Titans of Transition
Titans of Transition
63. Inside the Life of Guitar YouTuber John Nathan Cordy
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Ever wondered how musicians navigate the modern music industry and create sustainable careers? Join me as we sit down with John Nathan Cordy, a UK-based working guitarist, who shares invaluable insights into his experiences with both traditional and contemporary approaches in the industry. From getting signed and playing in function bands to touring and creating online content, John opens up about the various income streams that come with his line of work, such as YouTube ad revenue, Patreon, donations, and gear presets.
Dive into John's daily life as a working musician and discover the importance of maintaining balance by taking breaks from work. Listen as he shares his creative process, the role YouTube plays in his music career, and valuable advice for younger musicians looking to connect with more experienced industry professionals. Additionally, we discuss how having an intentional workflow and consistency can help develop mastery in any field.
Tune in as we explore John's journey as a musician, how he dials in his guitar tones with different modelers, and the ongoing debate between amp versus modelers. Learn how he monetizes his videos and the advice he offers to others seeking their own unique musical voice. Don't miss this engaging and informative episode filled with valuable insights and tips for aspiring and established musicians alike.
Joe Miller
The Life of a Working Musician
John CordyThe Naked Eye .
Joe MillerWelcome John to Titans of Transition . Hello Joe , How are you doing ?
John Cordytoday . I'm okay , it's sunny .
Joe MillerSo let's talk places . You're in the UK . Do you say the UK or Great Britain ? What do you guys prefer ? England , england ? I missed it totally . What part are you in ?
John CordySo London . I can't do it with a reverse mirror , but so it's called the Southwest and it's basically like the farming part of England . So yeah , It's the South West . Exeter is the closest city and it's about four hours from London .
Joe MillerFour hours . So is that a four hour drive ? I mean , you're talking about deriving , right ? Yeah , not train or something . Yeah , okay , cool . Well , listen , i'm really happy to have you on the podcast today And , just for background , i found you because I'm a guitarist , an old guitarist , and I've spent way too much time on YouTube perusing different material But and there's a ton of people out there producing content , but I really connected with yours and we'll get into that a little bit more later on .
Joe MillerBut I'm just kind of curious . I thought it would be good because to really drill into what it's like these days to be a working musician , because you know , back when I was growing up and when I started playing guitar , i had my dreams of being a rock and roll star And I always thought that , well , you know , i have to get a band and we have to get sort of known , get some music out , maybe a label will pick us up , and then everything will be like Nirvana you know well , not the band Nirvana , but they'll all be wonderful , but it's very different today , and so maybe just talk to us a little bit about that .
Joe MillerWe'll get into your background later on , but I thought it'd be nice to start with kind of what you're doing , what's part of your business right now , elements of it . Okay .
John CordySo essentially on the weekends I guess my job looks a lot like quite a lot of professional or semi-professional guitarists at whatever level . So that'll be kind of playing in function bands for mostly like weddings and that sort of stuff . And , like you say , i think growing up maybe that wasn't the dream at all And maybe you'd think you know the traditional route is mostly what we hear about and you know things like you know getting signed and all those things that you talked about there . But the reality I think is probably for most people a little bit different . If you are doing the thing and you're not part of like the less than 1% that do that traditional route , i think probably the lion's share of musicians tend to be either doing kind of function gigs or touring at various levels , and then there's a lot of folks that I know that do kind of like the online studio kind of stuff . For me , most of my time is spent kind of making videos in my bedroom .
Joe MillerYeah , and you ? I mean you pump them out , i mean you're averaging , i mean I see at least a couple a day , many days .
John CordySo one transition happened recently . I had a daughter , yes , and I've gone from doing two a day to one a day , and I think that's probably more reasonable anyway , but since about 2019 , i was doing two , sometimes three , a day . The main reason I do it , to be honest , is just so that I have an excuse to play guitar and create something every day , but yeah , Yeah .
Joe MillerSo since you're doing it anyway , you figure , well , why not ? right ? Yeah , Why not put it out there ? And again talking about what it means to sort of make a living this way . There's multiple streams of income . I know you have obviously people used to think you could make a lot of money , like AdSense revenue , off of YouTube . That's not so much the case now , until you get really enormous . But you also have a Patreon page . We also hope people will buy you a coffee , make a donation , But why don't you talk about some of the other things you do ? Okay ?
John CordyYeah . So before lockdown , i would say most of my money was from the kind of function gigging , and so the thing with that is that you basically you have like a limited amount that you can do . right , you can do maybe five , six gigs a week , and that involves a lot of traveling generally Around the UK . I used to be driving to and from these gigs and you get back home at like two o'clock . Once lockdown happened , it happened hand in hand that the online stuff had kind of started to grow to a level where they were starting to meet in the middle .
John CordySo basically my streams of income are , as you say , the YouTube ad revenue , patreon , the Buy Me A Coffee thing , the gig money , and then I guess I also sell presets for like the bits of gear that I use . And then a tiny bit of money occasionally comes from companies who sponsor . like they might ask if I do a demo of a piece of gear , and I generally say no to those or don't respond . And then actually True Fire , True Fire as well , true Fire . yeah , that's a nice thing as well . So they came to me , i think because of Keith from Firefork World said this guy does a thing , and it kind of made sense because there's a mixture of stuff on my channel from kind of like I tried to do two lessons a week , basically , or lesson type videos , so it's not all just based on gear . hopefully some of it is sort of useful for someone . But yeah , true Fire obviously . then basically I run an advert at the start of every video and they pay me some amount of money for that , which helps .
