The Secret to Creative Consistency (with Brian Funk — Host of The Music Production Podcast)

Brian (Not Brain) Funk teaches a class at Berklee Online Online, hosts the The Music Production Podcast, and creates sample packs for Ableton Live (and is also an Ableton Live Certified Trainer). How in the world does he do it all?

I got to sit down with Brian to discuss his crazy schedule and how he stays productive and creative with so many things to juggle.

This conversation was pure gold, and I learned a ton from chatting with Brian. Not just about Ableton Live, but about creativity, productivity, and life in general.

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What is Behind the Space Bar?

Tips and Tricks for Playback Techs, Music Directors, Musicians or anyone running tracks on stage.

The most successful creative people I know in my life are not successful because

they're the most creative,

but they're successful because they're the most consistent.

On today's episode of Behind the Space Bar,

sit down and talk with fellow Ableton Life certified trainer Brian Funk.

And we hear all about the importance of showing up in how to maintain creativity

while you have a day job.

Hey everybody, and welcome back to Behind the Space Bar. This is a podcast for,

uh, folks that perform on stage with Ableton Live,

or hope to perform on stage with Ableton Live. Gosh, today's interview is,

is a real, real gift. Um, Brian Funk is someone,

if you're not familiar with Brian, he introduces himself in the podcast,

but I'll spoil it. Uh, he's, uh, does the music production podcast with, uh,

which has, uh, over, I think he said, 30,000, uh,

downloads a month over a million listens in total. Um, a very,

very highly rated music podcast where he sits on interviews, music producers.

He also has the Music Production club, uh, which is a, a monthly subscription,

uh, where he, uh, offers up a community. He offers up sample packs,

or Ableton Live does some really, really cool stuff, uh,

that I'll link to in the show notes of this. But Brian is,

he's also an Ableton Live certified trainer,

and he is someone that I've known about for a very long time. Uh, we've,

we've passed emails back and forth and traded messages on social media, uh,

for a few years now. And he's someone that I've wanted to connect with,

and we actually talk about this in the podcast,

that having a podcast is a great excuse to connect with people that you've

wanted to connect with for a long time,

or to get to know people that you wanted to get to know.

And Brian really is someone I've wanted to get to know,

because a trait that Brian, um,

exhibits that I want to be someone who exhibits is he consistently shows up.

And that's one of the reasons I reached out to Brian and said, Hey,

I'd love to have you on Behind the Space Bar. Uh,

and it's quite ironic that that's one of the biggest themes of this entire show,

uh, and in this entire episode. So you'll hear my conversation with Brian. Uh,

we talk about the importance of showing up.

We talk about the importance of being consistent in whatever you're doing. Um,

we talk about how to deal with failure,

how to deal with criticism if you're someone who's creating and creating in

public, uh, whether you're a musician or not. Gosh, this, this episode is,

is such a gem, uh, and you're really, really going to enjoy it. Plus,

one of the things I really loved is Brian talked about, uh,

being creative and being a successful musician, being a, having a success,

successful business, being a successful entrepreneur while having a day job.

And he talks about why he has no plans of quitting his day job anytime soon,

and why he protects just music in general. For him, it is, gosh,

such a great conversation. You're really gonna enjoy it. So,

without any further ado, let's get to my conversation with Brian Funk.

Brian, man, thanks so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me. Will great to be here.

Yeah. We've, we've been chatting, uh, we, we,

we should have just started recording when we hopped on cause we've had some

good chats so far getting ready for the podcast. But, um, I,

I always ask the same question when I start podcasts, but for you, I,

I have a pre-question to that question. So if,

if you've been listening to the podcast interviews,

maybe you can cheat and you know the question I'm gonna ask,

but I'm gonna beat you to it by asking the question,

how many times in if in your life have people misspelled your name Brain instead

of Brian?

Uh, you know what, that's a funny joke I have with my wife.

She loves when that happens. Okay. And sometimes even refers to me as brain,

as brain as a joke. And whenever I get an email, which is probably

in a usual week, once or twice Okay. Sometimes more, sometimes less,

I always forward it to her, take a little picture of it. Yes. You know,

just for her own amusement, but yes. All the time.

That's great. Well, I, I,

I brought that up because I'm pretty sure when I went to reply to you,

I mistyped it and then went, wait, no, no, no, no, no. I gotta think about this.

