The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 46 - 'Keyboards, Synths, NFT's and the Metaverse' Arthr
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Chris chats to the truly modern artist Arthr about Keyboards, synths, NFT's and the met-verse. You can read the accompanying article at https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk/
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstorm Music Education Hub. Now, this episode has an accompanying article in Music Teacher magazine. If you head over to musicteachermagazine.co.uk, you'll be able to find it there. In today's conversation, I chat with the truly contemporary musician and artist Arthur, a musician who has a love for synthesizers and keyboards and is really at the cutting edge. He's as comfortable with performing in concert halls as he is in the metaverse or creating NFTs. He's a truly modern musician, and I think to understand even just what he does is fantastically valuable for any music educator. The aim of the conversation and the accompanying article was to look at keyboards in the classroom, really, and how we can refresh that and make it relevant, current, and exciting. I hope you enjoy listening. Arthur, thanks so much for joining me this morning. Can we start off with a bit of a who you are, what you do?
SPEAKER_00Hi Chris, cheers for having me on. My name is Arthur. I'm an audio visual artist from the UK. I perform live and also do a lot of visual art mixed with audio. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_01So the sort of inspiration for getting you on to this podcast for the conversation was to focus in on keyboards or piano or synths things with keys and to talk about that. But there's so many elements to what you do. I'm sure this conversation is gonna go off into all manner of different directions. But to sort of start off in the keyboard area with a little nod to some of the amazing stuff that you do. Let's talk about those synth NFTs that you did. Um I think it's worth having a very brief explanation of what an NFT is for those of us who don't understand what it is. And then if you could just briefly describe what those synth NFTs were as well, that'd be amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure, man. Yeah, so um the NFTs uh acronym for non-fungible tokens, uh basically a new way to consume digital content, whether visual, audio, code. Um the idea is that the the token is sort of what they call minted, created, and that's attributed to the piece of art. So the ownership of the piece is basically in that token. Uh, and there's a finite amount of them, or uh just one of them. Um but yeah, I but I built a series um around synths last year called A Journey Through Synths, and essentially it was uh they were audio visual pieces, uh single editions, so there's only one of them. Um but the idea was that I'd create model these synths from years gone by or more modern synths, um, and then I'd craft a piece of audio uh created on the original unit that would go with that visual piece. Um and they all loop, so uh when you listen to them, they infinitely loop, so you can watch them forever basically. Um most of my work's based around looping content as well. Um but yeah, so the uh all these pieces are are crafted from the original unit, both visually and and sonically.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful explanation. Okay, so for anyone who doesn't know who you are, you well, you did fantastically explain it as an audiovisual artist, but you make beautiful things to look at matched with beautiful music, um, and so often it's electronic based. And these particular NFTs that you're talking about um are based on individual synthesizers, right? So there was one for what one what synthesis.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, so we've um I started off because I'm s affiliated with Roland. I I created a few of the Roland iconic machines uh initially. So um the 808, the 909 drum machines, uh the SH101, the 303, um all machines that I've used in the past and they've been like integral to my productions as well. Um so it was important that the the first couple of machines were like important to like I've I've used them like in the past, almost like a nostalgic sort of journey.
SPEAKER_01Wow, okay. So I think for anyone listening to this to just I mean, even you talking about them as machines and the nostalgic journey, we're building a picture of synthesizers as each one having an individual character, right? And they obviously have that to you, but is that in like wider music? Do you know what I mean? Have we heard a particular synth over and over again that or a particular sound we're just maybe not aware of?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, like all of those machines have their own like character, they're all like individual, because a lot of them that were built sort of in the 70s, eighties, they're quite the circuitry was probably a little bit dodgy, or they're they're not sort of factory made by the hundreds of thousands, so you get these little idiosyncrasies between each machine that makes them sort of their own thing. Um but yeah, in terms of like some of those machines, they they define an era almost as well. Like some of the drum machines you hear on tracks from that era, like that that machine defines the sound of that era almost. Um, like the 303 with like Acid House and like just some of the drum, like the Lin drum, that's massive for some of like the 80s tracks, and so they will define a sort of period of time and sonically as well.
SPEAKER_01And that 303, right, that's got um a little sort of compressed keyboard on it, right, hasn't it? It's got quite a unique um interface on it, hasn't it? Um yeah, yeah, what what's that about? Is it still a keyboard essentially?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's a it's a sequencer. So um when you're punching in the the notes, you've got a like a tiny little keyboard just to sort of visually see what what note you're tapping in or what pattern. Um but yeah, it's like a tiny little keyboard.
