They Call Me Mista Yu
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They Call Me Mista Yu
Music Matters: One on One with Patrick Boylan
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What if pursuing your creative passions could completely transform your life? Join us as we explore the life-changing journey of Patrick Boylan, a multi-talented musician, app developer, and actor who found his calling in California's vibrant artistic landscape. From the bustling streets of Los Angeles to the creative turning point sparked by a friend's advice, Patrick's story is a tale of self-discovery and the pursuit of a dream. Discover how he transitioned from acting and serving tables to turning piano into his day job, and how the contrasting cultures of California and his hometown of Chicago have shaped his artistic perspective.
Patrick candidly shares the personal challenges that have informed his art, from navigating the complex dynamics of being the youngest child in his family to finding a more supportive environment in Los Angeles. We delve into his impressive musical journey across six instruments, revealing how necessity and passion have guided his path. With a refreshing openness, Patrick discusses the importance of creating a nurturing space for artistic expression and how relocating to LA gave him the freedom to truly explore his talents beyond the constraints of his upbringing in Chicago.
Finally, we uncover the innovative world of Museflow, Patrick's music education app that challenges the conventions of traditional piano lessons. Patrick's entrepreneurial spirit shines as he discusses the app's evolution and potential expansion to other instruments, offering learners a gamified and intuitive approach to music. Whether you're an aspiring musician or a curious listener, Patrick's insights and personal anecdotes provide a rich tapestry of creativity and innovation, promising inspiration for anyone looking to pursue their passions with determination and flair.
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Welcome back to one-on-one with Mr U. I'm your host, of course, Mr U, and we have a good friend, multi-instrumentalist, app developer, actor, a host of other things. Patrick Bowling is in the house. How are you doing, brother?
Speaker 2:I'm great. How are you doing man? What an intro tune. That was like soul and funk and like ooh, that was nice. I love that. That was like soul and funk and like ooh, that was nice.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, I'm glad to have you here, man. I'm excited to hear what you have to share. I think our listeners will be too. I've been kind of pumping you up, man. You got so much of a background that a little something for everybody, so I'm excited to hear how this goes over in the conversation. Man, we're going to talk about a lot of different stuff, but first off, man, first off, thanks for jumping on. Appreciate that a lot. Your excitement, and especially in our pre-publishing meeting, was infectious, man, to say the least. Tell me a little bit about your time in California briefly. We'll get into a lot more details as we move along. But life in California, what's it like? You can go into politics, you can go into culture. What's life like in California?
Speaker 2:It to politics, you can go into a culture. What's life like in California? It's interesting, I will say it's kind of like isolating, because we are in this like liberal bubble. You know we really are, and so all my friends, a lot of my family out here, they're all like very, very liberal, and so we're, you know, shocked when people think differently than we do, and I think it goes both sides. You know it like totally goes both sides do, and I think it goes both sides. You know, like totally goes both sides.
Speaker 2:And LA is like a clear definition of like a liberal bubble where, like, you're surrounded by that echo chamber, you know, and I think there are places in America where it's the same on the other side, and so it's an interesting situation. Coming back to Chicago for you know, cause that's where I grew up and being there for Thanksgiving, all these diverse opinions I love those moments, though, where we can come together and discuss things. But look, I love LA. I like feeling free, I like feeling like I can be who, utterly, I am just the weird, I don't know excitable human being that I am. I like feeling able to do that. So that's what I like being here.
Speaker 1:That's interesting that you feel like you can do that in California and not in other places. I don't know if we have time to get into that, but it just that's a very interesting thought. If I can find a way to squeeze it in, I surely would try to do that. But one thing that was very interesting to me that I want to bring up hopefully I have Wesley's consent. But you talked about your turning point where something she said to you helped you kind of change everything. I did ask you to adjust the language that she used to, kind of Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, for our audience. I got family and nieces and nephews and a whole bunch of other folks that listen. So I want to make sure I cover myself accordingly here, but share what you can about, about that turning point where you are in your life before, where's we gave you the advice and how did that trigger or catapult you to where you are right now?
Speaker 2:I was an actor. Well, I still am. I do a bunch of stuff, um, a lot of voiceover, a lot of commercials, some TV and film here and there whenever I can, um. But throughout my first six years here in LA, that's what I was doing. I wanted to do the actor hustle. I wanted to come out here and be an actor, and that's all I wanted to do. And then I got really burnt out at year six because I wasn't getting creatively fulfilled as much as I wanted to. It feels amazing collaborating with people and acting and doing your thing and being, I don't know, just being that part of myself filling that, right. But I wasn't getting that on a regular basis. I was getting it sporadically throughout the year and here and there, here and there, and then the creativity dipped in, my self-confidence dipped, and then I got another gig and then it was just a roller coaster, right. And so I was just super burnt out by the whole thing, right. And so then you know no-transcript, and three months later I got my first gig.
Speaker 2:I was an after-school accompanist at this program. That was all about musical theater and choir and stuff like that. And then I got a couple of background jazz gigs at restaurants, playing for their dinner service. And then I got my piano bar that I play at Tramp Stamp Grannies is the name of it. It's a weird sort of musical theater vibe, it's just very specific and it's so perfect for me. I love that place. For me, I love that place, and so I was able to actually quit my serving job at that point and do piano, acting, voiceover, like the whole thing, full time, like piano became my day job, so to speak, you know, and it was all thanks to Wesley really pushing me over the edge there, you know.
Speaker 1:She's got the overbarrel now going forward. Huh yeah, all hard drives have now going forward. Huh yeah, all hard drives have to be good, right, as hard as you are, brother. Okay, so that makes sense to me. I mean because California always seemed to be I don't know if it's still the same now, but it always was a hub for entertainment, a place where you would go to live your dreams. Everybody from the Midwest, they would either go to California or they would go to New York. It was like no in-between really. But in California sorry, excuse me, in Chicago. Your background is so interesting because Chicago was a place where, for my interactions with friends and people who I've known gone to school with, that was a place where 3-Ear was pretty prevalent. You know what I'm saying. I always talk about the uh, the awesome that you did, uh, teaming in the shoe out there. I know about that. What began your love for theater?