So, um, now that the pre-question to the real pre-question is out,

so I always start these interviews the same way, asking people,

if you had to think of your unfair advantage,

something that you feel like you do better than anyone else,

or something that you see other people struggle with,

that comes naturally to you, what would you say is your superpower?

Oh, man. Um, you focus so much on like, your weaknesses, right? So, yeah.

Yeah. Um, I, I think it, it's just been showing up

probably more than anything. I,

I've kind of a believer that the more you do something,

the better you get at it if you just keep at it. For me,

even music itself was a totally unknown territory

for me when I started with guitar. I didn't know anything. I didn't know notes,

I didn't know singers were singing notes. Mm-hmm.

I just thought they were singing, making their voice sound a certain way.

So I had no idea about any of that.

And learning music was really good for me,

for teaching me that lesson that you can learn something that you don't already

know. Because I think growing up I was like,

okay, enough at sports and athletics, like relatively coordinated.

So it wasn't something I had to work super hard at Yeah. In order to like,

compete with everybody on a reasonable level.

And in school I did well enough without really having to try too hard,

you know, got my, like B pluses just by showing up. So I didn't have to,

I didn't get to learn that through anything until really music came along

and I realized like, I didn't know anything. I was 14, so, you know,

you already had friends that were very musical and talented,

and it seemed like the kind of thing to me that you either had or you didn't.

And I just assumed I didn't.

So I think that's the thing that I do well,

is I just keep showing up

How, um, I, I wanna spend a little bit of time here. I mean, we, honestly,

we could spend the whole podcast on this, I feel like, because that,

I, I actually just recorded a episode behind the Space bar, uh,

a couple days ago where I, I said, I'm not sure what's more important,

quantity or quality, but I do know for sure that quantity leads to quality. So,

um, before we, before we started talking, you were talking about, you know, the,

the crazy schedule of your life and making time for music and making time for

your podcast, um,

and tutorials and sample packs and all the fun stuff you do related to music.

But can you talk a little bit about, okay, showing up is important.

How do you practically, how do you practically show up?

Is it something related to a schedule?

Is it a commitment you've made to yourself? Like,

how have you practically found time with a busy schedule with a day job

to show up consistently?

Well, I do have some free time, you know, teaching,

I get home at a reasonable hour. I also have to get up at an unreasonable hour.

Yeah.

So I need to be in bed by a certain time. So there is this time constraint.

So I've got a limited amount of time,

so I know that I have to kind of get to work. I gotta start. I,

if I push it off too long, then the day runs out. Um,

I find those types of restrictions are really helpful. For example,

summer vacation,

I can waste time for weeks and feel like I still have a lot of time left. Yeah.

But when I'm working, I'm a little more like, all right,

we better do something now.

So I just try to do something every day

with music. I try to do something every day, move forward something,

even if it's just publishing a podcast or, uh,

creating a video or just working on a song just to put some time in.

And it's not that it has to be a certain number of hours,

it's just some amount of time. I do the same thing, even with like, exercise.

I just have to do something every day. Yeah.

And I try to like wrap my identity up in that and say like,

I'm the kind of person that like, doesn't miss a workout, even though I,

I do once in a while. But yeah, having this, like, I,

I try to do something every day with music,

gives me this identity I have to live up to. Hmm. That's,

and that's really it. So it's, it's like,

it's the amount of times I show up not how long or even how

good the work is, just that I'm,

I've just believed that if I do it enough times in a row,

it eventually adds up.

Yeah. That's really good. I mean, that takes me as you're talking,

I feel like it's almost like the audiobook version of Atomic Habits

and just the whole idea of you don't rise to the level of your goals,

but you fall to the level of your systems and Yeah. Um, everyone listen to us.

If you haven't read that book, I mean,

James Clear kind of takes all these ideas from other people and, and,

and synthesizes them into to one kind of nice type package, which is great.

But I, I love that idea he talks about of like transformation.

And it's more about, I'm the type of person that that creates music every day.

I'm the type of person that, you know, like you said,

that doesn't miss a workout, as opposed to, I'm gonna workout every day,

I'm gonna lose 10 pounds, I'm gonna blah, blah, blah. So, um, again,

I think that's,

I think that's so important because I learned that lesson really early on when I

would see people that talk about,

particularly songwriters or talk about an artist coming out, uh, with a record.

And they would see, they would see 10 to 12 songs on a record.

And I think it's easy to look and think that that artist goes in the studio

and they sit down and they write 10 to 12 songs, and they record a record.