SPEAKER_01So even even though it's it's a machine that creates drum sounds, it's still based around a traditional keyboard. We're not calling QRT3.
SPEAKER_00A 303 is a synth. So it's like uh Ah, okay. Yeah, all like the nine the drum machines have buttons, but they're not key-based, I don't think. They're just like for the sequencer uh side of it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, cool. Alright, so they're all they are all still synth-based, there's no drum element. Well, there might be a drum element, but that's not connected to the keyboard. But we see that we see the keyboard change, right? So from large keys in the traditional like piano sense to these tiny little compressed sort of touch pads almost like Yeah, yeah, and I I guess a lot of the synths still have like a keyboard on them, like a one or two octave uh key set, like the SH101 does.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, a lot of like the synth modules are just buttons, but some of those buttons are like a a little keyboard almost.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. Okay, amazing. I think I think just the fact that you're making NFTs based on individual machines and synthesizers is uh a beautiful demonstration of how important synths are to become they're cultural artifacts, aren't they? Which you, sir, are profiting of. But that's an amazing demonstration of how important it is, right? How how part of the because who buys these wonderful, beautiful creations that you m that you make? I mean, obviously you can't maybe you don't even know who buys it, but who who's sort of interested in that stuff, do you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, some of them are anonymous, but um a couple of the collectors uh um people in in the music industry, like the one at the uh guy who collected the 909 uh produced Wright said Fred's first album, um, worked with like Alicia Keys and people like that. Um To someone who would have a connection the 808 that I made, but someone had bought it before him. Um so he bought the Nextbox best thing, the 909. Um but yeah, he he loved them from a well he's obviously he used them in the past, so he had like a connection to them, so bringing them to life in this new sort of medium was he really liked. Um but yeah, it's just just it's just been a fun series really to make and um obviously all my work has to have an audiovisual connection, so like this was like a a great way to like bring all that together in like a real relevant sort of project, really.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and then in in the wider music that you you produce, like moving away from these NFTs based on individual synths. What are what do you tend to gravitate towards using? Are you interfacing with the the sound on a traditional keyboard? Are you interacting with it on you know a sort of uh like launch pad stuff style stuff? Keyboard, clicking with a mouse. How are you how are you interfacing to make the music that you do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I still I still do a bit of both. Um I've got a few keyboards that I use, but it mainly comes down to time and being bothered to get them out, really. But um I use a lot of virtual instruments now mapped to a MIDI keyboard. Um all the parameters of the synth I map out on I've got a MIDI keyboard that's got like a ton of different knobs on it. Um so all the like cutoffs and filters and um all the parameters of the synth I mapped to that MIDI keyboard. So you kind of got the best of both. You've got the time efficiency of just being able to drop a plug-in on a channel um without having to wire everything up and put things through preamps and all that sort of stuff. It's just there in your sort of workstation, ready to go. Um so yeah, I'd I do a bit of both. If I've got more time to experiment, I'll probably get the keyboards out, but I'd say 90% of the time I I go to the virtual instruments because they're so good and so accurate to well they've got their little idiosyncrasies built in as well, but they're they're so accurate to the original machines that like why not?
SPEAKER_01So in in a way, like historically, for synths uh we're I I feel strange every time I say the word or phrase or the sound synths. It's gotta it's kind of synthesizers than that one. It's too much siblance, yeah. Um it's yeah, so historically, right, we've got kind of the journey of of the synth. Uh we've gone from keyboard traditional, traditional piano or even you know earlier harps, accord or whatever keyboard instruments, and then evolving into something that's electronic, and then different elements of whether it's triggering individual samples or resampled samples, blah blah blah, and then then it grows into a synthesizer where we can manipulate things, and then now we're at a point where we're not the the tendency for an artist like yourself is to not use a massive machine that costs loads and takes up loads of space, it's to use a a small MIDI keyboard and then a computer which is running the virtual element to it. Is that fair to sort of is that uh just a nice estimation of what's going on right now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say so, yeah. I mean a lot of the a lot of the guys that I know, um guys and gals that produce um they all sort of that would be their default position now, I think, to go for a VST uh unless they're working on something a bit more experimental where they've got sheds of time to plug stuff in and patch stuff into things and um experiment with external effects and that sort of thing. Like there's so many companies that make like that have emulated their synth within I mean look at if you look at all like the UAD plugins, they like emulate all the circuitry from the original unit, so you're like pretty much getting like the original unit, but with all the convenience of digital, so yeah, I th I'd I'd say like most people default to the plugins.