Joe MillerAnd so a lot of people . I'm sure there are many people consuming content across your YouTube channel and others . They're like , oh , that's great . Oh , that's good , I'll take that That was a great lesson . And they don't realize that that actually is kind of one leg of your stool , so to speak , for your revenue . So it's nice . I do see great engagement on your channel . People say nice things . Hopefully they also support you .
John CordyYeah , yeah , i'm quite lucky . I think that generally , the people that happen across the channel and stay on it are generally polite .
Joe MillerThat's great . So a typical day then , i mean . So I was curious about this . What kind of obviously with a newborn . How old is she now ? She's 18 weeks , i think , and your wife's name .
John CordyLiana .
Joe MillerLiana and your daughter's name Lenny . Lenny , okay , and your daughter's name .
John CordyElodie .
Joe MillerSay that again .
John CordyElodie , so like Melody without the L .
Joe MillerOh , very nice , Very nice , And so obviously that takes priority . So if you're in the middle of doing something and you get the hand off , you have to deal with it . But generally speaking , you wake up , you have an idea what you're going to work on , or you just say well , I'm kind of curious about this thing . I saw from another artist And I think I'll dig into that and start recording . Just kind of curious how that works for you .
John CordyOkay so there's a few things .
John CordySo I kind of take film notes on my mobile phone of ideas , if they happen to be a thing I think I might want to remember , and so generally this might be like a new kind of pattern or something like that . So I take a film with that and I think , right , i might be able to use that for a lesson at some point . That's one kind of thing . So that's kind of the most planned stuff that I do And other things I might see in art school that I think is interesting . So I might see something that someone that I am inspired by as a guitarist So sometimes I email those to myself and say make a video on this , and so I have this bank of ideas , really that kind of floats around . But I also have these key topics that I'm interested in , so it might be specific pieces of gear like amp modeling devices or certain guitars or certain guitarists . I think this is probably common with every single thing
Guitar YouTuber's Daily Life
John Cordy.
John CordyYou start to develop your own niche the more you do it , and so my actual day goes like I get up generally about 7.30 and most of the morning now up until about nine o'clock is involving like cleaning bottles and stuff and getting stuff ready . I sometimes get a chance to just play some guitar then , but not loads . And then nine o'clock I feed the dogs And then I start on something . So generally each video will start with me just sitting in front of a camera with a click track going and I basically start the video , like you might have seen in the intro , and then I kind of put the music around it So I record with that click track and I put in drums and all that sort of stuff Play a solo over it , sometimes before I've done the rest of it , and that is kind of that's the engine of why I do any of this at all .
John CordySo that moment is what I do YouTube for , if that makes sense . Yes , because that's the thing that I want to want to do and thought that I would do as a kid . It just happens that no one else really needs that stuff . It's just I'm doing it for YouTube , if that makes sense .
Joe MillerWell , i think I disagree a little bit . I think a lot of people give value out of that .
John CordyI mean , it seems like you know it's more like the traditional , like someone gave me a brief and said oh , yeah it's just yeah , whatever , it's just like a bit of creativity and a chance for me to play guitar every day , basically .
John CordyAnd then after that it generally will be what was the topic for this video ? What am I thinking about ? It might have been that I just had a gig last night and I was thinking , well , this happened or that happened . It's all quite spontaneous , like just based on stuff that's either happening in my life or that I've seen basically through the day , and then put that together . So I think generally that the recording , the music part of it , generally takes not so much time , and then the next part , you know mumbling to a camera and then editing it together , takes a bit more time . So it maybe takes sort of two , three hours overall , sometimes less than that , sometimes more , depending on how involved it might be .
John CordyAnd if it's sort of the lesson type stuff , there's often then like quite a lot of work that has to go into creating the stuff that people can then , you know , follow along with and all that sort of stuff . So that's kind of then that's the video for the day part done . I have to go , you know I take it all downstairs and then I upload it from there and create a thumbnail and that sort of stuff . Yeah , and sometimes that actually I can use that moment if I was , for instance working on new songs . Sometimes I would use so for a gig . For instance , i would use the first part of the video where I do the creating music stuff . I might take an idea that I've been working on like it might be a song by Prince or something and just sort of sneak it in , so that way you kind of get .
Joe MillerBack for your buck . Yeah . One thing , two benefits , yeah absolutely Two birds , one stone . That's what I'm searching for .
John CordyYeah , something less aggressive to the birds maybe , but then the rest of the day from there . These days I'm not getting as much time to actually play guitar as I used to , but I think that's made part of growing up . So then , answering questions for people via email , that sort of thing Does that tend to be late at night .
Joe MillerSorry , does that tend to be late at night ?
John CordyNo no .
John CordyI don't do it at night , i try to . Night is the time for relaxing , because obviously Well , not obviously , because no one's going to know who I am , but I do this every single day . I don't actually take a day off , so I try to at least not be working on stuff too much at night , unless my wife is working on something else . Then I might go and just start and do another kind of recording in the night or something like that . Then I guess if I had new material to work on for sets that were upcoming , that would be . I'd kind of do that in the day after I've done the video , if that makes sense , or if I'm going away , like I just went away for a few days to Wales . You may have heard of it .