And it's amazing. But what you get, what you understand,

the more you work with artists, the more you create music,

the more you create podcast episodes, the more you do whatever,

create sample packs, whatever the music thing is, is that to get to 12,

it's maybe 120, if you're lucky. If not,

it's 1,200, you know,

that you're creating to then get to that 12. So it is that, like,

that consistently showing up. And I love, I mean, I am,

I am a Seth Godden devote everything. Seth Godden writes, it's like, that's my,

you know, he's my guru. If I had to pick a guru, it's Seth Godden. And, um,

just his whole idea of like consistently showing up and doing the work, I mean,

that's his whole kind of mantra. The Stephen Pressfield,

put your ass in the chair, you know, just like, do the work.

Like that's the thing, you know,

that's the thing that unlocks the ability to consistently create,

is just showing up.

Those are three people. I love all three of them. Um, that's awesome.

Steve from Presfield always comes up.

I've read all of his stuff and I get an email or a no. Yeah.

I get a notification of Seth Godin's blog every day. Yeah, me too.

Yep.

And I read, uh, atomic Habits over the summer. That's awesome.

And a lot of that really clicked with me. And even what you said about, um,

you don't rise to like the level of your expectations or your potential,

you fall to the level of your training.

That was something my martial arts teacher said,

and he was talking about, you know, self-defense and fighting. And it was like,

you're not, you don't, you think you're gonna show up and like,

have your best day. You know, like whether it's a sport too, like the big game,

you're gonna be at the best. You're gonna fall to the level of your training.

So train hard, work hard,

put the time in this way that you don't have so far to fall.

Yeah. That's really good. Wow. Uh,

this is definitely the most in, you know, deep. I've gone at the start of,

you know, we're like 10 minutes into the podcast anyway, that, and I'm already,

and again, we could, we could really keep diving deep on this. I,

I wanna pause for a second cuz I'm not very great at introductions.

And so I'm gonna give you a, a second to, uh, introduce yourself to the podcast.

Uh, talk a little bit about what you do. Um,

you've got a book out that I want to talk about for sure,

and tell kind of an interesting story about that. But, uh,

why don't you introduce yourself,

kind of talk a little bit about some of the musical things you do then? Um,

I definitely want to dive into some different specific areas for sure.

Sure. I relate to that so much from my podcast. I,

I host the music production podcast and, um, I often do the same thing.

The, the podcast almost starts before we can hit record. That's right.

You get excited to talk. And,

and we spent a few minutes talking before we started anyway,

but I think we also are very familiar with each other's work,

even though we haven't had a chance to talk like this before. But, um,

I'm Brian Funk. I'm a musician, producer, educator. I'm also like,

will a Ableton certified trainer. I teach a class at Berkeley online.

Um,

I kind of got into this by sharing my work on my website of creating Music and

Ableton live packs. And again, to speak to consistency,

when I released that first pack,

it was like 2011 and I got it

shared by synth topia dot oh cool com, the website I love.

And I got more attention for that than I ever did for my music.

So I was like, Hmm, I'm gonna keep doing this.

So I decided to do it every week and I did it consistently.

And that was really smart cuz it kept me working on music.

And at that time a band had just broken up, played in rock bands my whole life.

And you know,

with a band you have like rehearsal time and it's on a schedule.

It has to be really,

if you ever want to get more than two people together at once. Yep.

So not having that structure could easily have been a problem,

but by deciding to work on,

like creating these sample packs and tutorials and all that stuff kept me going

and kept me learning.

And through that I actually learned how to use Ableton Live.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started.

I just knew how to use sampler. You know,

I knew how to put a sample in sampler really. That was about it. Yeah.

But just, I've always kept going. I don't have, you know,

like I teach this Berkeley online class, but I don't have the,

the degree that my students will get when they go through all the courses.

So it was all like,

kind of self-taught and I took guitar lessons and stuff. But, um,

yeah, did all that started the podcast,

which has probably been more valuable to me than any college education

I've had. You know,

just talking to people that are doing interesting work around music is Yeah.

It's, it's like the best way to learn. Yeah. Um, and then, yeah,

I wrote a book called The Five Minute Music Producer,

which is 365 music making activities.

And that again was like a consistency thing.

Like I just kind of equated it to my day job,

which is high school English teacher,

where I have to come up with a lesson every day for those classes.

And a lot of times it's a writing prompt or something. So it's like,

if I could do that here, I could do this with music.