Speaker 2:I started when I was eight years old. My first joke on stage was when I was eight. Um, my dad was an actor at a dinner theater here, well, in Chicago, not here in LA, but in Chicago, um and uh. And so he was there during the day, he raised us, he was our main caregiver throughout the day. And then, we know, we, my, my dad, brought me, brought me and my sister, to the dinner theater and we sat there drinking Shirley temples, watching him rehearse with his friends, before the show actually started. And then, you know, as the show starts going around six o'clock, you know they're starting to get ready, they're going off into the back and getting ready, my mom comes and picks us up and, like, takes us back home and makes us dinner and all that stuff and puts us to bed. So that was our childhood, for the majority of our childhood, before we went to school. Okay, um, and so, having that be the environment that we were in, you know, it was natural that, like, my dad was, like, what do you want to? Are you interested in acting? Are you interested, you know? And so he put me in.
Speaker 2:He was doing a show at this dinner theater. It was a rotating show and the show that they were doing this year or two years or whatever was called gangster town and it was a bunch of Chicago guys, you know, in their pinstripe suits and my language, over here going the prohibition area and they're like, hey, with their tommy guns and whatnot, and they're like you know, so you're shooting the barrels and all that stuff, right? And so they're like, you know, let's have, uh, this eight-year-old kid come on up to the stage. This is the son of one of the gangsters, the son of david boylan. You know, let's have him come on up. He's gonna tell to tell you a joke, all right, great.
Speaker 2:And so I come on up and I got this little tiny little pinstripe super top hat and I'm like all right, everybody. So I'm going to roll my tie up Right and I'm going to stick it right here. I'm going to roll up the first one, great, roll at the bottom one. I'm going to drop them. And I'm going to ask you all which one do you think is going to drop first? Get to the bottom first. Do you want to get a top one or the bottom one? And everybody was like it's the top one, it's the bottom one. I'm like, okay, here I go and I drop them both and I go oh it's a tie, because it's a dumb, stupid joke, but like fantastic, it went over great. So stupid joke, but like fantastic, it went over great. So I don't know. That was like. That was the moment where I was like, oh, I can get a laugh, I can make people laugh on stage, oh, no, all it takes is one.
Speaker 2:And so I was bit by the theater bug ever since, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's an incredible story. I love it, the timing guns and the whole gangsta thing. I just it's a new york theme too, I think, but I love that totally. Yeah, I love three out of two as well. Uh, but you shared about the challenges of being the youngest child. I can't really relate to that because I'm the oldest, but my wife is the youngest of 13, so I'm not really going to be shocked by anything you say to me. Oh wow, I totally get that. But tell me why you think that was pivotal in some of the decisions you've made over the years. Why do you think that played a part? Because things that happened to us kind of fuel our future actions.
Speaker 2:So tell me how you think that made a difference or was pivotal for you in the decisions you made over the years. I mean, I hate to get it down or bring it into a negative light, but honestly, everything in the scope of my life I am grateful for, even though they might be negative, they brought me to this place and where I am now, and I honestly wouldn't want to be anywhere else, right? So I I don't know, I'm the youngest child and I don't know if your, your wife, actually agrees with this, but I was always the scapegoat, I was always the reason things were going wrong. I was always yeah, okay, okay. That's like a thing, right, where the youngest child sometimes it's the middle, if there's a middle, but most of the time it's the youngest child that gets like blamed for all the bad stuff that goes on in a family, and so I got that myself.
Speaker 2:I felt like I couldn't really be who I was. I couldn't express my, my myself, in the fullest, you know, and I don't know if that's a lot of me or if that's a lot of them. I do think it's kind of a bit of both, right? Um, cause I rebelled a lot when I was, you know, a kid and I I think that it was a hand, it was a, it was a two way street here, right, I was being influenced by my family and I was doing certain things, uh, in response to my family, but also because I was just me and, and so then I realized like, okay, chicago doesn't really feel like the place where I can truly express my inner self, who I am to my core, place where I can truly express my inner self, who I am to my core. And again, I don't know if that's a lot of my family or if that's me projecting onto Chicago itself.
Speaker 2:I know Chicago is a great place. I love being from there. I would totally live there if I didn't have this baggage inside of me, and so that was a big thing why I moved out to LA. I mean, I also got like representation right out of college in LA, and so I was really lucky thing why I moved out to LA. I mean I also got like representation right out of college in LA, and so I was really lucky about that and I have family out here, so it was kind of a no brainer Right. But the biggest thing for me is that I just don't feel like I can truly just be myself and I know that's a complex that I've got and I know that's not accurate Like I could be myself in Chicago if I dealt with my trauma. But that's just where I'm at right now, you know. Okay.
Speaker 1:What would it take for you to be able to live in Chicago? Now, I don't mean live at your family's house, because if you're 40, 50 years old that'd be weird, but if you're just living in Chicago, what would it take for you, in your mind, to be able to live in Chicago, have your own house, whatever it is kind of still feed from those places that energize you as a musician and an artist and what have you? What would it take for you to move from California to Chicago?
Speaker 2:Probably a job. A job, yeah, I'd probably have to get employed there somehow and then be like okay, now I have to live there. There's some piano bars out there, there are some theaters out there, like if I get a gig at steppenwolf, for example that's, that's one of the major theaters in chicago um, and it's a possibility that they might, they do cast out of la sometimes, okay. So you know, that's a, that's always a possibility in my life. Um, I don't have to actively seek out those jobs. Sometimes they come to to me. That's happened for New York, that's happened for Atlanta, that's happened for you know, it's not happened for Chicago yet. So that would be a major catalyst for me. To move back to Chicago would be I get a job in Chicago, but and then I would actually have to, like, deal with my baggage because of that. You know, yeah, I think that would be one of the main things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I'm glad you didn't say deep dyspecia, because I don't care for that. I'm not a deep dys guy. But before we get into our next question, if you guys are listening to our broadcast today, patrick has a lot of insights and a lot of different things. We'll be talking about a lot of different topics. Drop those questions in the comments section under this episode and we'll go ahead and fire them off at him. He just made some of the work with today and we'll hit those questions when they come through. But thanks again for listening to our show.
