Episode 287
The Journey of Drumeo: Building an Educational Empire
This podcast episode delves into the profound impact of accessible music education through digital platforms, particularly as articulated by the founder of Drumeo and Musora. The speaker reflects on their personal journey, emphasizing an enduring passion for music that transcends professional boundaries. They recount the evolution of their educational initiatives, from early online videos to the establishment of comprehensive membership platforms akin to Netflix for music lessons. The conversation underscores the significance of diverse teaching perspectives in cultivating a rich musical experience, positing that music serves as a universal language that fosters connection across cultures. As we explore these themes, we are reminded of the transformative power of technology in democratizing access to music education and inspiring a new generation of musicians.
Takeaways:
- The inception of Drumeo marked a significant transition in music education, providing unprecedented access to resources.
- The speaker emphasizes the universal nature of music, asserting its essential role in human experience.
- Through innovative online platforms, traditional barriers to music education have been effectively dismantled for aspiring musicians.
- The discussion highlights the importance of diverse instructional perspectives in fostering comprehensive musical understanding.
- The evolution from physical media to digital resources has transformed how musicians learn and connect globally.
- The speaker reflects on their accidental journey into entrepreneurship, driven by passion rather than premeditated ambition.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Drumeo
- Musora
- Singio
- Riverside
- Netflix
- Snarky Puppy
- Earth, Wind and Fire
- Bette Midler
- Thomas Pridgen
- Larnell Lewis
Transcript
I'm more.
Speaker A:I guess I'm not known as much for drumming as much as I am known for, like, building Drumeo and Musora and piano and Singio and our education platforms.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I still play.
Speaker A:Like, my drum sits right behind me.
Speaker A:I play pretty much every day.
Speaker A:For me, it's been like I would play drums whether I was in the industry or not.
Speaker A:It was one of these things that I'm just addict.
Speaker A:I'm just addicted to music.
Speaker A:And I think it's.
Speaker A:It's like a universal language and it's one of these things where I think everyone should have music in their life in some way or another.
Speaker A: But in: Speaker A:We started putting up videos online.
Speaker A:And the way I always frame that with people is like, before Facebook, before, like, what are we on here?
Speaker A:We're on some Riverside software that's doing this incredible mixing of what we're doing.
Speaker A:When we started putting videos online, it was like there was.
Speaker A:There's nothing.
Speaker A:So it was really, really hard, actually.
Speaker A:But so from there we went to DVDs.
Speaker A:From DVDs, we launched like membership platforms.
Speaker A:So kind of like Netflix for drum lessons.
Speaker A:Netflix for piano.
Speaker A:Gotcha.
Speaker A:And yeah, and now we're, you know, we're hosting great artists from all over the world when.
Speaker A:When travel allows.
Speaker A:And yeah, I've built a team.
Speaker A:We have around 80 to 90 people working at Musora now.
Speaker A:And yeah, I always tell people I'm kind of like an accidental CEO.
Speaker A:Like, I never really planned to build this, but it just keeps growing and I just keep working my butt off and good things happen.
Speaker C:At what point did you realize drumeo was kind of taking off?
Speaker C:At what year did you think that you really had to take this seriously and kind of fall into that CEO role?
Speaker A:Yeah, I guess we had a drummer out named Larnell Lewis.
Speaker A:Larnell plays with Snarky.
Speaker A:Like, before he started playing with Snarky Puppy.
Speaker A:And I remember he.
Speaker A:When he came to the studio, our studio was in this, like, in the farmland.
Speaker A:Farmland area.
Speaker A:Sorry, my voice is going bad, but it was like out in the farmland.
Speaker A:And Larnell's like six foot six.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Huge dude.
Speaker A:I remember when he gets out of the back of the car, just kind of like unfolds himself, and then he comes in and he does the session and it just goes like, there's just this magic in the studio with him there.
Speaker A:And I remember sitting there just being like, this is really amazing content and inspirational content for drummers.