I started just coming up with short activities. And again,

to speak to consistency. Um,

sometimes it's hard if you tell yourself,

I need two hours to do music today. I need an hour,

I need this big chunk of time.

So I felt like if I just show up for five minutes and do something,

at least I move the needle forward a little bit and odds are I get sucked into

it anyway. Yeah. For me, getting started is always the hardest part.

Even though I love making music, maybe I'm like scared of it or something,

but I can do every household chore I can think of before

I'll start making music. That's right. For some reason,

like the creative act is scary, I guess. And,

but if I tell myself just five minutes, just do it for five minutes, I'm like,

okay, that's not too bad. You know, like, it's like a commercial break on tv.

So yeah, the idea what the book was to make those short little activities and,

you know, get people going. So I,

so I started doing 'em one a day until I had a year's worth.

How long, how long did, uh, did you literally write it over a year's time?

Almost. Okay. Um, when I first started coming up with them,

I had a lot of ideas off the top of my head, so I probably did like 30. Yeah.

And then I was just keeping up,

keeping up cause I was sending 'em out originally as emails,

so I just needed to keep ahead of the emails and every once in a while the

emails would catch up to me and I have to bang a few out. Yeah. But I wound up,

it was probably about 10 months total from when I started. Okay.

But again, it, I didn't know it was gonna be a book when I started it.

It was just activities that I was sending out through emails.

And then after a while I was like, Hey, this would be a cool book.

Yeah. That's, I love that idea of this is gonna sound,

this is like the weirdest tie in ever. But I, as soon as you said that,

it took me back to this is something that stuck with me and you don't have to be

a religious person to like catch onto this idea.

But I remember a boss years and years ago, uh,

I was on staff at a church and he said his goal every day is to read one,

one sentence in his Bible. And if,

if you come from a religious background or whatever listening to this,

the idea of like a quiet time or devotion or, uh, you know,

Ryan Holladay has like his devotion for stoics kind of thing.

But like this idea of waking up every day and reading something that starts your

day off. Right. And, and a lot of folks in any sort of faith community,

we all deal with the same struggle of like consistently doing something.

But it always stuck with me that he said,

and this kind of ties us back to that James clear thing where we started,

where he just said,

my goal is I just open my Bible and I read one sentence a day. And I was like,

that's kind of like weird. And like,

your faith can't be like stronger than that.

But I realize it's back to that rising, you know,

not rising to the love of your goals, but falling to the love of your system.

So where at least you read one sentence,

at least you did five minutes of producing, doing something in music.

Or even setting a simple goal is like,

every single day I'm gonna open Ableton Live,

or every single day I'm gonna record a voice memo of a melodic idea.

It's not every single day I'm gonna write a top 20 song. It's just,

I'm gonna do something that moves the needle that does the work. That, again,

like you said,

it's like going back to where we started is consistently just showing up.

Which I think that's genius. That's a great, great idea.

Yeah. Cuz you're probably not gonna read one sentence, right? Yeah.

You're gonna sit there.

But if it's one of those days where you just feel like you can't do it,

you can get a sentence in and feel like the day wasn't a loss. That's right.

And you didn't fall behind you, you did something. Yeah.

That's right. That's really good. I, I want to,

I wanna talk more about the book in a second. Um, and, and again,

I'm not great at podcasting,

so I always like break the train of thought to like jump around in the,

in the schedule here. But, um,

you said something as you were talking about the importance of you doing

the podcast, doing music production podcast. And I pulled up,

I had a stat here that I just wanted to share to like, brag on this, uh,

has over a million downloads total currently recedes, uh,

thir over 30,000 downloads per month. So, uh,

and at least I know when I look on Apple Podcasts, it's like very,

very highly rated and I, I dunno if it's a music category or whatever,

like it's, it's up there with podcasts that,

that people are downloading and listening to very, very regularly. How,

um, and again, you kind of casually mentioned this,

how important is it for artists and,

and let's expand the artist thing to a guitar player.

Someone who's a songwriter, someone that's a producer, someone that's, um,

a drummer,

someone that wants to be a playback tech and use Ableton live on stage,

whatever it is.

How important is it for them to share their work publicly when it comes to

getting recognition, getting jobs, you know, what, like you,

you mentioned about the importance of doing the podcast for you in your mind,

how important it's for people that are doing a skill to share their progress,

even if they're just starting,

even if they feel like they're not great at it to share their progress as

they're working.