Joe MillerWhat was it ? You did some weddings .
John CordyWales .
Joe MillerNo , i have heard of Wales , but I'm thinking , maybe Are you talking about your weekend gig You did recently . No , we just went on holiday for a couple days You actually went on actual holiday .
John CordyYeah , yeah . Well , i say holiday . It doesn't feel like a holiday anymore , but so we went , Yeah . So basically it meant that I had to then bank videos beforehand , yeah , and that sort of stuff . That makes sense . So that's what the day is then used for .
Joe MillerSo it's rinse and repeat , then right , basically .
John CordyEssentially yeah , And then sometimes I might get a chance to just play guitar downstairs or something like that . That's kind of my holiday .
Joe MillerThere you go , there you go .
Guitar Gear, Authenticity, and Musical Roots
Joe MillerWell , you mentioned a few minutes ago about it kind of coming to establish a little bit of a niche . One of the things that I connected with was how you were working with various different modelers And you did a number of episodes talking about the raging debate between amp versus modelers And then you use different modelers . You did your Helix stuff , which you use most often , i think , fractal . You looked at Kemper all different kinds of modelers And actually showing people how you dial in your tones , which you don't often get that specific when I look at other creators out there .
Joe MillerSo that's , i think , really a high value for guitarists is to see what you're working specifically on to get kind of really good tone and making suggestions . So obviously you're doing this . You're kind of chasing your own interest by looking at these other devices but at the same time or answering your own questions . So you've done that with models and you also have done the episodes kind of comparing contrasting guitars And I think most recently you did an episode kind of a couple of them talking about do you really need to spend this much money on this super high end pro guitar And does it really make a difference . So those are all really great topics .
John CordyYeah , i think that's been the thing that I've tried , so with all of the stuff . So in particular there are videos from back in the day where I'm kind of talking through stuff , or I might not even have been talking through stuff , so I would just upload kind of videos with me playing guitar And none of that stuff really connected . And it's kind of obvious to me now because there's loads of people doing that . And , like you said , if you're talking about a piece of gear , to me it makes most sense that people could hear the thing and then if you're going to talk about the thing , you might as well show them how you got that result And then in that way at least you've not wasted all of that time . So that's kind of the thinking for me was that I can , with all of these things I can pretty much show you on the screen exactly what to do , and hopefully that means that you can get something out of the video rather than just be me going well , here's the thing . You could buy it if you want or not .
Joe MillerIt's more that , well , i guess I've made this video And if enough people find it useful , then sort of the money will generate itself anyway , if that makes sense , yeah , and I mean , as I've looked into monetization , you know , a lot of times the leaders in this field talk about you deliver the what , give the value , but don't give away all of it , right , and so that's a great example you just talked about where you have , you know , i can think of what your helix stop when you're dialing the tones in .
Joe MillerYou know , and I'm looking at the screen going , i think I can see what he's doing And then lots of times just say , but you know , if you want it , gum , road or wherever you sell your stuff , you can , you can grab it , you can grab that preset , and I think a lot of people do . But the , i think the more important thing you just talked about was just playing the music sometimes doesn't really connect and give you a following , but sharing your actual journey , you know , musical journey , life journey I mean you talked about your doggies , right . So I mean sometimes it's I've had to take my iPad over and show my wife he's a musician , by the way And I said look , look , look at these dogs jumping up in his lap when he's trying to play . You know which , i think , is it connects . You know it really connects to people . There's a human being on the other side of that TV screen or that computer screen .
John CordyI think that's a thing as well , that people often talk about no-transcript . I think it's an easy thing to try to get across , but I think in so many ways it's also super easy to get a Bit wrong . Does that make sense , like it's ? I know people Probably know it , but I think you have to find your way To actually doing it where it doesn't feel super forced . And yeah , i get people sort of ask about various things You know , like should they start YouTube and stuff like that ? and for me the answer is that , absolutely , my life would have been totally different if I hadn't . But equally , i couldn't recommend to anyone else that you should make one or two videos every single day , if I .
Joe MillerI'm walking into two a month .
John CordyYeah , it's not a scalable model for most people , so it's a bit of a weird one where It is what it worked for me . So , but that's what I mean , like in terms of Trying to keep that in mind as well , with all of the various things like it's .
Joe MillerYeah , i don't know , yeah , no , but I think you touched on another thing too , that's you know you can't force it has to be authentic , right And and and that's it certainly is . For you It's kind of like finding your musical voice . You know , you have to find out what your , your tone is . You had to find out Do your own expression once you get to a certain point . So this is actually a good place to segue this kind of behind-the-scenes discussion of John and his typical day . And , and Let me ask you , how , how did you get to where you are ? so Did you go to when you were in school ? Well , let me back up even further . Do you come from a musical family ?
John CordySo yes , so my mom and dad . So my mom plays saxophone , my dad plays trombone , and My myself and my brother . So we grew up on a farm . We didn't have much money , but the money that mom and dad did have , they spent on piano lessons for us . So , like from the age of five , i had piano lessons . When I was eight , i got a guitar , which is what I wanted all along .
Joe MillerThey forced you to do the piano first , right .