Speaker 1:All right, so if you're a rare breed and you play six instruments, which is like really, really crazy to me, I'm like I'm struggling to learn one. You talked about that Plus being an accomplished singer. For those aiming that high in their life or in their career, tell us how you came to the decision to learn so many instruments and how did you do it? It sounds like it's a lot to handle. Sometimes people position like it's a lifetime of learning. How do you do six instruments and still be able to be proficient?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean a lot of it was out of necessity. I learned piano first. That was my first instrument that I learned. That gave me a great foundation for understanding how chords are created, how music is created. Like, all the way down to the basics of music is made out of notes, duration of that note and silence. Okay, at its core, that is what music is. And pitch, how high or low do you want that note to be? And then let's combine them, all those those different factors, a pitch, a duration for that pitch and silence. That's it, that's all that music is made out of right, and you could add harmony in there, you can add all of these different elements, but at its core. And so that's what. That's what piano really taught me. And so I was able to understand instruments and musicality and music and how it's written, all from the get-go, because I learned piano as a major. That was a major foundation for me.
Speaker 2:After that I had to learn. I wanted to learn clarinet. I got into it in middle school. That was my second instrument. My third instrument, that was your first. Yeah, I didn't enjoy it. It's not cool, yeah. No, it's not a cool instrument. No, it's not. Um. And then the. The third instrument was voice. I mean I, I, I always sang, but then I never really sang, you know, uh, in anything semi-professional or like an organized situation. Um, that was because I got into musicals and whatnot in high school and then I did choir and then barbershop and then magicals, like I did. I did all the all of the I, I really I burned it at both ends. In high school I did theater at night and I did choir and band in the morning, and then at different seasons I did the marching band and I. So it was like I really burned it at both ends, right, um. But then then after that, acoustic guitar happened, because a good, because I got into a folk musical in in college and and I had to learn how to play guitar harmonica was another part of that too like I had to learn it for that folk musical, right. Um, I had to learn upright bass for a different musical. I had to learn mandolin for a different musical. It was all these musicals where we were like taking folk instrumentation and putting that on stage, so that the actors in the band were there on stage at the same time, and I was the music director for those plays. I was in the band for them, I was an actor in it, whatever it may be. I'm like, yeah, I could pick up that instrument, no problem. And so I picked it up because out of the need and also because I had a great foundation because of piano, right.
Speaker 2:And then the same thing with the sousaphone. Like going back to high school, that was another one where my sousaphone tuba, right, it's the walking tuba, you know where the whole, like brass, goes around your head and the thing is right up here like and you play, you play like this, that's the sousaphone right and you can walk with it. There's the same thing. There was like gosh, 10 clarinetists in marching band at that time and my band teacher asked the two six foot tall, six, two tall guys seeing hey, can you do you want to switch over to sousaphone for this season? We only have one right now. We at least need three. So if you guys could go on over there and play sousaphone for this semester, that'd be fantastic. And we're like, yeah, sure, we'll learn, no problem. And so we learned sousaphone for that. So, like it all came fairly organic, like that.
Speaker 2:You know how long? How long did that take to learn sousaphone two months because I because, again, I had the foundation of like, okay, that's what music, that's what western notation looks like, the way we write music. Okay, that's that's what it looks like. I know what the clef is. We we learn in bass clef what, what sousaphone, how to play sousaphone. So I already knew the clef and then all I had to learn was the fingering and how to shape my mouth, which I already kind of knew how to like adjust my what is called embouchure. I already knew how to do that because of clarinet. So I was like okay, I already got the dexterity of my fingers, I already got somewhat understanding of, like, how to change my mouth and my embouchure. Okay, great, all I need to learn is how to actually associate the note that is right there with my finger position. That's all I need to learn. And so that's it, because I already learned all the other things before that how to read music, how to adjust, how to play all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope we had time to get into more of that. I find it interesting. I hope the listeners do, because I'm geeking, I love music, so I'm just totally in on this, but you also do narration for audio books. A man of many talents. I have a good friend Excuse me, he's an actor like yourself. He's done several movies. He is a musician, he's a sax player.
Speaker 2:I forget what sax.
Speaker 1:I think it's a tenor sax, but I'm not totally sure on that. So he's into sax, but he does audio narration too. What got you into that room? Was it out of necessity, or was there some kind of a long-term plan you had for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of a mix of both. Actually, it was out of interest and out of necessity. Covid happened and all my piano gigs shut down, all the acting gigs shut down. I had a great, I had a pretty decent reservoir at the time of savings and I was also getting a little bit from unemployment and all that stuff, and so I didn't really like, truly need it, but I'm actually extremely happy that I pursued it. It was. It was what I call my my first meditation of COVID, cause I feel like it was a blur, my first meditation of COVID because I feel like it was a blur. You know that pandemic and we were alone and I had phases and one of them was learning how to narrate audiobooks and building my studio. I built my in-home sound studio right. So it was partially out of necessity, because all my gigs ended, and then also out of interest, out of being like I still want to be creative during this time. How do I possibly do that? Oh, let me, let me see if I can do audio book narration Right. And so I started doing it then and, yeah, it just kicked off. It was.
Speaker 2:It was a perfect combination of I know a lot of musicians that are audio book narrators as well. There's something about it that is number one. We're all storytellers at the end of the day, whether you're a musician or an actor or an audiobook narrator right, and our ability to tell stories, our ability to emote via our instrument, whether that's a saxophone or your voice, your interest in a line like a melodic line, you know you can, you can see the direct parallel between words on the on a page that are in a sentence and the way that that line flows and a melodic line. Within music, there's a certain pattern, there's a certain lilt to it. It's very musical, right. And so I found that my, my ability to play, play instruments and emote through my instrument in that regard, were very, very similar to telling a story in audiobook narration. It was the same kind of thing. So it was a perfect storm. It was a perfect combination of my skill sets. I just decided to pursue it because of that.