SPEAKER_01I mean I it's just fascinating for from a music ed perspective, um teachers listen or educators listening to this and thinking about introducing synthesizers into the classroom, and that uh preconception of what a synth is it's kind of it's a muddy line, right? It doesn't have to be something that's physical, it could just be having access to yeah, computers and MIDI, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's that it's that simplistic. Cool. So Arthur, what's your uh what's your general journey from um introduction to music to arriving at someone who plays with synth? Do you have like some kind of real solid classical keyboard training that's enabled you to play you know wonderful synth lines or uh did you just fall into it? What's what's your perspective on it?
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah, my my early years um were all sort of classical focus, so um I went through the whole the grade system um not necessarily out of choice, um just because that's what you do as a child, you sort of get told to do these things.
SPEAKER_01Um That is the problem of being a kid, isn't it? Is just being told to do something. That's the general challenge all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and as a little boy or teenage boy, the the last thing you want to do is comply to your teachers and your parents, isn't it? Like even if it's a great thing that they're trying to get you to do, it's like, well, I'm not gonna do it because you're telling me to do it. Yeah, as a 34-year-old, I'm still the same. But um, but yeah, I mean, I yeah, I started out um had traditional piano lessons. Um my teacher basically owned a hotel and just sort of like gave me a little introduction at the start of the lesson and then abandoned me for an hour and came back and was like, What have you learned?
SPEAKER_01Um fantastic teaching technique. I mean we've covered we've covered that approach a lot in this podcast. It's called the go and do it yourself approach.
SPEAKER_00Um looking through it with an adult lens now. She was obviously just trying to make a bit of money on the side and run a hotel as well. So um probably not it's a weird mix. Weird. So that that uh that basically ended in my mum dropping me off for piano lessons and I'd go for a walk around the block. Um my mum would pick me up afterwards. Obviously, the teacher rang my mum to say that uh I hadn't turned up. Um so I'd avoid the lessons basically because it was just in my eight-year-old mind it was a waste of time, uh, which was probably quite accurate. But um But yeah, I I went from there on to um I got a music scholarship to a school, and basically the the commitment to keep that scholarship running was to attend three music lessons of different instruments a week. I think it was I think I chose well continued with piano, saxophone and drums, but same situation there, it was sort of prescribed and I was sort of under a schedule and forced to do it, which again I stuck stopped turning up to those. My parents were getting phone calls home saying threatened being th uh the scholarship being threatened to be taken away and stuff, so um avoided it there as well. Uh and then going into my teens, I sort of started discovering I got my first pair of turntables and started DJing quite a lot in my room, buying records like with every bit of money that I earned. Um, and I started discovering sort of the more experimental side of music and the more enjoyable side of music that I discovered myself rather than being told this is what music is. Um and then the big the big uh turning point was probably I saw a performance by Radiohead in Paris where Tommy's using the chaos pad. Um and that summer I got a job at the Beach Kiosk on Weymouth Beach and saved up for the same chaos pad, and then everything sort of I th that was probably the turning point for me where I like I started making stuff and enjoying the process of putting stuff together. So that's that's my early history, I think, of of where the position I'm in today.
SPEAKER_01And why why do you think that's such a a turning point? Because you've obvious you know, what what what is it? Is it just because the chaos pad is just uh it's just like the sound that he's making?