John CordyYeah , Yeah because I got that and I'd already created a dent in my dad's guitar When I was four . We didn't let me play it . I Think they also bought me a ukulele , but I hit my brother with it so they broke it . So then age 14 , so I did like the
Transitioning to a Career in Music
John Cordytraditional .
John CordyIn the UK we have grades for piano . That makes sense , like exams , all that sort of stuff . I did up to grade six by the time I was 14 . It goes up to grade eight and then that's like whatever level . And at that age 14 I decided I'd rather practice guitar , and so I think because I Read things about people like Steve I and Joe Satryan and people like that that they had to practice a lot . So I just decided that I practiced for two hours every day at age 14 and fit the rest of my life like revision and skateboarding around that . At age 18 , whatever I went to university and did Commercial music it was called , but it was a waste of time . So I dropped out of that after two years Because I learned anything . There's just a waste of money , anyway and then .
John CordyI went , so that was a transition , that was a supermarket transition alright , so so .
Joe MillerJohn were you like Singing songs to the patrons as they came in ?
John CordyNo , i did . I did still have so from , i think I bought a proper computer that I could record with and Do the music stuff that I basically do every day today . But I did it from about the age of 16 Because my parents basically incentivized me to get good grades by saying well , my brother actually by saying if you get An A will give you a hundred pounds . My brother didn't really work for him , he didn't provide I just like that I'd revise and then bankrupted . So then I bought a computer with that , which became the thing I would record with all the time and all through University and even whilst I was working at a supermarket , i would still record loads of music .
John CordyBut I didn't really have an outlet for it because I was working in a supermarket . But I would occasionally like put stuff online , like I think sound click and Sound cloud is the other one sound which came later And I'd occasionally like say to people well , this is some stuff that I've recorded , you know , like people do . But yeah . So then , yeah , working in the supermarket that I got another job and then in about 2015 I Got the idea really that It it made more sense for me to try to do music and earn less money than to try to do Like the corporate world or whatever and earn more money but be miserable if that makes sense because it was like From a young age , yeah .
John CordySo I then Basically started on the road that I'm on now and I think in my first year I made like five thousand pounds .
Joe MillerI lived at home at the time .
John CordyI lived at home for quite a while , but luckily my parents were kind of supportive in that way and it's worked out eventually .
Joe MillerYeah , so that that actually wait . What was the question ? Oh , so the question really was how did you , how did you really make this transition ? that's the question I have in my mind . Oh yeah , you know , and you've taken us through your journey , and but that one point where you said I , i decided That I'd be much better off pursuing What I wanted to do I'm putting words in your mouth now , music Rather than do the corporate thing . So was that a sort of an epiphany ? Did you get the bright sunshine on your head , or did you , but did it take a while , or was it just like you knew in your gut ? I mean , how did that ? how did that conclusion come to you So ?
John CordyI was . I I'd just start it Well , i think it all sort of happened at a similar sort of time . But so I was in an originals band at this sort of time . But you'd only do a very limited amount of gigs for this sort of thing in the UK . So when you're chasing this idea of being like an assigned originals band So I've worked a real job alongside that but I would go stay at my friend's house and we had some relative level of success . So we were on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan . We were actually our music was used during a suicide bombing at a cafe , which is what I always dreamed of , and what else ? Yeah , various kind of pieces like that .
John CordyBut the money for that sort of stuff was always very slow to come through , because if it's royalties and that sort of stuff it takes a long time . And alongside that I started going to some open mic nights and stuff like that in Exeter And from that a few opportunities sort of came . And in my job previously I had to travel and kind of stay in various places around the UK And there started to be this kind of tension and a bit of a clash where I was like , well , i want to do this gig , which is not going to have much money or it might be like 30 quid or 50 quid , but it was fun , versus I could go and stay away for a week in my job . So I just eventually decided well , even if there's not much money in this music thing , it's actually a bit more gratifying . So I just said to my boss at the time I think I want to try and do the music thing .
Joe MillerSo basically , the safety and security of a more substantial , consistent paycheck was getting in the way of your passion . Yeah .
John CordyYeah And like opportunities , but because I hadn't really had It , hadn't really occurred to me that you could , that this other path of like , that most musicians actually go down with The non-traditional thing if that makes sense , although it's like 1% of people that can actually make money with the traditional thing .
John CordyBut everyone else basically makes money doing the things that every other guitarist basically does for money , whether that's teaching or going out and playing gigs for normal people that are just there to hear music at a wedding or whatever . And also that was the other thing . So I think as younger people or certainly me as a younger person I saw the kind of cover's gig as a bit of a . I used to look down on it , i think . And then once you've done a few originals gigs for no money where you've driven across the country and you get paid nothing you've already done three of them even So we supported a guy in Bristol and Liverpool and London and playing to sort of like 1,800 people and 900 people here just supporting , but there's no money , not even for fuel , and then you think alright , I could play this wedding and you get paid basically a good amount of money .
John CordyIt kind of made me think well , like the respect of originals , music doesn't really translate to food on the table .
Joe MillerRight . Well , like we talked about earlier , that situation has changed a lot over the past several decades . A friend of mine which I also interviewed , Michael Ghetto , which he's a pianist and a composer and really in the new age space , But earlier in his career he put out like 11 albums , And so in the US I don't know if it's Well he's on Spotify and a lot of different platforms . If you go into any of those kind of genre music , you'll see him . You'll see his older albums being played , very , very well known , And yet he couldn't make a living at that either , And so he ended up teaching . He took the teaching route .