It's, it's great. I mean, why not? You know, um,

when I started my Ableton Live packs,

I really didn't know how to use Ableton Live.

I knew how to use sampler and I thought the instrument I made and,

and I didn't really know how to use sampler.

I've learned that I can drop a sample in there and it would make a sound that I

could play. That's right. Yeah. So I thought the sound I made sounded cool.

So I had just started a website cause I wanted to write about music as a way to

document it,

but also to share because a lot of the learning I had done was through other

musicians sharing their work.

And I also realized that I started listening to a lot of their music.

Some of the people I was following, I, I was now listening to their music.

So I was like, this is cool. It will scratch a bunch of itches for me.

It's also a nice way to not feel like you're shamelessly trying to self-promote

all the time cuz you're sharing the process,

but there's always a person who's one step behind you. Yeah.

And there's always people that are one step ahead of you and many more as well.

So if you even know how to do anything,

you could be of value to somebody that's just starting.

And sometimes that beginner way of looking at things is really

much better for somebody that's new than somebody that's been doing it a long

time. You kind of forget what they went through.

When my grandmother got a computer in probably the early two thousands,

I'm trying to show her how to do email. I'm like, all right,

just so just move the hour there and click on it. And she's like, what? Click,

click.

Yeah, that's good.

Move the air.

So she didn't know that moving the mouse corresponded with the arrow

on the screen. She just had, she didn't play video games like I did.

So she didn't have any of these background experiences with electronics.

It was just completely new. And it made me realize, oh yeah,

well okay, okay, let me see.

You have these icons represent the thing you want to do. Yeah.

And you have to push the button that's click. You know,

just those ex explanations. Whereas I'm sure if like,

say one of her friends had just got a computer,

she'd be able to go through that with her more naturally. Yeah.

And I think that's like so many other things. Share your work. I mean,

if nothing else, and odds are in the beginning, no one's gonna see it anyway.

Yeah. And that might make you say, well then so what?

But it also makes you reflect on what you're doing and that that's part of the

process. We learn, you know, athletes after the game is over,

they watch the footage. Yeah.

It's not cuz they hope they won this time after a bad loss.

Maybe if we watch it again, we'll win. You know,

it's because they wanna see what happened and so they can learn and fix things.

And when you're reflecting on what you're doing by documenting it,

it can help you grow. Yeah. I think it's great. I mean,

why not really? Um,

even just as a personal diary of your experiences.

So you can look back six months from now and say like, wow,

I've come pretty far.

Yeah. That's, that's really good cuz I love the,

I love the note that as you were talking,

I was just thinking of the phrase of like,

beginning is a gift and like being a beginner is such a gift that it is

really frustrating when you're beginning cuz you just wanna get to that end

point when you've got it mastered. But it is true that like,

we forget what we've forgotten. And as, as a teacher in particular, like,

I get better as a teacher when people comment on YouTube videos.

And I'm not a teacher in the sense that you're a teacher where I'm like yelling

at kids and have to manage a classroom.

But teaching a concept and taking something that's complex and making it simple,

I am,

I am served greatly When people comment on a YouTube video and someone did this

somewhat recently and was like, I, I'm thankful for what you did,

but you didn't explain, um, you know, I'll,

I'll spare the technical details, but they're like,

but you didn't explain what happens after that. And I thought, well,

of course you know what happens. Like everyone knows what happens after that.

But their comment made me realize like, no, I,

I do have to think through the lens of someone that's just starting as opposed

to assuming that people have the same knowledge that I have that I don't have

because I'm a genius.

I just have because I've done it for a long period of time. Um, and,

and so yeah, just that process of beginning I think is super important. And, um,

and I love Seth Godden quoting, uh,

I guess Steve Jobs is the first of that,

but Real art is ship and just that idea of shipping your work work consistently,

whether people are seeing it or not is, is, makes you better.

And it's just an enjoyable way. And like you said, uh,

it's a great way to document the process and to document your progress as

you're, you know, it, it would be amazing for me to see,

and I've never seen anyone do this may, you know,

if you know differently correct me,

but it would be amazing to see an artist say, Hey,

we're starting to write for the next album and we're gonna,

we're gonna share every single song as we're writing it in real time. You know,

copyright I guess is an issue,

but it's like we we're gonna write a song and then share the demo of the song as

we work towards the album.

It would be amazing to be through that whole process as opposed to just,

here's the album.

