Rick Beato goes mainstream

[jazzpiano88]

4 hours ago, mrk7421 said:

Larry Carlton's solo on Kid Charlemagne is NOT the world's greatest solo..

We know that.  It’s the world’s second greatest guitar solo.   The world’s greatest guitar solo is Grant Geissman’s on Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good.   I’m surprised you didn’t know that.  

[Adan]

47 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

I think it's more the ways other people want to put you into that "lover" or "hater" position - it feeds their need for validation or fuels their antipathy, regardless of your true feelings. 

That's what I was trying to say, you just said it more better.

 

I'm a little confused by attaching the label "educator" to Beato. He's educated, he has opinions, and he shares them. That's true of a lot of people. I'll save the term "educator" for people who actually work at educational institutions, just because otherwise that term starts to lose meaning. 

 

There's an implication being thrown around here that if you don't give Beato every ounce of support that you can, you're disrespecting musical educators. That's a non sequitar. The vast majority of musical educators are not monetizing themselves on YouTube.

 

I'd call Beato a "popularizer," and popularizers certainly serve a purpose as a gateway to serious education. 

 

He's doing good stuff.  At the same, there's no need to exaggerate his goodliness.

[mrk7421]

JustDon't know about being a sad hater.....I just get sick of him begging for money. He keeps claiming he is going to go belly up if we don't support him. I don't think he is a good interviewer....it's embarrassing to me the way he over compliments his subjects . He seems to have a sort of celebrity worship thing happening....either that or Rick will televise someone if they have Olympic level chops.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Just got tired of him telling people he was going to go belly up if we don't support him and a few other things I won't waste energy on.If your stuff is all that good the money will roll in.

[jazzpiano88]

4 minutes ago, Adan said:

I'm a little confused by attaching the label "educator" to Beato. He's educated, he has opinions, and he shares them. That's true of a lot of people. I'll save the term "educator" for people who actually work at educational institutions, just because otherwise that term starts to lose meaning. 

He is a legitimate educator. It’s where he developed the material for his book and ear training method when he taught at Ithaca College.   He speaks of an interesting story in his video above.  He was subbing as professor for his friend Aiyden Esen at The New School a semester before Brad Mehldau came through so had a “brush” with being Mehdau’s ear training instructor.  

[HammondDave]

16 minutes ago, Adan said:

I'm a little confused by attaching the label "educator" to Beato. He's educated, he has opinions, and he shares them. That's true of a lot of people. I'll save the term "educator" for people who actually work at educational institutions, just because otherwise that term starts to lose meaning. 

 

 

I am an educator. Been one for several universities for well over 40 years. But working at a university does not necessarily make you a good educator. Connecting with and effectively teaching students makes you a good educator. Like I said before, I have used Rick's episodes in the classroom, and the students are engaged and learn!

[MathOfInsects]

As usual @Adan gets at the crux of it.

Lots of tools are available to educators; whatever it takes to get through to as many people, using as many modalities as possible, is fair game.

I use the LOL (Canadian humor show/troupe) clip of the sound engineer using real-time autotune all the time. But it would be inaccurate to claim that therefore the clip is educational or the actors are educators. I'm the educator in that context, and I'm using the clip educationally. But it's not educational. 

 

Rick Beato creates a lot of content with a lot of first-hand sources. I can see some of those videos being helpful depending on what you're teaching. For me, he is not keyed in enough to how certain topics are taught these days, to be useful for my purposes. He's essentially an "influencer," not an educator. But if he helps someone get some idea across to their students, more power to them!

[ElmerJFudd]

7 hours ago, CyberGene said:

What we really need is a reaction video to Beato’s video about the CNN article about Beato going mainstream. 
 

Now, jokes aside, I like the guy but it’s this recursive self-hype loop that’s really getting onto my nerves, and it’s not just Beato, seems like the norm for all these YouTube influencers nowadays. 

 

We have a saying in Bulgaria: because of our Elijah I started hating Saint Elijah. 

The youtube game, same as netflix, is views and subscribers..  Number of views, how long they viewed, which portion did they view.  Did you get them to subscribe and are they faithful?  Once those numbers fade, the show is dead and it's over. 

 

Rick shares (often) that a lot of his videos depend on copyrighted audio examples so he's not able to monetize the views on those episodes.  He has to sell a product - which in his case is a musicianship course he developed years ago.  I am not sure if he is also selling merch... he should. 