Joe MillerSo you do what you want to . You do what you need to do . If it's overlapping with or congruent with your desire to be a musician , That's great . But I remember having conversations with him about why don't you do another album ? And he ended up doing one . But he's like where you are now , He's like , oh no , I got to do all these promotional things and I have to have all these other income streams . The world has changed a lot since that , since those days , And that percentage of people that you're talking about has gotten very thin that make money that traditional way , I think .
John CordyYeah , also , i think that's where most of the attention gets spent , obviously for obvious reasons .
John CordyBut I think even at sort of college level I think I wrote like an essay for a piece of coursework about what the musician , what my life as a musician , might be like , and even back then I didn't really have any idea of being like a famous musician or whatever .
John CordyIt was always about sort of multiple income streams and multiple pies and fingers and that sort of stuff . So I think I've always kind of known that , especially as , like my personality on stage and playing has never been like flamboyant or anything that is actually going to get attention . So luckily , i think I always knew that but I went away and kind of did jobs that weren't fun . So that then when you come back to music and I tried to say this to like younger friends that I might have as well that I do think it's important to at least try a real job And that makes sense because there's an attitude . I think that can come . If you're always used to doing these kind of function and wedding gigs , that happens to everyone . I think you get quite jaded and tired of them and taken for granted , but to me it's still way more fun to be playing covers than it is to be working in the supermarket .
Joe MillerNo doubt , No doubt , Absolutely . And I think there's a lot of people out there that kind of do the hybrid thing too . You know that haven't gone all in , but sort of they might be doing the weekend gigs and have sort of a traditional job sort of during the week . So you know , however , you get your that part of you filled . I think it's a good thing . But you know , you're a lot younger than me , So I can see that when you were in college and wrote your essay , that you already knew was going to be multiple streams of income When I was your age , I was like , well , I'd already given up on being a famous guitar player , Which is not that good . I just do . I just have played a church on the weekends for years and years and years . So that fulfills my musical need .
John CordyI did that as well . I forgot to mention that , didn't I ? That's OK , i was very shy as a kid but we went to this church that had quite an active kind of music thingy , you know , like sort of more on the what's the word ? you know , the more modern side of church .
Joe MillerContemporary .
John CordyYeah , that sort of thing , whatever the word would be . That's not a pejorative , But they were quite like accepting and encouraging And although I was pretty shy , so I sort of faced forward instead of to the Your stage presence is what you're getting at right .
John CordyYeah , yeah , that wasn't the thing for me , but yeah , i got a chance to . I think that is kind of important as well , and that's one of the things that people outside of the church I don't think there's as much opportunity for that , for whatever reason , because everyone , you know , just church bands is a thing , isn't it ? So I played bass for years in a church and guitar , so that was kind of helpful , i think , in terms of Getting used to actually playing with people , and I would say , you know , if there are people out there that have had , you know , like you , you have phases where you go away from playing in a band or whatever , i think at any stage where you want to come back to it is , i think , still really We're rewarding and fun . Even , yeah , especially for me , like it's just a weekend stuff is , i Don't know . It kind of makes it make a bit of sense .
Joe MillerWell , and I have to say that you know , when I was quite young , like and we call junior high school here , i Had a little bit of had . We had a little band playing , you know , clapped in and Jimi Hendrix , you know , kind of destroying those songs in our own unique way . But I Never really knew how to play with other people until I I got school . We've lived in a number of different places in the US . When we were a church in California , it was quite a professional bass player there who taught at Berkeley , and I remember him in the middle rehearsal Turning to me and and looking at me , giving me the look , and later on walking up to me , signal Joe , just because there's six strings Doesn't mean you have to play every string on the court . And then he would say I think you need to learn more inversions . He would also turn to the musical , the leader , the worship pastor . She was excellent on piano and Nancy watches this , or Michael , i get myself in trouble , but she , he would look at her and you know what bass players say to piano players Get off the bass line , right . So anyway , i learned a lot about how to play in a group , a church , you know , so that you know , i think . Well , however , you get that it's a very different thing than playing in your bedroom or playing , you know , for your own enjoyment , to know how to play with others and Yeah . So anyway , that was sort of an interesting segue . Sorry , no , no , i , i enjoyed it .
Joe MillerSo let's talk , let's , let's kind of take a take a different direction here and sort of go back to This is the question I asked . So just about everybody that are my guests is is usually framed at what are the lessons learned , or What advice would you give to your younger self If you were starting all over again based on things you've learned ? I know there's always more to learn Based on things you've learned . If someone was in kind of thinking about a career , music or thinking about , or thinking about going in this direction , what are some key things that we could tell them , that you could tell them , john ?
John CordyOkay . So The first thing is that people like young people , if that makes sense . So This is something I kind of realized
Music Career Journey
John Cordynow . But I don't think that .