Speaker 1:I mean just the amount of entrepreneur ventures or new ventures that people engaged in during 2020, the numbers are astounding. I'm like I mean it's crazy. Right, 2020 is podcast can start in 2020. The friend I was telling you about that's a acting instrumentalist. Guess when he started 2020.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Amazing that a pandemic can make you become more creative. And and bet on yourself I it's kind of hard to mentally fathom, but all right, so let's keep moving. So what's a day in the life in LA for you with somebody with your kind of abilities? Give me a typical day for you with all that you do.
Speaker 2:I'll wake up, I'll have breakfast with my wife, I'll sit here and look through my day. A lot of the times I time box my days. So I've got the morning reserved for audio book narration. I go to the gym in the afternoon, in the early afternoon, so I narrate until about one o'clock. Whether I have a couple of meetings for Museflow, the music education app that I'm building. I've got a couple in the morning sometimes and then I'll narrate throughout the morning into the early afternoon and then I'll come back. I'll eat lunch and then I'll get into Museflow.
Speaker 2:At that point, um, I really dig deep into, uh, what I'm I'm supposed to be doing for Museflow, whether that's a podcast or whether that's writing a blog post or talking with educational institutions or, you know, interfacing with our users. Currently, like I, I get into that Right know, interfacing with our users. Currently, like I, I get into that right, um, and then uh, and then and then throughout throughout the week, like, auditions will pop up. Um, I'll have to spend some time on those. Other gigs will pop up, like yesterday, I just spent, uh, half of a morning on a commercial shoot. I spent the morning on a commercial shoot, so I I had to adjust some things around because of that. And then on the weekends I go play at my piano bar, or during the week, or during the weekends I've got some other gigs here and there for piano. That's kind of the weird amalgamation that is my life right. I've got all these different time boxes and I fill them with a certain things that I do, whether that's audio book, narrating, auditioning which happens randomly film shoots, um and then uh, muse flow, and then piano at night on the weekend.
Speaker 1:You stay busy, man, that's. That's not a bad thing, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, got to stay busy, yeah Right. Well, without course, I think it's. It's good for our sanity to be busy. I want to get more of the music and talk more about music flow too. But I shared my little sad story about how I've been trying to learn the piano for like 35 years.
Speaker 1:I started off at my home in Brooklyn with a piano that was way out of tune and mom couldn't afford to get it tuned. So I would just play it. I would play soap opera themes on it, kind of learn how to play it by ear. Then I graduated to having a teacher proper themes on it, trying to learn how to play it by ear. Then I graduated to having a teacher. He passed away from pneumonia and some other complications with that. He passed away. He was teaching me piano. He was teaching me jazz piano.
Speaker 1:Then I had another teacher who got deployed and never came back. There's a long list of all these different cycles and stuff I'm not learning. I tried a teacher to try to do the self-taught. It just was never working out with the profession. I have a good ear, I know notes and stuff, but I want to know what the reason was why you started the effort of Museflow. Where did that come from? I know you've got a lot of creativity in your family background, but for you, why did you take this uh, musical route, you think, and how it culminated in the news flow?
Speaker 2:um, I think it's like, well, when I started playing piano professionally, I I I realized like, well, I'm not your typical pianist. I don't read music verbatim, I read it, I can read it, um, and I can play it and I can learn it to perfection. But that's not always the fun part for music. For me, the fun part of music is making decisions on what you're playing and how you're playing it, whether that's crescendo or decrescendo. How do you want to play it loud? Do you want to play it soft? What emotion do you want to bring to the audience? And how do you do that effectively? Through your instrument, through playing your instrument, making those musician musicality choices. That's the fun part of playing music Right. And so I got there much faster by. I did take eight years of lessons. Yes, I hated every minute of it. I did not like the traditional way that we teach music, which is here's a skill, let's go apply. Your teacher gives you a little skill, whether that's a note or a new rhythm, and then they give you a song or two to go home and practice that. And then come back to your lesson the next week and your teacher stamps approval or says no, you've got to go home and practice those again. You didn't practice enough and so that journey didn't really work for my, my brain, you know I didn't. I got bored, I got frustrated because I wasn't learning in in this sort of compound way. I was only learning that new skill in the context of that one specific song. And so once my teacher retired no fault of my own, he just retired. I was a terrible student, but he didn't just quit on me, he retired, he quit on everybody, he quit everybody. He was like I'm done with this. I ended up going to my parents' sheet music and finding little phrases, little motifs, little patterns that I really enjoyed, just whether that felt really good in my hands or whether that sounded really good in my ear, it didn't matter. And then I closed the sheet music, I had it in my brain and then I just improvised around that phrase, putting that little phrase in different contexts of everything that I knew. I inverted them, I put in the left hand, put in the right hand, I changed the key, I changed the time signature, I just really messed with them so that I really learned them to my core. And then I just did that again, I did that again, I did that again and all these improvisations were completely different because of that one specific phrase that I took Cut to college.
Speaker 2:I realized when I was the only acting major that could play piano at my alma mater, all these acting majors kept throwing music in front of me. Went to a concert, go to concert halls all the time and like or practice rooms, and and they just kept throwing music in front of me, being like hey, can you play this song? I really want to practice it. Hey, can you play this song? I really want to practice it. It's a bunch of musical theater. I realized my parents had a bunch of musical theater and I was doing this type of learning with musical theater pieces. And so I realized, oh my gosh, all these phrases that I've been playing my entire life in these improvisations are popping up in all these different pieces that they're giving me, that my college cohort were giving me, and so I was able to read that music pretty darn well. I was able to sight read that music so that I could. I'd never seen this song before, but I was able to play it because I had learned those phrases outside of the context of one specific song. I learned it in the context of my body and these improvisations and the music context that I already knew. So I was able to play that phrase Cut to now I have 700 songs on my repertoire list.
