonna be able to pay my bills? Am I maintaining my reputation in this by saying yes, but it's the long game of what is my brand. Like you said, drew, what do I wanna be seen as known as? What do people perceive when they hear my name?
Speaker 3:And I get asked by kids like when do you know when to ask for more money, and I'm like I tell them you'll know. But like, honestly, it's when you feel like that, Liz, it's like I don't wanna do that, I really don't wanna do that. You're gonna have to pay me this, Otherwise I'd rather stay in my bunny slippers. I love that so much, eat some ice cream, you know.
Speaker 1:Like that's a litmus test.
Speaker 3:That's when you know when you've had enough and like you don't feel like that when you leave school You'll do anything. You're just so excited to be there.
Speaker 2:But then when you, it's Groundhog Day and you're like man, I'm working really hard, I'm tired and my bank account is still empty and they want me to show up anyway, right, yeah, and I wonder like how this, how has this thread progressed over generations, like we all, everybody who's been in this field or in this career field before us, has gotten to that point where they're like, yeah, I'm not gonna do this anymore, this is a crap job and I'm not gonna do it. But how are we approaching it in a way that's different, and I think that's the question, cause that then helps shape what the next generation of musician will expect for themselves getting out of school, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we needed to relay the mission. I literally I had this conversation at the Grammys 2020 with a Woodwind player friend of mine and she was telling me a similar thing. She was like yo, I like I gotta go teach like four students after this. I was like are you serious?
Speaker 1:She's like I'm killing myself.
Speaker 3:I know it's January, but yeah, she's like I gotta teach couple couple students for like $40. I was like, look, high schoolers need gigs too. And she and her brain exploded. She was like, whoa, I never thought about it like that. It's true, you don't. If you're taking every gig that comes your way, you're also taking it from people who are probably gonna appreciate it more, who the money is gonna totally be worth it for, and you're giving up the opportunity cost of spending your time doing something else that could possibly be more highly leveraged, so you can get on that path of retirement and financial freedom.
Speaker 1:And I love that too, because it creates. It creates the opportunity for other things to come and fill it. But it's hard to let go of. You know, like creating space in your schedule, creating space in your mind. It allows these other opportunities and the opportunity to be creative yourself. You can't do that if you're running here and there and everywhere. You can't have ideas, like you know, sub-stacks in your blog. I don't even know how you do it, because I know for a fact that you are busy and you are all over the place. So where does all this like creativeness? Where do you make space for that?
Speaker 3:I think it was Duke Ellington. He got asked a similar question.
Speaker 3:He said I gave most creative in the deadline and for me, I used to make weekly and for time, daily YouTube videos, and that was at a time where I was not working. Okay, this was right. After Juilliard, I was not getting. The only money that was coming into my bank account was teaching a four year old who couldn't speak English yet and playing in the subways for like or five hours. 60 bucks that's like food for a couple of days. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:So I'm treading water. Treading water and desperate to make anything happen so that I, like, didn't regret, you know, going into such crazy debt. So during that time, I was like I got to do something. I got to do something. Now I am very busy providing value for clients, recording, performing, not as much teaching.
Speaker 3:So I was like man, I can't even cultivate this brand that I've built. I can't keep creating content. What is the smallest thing that I could do that would have the most power? And I'd been doing research for years because social media algorithms were really starting to piss me off.
Speaker 3:I'm spending hours to like, make a piece of Instagram content and it shows it to 3% of my audience and I thought it was a good piece of content, but it's not exactly what the first of all, the audience wants to see at that moment. The audiences tastes are always changing and therefore the algorithm is always changing, so that is stuff I can't control. So I realized, oh, this is good, it's good to have a big following and have a brand, but I don't own this audience. How can I have a better, closer, more direct relationship with my audience? I'd learned about creating an email newsletter and just the multiplicative power of having an email newsletter, and so I was like well, maybe I can write a three minute, three to five minute piece of content every week, release it on Friday and try to provide value, update people on what I'm doing for now, so I can start. You know, maybe having more control over the audience, so I can let you know what I'm doing, shows I can let you know when I do drop a YouTube video and it's not algorithmically.
Speaker 3:I'm not relying on the algorithm. It's people that want to see it, because that's what following is supposed to be about seeing what you want to see from people that you want to see it from. So that's why I started Grace Notes, and started it back in October last year. It's February. I'm five weeks. I'm on a five week streak. It's going to be week six when I drop on Friday, and I'm really excited to keep it going.
Speaker 1:Well, this makes me think of so these are skills that you have cultivated over your career. You read a lot. You also write a lot, so these are skills that, like a multifaceted musician needs to have. And I didn't mention this in your bio, but there's another self coin term that you call yourself like an extra classical musician, right, yes, and when did you? How did you realize that that was something that needed distinguishing?
Speaker 3:I think that there have been other words to describe the type of work that I do before. A lot of people refer to it as crossover. You know people who are like they might have played classical music or they may not have, but they just do other genres. But it always comes with a pejorative. It's like wow, they couldn't cut it in classical, they couldn't really make it happen. I'm like who can?
Speaker 2:Who's making it happen?
Speaker 3:We've already established this who's making it happen on. I literally was looking through the this is a sidebar the AFM, the American Federation of Musicians. I got the newsletter, like the magazine today. I was looking at the different auditions. There's an audition for Section Viola for the Louisiana Orchestra, $25,000. Week For a 36 week. I'm so sorry I spend more of that on rent.
Speaker 1:Maybe not if you move to Louisiana, though.
Speaker 3:That's not even going to cover it for me, even if you move to Louisiana. Who's living on $25,000? That's 100% true. And then San Francisco the section's like $110,000 for San Francisco, san Francisco Opera. I have friends who live in San Francisco and say, if you're making less than 200, your poverty. So what are we doing, guys?
Speaker 3:So when I hear people having conversations about you know you couldn't make it in classical music, I'm like yeah, so is that my problem or is that just a symptom of the economics? And so I feel like there's a need for a new word, because one thing with branding and marketing is that words have power, and when you occupy a word in the mind of a consumer, you have so much more leverage. And so I was like let's create a new word, extra classical. It's classical plus.
Speaker 3:You can play classical music, but you also understand the nuances of other genres and can find ways to provide value as a string player to other genres, because just playing the string instrument does not add value to other genres. You have to play it the right way, and if you play it classical, you can make it sound cringy, you may sound hokey and authentic and like you don't really care about anything other than classical music, and I think that's a really bad brand that we built for ourselves, and I think it's time to move beyond that. And it's not just the playing. I think entrepreneurship is a huge component of it. I think being able to stack unrelated skills on top of your classical chops is critical. So it's about skill stacking, it's about thinking outside the box, it's about creating your own path.
Speaker 2:It's so good. Thank you so much for listening today. If you loved this episode, consider writing us a five star review on Apple podcasts, amazon music, spotify or wherever you listen.
Speaker 1:Thanks also to our season sponsor, potter Violence.
Speaker 2:If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to bonus content, consider joining our Patreon community.
Speaker 1:You can buy all your music and centric merch, including shirts, water bottles, koozies and a variety of other fun items.
Speaker 2:Our theme music was written and produced by JP Wogerman and is performed by Stefan myself.
Speaker 1:Our episodes are produced by Liz O'Hara and edited by Emily McMahon.
Speaker 2:Thanks again for listening. Let's talk soon.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening today. This has been part one of our conversation with Drew Ford, so make sure that you stay tuned for part two coming in a couple of days.