John CordyI don't think that university is , if you're gonna go down the route of musician and that sort of stuff is necessarily The most useful . I think if you can get involved with people that are playing music that are older than you , then that is at least as useful . Making money doing it , if that makes sense , that's as least at least as useful as getting into Secondary education in it , unless you need a degree for something . But in any case you might as well just do a degree in that rather than in popular music . That's been my experience of that and I've got a friend who's actually at the age where he would have been at university and he didn't do that and instead has been sort of gigging , and I don't know if it's maybe just an isolated example , but for me it looks to me that he's quite a lot further down the path . Then I would have been at that age because obviously it took me out of university and then starting basically back at zero anyway to get back to that level , if that makes sense . So I think if you can get involved whilst you're still young , people do like young people and that's , i think , young people in a band .
John CordyI think mentoring , that sort of thing happened and people are looking for people to mentor . It's just a way the world seems to work . So that would be that I'd say do things rather than overthinking things , and this is . I was not the most outgoing kid and I know there was a jazz school at my band I never got involved with . There were various bits and pieces that I just didn't get involved with for whatever reason , and looking back , probably I'd been in a better position if I'd said yes to a few more things . And whatever the reasons for not doing a thing are , there are probably a bunch more reasons why you would benefit if you said yes to a few different things . You know if they're positive things , obviously .
Joe MillerSo I have this , i had this thought I mean , is this kind of in that space , so why would you not do thing ? is it because you're playing it too safe , or could there be other reasons ?
John CordyIt could be that it could be that you're generally shy , or it could also be that you're waiting for things to be in a different state . So this is a thing that maybe I thought as a kid That I would work on something for this long and then suddenly opportunities would start to happen . Actually , that's not how things work at all . It turns out that as you put yourself out into the world , kind of opportunities happen and you grow along the way . Like the journey is where the growth happens . It doesn't really happen so much in isolation , and that's been true with the YouTube stuff as well . You know , i could think you know , like my production quality or whatever is not good enough . I'm going to wait until whatever . But actually probably whilst you're still working on your thing , people aren't going to find you that much anyway , but as you go along the journey , people are following you along for the journey . It's just a thing . You get better at things as you go . I think that's the case for everything , right ?
Joe MillerRight . Right , i think that's been my experience in other areas as well is that we tend to not want to step out until we think we've nailed it and really give way too much weight . I mean , you have to practice , you have to work on your own craft , but if you have the mindset that it's it , you're gonna do it all in isolation , and then you're gonna step out and kind of hit the crest of the wave and surf your way in . It doesn't work that way , because there's a there's a really large percentage of my experience of a positive feedback loop , of being together and getting Homed by just doing the thing with others in the real world . Does that make sense to you ?
John CordyYeah , yeah is it resonating ?
Joe MillerYeah .
John CordyYeah , i think it's just Not being afraid or just whatever the thing is . That's meaning that you don't necessarily go out and , you know , go to an open mic night Again . The open mic night slash jam night is for me where all of the opportunities kind of came from .
Joe MillerHmm .
John CordyI'm assuming that most people are interested in doing the like , the work at home anyway , particularly if you're like me , where you kind of like you didn't really want to go out loads or you're a bit shy or You're obsessed with guitar or whatever but going out and meeting people in these various circumstances , so whether it's an open mic night or jam night , that sort of stuff is where stuff happened . Or , equally , the online stuff I Guess is sort of similar , where , yeah , instead of having to wait until your thing is totally perfect , by which point , you upload it and Only three people are gonna see it anyway , most likely . Yes , yes . So I mean , for me it's more like , well , each thing that you put out , so whether this is music or videos now , is just Like a mark of today . Yeah , it's not . It's not saying that this is a Perfect thing , it's just a thing that is a point in time . You let that thing go for me .
Joe MillerYeah , i'm a . I do coaching on the side . You know , i've done career in executive coaching because I had this whole other career in technology . But one of the things That we put out often as coaches released I did was Challenging people to get off the outcome , because if they're so focused on the outcome , they think That they want all the time They're missing what's happening in the now and there's learning in the now and You don't really have the best vision for what the specifics of the outcome are going to be anyway , because as you go through the journey , you change what you want . You get clarity Yeah , what that , what that looks like and I imagine that's Happened for you too , as you now your dad you know . So now you've got a factor that in and that's part of your overall best outcome , right , and Dad of seven and a half doggies or whatever . Seven and three quarters , okay , only missing one leg on that dog at K , yeah , so , yeah , i think that's that's Really good advice .
Joe MillerFirst thing you said was don't think that you have to go to university for music . Do the traditional thing . And then we're talking now about it being a journey as well , that the first one Goes back to a concept I , you know . It's kind of programming or conditioning . We hear so much about the way it should be that we think we have to follow a certain course and In many , many people I've talked to , they become , you know , a lawyer or an IT person or something because Their parents told them they would be good at it or something you know , or they they just thought they were good at it , you know , or they they just thought kind of loosely about it and just went down that path and then Decades into their , their journey .
Joe MillerThey go really this kind of sucks , i don't Know , and they make a pretty big transition . So For you it seems like it's been more evolutionary , right , and you might have taken some other turns and maybe shifted things a little bit based upon what you've learned along the way . But You pretty much reported toward music from a very early age , except for the , the grocery thing .
John CordyYeah , that's , that's the music kind of was always there , but I the university thing really kind of knocked me off that path rather than Anything else that was I . I guess I made some really good friends there , but I think in general . But actually it was probably a fair reflection of the industry as well , in terms of , you know , a few people at university Probably is going to benefit quite well and maybe those folks are going to get into touring bands and stuff like that so that there are people that can thrive in that environment . But I Don't know , it's just for me It didn't really work .