Speaker 2:It's actually not a lot compared to my cohort, the pianists that play at my piano bar. They've got 2,000, 3,000 songs right. But I've really specified the niche that I'm really good at, which is this musical theater jazz, um, pop rock, millennial stuff, right. So, um, I'm really good at like that. But then you go back to the eighties and the seventies. I'm like I don't have a lot of stuff like that. But anyway, point being is like I realized I realized that I was able to actually play these songs pretty darn well. I was trying to build up my repertoire list because I was at the piano bar and I was like, oh man, I know so many of these songs because I've only heard it maybe once, and now I'm able to replicate it because I already know the skills that are necessary to play those songs, because I had learned them outside of just one specific song. So I was like, maybe there's a way to way to. You know, boredom is the beauty of of creativity. You got to be bored to be creative sometimes, and so I was bored. One day I was just like man, what if there's a way? What if there's a way to teach people the way that I taught myself? And that was the birthing point of muse flow.
Speaker 2:So what we end up doing is we give you music you've never seen before at your certain skill level. Okay, whether that's one specific one note, one note, both hands and three rhythms. That's where we can start you from. Okay, and we teach you how to read music, how to play piano, in seven minutes, okay, and we then we immediately get what? Stop it. No, it's true, it's what we do, right. Seven minutes, we got you. We teach you how to read music. We teach you how to play piano, how where to put your, where to put your hands and how to play a key and what pitch and what duration are. Okay, we teach you those fundamentals and then we immediately get you playing. Okay, that's what's called just in time learning, where you learn the kinesthetic need. Okay, here's the new skill, here's the thing, and then you immediately go apply it. Okay, we use that as like a basis for everything we're doing in muslo. So we give you that one, that new skill. That's a, that's one, that's at the beginning. It's three rhythms, one note, both hands.
Speaker 1:We got you there. We saw you go.
Speaker 2:Music just goes across the screen. You keep playing it, you keep playing it. We've gamified it a little bit. You've got 95% accuracy or higher. You get what are called chevrons, which is, you get a little green. You get another little green. You play another phrase at 95% accuracy or higher Great. You play another phrase at 95% accuracy or higher Great. You get another green.
Speaker 1:You do another one, another green another one, another green boom, you pass the level Music and video games at the same time.
Speaker 2:Millennials, are you listening? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, and then?
Speaker 2:we build you from there, right. We build another note, we build another note, we build another rhythm, we build another time signature. We just keep building it out from there, from one note, we spread it across the piano and so by the end of 26 lessons you've got 14 notes, three time signatures and four rhythms that you can play. And we also have music, like actual songs, right, that get unlocked after every level. So you immediately go from learning the skill, kinesthetically learning that skill, to applying that skill immediately to songs that get unlocked. So, yeah, that gamification, that sort of application, that just-in-time learning, that sort of flow state where we meet you, where your skill level is the challenge versus the skill, yeah, all of those kind of elements, combined with all of this generative music that never repeats, that is always at your level, yeah, all of that combined is what muse flow is, and nobody teaches music this way apparently not.
Speaker 1:I got a couple more questions on this as well. All right, so you mentioned in our pre-production meeting that in high school, by 85 percent of music students drop off because of how they're being taught. Now when I hear you talking about learning in seven minutes, I'm like okay, I'm going almost into the late 30s in years I'm trying to figure this out. So immediately I'm tantalized. I'm like, okay, seven minutes compared to almost 40 years is awesome. It makes sense. But how long does the MuseFlow program have? A length of time that it would take you to complete it. That means there is a beginning, obviously, but is there an end as well?
Speaker 2:No, that's the whole point, though. It's that it's constantly. You can constantly work at certain things with MuseFlow. It's an eco. We're giving you an ecosystem of ecosystem of tools, and you decide what you want to practice on. There is a guided curriculum, yes, but we don't put a time limit on how long that's going to take you to complete, because that's really up to you.
Speaker 2:The goal with Museflow is to inspire you to go and want to practice every day. Yes, that is the goal, right, because we make it fun, we make it engaging and we make it actually more effective, right? So we want you to practice every day, but some people don't. Some people decide to practice every other week. Some people decide to practice every two days, every three days, whatever it may be. It totally depends on you. The use cases from use flow is pretty vast and we're realizing that practice every two days, every three days, whatever it may be, it totally depends on you. The use cases from use flow is pretty vast and we're realizing that as we're building and as we're talking to our users. It's actually really, really cool.
Speaker 2:Some people have already completed the curriculum. They've already completely completed, but they still tap in every day and I'm like why? And I look at their data and I'm like, okay, they're playing for like 30 minutes a day at the highest level of difficulty. They're just playing the music that generates, that never repeats. Okay, why are they doing this?
Speaker 2:So I reach out to them and I ask, hey, what are you doing? Like why, you know what are you getting from this? And they come back with this just a whole mess of an email. And they just it's just stream of consciousness. And they're like, hey, so I've got a really difficult job and all I want to do when I come home is just veg out. But instead of watching TV or or go scrolling doom scrolling on my phone, I play Museflow and it allows me to lock into the present, it allows me to forget about my worries, time becomes irrelevant and I'm just there, locked into the game, and I just play and I just go, and I'm like that's so amazing to me that the application of Museflow is, yes, you can learn how to play piano, but it's also this like flow state inducing I can get out of my life for a little bit and just immerse myself in music for a while. I'm like that's so cool, that's so cool.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. That's very cool. I got a two-part question. One is the expectation of time to become proficient using your program, and two I blank blanked out the second question. Oh yeah, I know this. So when a person enters your program, do they in at some point, own the program and then no longer having to pay into it? How does that work? For those that may be listening, that may be interested in your program?