Yeah. I, I mean I love that kind of stuff. I love that The Beatles, uh,

get back documentary. Yeah. Eight hours of them doing just that. And Yeah.

Um, I love like the demos from artists. Um,

it's, it's, that could be a cool way,

a cool market marketing tactic for you to get people interested to just

wanna see it. Um, yeah. It's, it's why not,

you know? Yeah. Um,

I think it's helpful for everybody and there's also something about when

you're a beginner that you don't know the rules. Mm-hmm.

And you don't know the conventions and you don't know what you're not supposed

to do. That's good.

And a lot of times you do things in inventive ways and

I get that a lot from my students,

whether it's music students or even in high school,

cuz I also have a music production club at the high school that we run and Oh,

cool. And they do things like that you wouldn't think of. Yeah.

And you can learn from that. I always feel like I learn the most. Um,

it's important as you get better and learn in advance that you remember that you

can learn from anybody and sometimes you get valuable lessons.

When I was a teenager,

I was trying to teach my friend to play guitar so I could practice my pentatonic

scales over Nice. You know? Yeah. His, his chords, um,

I showed him Power Cord and he came back the next day and he was doing this

thing where he was like pulling on the chords as he played 'em. Mm-hmm.

So he is bending all of the strings at once,

which you don't really hear too often.

And the places he was putting his hand on the fretboard weren't really in the

key. Yeah. And I knew you're not supposed to do that, but it sounded cool.

That's cool.

So I was like, yeah, even though you don't know what you're doing,

like you just taught me something. Yeah.

That's great. Hey,

I think just that lesson of like being able to learn from anyone and,

and is is super, super big. Um, yeah man, that's great.

Can you, can you tell us a bit more about the music production club?

Like how often do you release a sample pack?

What's your most recent sample pack, at least as we're recording this? Uh,

and we'll include a link so that people can check that out as well too.

But tell us a little bit more about that. And you talked about how you started,

where, where is it now?

Cool. Thanks. Um, yeah,

the music production club is this subscription service I have where I'm,

I'm always releasing new Ableton live packs or sample packs.

So it's basically a way to keep up with what I'm doing for the

lowest possible cost. Um, and there's also,

I give a whole bunch of stuff with it.

I try to make it like ridiculously valuable, you know,

that there's so much stuff you get for as soon as you join you,

you get all this stuff. That's cool. Um, there's also a community,

so there's a discord and it's really cool. Like,

I don't know how it worked out this way,

but the people in there are so positive and helpful and supportive and they're

sharing music and they're collaborating and we do challenges from time to time

and it really gets like, exciting to hear what everyone's doing.

And then we do like a, a Zoom meeting every month or so.

So usually it's, I'm releasing something new every month. Okay.

Sometimes a little more frequently. Sometimes if it's a bigger thing,

it might be, sometimes it varies too what it is. But, um,

that started I think in 2015. Okay. As you know,

just seeing how this thing works and it's been great. Um, and again,

what's nice about it is it forces me to do something too. Mm-hmm.

It's like I gotta make something for them. Yeah. You know? Um,

and sometimes the things I wind up making are

a product of that pressure and they wind up being things I might not have

pursued otherwise. And I wind up with things I really like. That's always my,

in making something. I want it. I, I just follow my own desire.

Hmm. So something that I think would be cool and then I'll make it, um,

the latest thing, uh, my friend brought over an old accordion Oh, cool. With me.

So I sampled the accordion, made a traditional accordion sounding instrument.

Okay. Which that one I have for free download. Um,

but then there's another side of it that's you can buy or you get it with the

club where I tried to make more exotic sounds so

that it's called Accordion and Beyond.

And this is the beyond part where that's cool.

They're like synth type sounds and percussion sounds and just

how far can I take this instrument? Yeah. And um,

that's something that kind of fascinates me to no end with sampling and

building instruments is what can I get out of this? How far can we take it?

That's

Really cool. I, I know this is like a music thing,

so everyone listening, I apologize, but I want to,

I want to geek out and talk shop just for a second from a business standpoint.

Um, because you could say, I am Brian Funk,

sound designer, LLC, extraordinaire, uh, go,

you know, try to get sound design placements with different companies and blah,

blah, blah, do all these different things. But, um, you're,

you're like pursuing this path of, I I want to create a, uh,

a club a,

a opportunity where I can kind of do my own thing just as me as a

solo person business as opposed to building a team.