SPEAKER_00I think it was more just well the sound that he was making it was so like there's nothing I'd ever heard before, and it was so different from learner learn these arpeggios, learn these scales like exist within these constraints. It was like this guy's just recording his voice into this thing and going crazy with it, and it just looks like a lot of fun, and it's something that wasn't really fed to me in my early years of musical education. It was like I like can't remember any sort of like allusion to that. It was just here's a piano here's a piece of music, get on with it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's really it's really interesting, isn't it? Because like music education is so often uh I in fact so often it is uh I think I'm playing down how constantly and consistently music is talked about in seeing or hearing sound in a scalic and harmonic and notes way. I don't quite know the best way to explain this, so please tell me if it doesn't make any sense. It could be very helpful because if it doesn't make sense to you, no one else listening is gonna understand what I'm talking about. But actually, for most I reckon, most modern musicians who are doing anything remotely electronic, remotely not just acoustic instruments, acoustic piano, acoustic guitar, blah blah blah that actually we're thinking of sound in these uh boundless ways, thinking of sound like you you're describing, hearing Tom York, and a chaos pad for anyone who doesn't know is like the track pad on your on your laptop, and it's like he he takes his voice, doesn't he? And then he uses moving his finger around, he uh adjusts parameters to make otherworldly sounds and textures with an organic sound. And it's so often, yeah, we're when we're talk taught music or teaching music, it's very much about sound worlds that are presented to us already. If you press the C key, it will create this sound. Whereas actually, if we press the C key and then you can do this and and it's just there's a discovery element to it. It's like there's no there's no limit to it. Yeah, exactly. Did that make any sense? Or did that just sound like the the ramblings of a man? That makes sense, yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01Well you have to respond to it to to assure me that it did. If you start talking about something completely random now, I'll I'll know that it didn't at all.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, no, no, I no, totally like that you can still exist within like notation and things, but adding that other sort of explorative factor where you you play a middle C and all this extra other stuff happens with all these extra buttons, I think that opens people up, doesn't it? And it it brings you outside of the traditional way of reading and interpreting music, and it adds that next level to it, doesn't it? And yeah, I think if I had that exposure um as a kid, it things would be a lot different, but um but then again I've well you would have actually gone to the lesson.
SPEAKER_01Maybe yeah but then but then your your story is like it's so familiar. Um and it's it's that thing of most other musicians that I know who are creating really cool stuff, so often they've had a really rubbish music education and they rejected it until they found it their own. Which does always reach the conclusion that maybe the worse the music education, the worse the teaching that we can deliver, the better the result. Which might be slightly confusing.
SPEAKER_00Maybe that was a tent their intent from the beginning, yeah. Maybe if if we deliver the worst possible service right now, he's gonna grow up to be something just above average.
SPEAKER_01Just above average. Game-changing audiovisual artist describes himself as just above average. That's great. I love it. And it is it is so fascinating though. Uh just there's there's this whole other world of sound that seems to get, particularly in music education, gets left behind in those conversations. Because maybe because when I'm talking about it, it doesn't I found it so hard to articulate, and I'm very conscious that maybe I didn't anyway. But actually, it's really easy to articulate talking about a C major scale, or I just that relating it to keyboards, that visual thing of these are the notes, the the white notes, and these are the black notes. I think that relating it to the keyboard again, that sort of really linear way of seeing harmony becomes quite C major obsessed as well, doesn't it? Do you do you think you've carried any of the more theoretical keyboard-centric stuff, i.e. learning a C major scale, and therefore thinking that because I I come across this thing so often that um students actually quite a lot older sometimes believing that sharps and flats are something directly weird or related, always related to minor keys or something like that, because they see C major as as everything, you know, it's the white notes. If you touch those black notes, that's that's when stuff gets weird. You know, they don't do you think that's stuck with you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think I've retained like some of my like sort of more classical traditional learning, and it it comes in handy sometimes when I get a bit stuck with a pro a chord progression or or something doesn't make, I get stuck on something. I can always sort of like lean on that to to sort of provide a resolution or or resolve for something. But yeah, I would say 90% of my like practice is experimental or just going with what I think sounds better. Um so yeah, I it's a very small part of my process, but it's definitely there if I need it. Um and I think yeah, I think excluding that traditional sort of learning isn't a good thing either, but being able to draw on it is is good. Um I've had a couple of friends that uh like and my friend John who produces for like Boy George and Mark Helmand, like he's not from a traditional music background at all, but he's recently started having piano lessons to help him with when he like the process that I use when I get stuck, like he's sort of gone back to that in his mid-50s to to learn like music theory just to sort of aid him, like so he's got an extra tool in his toolbox to sort of deploy if he needs if he needs it. So I think there is a value in that, but I wouldn't say it's the that's not the be-all and end all, do you know what I mean? Like when you're younger, that's what you're taught, isn't it? This is music.
SPEAKER_01And obvious obviously, for your mate John, right? Um again, I I like that audiovisual artist, game changing who's above average, and your mate John, who also happens to be a famous producer, but let's let's um like play everything down, I like that. Um obviously it bade no bearing on his ability to um be a successful artist because he's learning it afterwards. So whilst it's obviously a valuable tool, it's it obviously isn't well, I say obviously maybe it's not actually needed as a foundation, it's just a thing that's good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, it's not uh it's not mandatory, but it it aids if you need it, sort of thing. Like just like anything, really, like you buy another plugin to sort of help you make this specific sound, it's another thing, isn't it? It's another tool that you can draw on if you if you need it, so like information is power. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the skills are good, skills are good.