Speaker 2:that's two great great questions Tell me like. Explore the first one just a little bit more with me. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:When you started the program, I would think that you had a place somewhere where you said you know what the person should be proficient by this point if they're doing all the things that we have set in place. So is there a place in the program, even if it's an amount of time? I have to think in terms of time I don't know how much to ask that question, but in terms of time, if it's four months, six months where the person should be proficient using the tools that you've given them, is there a place?
Speaker 2:We don't think about shoulds, we don't think about you should be doing this or you should no, no, no it's. Do you want to? You know, are you interested? You know we're not telling you, we're not. The whole thing about muse flow is not externally putting these forces on you. It's say it's not putting these sort of these external guidelines on you. It needs to all come from within, and so that's what we're trying to inspire within you. Is this want, is this desire to become better at the tool at that, that playing your instrument right? So the questions of should you be this proficient at your instrument in x amount of time is just so irrelevant to muse flow itself, to the ethos of Museflow and what we're creating. That like no, we haven't even thought about it.
Speaker 1:No, Fair, that's fair enough.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. And the second part is do they actually own any of the music that they're playing, like any of the songs, for example?
Speaker 1:I didn't mean that, I'm sorry. I mean like, is there a point where they have paid into the program enough that we didn't have to pay any more and they actually have access to the program? I guess like lifetime access, is that how you describe it?
Speaker 2:No, we've got it's a subscription based model, and so we've got a monthly subscription, we've got a three month subscription and then we've got a annual subscription. But, that being said, like I love to give you and your audience a discount code, if that's cool.
Speaker 1:If they're interested in that.
Speaker 2:that'd be awesome, I'd love to give you guys a 50% discount code for life.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:It's right now we're at 24 99 a month, and so I'd like to give you guys a 50% discount, which is like 20, which is 12, 12, 49 a month, and so I'd like to give you guys a 50% discount, which is like $12.49 a month. I think, or $12.99 a month or something like that, and so, yeah, I would love to give you guys that, and so what do you want that to be? I?
Speaker 1:would say in the comments section in the YouTube episode, and I would just reshare it and kind of promote it, because if they watch it, they may they may have missed what you just said. So I want to make sure that they can find it somewhere in Prince, they can grab it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, what text do you want? Can we do a Mista 50? Yeah, m-i-s-t-a 5-0 as the actual discount code. Or we could do U-50. Why U-50?
Speaker 1:No, they're probably going to misspell that Okay so Mista50.
Speaker 2:M-i-s-t-a 5-0. And I'll say, like you don't have to do this inside of the app itself, but just so people can see it and pull it out quickly, let's make it all caps. So the m-e-i-s-t-a all caps um five zero. Just so people can like that's the discount code, cool, I'll apply it right here, sort of thing.
Speaker 1:We'll work that out at the end of the episode or offline, because this is a great idea. Thank you for offering that. That's really amazing, oh my god, of course I.
Speaker 2:I want people to use the app. I want to hear what you think Because, again, the user experience that we've been getting, the feedback that we've been getting from our early adopters, is huge. It's revolutionary, and so at least that's what people are saying. I'd like to prove me wrong. Okay, I want you to prove me wrong. In a way, it's a scientific method.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I've been at this for a long time, so even myself personally, outside of being the host of the show, I'm thinking like I think I might want to prove you wrong.
Speaker 2:Please, I want you to.
Speaker 1:I'm probably one of the worst cases. I'm bruised and battered yeah, in this arena. So if you can practice, you can do anything.
Speaker 2:I love that. What a challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think I'm that not because I can't learn. I'm a really fast learner. I know a lot of music but staying with it and and having teacher not bail on me is like that's a challenge. But say, for example, the next patrick borland right, and they want to learn to be a multi-instrumentalist like you. Can they use Museflow to do that? All the different instruments, tuba and trombone and piano. Can they use your program to learn all these instruments?
Speaker 2:Not right now. We are only for piano right now.
Speaker 1:Makes sense, but later down the road.
Speaker 2:We do want to make this for all common instruments. So at that time, as we add more instruments, I think the next one will be guitar or the next one will be drums. So once we add more instruments, yes, the whole goal is to make this applicable, this type of method of teaching, applicable to every single one of the instruments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I won't share my guitar story because I'll bring the whole vibe down and people will be more sad than they probably already are by hearing my sorry story. But if, theoretically, I was able to become proficient in piano, would that make it easier to learn guitar, or is it vice versa?
Speaker 2:I think it's easier to apply the skills that you learn in piano to other instruments. You know, you've got there's something about the piano that makes it easier for you to learn other instruments, and I think it's the fact that we've got 10 fingers and we've got 88 notes. Okay, 10 fingers and we've got 88 notes. Okay, the permutations of that are infinite. You can play different rhythms with different parts of your fingers, different parts of your hands. You can play multiple notes with one finger. You play in all the different keys. Okay, a lot of instruments are only specific to one key. Or you can play in all the different keys, but it's a monophonic instrument. That means single note. That's a tuba, that's a clarinet, that's a flute. You can only play one note. That's a violin.
Speaker 2:Sometimes that is a polyphonic instrument, poly, multiple notes, phonic sound. You can play two notes at one time with a violin, but you can't play 10 notes at one time with a violin. Same thing with guitar. You've only got six strings, so you can only play six notes at one time on a guitar. Again, with piano, you've got 10 notes that you can play, sometimes even 12, because you've got two fingers, two thumbs, that can play two notes at one time, so 12 or 14, whatever.