Cuz I think some people always look on and there's the overused story,

I'm not even gonna get into the story,

but of like a businessman visiting a fisherman and saying, oh, if you did this,

you could scale your business, blah, blah, blah. And he's like,

and he gets to the end of the story to say he's back to where he is right now,

but Right. Um, can we just for a moment, just, you know,

and maybe I edit this out of the podcast cuz it doesn't make sense in a music

podcast and I just do this for the sake of me, but, um,

I personally as someone who has a solo person business,

just love the idea of a solo individual, um,

following their passion and following their dreams and starting a business that

provides some sort of financial incentive to them, you know,

on top of like stuff they love doing.

Can you talk a bit about the not business side from a revenue standpoint,

but business side from like, the decision to,

to do it the way you're doing it versus like, Hey,

will you wanna make a sample pack and I'll release your sample pack and I'll

give you 30% and cutting deals left and right and doing that sort of thing.

Like, why, why are you,

why are you doing it the way you're doing it and what are the benefits of doing

it that way?

Well if it was working for other companies,

which I've done things like that, designing some presets and stuff,

and that can be a lot of fun,

but you're working for them and they have a specific vision and,

and sometimes that's a really great way to do your work cuz Yeah.

You know what to do.

I like the exploration side of things and

finding out what will happen if,

and sometimes what will happen if is it will sound terrible, you know? Yeah,

that's good. Yeah. So I, there's a little bit of a willingness to fail, um,

without anybody being angry with you. Yeah. So that's kind of nice,

but it is really following my own whims with it where I can

do the things I want to do. So that prevents the burnout stuff.

And I've experimented with some other aspects.

There's a lot of ways where you can make some money doing music these days.

Mm-hmm. I've done product reviews and, you know,

things like that that it was, I mean, it's kind of cool. Like,

companies send you cool product and you write about it,

make a video and you keep it and get paid and Yeah. That's, that's fun.

But I really found myself that felt like work. Mm-hmm.

That felt a lot like work. That was a job. And,

and that was the thing I had to do now to get back to the thing I actually want

to do. Mm-hmm. Man, that's good.

And it's probably in a lot of ways could be more lucrative to go

that route. Um,

but I'm, you know, I do have a day job too,

so this is should be part of the consideration that, um, you know,

if something fails for me, I don't starve. Yeah. But, um,

it,

I wanna be able to follow that passion and I also wanna protect the music part

of my life. Mm-hmm. And because I'm a, I am afraid that some,

and it happens to me sometimes where I'm doing,

maybe I'm doing too many podcasts or too tourism working too much on a pack,

where now I'm working and like, I'm not doing music,

I'm just talking about making music on the podcast and I'm not actually making

it. Yeah, that's good.

And the thing that has been so important in my life for my sanity,

for my social life and everything,

music suddenly like is,

I don't know if tarnished is the right word, but it's, you know,

it's been fractional.

I've talked to people on the podcast about this where as soon as they started,

you know,

making music where they had to like come up with a new song for the new record,

they kind of lose the joy of like,

the person that comes home after work and takes out her ukulele and

just plays in the backyard and the sound just disappears and it's gone forever.

Yeah. And no one ever hears it,

but it's just that nice relaxing time to chill out. Um,

I don't wanna ever lose that. Do you, that's important to me.

I, I think I know the answer to this based on what you just said,

but do you ever foresee a world where you quit your day job and this is what

you're doing full-time exclusively?

I don't know. I do like my day job a lot. Yeah.

It's getting complicated though. Uh,

the world is changing and teaching in a classroom

is feeling very archaic, you know,

compared to like kids that have phones that are flashing and you know,

TikTok has got a new thing every 32 sec. It's not even that long.

It's like four second videos half the time. That's right. Yeah. Like,

it's really hard to keep up with that. Um,

so there's like new challenges coming up with it.

I don't know if those might scare me off ai, who knows. But yeah,

I also think that's kind of interesting and exciting too.

I like that there's a puzzle to it. Yeah.

As much as I get stressed out sometimes thinking like, yeah,

I just feel like I'm not reaching them, that they're not getting anything.

What am I doing here? It's like, feels like pointless,

but that's like a problem I'm solving. Hmm. Um,

I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know if that would happen or not. I mean, teaching is,

is a good gig and it's stable, you know, that's one thing with music. Um,

you know, I've seen it with my stuff.