SPEAKER_01But um yeah. We've d we've delved into keyboards pretty heavily, which I like. Uh one uh huge element of what you do, in fact, arguably 50% uh certainly um in what you describe anyway, is visual stuff. Um you create these beautiful animations that match up to your music. Uh and it seems to me, uh again, talking about how we've got this conventional sound world that we talk about in scales and chords, and then we've got this other sound world that's electronic and boundless and creative. It seems to me that the visual element as well blending with the music is a is another sort of boundless entity, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so why well to tell us how you sort of ended up in meshing that together all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'm outside of music, I I'm a freelance motion designer um and do a lot of audiovisual work in that area. Um obviously I've made music for years and years and years, so like fusing them together has been like essential really for my Arthur project. Um but yeah, I think whether it's like abstract movement or very intentional like visual to audio, like that connection, I think it's really important to bring that to life whenever you can, really. Um and that audio-visual connection is very I don't know, it brings to life both mediums as well. So like you listen to music, but you add like a perfectly synced piece of visual content to that, and the s experience is sort of like like amplified tenfold. I I always in from my experience. Um and it works both ways as well. Like obviously movies, you need the soundtrack, and the soundtrack is just as important to the visual content. So yeah, that's why my project is like strictly everything I produce, every NFT that I put out, everything has to have both of those mediums into like intertwined or synced.
SPEAKER_01So do you uh obviously you're describing it as audio-visual because that's you're trying to articulate it in a way to for people to understand. But do you essentially see those two things as one as the same anyway?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I still see them as two separate things, but they need to exist together in my art. Okay, like personally. Um but yeah, they're still very two very separate things, but like the the two of them combined is yeah, essential.
SPEAKER_01And it's do you think it's a real modern sort of uh development and obsession or thing that maybe say music music educators should take note of in that sense because obvious things like YouTube and TikTok and Instagram being a constant blend. I know from my experience of working in percussive guitar, that genre it's not really a genre, it's kind of a movement, if you like, came about purely because of or grew to its exponential size because of YouTube, because it was a it's a visual thing to see. So you know, do you think it's something that would be good to take note of and see a sort of a cultural change? Or do you or do you not you know do you not think so?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think the audiovisual the need for audiovisual content has always been there, but like you say, the current sort of like climate with social media and the technology that's available to produce visual content now is more accessible. So I think there's more of a focus on it now as being a necessity for like artists to utilise or for promotion or whatever, but I think that need and sort of desire to consume audio visual content's always been there, but yeah, it's I think it's amplified and it's more of a necessity to engage with now, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01I mean it's meh, like for me personally, how much time I spend filming or editing or it's just yeah, it would have never existed before, would it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, like say with your computer as well, like with the Arlo project and obviously your percussive stuff, there's an essential visual element to both of those, isn't there? And like communicating that is important, and especially now that everyone's online and everyone needs that because when you're scrolling through social media, that it's the visual stuff that's like catches you, isn't it? Like audio is dependent on a lot of factors like having your volume turned up or but you need that audio, that that visual to pull you in to consume the the whole audio-visual piece almost.
SPEAKER_01I mean there seems to be I I certainly noticed this from gradually accessing Instagram or yeah, because I'm not like a huge fan of it, I'm not a fan of social media at all anyway, but really noticed with Instagram that even people who aren't um trying to put themselves sell something like you know, music or whatever, just individuals who are there for social reasons seem to be aware of visual brands associated with their personalities as well, isn't it? You know, you can look through looking through a friend's Instagram and you can really, you can really see like people are hyper aware now, aren't they, of communicating something visually and that and even then matching music to that because obviously that's a thing, right? So here's a shot of me on my holiday having an absolutely amazing time, even though I've you know just fallen out with half the family. But anyway, I've I'm taking this video because the beach looks nice, um, and I'm gonna match this tune with it because people are becoming sort of audio-visual curators, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, even like the everyday person that's not an artist, they're they're sort of like almost becoming there's an element of artistry in the fact that they're combining their visuals with tracks. Like there's it's like a rudimentary sort of form of audiovisual content, isn't it? Sorry, go on. I'm just saying, like a lot of I've noticed a trend of from consuming myself on social media that um a lot of bands now um and acts are working with a lot of visual artists um to sort of like put that visual element out there. I think a lot of people in the space are recognising that visual content is like a almost like a necessity now to stand out. Um I've I've definitely noticed that over the last like year or two that especially after COVID has passed and like people are looking for new ways to put themselves out there live. I think I've definitely noticed a trend of of increased visual audio, like bands doing that.