 

Point being, to keep his dream alive of meeting his musical heroes and archiving their musical stories he has to play the game - publish, promote, publish, promote, publish, promote.  The wheel in the sky keeps on turning, so to speak.  

 

Like all other media, we watch what we like and skip what we don't.  I don't watch every episode he makes, I am not subscribed.  I hear he has something that would interest me, and I go check it out.  Certainly some of Beato's content is more valuable to me than the promotional pounding we take for so many other products we don't want or need.  If only we could get back all time and mindshare that is blatantly taken from us by advertisements.  But alas, that is the world we've made. 

 

 

[Leroy C]

I've probably mentioned this before, but I took lessons from Rick 35 years ago.  He had a strong personality that sometimes rubbed people the wrong way, and he and I butted heads once or twice, but overall I really liked him and valued his instruction, especially for ear training and theory.  I haven't kept touch with him since way back when, but I'm glad to hear he's successful doing something he loves.

[stoken6]

4 hours ago, Anderton said:

I meet all the criteria needed to monetize my YouTube channel except one: I don't upload frequently enough. That's because I upload something only when I think it's worthwhile. I see it as having respect for my subscribers, and prioritizing quality over quantity. YouTube apparently sees trying to maintain a certain level of quality as a drawback.

Going a bit wider than Beato here, but I've recently seen a few videos of "Youtube Quitting" - Adam Neely being one. I can't help feeling: if you don't want to make videos, don't make videos. You don't need to make a video about how crap it is that making videos is crap. And I always mention one example: Martin Keary (head of Muse)'s Tantacrul channel updates rarely, but with detailed, long-form videos about interesting (to me) subjects. 

I would much prefer to watch the kind of output that that Keary and Craig @Anderton are creating, compared to late-period Tom Scott (content creator, not saxist) popping into some infrastructure project on a weekly basis to crank out content for The Algorithm to consume. (By the way, when Tom gets his teeth into a passion project, the results are remarkable - check out his 18 minutes on *the title sequence* to an outtakes show). 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[jeffincltnc]

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but he was my brother's bass teacher at the Ithaca College School of Music in the late 80's and they are still very good friends.  (not to mention that my bro is a monster bass player to say the least - clearly the more talented musician in the family - lol!)

[Stokely]

The Youtube meta reacting to reactions thing is bananas.

The whole "influencer" thing is bananas.   There was a Far Side way back when the proud parents of a Nintendo-playing kid were looking at want ads in the paper (as I say, way back) and seeing a bunch of high-paying jobs for Nintendo players.  Well, we got there years ago   My friend's kid quit school, was constantly in trouble at home (wouldn't leave the house), and ended up starting a Minecraft channel along with contracting to administer MC servers.  Fast forward a couple years, he's a multi-millionaire streamer and his entire family has quit their jobs to start a very lucrative merchandise business for him and other streamers.  What a world   

I enjoy a lot of things about Youtube but the clickbait suggestions are starting to really piss me off.  It's almost as if it knows what pisses me off and wants to shove it in my face...and perhaps it does, via cookies somehow tracking what I do on forums, I have no idea.

Unfortunately youtube is just as bad as facebook when it comes to spreading garbage.  I love it for things like learning tips about Logic Pro, or learning songs for that matter, but man all the conspiracy bullshit is just out of hand.  We have fucking Measles coming back because of antivax nutjobs and all that anti-science dung is spread via "social" media.

Speaking of forums, I learned quickly to NEVER post comments on youtube vids.   Mos Eisley may be a hive of scum and villainy, but youtube comments are the rundown trailer park at the Mos Eisley outskirts.   People (term used loosely) online SUCK without strong moderation.   Hell, they even manage to sometimes suck with it.

[ElmerJFudd]

5 minutes ago, stoken6 said:

Going a bit wider than Beato here, but I've recently seen a few videos of "Youtube Quitting" - Adam Neely being one. I can't help feeling: if you don't want to make videos, don't make videos. You don't need to make a video about how crap it is that making videos is crap. And I always mention one example: Martin Keary (head of Muse)'s Tantacrul channel updates rarely, but with detailed, long-form videos about interesting (to me) subjects. 

I would much prefer to watch the kind of output that that Keary and Craig @Anderton are creating, compared to late-period Tom Scott (content creator, not saxist) popping into some infrastructure project on a weekly basis to crank out content for The Algorithm to consume. (By the way, when Tom gets his teeth into a passion project, the results are remarkable - check out his 18 minutes on *the title sequence* to an outtakes show). 