Speaker A:And I remember thinking, for us, it's all about people watching something they do, like a digital interaction, but they have to make a physical action themselves.
Speaker A:So I want to keep people on the instrument and so I love content that I watch and I have to run to play drums right afterwards.
Speaker A:And that video with Larnell, we had Sonny Emery out.
Speaker A:He played with Earth, Wind and Fire and Bette Midler, we had a guy named Thomas Pridgen out, Michael Shack.
Speaker A:All these early, early drumeo guests really helped to kind of set the stage and the tone for, for now what we do, you know, in other instruments as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker D:What you're, you're kind of understating the importance of what you did, I would say, because when I was a young drummer, you know, in the, in the late 90s, when I was like between the ages of, of 10 and 9 and 12, I lived like everybody else did.
Speaker D:We didn't have.
Speaker D:Drums weren't really something that kids were allowed to play too much.
Speaker D:Not because my parents didn't want me to, but because it was loud and we lived in a small apartment.
Speaker D:And in those days to learn there were no teachers in our town.
Speaker D:And I had to go on a bus sometimes two buses back when kids were allowed to ride buses at those ages alone.
Speaker D:And, and I had to walk up through our downtown in quotations and then walk through a mall and then cross a bridge over a major road and then go into the musical center.
Speaker D:I just went back and did a bit of a pilgrimage with the same walk and then I would get 30 to 45 minutes with the teacher.
Speaker D:Then I had to do all of that travel back and then I couldn't practice.
Speaker D:I had to just sit there and think about it.
Speaker D:And then if I wanted to go practice, my parents paid for, for me to just use the room and I would again have to take that ride and go there.
Speaker D:And if you wanted to learn something new, not just from your teacher, you would just have to sort of hope to meet another drummer and be like, wait, what are paradiddle diddles?
Speaker D:Please tell me.
Speaker D:Yeah, and it just watching kids online now playing like 10 year olds, 12 year olds that just tear any of us a new one.
Speaker D:It's, it's because of you, right?
Speaker D:It's because of what you did and other contemporaries did for other instruments where you said that basically knowledge is for everyone.
Speaker D:And now that we have the Internet, we can just share it and you can just see an explosion of musicianship that was just not possible before, especially at earlier ages.
Speaker D:So I Want to personally thank you for that and just.
Speaker A:Oh, thanks, man.
Speaker D:Explain to the rest of the listeners who are not musicians how.
Speaker D:How important that is and how accessible you make music education to the whole world.
Speaker C:For sure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I.
Speaker A:At the time, I.
Speaker A:I never was thinking of it like that.
Speaker A:I always had super supportive parents.
Speaker A:And, you know, my parents, they.
Speaker A:They got.
Speaker A:I had great private teachers, like, probably 10 different private teachers in the first wild.
Speaker A:So I'm not against private instruction.
Speaker A:I wasn't like, let's take down private teachers.
Speaker A:I want to crush them.
Speaker A:It was never like that.
Speaker A:It was more like, I'm sick of paying $50 for a freaking DVD of a drummer shredding.
Speaker A:You know, I want to.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Try and get this information out there using modern technology.
Speaker A:Like you.
Speaker A:When YouTube came out.
Speaker A: Like, we were on YouTube in: Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, we started our first channels there, you know, so I was on Facebook, I think, earlier than that or at that time.
Speaker A:So for me, it's just like using technology to connect with students and help them to get inspired to stay on the instrument.
Speaker A:That's what it is.
Speaker A:But that's really cool to hear that, Matt.
Speaker D:I'm sure you've heard stories like that all over the world.
Speaker A:Oh, for sure.
Speaker A:Especially a lot of people don't have access to a private teacher.
Speaker A:There's none in the area.
Speaker A:Or they don't have.
Speaker A:They don't have enough money because it's like 50 bucks an hour or whatever.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So did you guys.
Speaker A:Did you guys take private lessons?
Speaker D:All I did.