Speaker 2:My point is that reading music, playing notes, playing harmony, understanding harmony and how one might fit in one note might fit in with that in that harmony. All of those are applied to all the other instruments. So that's one of the reasons why piano is like a foundational instrument. That's why all monophonic instruments, instrumentalists, actually have in university curriculums piano pedagogy classes. So you're like there's a reason why piano is a foundational instrument and I think it has to do with the amount of notes that you can play. The breadth of music theory, the breadth of musicality, the breadth of technique that you can learn on the piano is quite vast compared to other instruments.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. Makes sense If you guys are listening or watching us or both. Please drop your comments if you have any for Mr Borland. He has a wealth of knowledge that you can clearly see. Drop your comments, if you have any, for Mr Borland. He has a wealth of knowledge that you can clearly see. Drop those questions, if you have those. If you think about him later on, drop them in the comments section. We have your view of this episode. So I had a whole lot more questions, but I don't think we have time to get into it. We're coming to the back end of the show, but what do you think in brief, if you could tell me real quick, where do you think in brief, if you can tell me real quick, what do you think that your entrepreneurial bent comes from? We talked about a little bit in pre-production, but I'm sure you got a great story for that, for what I remember.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a great story. I think the, the justification, the the whole thing is like, okay, as an actor, as like, uh, my parents were freelancers. You know, my mom worked in news, my dad was an actor, my dad moved over to stage management, my mom went to be a writer, um, and so you're like, all of these things, they're all freelance jobs, they're all 1099 gigs, they're not w2 and and they all had to really care about paying their taxes and and taking care of their finances and doing all of that. All of the business aspect of being a freelancer kind of comes second nature to me.
Speaker 2:I think I'm lucky for that, because my wife comes from a family of nine to fivers and she's a writer. She's utterly hilarious. She's one of the best comedy writers here in LA, in my opinion. You look at her and she's struggling with the business side of it all because she's so used to seeing her parents have deep consistency in their lives and I'm used to living with a schedule in the chaos of life. So I don't know if if I got like this entrepreneurial bent. I think my my mindset of like finding solutions to problems. I'm a big problem solver and I finding solutions to problems. I'm a big problem solver and I I guess it just came naturally to me. Man, it just came naturally. I think I'm lucky that way. Um, I'm not thinking about like, okay, what is a product that I can make that will solve a problem?
Speaker 2:No that's not how I'm thinking about it. I think about it in terms of like okay, what's a problem that I needed a solution for? The problem that I needed a solution for was to learn how to play piano in this different way. If I had that when I was a kid, I would be a completely different musician now and I would be significantly better. So that's the product that I made. I made something that I, as a child, would want to use.
Speaker 1:And I made it for every age. That's just a good version of entrepreneurship A problem that you personally had to deal with or your children had to deal with, and you saw, you witnessed it, you watched it and you were the final way to solve it for the next generation. That's what you're talking about, you're it?
Speaker 2:brother. Thanks, man. So people will be like we think about. I've heard entrepreneurs talk about they go to business school and they're like I don't have a lot of like issues that I want to solve in the world, so let me go look for an issue and try to solve that with a product and then make people want it. No, that's like the wrong way in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah I don't, I don't, I don't mean them this. We're talking about two different hard parts this year. Yeah, I got five. Of course, I want to rapid fire to you. Give me about two minutes or three at the most, apiece. Knock it out the most challenging song you ever sung and why.
Speaker 2:Stephen Sondheim's Happiness from the Musical Passions. The melody is everywhere, it's all over the place and it's a wonderfully complex relationship that they're talking about. They're both cheating. It's a duet and I like to sing it as a solo. So the melody is just everywhere, it's all over the place and it's all really really cool because it all really solo. So the melody is just every, it's all over the place and it's all really really cool because it all really makes sense with what's happening underneath it, the accompaniment that's happening in the orchestra pit or the piano. So it all makes a lot of sense when you put it all together.
Speaker 2:But just singing it is very complex and the story that you're trying to tell is a very nuanced, difficult story to try to convey. They're both cheating story to try to convey. They're both cheating on each other and they're both talking about what is happiness, and they're talking about in the context of happiness is x, no, happiness is y, no. Happiness is z, no, happiness is l, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, o, j, k, l. It's right there. That's what happiness is. And so you're like whoa, it's kind of all over the place but like again, in the holistic sense of that song. It makes complete sense, and so to do it justice is really difficult.
Speaker 1:Okay, happiness by Stephen Sondheim Noted. All right. So what's the most challenging song you ever had to play on piano, and why?
Speaker 2:I learned the beginning of this song, called Yellow Jacket, by Sean Martin.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:The reason why it's the most difficult song for me to have to learn was because he wrote the perfect version of what he wanted to hear. So me just kind of messing with it a little bit Did it. It didn't do it justice. I'm always looking to make the song the best version that it can be, and me just messing with it and not playing it perfectly did it an injustice, and so I had to learn that perfectly.
Speaker 2:And then I and it's very difficult, it's very jazzy, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous my hands were like completely stretched on the piano trying to do this and they were all over each other and it was like it's the most beautiful thing that I've ever had to learn and it's also one of the most difficult things that I ever had to learn. So I had to play it perfectly and then I'd add the musicality on top of it. How do I want to play that? You know, I want to slow down at this one moment because it's absolutely gorgeous, or it's coming to the end of a line, a melody, and so I had to make those decisions on top of a very difficult, technical, jazzy sort of chord structure and chord progression. The beginning of the song the Yellow Jacket by Sean Martin easily.
Speaker 1:And what genre is that piece? Jazz fusion, jazz fusion, okay, okay, all right, three more questions. You don't have to push through them, but they may require a little bit of thought. I told you about this one, so I'm gonna ask you about that. So be ready. If music was no longer an option and you couldn't do anything regarding your developing apps, what's patrick doing instead of those two things?
Speaker 2:I landed as a sociology major. That's what I landed on.
Speaker 1:I couldn't believe this man said that to me.
Speaker 2:So I was an acting major for a little bit. I didn't like how my alma mater was teaching acting. That's a whole different story but I can go into that. And then I pivoted over to sociology. I loved every minute of that and it actually influenced the way that I act a lot. I'm able to see a character from the outside in looking at the institutions that that character lives within and see how that affects their being, you know, and how they go through the world. It's a really cool analysis. Um and so the inside out, the outside in approach, is really really cool for me. The the society versus the personal. I love that and how one influences both. Right, I think it would be some part of a research team at a university. I got pretty far at my alma mater. I was a research assistant and I was a teacher's assistant.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I've got some background in research. I've got some background in qualitative research. Quantitative, I could definitely go to a master's degree for that, but qualitative I'm pretty well up there and I do love thinking about society in that way. So I would love to do some qualitative research.