SPEAKER_01It's such a different experience, isn't it? Being in a and again as a music educator, it's something to be super conscious of. Like your our experience of joining a band or starting any musical project is just so different to now. You know, there's a there's a ev even just in pressures, but I I personally, when I was in my first few bands, or I don't know, I only till recently there was no consideration of capturing those those early creative processes and certainly not having to think about any visual element of recording that and capturing that and how that would look on an Instagram feed and how that fits in. You know, the idea of having to have a a brand the idea of having even a promo shop was only something that happened, you know, because you've done you know it's your tenth gig and uh there's actually going to be a poster for it and you've got to sort it out. But now that's that's gotta come super quick, isn't it? And it's just so tied in, it's kind of scary. It couldn't be more different, could it? Fatiguing. Fatiguing, yeah. Yeah, that's the that's the reality, isn't it? It's this sort of exhausting as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's an odd well, it's not an odd uh landscape, it is what it is, isn't it? But yeah, there's there's definitely a lot more pressure to create now and do stuff with urgency as well, which doesn't always make the creative process fun because you feel like you're chasing the next, like, God, if I if I don't post something today, then I'm dead. No one's gonna listen to me again. But um, yeah, it's just the way things are moving with technology, isn't it? Like everything's more visual, everything's online, people want things more and more quickly.
SPEAKER_01Adapt or die, I think is the uh that's it. Well, it's uh it's certainly one that yeah, it's been said here before. And why why I thought it would be so cool for us to have a conversation is because I think what you do, I think it's wonderful, I think it's beautiful. I've taken vast amounts of inspiration from it myself, but I think it's just really modern. It seems to be what you know, music has to evolve. It's it yeah, and it is evolving, and maybe it doesn't have to evolve, but it is evolving, and people evolving, and technology are evolving, and it's kind of obvious that an audio visual sort of marriage, uh, you know, extra sensory sort of experience is going to be what people are seeking. And I think that's what you do. So I think it's so cool to to talk to you and present that to music educators of you know, maybe not uh this is what's happening, but maybe this is what's possible, and to get us all to sort of think outside the box a little bit.
SPEAKER_00And I I guess as educators as well, like kids are so like up on trends, aren't they? Like you you can be outdated quite quickly as a teacher if sort of like if you slip into that let's learn some scales or let's get the keyboards out and press the demo button and enjoy all that sort of like our kids are more wise. I think like looking at myself as a child, like I was nowhere near as sort of like mature and as engaged as some of the kids are now. Like they're they're very they've got their heads screwed on more because they're exposed to more information, aren't they? So like you kind of gotta adapt to that, otherwise you'll lose their interest, and super important, I think, to to move with the times if you're if you're teaching kids musical hall bits.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. I mean that yeah, a Casio, no offense to Casio, but um a Casio keyboard in the demo button, uh which yeah, or other brands are available, uh, is really it's it's hard to make an inspirational lesson with a room full of quite linear sounding keyboards when actually most these students will have access on, and I say most, because obviously not all students have access to a phone or a tablet, but they probably have at least seen then the fact that they can have the most amazing music-making apps that can create these otherworldly sounds that we're talking talking about, isn't it? Because even just the sounds that we're creating, how can you really truly inspire and just make kids really excited about music with that stuff when they know that they can have they can explore these wonderful sounds that are probably more relevant, right? Because I reckon it's more familiar to hear um you know a real cool synth sound, you know, a synth bass. Um I want to uh uh imagine that I'm gonna now drop in a synth bass sound, but I'm gonna fear that by doing that I'm gonna ruin the whole recording. Maybe I'll do it with my voice. That sound is more familiar to kids than um you know a C major on a keyboard that's trying to sound like an acoustic piano. I think I think is that is is that a crazy thing to say that a synth bass is more familiar than than uh an acoustic, you know, a grand piano sound, even yeah, I think 100% accurate, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean kids kids are so used to like if they're scrolling through TikTok, all of the sounds that are overlaid over these videos are like new, exciting, like culturally sort of popular. That's what they're acclimatised to, isn't it? If you drop them into some sort of classical lesson that's not they can't identify with, I don't know. Yeah, there's like a disparity there, isn't there? You lose their interest straight away to it's not what they're used to hearing. Might be us.