Joe MillerI .
John CordyMight as well have just done any other course at university , really probably , because , yeah , probably even more beneficial .
Joe MillerWell , i mean , it's just , you know , you come to those conclusions and I think you have to be kind with yourself , you know . That's the other thing too .
Career Shifts and Consistency in Workflow
Joe MillerI think back about my career shifts . I thought , well , you know , i spent , you know , many decades , several decades , doing something that I was successful at , but it it burned me out . You know , i was just . I Was just what's the expression ? smashed to bits . I thought , the end of the day I was just , yeah , i was had no energy , you know , i was just completely drained and I was getting the financial rewards , but I Only kept doing it because it took a ride for my family , you know . But it wasn't giving me a lot of joy , that's for sure .
John CordyYeah , i also think there is a Like this is what I meant earlier when I said about I couldn't advise anyone to to follow my lead or whatever . I don't think that There's so much of everyone else's journey which is totally not Saying yeah , if that makes sense . So you know , someone else is probably not gonna even want to do a video every single day Or , like you know , 3000 videos before they start getting anywhere . Do you know what I mean ? Like , in terms of relative success , i'm probably like the least successful person on YouTube versus work put in if that makes sense . So , but I Think at least yeah , i don't know What am I trying to say about that .
Joe MillerI Forgotten well , i think what you're saying was that Giving other people advice and context of your own unique journey is a little bit . You have to think about it a little bit , because not everyone's lives are the same . Now that never wired the same . They're not the situation is not the same right .
John CordyYeah , the thing that I've I've found that , i think , is University true , probably is that if you're gonna get good at a thing , you have to find a way to make it consistent , mm-hmm . So you make it a thing that you are consistently gonna try to do , and I had another thought . This was gone .
Joe MillerThat's what editing is for .
John CordyYou have to consistency , and then What am I doing ?
Joe MillerThat's fine , but I think you have to be intentional about About things , and I think also that you have . You talk , talk to us earlier about the pattern . You have the daily pattern . You have right . So you have an intention to the , to your own development , and You've established a habit to doing that , and that provides you with a structure In order to continue to work on your mastery . Today , did I ring a bell ? Go ahead , yeah .
John CordyYeah , the other thing , so what ? I guess it maybe goes hand in hand with it , but Generally with anything , it's gonna require like That's a good amount of work , if that makes sense . Like probably before you see What , before you hear of people on YouTube , they've probably done a load of Work that gradually got them to where they are or in whatever field they're in . Like there aren't really many Overnight sudden success stories or , although we see like things that are viral or whatever , probably there's had to be quite a vast amount of work beforehand .
John CordySo the thing that has been important for me is having a really a really easy , clear workflow , if that makes sense . So basically , i can just literally come into the room in the morning and the thing that I'm working on . I'm not having to set up , there's no kind of blockages . I just do the thing , and I think maybe that's probably the same for other things as well . But if you were trying to get good at a thing , like you wouldn't pack your guitar away every day if you wanted to play it every day , right , because that would it would be a blockage between you and doing the thing .
Joe MillerIf anything you can do yeah , anything could do to remove the friction From your intent Is a good thing to do . You know it's it's having everything kind of the whole pants distance , everything at the ready , and you know if you took all your your guitars and you put them downstairs and Or some other place and every time you had to think about it's kind of like the workout thing . You know , Well , I have this great piece of gym equipment . It's like three flights of stairs away from me and And then on the way up you know there's the coffee pot or the tea kettle and there's this , the TV with the remote , and You're basically setting yourself up for failure rather than intentionally build your workflow and your environment to support your intention .
John CordyYeah , i think as well part of the thing . If you're gonna do a thing with any sort of scale , as in like Thousands of hours spent doing a thing , then probably naturally some of these habits will start to form . But I maybe , if you go into it with the idea , if it's a new thing that having a Workflow that is gonna support you spending loads of hours doing it , i think maybe that helps a bit . But that that was kind of the thing where people ask me about you know , how do you do that or how do you do this , whatever it's that every single day I just do the thing and that naturally things have evolved in a way where there aren't as many blockages to doing the thing . Yeah , yeah , where you're , naturally you'll you've become a bit quicker at doing what's going on .
John CordyEventually you learn how to focus the camera , which took to me a lot of years . I'm still gonna get it right up all the time , and that's the other thing as well is that , as I said earlier , like each day , it's just a representation of the thing . So whether the project is , however long , i guess it'd be different for different people , but All the thing is is the best you could do in that moment . It doesn't have to be the most perfect thing in the world , and not everyone in the world is gonna see what you did anyway . So I tried to keep that in mind , that you don't want to block The thing with too many thoughts about yeah , like you said the outcome . I guess that's the thing with social media as well .
Joe MillerWhere ?
John Cordyyeah , people are concerned about the amount of numbers and stuff and I try to encourage people as well . That is not really about the success of one or two posts , it's more about over time . Yeah , that's what it's been for me anyway trying to Leave enough things behind that people will eventually .