Speaker 1:Man, you are a man of many talents. Can you build space shuttles as well?
Speaker 2:No, do not. Do not trust me in any possible way to build a space shuttle. Look, I'm not curing cancer here. I'm just trying to entertain the populace.
Speaker 1:That's literally all I'm trying to do here, you know you are doing it, man, I mean you, you're doing it. So where where's patrick five years from now? If he had his way, where is he?
Speaker 2:building this app. We've got a way. Where is he building this app? We've got a um. We've got a uh, headquarters in san francisco or la? There's a shot, there's a. There's a space right down the street from me that I would actually love to take over um, but there's a design agency that's there right now and so can't do it. I want them to retire, I want them to get out of there and so that I can create our headquarters right there. That would be amazing. It would be working on this app full time. It would be working with the people that I'm working with. I love the friends that I'm building this with and they're very fun. They're very funny. I just came from a meeting today, right before this podcast, and we were all just laughing our butts off and building something cool. You know, like that's what life is all about, in my opinion, and so enjoy the journey, and I'm enjoying the. I'm enjoying this journey a lot, so it'll be working all right.
Speaker 1:so last question that we're gonna ask well, I have some advice. So two pieces of advice. So the first one if you made a piano school dropout, they could be like me or worse. If worse is the alphabet, don't have a lot of time, don't have a lot of money, how would you advise them to grow their craft in playing the instrument when you know all those factors play a part Passes, appointments, time, finances. I want you to be their counselor, but how would you advise them on how to move forward and continue to grow their craft with all of these factors in the way?
Speaker 2:They want to build their piano skills. Honestly and I'm not just saying this because I'm building the product that I wish I had that inspired me when I was exactly at that point it would be Museflow. It really would be. And I'm not saying that just because, like I'm the person that built that are building. No, I'm literally saying that because I wish I had it when I was at that point. That allows you to try to find what you love about playing. It allows you to explore so many different parts of who you are as a musician and what you enjoy about playing, and it does it in a fun, engaging, gamified, immersive sort of way. And I would think it would be that and if you don't like it, again prove me wrong, but I think that that is a really great way to kind of tap into it and see what you love about playing your instrument and then follow that, follow that passion, lean into that. That's why we're doing it in the first place, you know.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you slow even if, even if you don't feel like you're entrepreneurial, I, I stand here, uh, as your new friend and I'll tell you that you have that For the people who are listening excuse me, the people who are listening that have a desire to do something big, even if it's not as big as Museflow, and they have a lot of talent, they have a lot of ability, but they don't have the resources. They may not have people supporting them like you may have. What's your advice for people who want to build something that helps somebody else and they just are not feeling the push or need a boost? How would you encourage those people that are listening right now?
Speaker 2:Start small, stay small. It's a motto that I abide by. I've had to abide by because we have this grand vision from use flow. We've got a Bible that is like a hundred pages long that we've written, that has every single feature laid out for, for the, for the, for the app. Um, it's very grand, it's very big, it's very um, but it's also very specific.
Speaker 2:I would say pare it down to its minimum viable product. Your MVP, okay. Pare down your idea from the grand, beautiful vision that you have to what is that value proposition that you give to the market? Why are you making it? What are you changing and what is that one specific feature that changes the world for everybody else? Build that. Okay.
Speaker 2:Don't build your grand vision. Build your proof of concept first and then put that out into the world. Post it on Reddit into the threads that are necessary. Put it out there into the world, right, get it out there so people can try it, so you can get feedback. That sort of process, that iterative process, is key for any entrepreneur, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:So, build your proof of concept, build your minimum viable product Minimum is the key and get it out into the world so you can start user testing that immediately so you can start getting feedback. You know, that's the goal. That's what we had to learn how to do, and we were taught that by the software engineers that we brought on as co-founders. They were like, whoa, this is too big, it's going to take decades to build. Nope, we can't do it. We need a minimum viable product and we need to get that onto the world. We need to start making money now, and so we did that within a we did that within six months and now we're a year. Now we're a year after that and we've got 40 people that are paying for it. You know, yeah, so it's a slow journey, is also a big thing, but build your minimum viable product first. That's the goal.
Speaker 1:I just came out of a meeting that had some of those same vibes to it and that advice is definitely transferable, so I appreciate it so much. It's called stay small. I love this. Ladies and gentlemen, patrick Bolin multi-instrumentalist entrepreneur no matter what he says music teacher, scientist, pre-shadow builder, potentially the man is brilliant and so grateful to have you on. And really, on top of that, beside all that, I'm grateful to have met you. Yeah, you too, man. The disconnection is definitely something that is not accidental. So I really appreciate it, man, and I definitely appreciate what you shared earlier.
Speaker 1:So, for all you guys that are listening that are interested, whether it be on this live episode or on the replay, pat just offered to offer 50% off of MuseFlow, which is a very, very generous offer. So if you're interested in music, especially in the piano realm, take advantage of this offer. It'll be posted on everywhere where the episode is shown on social media and on our YouTube channel. He'll post all the information in the comments under the episode. Please grab hold of that. I'll be sharing and promoting it on my social. You do the same as well, sir, and again, thank you, man. This has been a blessing to have you on and I hope it's not the last time that we do this, but we're definitely gonna stay in touch because we got a lot more to talk about. But this is fantastic man. Any closing thoughts?
Speaker 2:No, I love your vibe man. I think this has been a really cool conversation and I love the friendship. Um, you're great and I I bet I think your audience you know your audience, the audience follows the host and and you're you're so awesome, so I think that your audience is also awesome. So I appreciate all of you that are listening and I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:You said so appreciate you. Yeah, man, we're gonna stay in touch, but thank you for your time on this one. This was fantastic. We're out of here. Have a great day, guys. Thanks again for listening.