SPEAKER_01Unless the sound of the acoustic piano becomes so bizarre and alien and they never hear that, and then just pressing that one key. Wow!
SPEAKER_02That's an amazing.
SPEAKER_01So what what about NFT land? Where where is uh what's happening with NFTs? Because again, this is as as music educators, it's really cool to understand a whole thing that's happening. I mean, it's it's not it's not some weird fad, right? We're now seeing audio only NFTs, right, as well. Um give us because you're you're like you're proper in this world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean there's loads of stuff you can do with it. Like um something I'm exploring at the moment is um like evolving pieces. So depending on the time of the year and depending on the time of the day, when you look at that piece on your device, it will change. So whether it's a sonic change or a visual change, you can code this into the uh what they call smart contract that underlies the piece. So you get this really cool, not just an image on a screen that you're you're selling, but this evolving thing that you can change over the years? Um artists have um made pieces where they've predicted the date that they're gonna die, and like this piece will change and evolve from the date that they publish it to this date in the future. Um there's loads you can do.
SPEAKER_01Um so does that mean that most of the artists working in the NFT realm, be them audio or audio and visual, that they are big into coding as well?
SPEAKER_00Uh there is, I think, yeah, there is an element of that. Um the nice thing about the NFT community is there's a lot of people, because it's quite an emerging sort of scene, there's a lot of people there to help you with things. So I'm I'm I mean I've done bits of coding over the years, but I'm by no means a programmer or a developer. But ideas that I have that are more techie, there's people that I can call on sort of help me with that. So um, but yeah, it is very like tech driven, I guess. Like most people that I know in the space have some sort of awareness of technology and ways because like the the process of like putting stuff out there, there's like digital wallets and like there's a lot of like techie computer stuff associated with it, so yeah, I guess there is that.
SPEAKER_01Um but in the actual creative, so rather aside from the administrative element, in the actual creative process, are we looking at now audio, visual, and a coding element within that? Because, say, for example, you're talking about it evolving over time, that obviously takes a degree of programming and understanding. So you're almost like a third discipline for future musicians. Like we've all got to be able to do something visually amazing, but now we've got to be really good at coding because people want their tracks now to adjust to the seasons or at different times of day.
SPEAKER_00I mean, to do something like that, yeah. But I mean, if if you want to just get a piece out there, you don't really have to have much coding knowledge. There's platforms that are set up that sort of help you through that. Um, like there's programs like marketplaces that will let you submit a load of stems to a track, and then people that mint or buy that track you can set it so the stems, people get different stems in different orders, so everyone gets an original sort of everyone gets like an original sort of part of the track. So imagine you've got imagine you've got a track and you've got five stems for that track. Some drops that I've seen, people like the consumer will go to buy a piece of that track and those stems will be reordered in The moment when they mint that track, so everyone's getting like an original sort of almost like a remix of the original. Um, but yeah, there's l loads of things you can do um like that, or you'll have different rarities, so someone might get like all the five stems included in their their piece, whereas someone might just get one stem sort of thing. So there's loads of different mechanics that you can play with that are built into these marketplaces that you can experiment without having much knowledge of coding, it's sort of all laid out for you there.
SPEAKER_01Wow, I love the idea, and I really hope this becomes a reality that, like a secondary school music teacher, after listening to this, decides to get his or their um music students to create um um audiovisual NFT and put it out on the market as a project. Yeah, that'd be cool. Um, everyone's a winner too, they get to make some serious money because there's big money floating around, isn't there? I mean, I can obviously see the palm trees in the pool behind you, and I don't think that's just a Zoom background.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well yeah, that yeah, some people are making silly amounts of money, but I think for me it's just been a like a vessel to explore my art in, really, like another community that I can tap into. Um it's been and it's it's very like engaged, like which I've never really had in in that amount before, like the the people that I speak to daily on Twitter, because Twitter's where it all happens. Um but I've got like people are just so engaged, and it's the first time where I've had that like solid community around my art. So it's it's been more for that for me, like having that that vessel to throw things out into.