 

Cheers, Mike.

There’s always a rise and fall, right?  The Bronze Age, the Roman Empire, Napoleon, the pet rock, the Fab Four, Happy Days, cabbage patch kids, MySpace… 

 

My guess is, with the CNN interview, we’re approaching peak Beato.   He’s well aware that he’s already beaten the odds with how long others have kept the momentum going.
 

We may be approaching peak YouTube, for that matter. Younger viewers are trending toward TikTok and the short form video.  21-34 seconds and they’ve move on.  Personally I find that format useless for anything but a blooper or gag.  But what do I know, no one listens to Gen X anyway.  😉

[sunspot]

Beato has grown on me, kinda like Geddy Lee.  Nails on a chalkboard at first, now love the guy...

[TommyRude]

2 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:

We know that.  It’s the world’s second greatest guitar solo.   The world’s greatest guitar solo is Grant Geissman’s on Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good.   I’m surprised you didn’t know that.  

surprisingly, you’re both wrong.  The greatest solo is Jimi Hendrix’s opening for Rainy Day Dream Away.

[TommyRude]

I learn a lot and get inspired by folks on this forum.  I guess that makes a lot of you educators?

[jazzpiano88]

51 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Younger viewers are trending toward TikTok and the short form video.  21-34 seconds and they’ve move on.

 

God forbid they ever need to read a book. 

[ElmerJFudd]

5 minutes ago, jazzpiano88 said:

 

God forbid they ever need to read a book. 

That’s for sure.  The video format has already surpassed books (digital or hard copy) and actually speaking with another person as the way in which people get their information. Put a voice on chatGPT and there's no longer any reason to take a class or lesson. 😜

[HammondDave]

31 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

That’s for sure.  The video format has already surpassed books (digital or hard copy) and actually speaking with another person as the way in which people get their information. Put a voice on chatGPT and there's no longer any reason to take a class or lesson. 😜

That’s correct. AI is changing everything. Including how we make music. 

[MathOfInsects]

1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:

We may be approaching peak YouTube, for that matter. Younger viewers are trending toward TikTok and the short form video.  21-34 seconds and they’ve move on.  Personally I find that format useless for anything but a blooper or gag.  But what do I know, no one listens to Gen X anyway.  😉

I think we're already in the post-youtube era. My kids use it disproportionately for the "commercial" side--artists' lyric vids or official videos. Sometimes they go down a rabbit hole looking for instructions or transcriptions, but they don't have any real relationship with it as an influencer- or America's Funniest Home Videos-type site.

I don't think we're too long away from a more overt subscription model that kills its original version forever. 

I don't know what's next, though. Tik-Tok is already in the mainstream and shifting up to Millennials instead of Gen Z. Neither of my kids have it or care about it. I suspect Twitch will morph into the next Whatever Is Next.

[Leroy C]

My own utterly unscientific, anecdotal perspective as a college prof is that younger folks are increasingly less interested in social media.  My hope is that the whole thing will settle down to just another minimal thing that people interact with in moderate and healthy ways.

[nursers]

The Beato video I posted above only mentions the CNN article a couple of times, it's more of an exploration of his approach and passion for what he does. I find the constant call out for money intrusive, as do I the navel-gazing aspects but also can understand that when he's flying places and bringing a small crew, his costs will be mounting - and the majority of his vids are de-monetised. 

 

 

[jazzpiano88]

2 hours ago, nursers said:

The Beato video I posted above only mentions the CNN article a couple of times, it's more of an exploration of his approach and passion for what he does. I find the constant call out for money intrusive, as do I the navel-gazing aspects but also can understand that when he's flying places and bringing a small crew, his costs will be mounting - and the majority of his vids are de-monetised.

 

Yeah, case in point for his 3 day interview trip:   Phoenix:  George Benson  Santa Cruz: Michael McDonald.   LA: Stewart Copeland.  

Pretty expensive trip.   I'm guessing he did SJC and hired an Uber over to SC.

 

But the new-way-of-doing-things-educators who've probably adopted their students' 25 second attention span would never have made it that far into his video. 

[Old No7]

5 hours ago, HammondDave said:

I am an educator. Been one for several universities for well over 40 years. But working at a university does not necessarily make you a good educator. Connecting with and effectively teaching students makes you a good educator. Like I said before, I have used Rick's episodes in the classroom, and the students are engaged and learn!