Speaker D:I think we all.
Speaker C:I didn't take for drum.
Speaker C:I didn't.
Speaker C:Well, I took private lessons, but not for drums.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker D:I.
Speaker D:I remember when.
Speaker D:When Sarah.
Speaker C:Th was.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I can't hear everybody at the same time.
Speaker A:My bad.
Speaker A:Piano.
Speaker A:My bad.
Speaker A:My bad.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:The great thing is we always hear these delays, but then when you.
Speaker B:When we.
Speaker B:When we listen back, it's fine.
Speaker B:So we spend more time worrying about the weirdness that happens.
Speaker B:And, you know, so now I just explained a little bit of our.
Speaker B:How it goes.
Speaker B:We should have a live audience to hear the delays with us at some point, too.
Speaker A:That'd be cool.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Just to attest that we're not just being weird.
Speaker D:I.
Speaker D:One thing about teachers is that we had Sarah Thauer here, and she was telling us.
Speaker D:I'm sure she told you the same thing.
Speaker D:That one teacher is just not enough.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker D:Her opinion is.
Speaker D:And I kind of have to agree with her.
Speaker D:She's like, I can't just do a Teacher because there's so much to know.
Speaker D:And if you stick to one teacher, you start kind of playing too much like them or almost like a parody of them in a way.
Speaker D:So again, you bringing together, you know, the sum of the world's greatest teachers into one place really changes the musicians that are out in the world right now.
Speaker C:Great point.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's perspective.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so we are.
Speaker A:One of our taglines used to be like an army of drum instructors, you know, to give you perspective on everything you ever want to know about drumming.
Speaker A:And I think.
Speaker A:But that's more of a lesson like just for life in general, you know, when you're, when you're too narrowed in on one perspective fitting whatever confirmation bias you have.
Speaker A:Like we're seeing that now in this huge division in the entire world with what's going on.
Speaker A:And it's because people just don't have empathy for others, aren't willing to research others perspective and walk in their shoes a little bit.
Speaker A:And so that's what I think different teachers allow us to do.
Speaker A:It's like music doesn't discriminate at all.
Speaker A:Music is all cultures, all different types of people can experience music.
Speaker A:So I think it's really important that we as musicians are accepting of all different types of people in all cultures and study all of those because I think then we're going to get the best music as a result of that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.
Speaker B:It's interesting because you mentioned you wear a couple different hats.
Speaker B:The musician, the teacher, the businessman, which kind of you said you stumbled upon.
Speaker B:I mean, it kind of just happened in a major way actually.
Speaker B:But how did you start to transition from I guess, drummer to teacher, but more so teacher to businessman and kind of this explosion of online resources that you have built.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, my first business was in grade six or seven.
Speaker A:I used to play hockey and so I would change rollerblade wheels for my friends and I would turn them and put on.
Speaker A:So I was like charging for that.
Speaker A:And then, and then I sold hockey cards online.
Speaker A:There's these old news groups, there's the Yahoo news groups.
Speaker A:And so I was flipping hockey cards online.
Speaker A:And my dad, my dad had a construction company.
Speaker A:My dad and my grandpa were like huge inspirations for me from, from a business perspective.
Speaker A:You know, they're entrepreneurs and so they taught me a lot about what it means to do that, especially from an operational point of view.
Speaker A:You know, I would say my grandpa's name was Abe and I have this thing called B Abe and it's like, he would put on a suit, he'd be doing his sales pitches, and then he'd put on his coveralls and go unload a truck, and then he would take off the suit, go back into the boardroom.
Speaker A:And I love that, you know, the idea of, like, getting your hands dirty but then also understanding the entire business.
Speaker A:And so, yeah, so I started selling hockey cards.
Speaker A: Then I learned eBay,: Speaker A:Flipped vehicles for a while.
Speaker B:Like, wow.
Speaker A:Like, not flipped them, flip them, but actually, like, block them for more.