SPEAKER_01So we're talking about a whole another, I don't know, like live gigs or cinemas or a another outlet for art and music that's a significant part of the the landscape, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00And there's there's like there's these things called POAPs as well, which are basically um participation certificates. So, like, say if you went to a gig, you get issued this thing called a POAP, which basically um is like a certificate that you were at this event, so it's like uh almost like a bragging rights to say, Oh, I was here at this time, and obviously that that token is minted on the blockchain, so it's it's done at a specific time, so you can definitively show you're at this place. So there's loads of scope for like live events with it as well. Like, say if you wanted to give away like a limited edition bit of art for that event, everyone at that event would get it. So the commitment that they have to get they get this little gift that they can sell at a future date, it might become collectible. If it was an iconic gig, people might desire to have that little token from the event. So there's loads of stuff you can do with it.
SPEAKER_01But are we talking, you know, one futuristic music person like Max Cooper or something? Is he doing that? Or are we talking actually things like that are really bubbling up andar stages of it?
SPEAKER_00Um so I've got a collaborative piece um being launched this Friday, um, and we're doing a a little event in the metaverse, and then basically people that log in to that event were gonna have this little token that they can claim, which will be a little bit of art, um, and that's their like proof that they attended that event. So historically you can see that they were there, and it's sort of like a provenance thing, really. But that if if that event the the theme that we're doing the event around is very heavily crypto themed, so um historically, if that event is seen as like a big thing, then people that came to that event they've got this little badge to say, or this little bit of art that was given away at that event to show that they were there, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01I mean, mind blown.
SPEAKER_00That's I mean you said metaverse, I mean that's uh Yeah, it wasn't so it's it's happening in a gallery called um basically I'm part of this art collective called the Cult of CryptoArt. Um and they we own a gallery in the metaverse, so uh we're putting this event on in this gallery, so people can log in and then claim this token if they can.
SPEAKER_01So I I can come along to that and I and it's is it literally like a virtual sort of walk around a gallery and then look at that bit of art, listen to it, because there's an audio element with it, or am I just really it's like that Yeah, so you have your avatar.
SPEAKER_00I've got an Arthur Avatar now, so I can walk around with my character. Um basically imagine visiting a gallery in real life, but you're in a digital space and all the pieces are sort of up on the wall. If you walk by it, you can look at it, and when you look at it, if there's audio attached to it, it'll play to you. But the idea with this event on Friday is that um there'll be a QR code right in the centre of the event that you can scan. When you scan that, you basically can mint this token that proves that you were there. Um yeah, there's loads of stuff you can do. We've done um over the last two years, we've done these big events in CryptoVoxels, which is another sort of land that exists in the metaverse. But um, one event we did in there, there was about 400 people that rocked up to watch. So you had all these avatars floating around, there's a big screen in the middle of the venue with all of our performances playing on. Yeah, it's quite quite fun.
SPEAKER_01Just I mean, I f I feel like you are the embodiment of the sort of evolution of man. Um as we talked about, you know, acoustic pianos developing into synthesizers and then into like okay, no, we can have a MIDI keyboard and then everything's virtual, and then all of a sudden we've ended up with no, let's not do a real gig, let's do it in the in the metaverse, and then it's just it's just amazing that all that is there, and I hope that everyone listening um will be excited by that and maybe think about ways to squeeze that into music education in some way, because I reckon it should be, right? Because it's just so relevant. I mean, you're not you know, you're not alone, right? If there's 400 people rocking up to your uh gallery slash experience slash gig.
SPEAKER_00Um there's loads of people playing in the space, yeah. It's it's one of those things because there's so much everything's quite early days with it. There's a lot of playing and experimenting with it, so there's no pressure to conform to like like platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or whatever. Everything's done in a very procedural sort of way, isn't it? Like, oh, I need to look like this or I need to do this to get this or whatever. Whereas it everything at the moment, it almost feels a bit sort of yeah, a bit mad max. Everyone's sort of just playing and just going crazy with it, really, and seeing what can be achieved. So it definitely feels like a nice land to be in at the moment with no constraints, and everyone's sort of because there's no expectation, everyone's sort of quite open to doing things for one another and experimenting and collaborating and does it feel a little bit like that transition from your piano lessons to playing around with synths and chaos pads and things? Yeah, a little bit, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely opened my like some of the stuff I've created over the last two years, it's definitely been inspired by that sort of open mindset of like being in a new space and meeting new people and and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, I'd say so.
SPEAKER_01Arthur, thank you for your your time and your inspirational insight into current stuff. Really grateful. No problem, Ann, thanks for having us on.