Joe MillerCan't you know ? Yeah , yeah , yeah , having the long view , absolutely , that's , that's great . Well , um , i Want to kind of pivot , sir , as we were bringing the plane in for a landing here , so to speak , because we've been going for a while down tainted , but I love them , hopefully what somebody else will connect with them . It'll be interesting to see what the retention graph is . As to your earlier point , that's a scary thing . But So how do people ? are there any projects ? you're doing your normal things right . Are you working towards anything else Or you just kind of continuing to turn the crank on what you've been doing ? Obviously , you have a new baby , so that's a new project .
John CordyThis is one of those things and thought . so , as you might be able to tell , i have like certain habits that are formed . The thing that I don't have at the moment a very good idea of is how I would turn things into like a larger project with like more planning . So all of my music stuff is improvised , so I've become very used to the idea of starting with nothing and quite quickly having something is not of any value , but like something .
John CordyAnd then but I do sort of fear in some ways that I might be missing out on other things that if I , you know , had a larger project , that makes sense . So what I'm trying to think about at the moment obviously right now I'm just sort of maintaining is an idea of a larger project in some way . So probably for me it wouldn't be an album , because I don't think there'd be much interest in it , but it might be in something like a course with more of a through line or you know , something more planned or , yeah , makes sense . But I'm trying to think in my head about how my workflow at the moment wouldn't really support that . I don't think , unless I'd have to sit down and maybe talk to someone about what , how I ?
Joe Millerwould make sense Well you have a huge content library there . The question is is there like to your point ? is there a through line ? I'm sure there is , And but it's how to work that into your , your current workflow .
John CordyYeah , well , i . So there might be certain topic , topics like techniques , like legato and guitar , for instance that I'm sure I've got enough stuff that I could do something on that topic . But I wouldn't want to just reuse stuff , if that makes sense , i want to try to present it in a different way . So those are some thoughts that I've got And I like a bit of a blind spot for me personally where the larger project haven't really got a sense of that at the moment .
Joe MillerYeah , Yeah , well , I think that asking your your your followers . So sometimes the advice I've heard in this respect is to ask them what they're interested in . You know what , what , what have they can add ? what would they like more of in the form of a course ? And you know , I completely different space , You know , in sort of the leadership management space . I've launched communities , paid communities in that space and provide services to them , meetings and facilitate things . But one of the things I'm looking at doing is starting a course for growing in leadership and putting out polls saying what are the key things you struggle with . You know so I don't know , But the advice I have seen out there is put a poll out there , you know , create a sort of an early bird launch , you know , with the understanding that they will be co developing the course material with you for a reasonable entry fee , founding member or whatever . Those kinds of things can be helpful , I think .
John CordyYeah , for me . I articulated this to one other person . I think the idea would be that I'd start off with one sort of mini project That makes sense , so like a smaller thing , as a proof of concept , that I could actually do a project that spans like days rather than just one day . Yeah , that looking beyond one day for me at the moment is like a challenge , i guess , except for if I bank several things in one day . So for knowing that I actually got advice from Jack Gardner , incredible guitarist on this , who had a baby , i think , maybe like two , three years before , and he said I wish I had banked some videos . So I kind of took that on board and then I had like 30 videos that over time I had put away so that eventually , when I got stuck in hospital for five days with my wife and baby , that I had that to fall back on . So I think that probably shows that the ability to bank a thing . It shows that you can look forward a bit .
Joe MillerYeah and small increments , right , yeah , yeah , i just think that's exciting . I'm sure there's . I mean , a lot of people would be interested in what you come up with .
John CordySo that's my . It might be rubbish idea .
Joe MillerNo , no , enough of that humility . Yeah , It's great stuff .
John CordyThat is , yeah , one thing I definitely need to figure out .
Joe MillerWell , this has been great . I don't want to take up too much of your time . I know it's quite a bit later . I'm in Florida , so it's it's my afternoon , but it's getting well into the evening for you . So how , how should people reach you ? Now ? I'm going in the in the show notes in this , this YouTube publication . I also have an audio podcast . I will include your path to your YouTube channel . Are there other places they should look for you ? I think you're on Instagram too , right ? Why don't you just call out some of that information and I'll embed it into this ?
John CordySo the main engine is YouTube . So YouTubecom slash John Nathan Kordy . That has been the thing that has actually been more interesting for me . Instagram is there too And I kind of post sort of clips and stuff up there .
Joe MillerBut mostly YouTube .
John CordyYeah , mostly YouTube and Instagram to me isn't as interesting a place as YouTube . You can actually hear what someone thinks about stuff and you can hear three minutes of music if they choose to play three minutes of boring Lagarde . Yeah , the YouTube became a bit more interesting to me because it was yeah , you could do a longer video , you could talk about ideas and people could ask you what was that thing that you're doing there and you that could then create another video idea . So it's been quite nice in that way . It's self-saturating , but , yeah , so YouTube is basically the main place .
John on Titans of Transition Interview
Joe MillerWell , this has been great , John . I really appreciate your time and best of luck with the many souls under your roof . I appreciate you making time from some guy that reached out as a little bit of a fanboy , And from an old guy too . see , age is a thing , but I keep rocking as best I can .
John CordyThanks for asking .
Joe MillerThis has been great . So , everyone , please encourage you to go to John's YouTube channel and do all the things like subscribe , share and support his work . It's great work . I look forward to connecting with you all again soon with the next episode . So thanks again , John , for being on Titans of Transition .
John CordyThanks , John .
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