 

Very well said!  As Mark Twain also said:  "Don't let college get in the way of your education!"

 

It's not an "either, or" situation; I think Rick's videos and analysis could actually encourage students to seek more music education.  Having options, and creating excitement in and an interest in music and music education is a GREAT thing!

 

And if he makes a few bucks doing it -- well, good for him!

 

Old No7

[ElmerJFudd]

1 hour ago, Leroy C said:

My own utterly unscientific, anecdotal perspective as a college prof is that younger folks are increasingly less interested in social media.  My hope is that the whole thing will settle down to just another minimal thing that people interact with in moderate and healthy ways.

Oh, I am not seeing that at all.  Unless interest in social media fades with being able to drive and getting out of their parents house.   But kids today stay home longer than ever before and old habits die hard.  Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve been an undergrad and here I am spending my free time with you social butterflies.  😉

[Leroy C]

4 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Oh, I am not seeing that at all.  Unless interest in social media fades with being able to drive and getting out of their parents house.   But kids today stay home longer than ever before and old habits die hard.  Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve been an undergrad and here I am spending my free time with you social butterflies.  😉

I think these darn kids today just need to lean into sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll like I did at their age. 

 

[MathOfInsects]

6 minutes ago, Leroy C said:

I think these darn kids today just need to lean into sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll like I did at their age. 

 

I mean, it's a joke, but also not. As GenX, I am confused by how mature and self-regulating my kids' generation is. They don't even care about getting their driver's licenses, and not because they can't be bothered, but because "who wants to be driving on the same road as a bunch of other teenagers?"

 

I'm like..."but what will you get drunk in and drive around knocking over mailboxes and breaking porchlights with a baseball bat???"

[CyberGene]

https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/

[Stokely]

Based on what I see from my late teen and early 20s kids--and their friends--they most definitely are into social media.  Just not old fossil social media like Facebook and forums    Basically--if their grandma might be using it, they wouldn't be.

I get to here some real "interesting" takes on politics and various conspiracy nonsense from their friends, gathered of course from some "influencer" somewhere.  Can't be listening to scientists and sourced media, because they are "all in on it".   Some of the people they look up to are great people like Andrew Tate.   And of course they looooove the ponzi scheme that is crypto...I'll be dead so won't have to see it if they lose their inheritance to that crap...

[nursers]

2 hours ago, Stokely said:

Based on what I see from my late teen and early 20s kids--and their friends--they most definitely are into social media.  Just not old fossil social media like Facebook and forums    Basically--if their grandma might be using it, they wouldn't be.

I get to here some real "interesting" takes on politics and various conspiracy nonsense from their friends, gathered of course from some "influencer" somewhere.  Can't be listening to scientists and sourced media, because they are "all in on it".   Some of the people they look up to are great people like Andrew Tate.   And of course they looooove the ponzi scheme that is crypto...I'll be dead so won't have to see it if they lose their inheritance to that crap...

 

Just on crypto - some are most definitely ponzi schemes, no doubt about it. Others definitely aren't - for example I know one cryptocurrency provided by a government aligned with carbon trading. Totally legit and hopefully even driving some innovation. Trouble is all the other dodgy operators...

[tapes]

17 hours ago, Adan said:

Beato is a good interviewer

 

Is he, though? He's OK. Don't get me wrong, I do like him - and I like listening to all the big name studio / pop / jazz people he's managed to get - but for the most part it's the guest doing the talking (as it should be, of course). Rarely does he have anything worthwhile to add, nor are his questions that hard hitting. The Jarrett interview is a good example - yes, it was poignant and all that, but it was due to Keith, not Beato per se. His emotional reaction to seeing himself in his prime was surprising and moving, but he was also a guy who basically considered himself a god among mortals in his heyday.

 

That said, it is a massive achievement what he's (Beato) done to become this popular, in his 60's no less. He gets very deep sometimes, and the guests (Mehldau is a recent example) go too - yet he gets a huge audience. I bet his random viewer "tuning in" didn't even know who Keith Jarrett was at first.

 

I think my favorite thing is when the guest realizes that "hey, we're here to seriously talk about music and not personal celebrity stuff". Like in the Sting interview. A man of a million "celebrity type" interviews, he was visibly reserved and nervous at first, but completely relaxes when he realizes they get to start talking about songwriting, song structures etc.