Like sometimes things are doing great and then other times things

dip down and for, I mean, for example, when the pandemic hit,

the podcast went down and listens a lot. Hmm.

And I think it's because people were not driving as much,

they're not going places. Yeah. But pack sales went up, Interesting.

People were downloading more packs and now it's kind of like gone the other way.

So now they're a little bit lower,

but it seems like the podcast is picking back up again. Um,

so, you know,

you just don't know what's gonna happen and it could very well be like, um,

something changes in the industry,

some new product or I, who knows. Yeah. And,

and especially when you're kind of like, uh,

hitching your cart to something else. Like I am making Ableton live packs.

It's predominantly what I do. Yeah. Um, so, you know,

one thing I like about the podcast is that it's not that. Hmm. You know,

as much as I love Ableton and everything I do, I'm sure you would know. I mean,

it's just a great company. Yeah. But it,

there is something nice to have like your own independent thing too. Yeah.

Oh, well I love, as you're talking, I I'm just thinking like there's this,

there's this um, kind of, uh,

perfect picture that people have in their minds of they have a day job and

you,

you like either have a day job that you just absolutely despise and you're just

doing it cuz you gotta pay the bills.

Or you have a day job kind of like what you're describing where you're like,

I I like what I'm doing, I like the people I work with, I get paid well.

But then in the back of your mind you're like,

but what if I could just be a musician and just do this and do that?

And I love though that you, you so perfectly painted. Like, I mean, one, you're,

you're a a a perfect model of someone who, um,

is building a successful career podcaster, you know, sound designer,

uh, you know, teacher, online instructor, uh,

all these different things with music that you're doing and doing incredibly

successful. But you still have a day job. So it's not like, you know,

hopefully people listening to this don't feel like,

cuz the stories we hear is the person who, uh, you know,

had a successful career in finance,

but she hated it and she quit it to go start a goat yoga farm and it just blew

up and was incredibly successful. And it's like, that's very, very rare. Um,

but you're, you're like that perfect walk-in example of like,

I have a day job that I enjoy,

but I also have this other thing that is successful and is doing well. And I,

I like that you even said too, that you want to protect that and you want even,

you know,

music and even your music related job to not get in the way of just

the joy of creating music. Like, I,

I think that's such a great picture to paint for people.

Yeah. Like,

what if I decide I don't want to do some aspect of what I'm doing anymore?

Mm-hmm. Um, I could, yeah. I could stop if Yeah. If I needed it,

then it'd be a little different and it,

it would have to take, I guess for me, it'd have to be a big swing.

That'd have to be like some kind of really interesting opportunities open up

musically and probably at the same time would have to also be a loss

of faith in education systems and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um,

I think as far as education goes for me, um,

the real value I get out of it honestly isn't like teaching them how to use a

semicolon or new vocabulary words. It's more,

and teaching English lends itself to this. It's the life lessons.

We can read a book and talk about the characters and then talk about life.

And those things are more important to me.

And I think that's really the valuable takeaway from most books too. Not,

you know, who killed Piggy and Lord of the Flies. Yeah. But, but like,

what happens, what's the message of this? What's,

what happens with society when there's no law and order, there's no rules,

is can we function or do we turn into the board of the flies?

Like those questions and how they apply to people's lives are also just more

interesting to me too. Hmm. So it would,

it would take like a big shift, but it's,

it's an important thing to think about for people because this idea that all

you need to do is, I mean,

quit my job or really anything is false. Yeah.

Because it,

you don't need anything like that to happen to start to try it out

and make some movements.

And if it turns out that what you're doing is working and now like your day

job's in the way and you,

you've got something going that would benefit from more time, then,

then maybe make those decisions at that point. Yeah.

But don't fool yourself into thinking like,

if I quit my job st and I start at zero,

I'm gonna start YouTube and become a YouTuber or whatever.

Like that doesn't just happen. Yeah. That's, it's a slow burn.

It's a long build. Yep. And it doesn't always even get there.

That's right. It's like a 10 year overnight success, you know, it's like, yes.

You only see,

you only hear the story of the guy who made one YouTube video and it blows up

and they're a millionaire and blah, blah blah. And it's like, no,

that's creating consistently, creating a video, writing a song,

writing a a email blog post like Seth Gooden does every single day,

year after year, day after day, month after month, year after year.

That then gets you to the ability and opportunity to do that. That's, yeah.

That's really, really good. I, um, again, I wanna,

I wanna work our way towards the book here in just a second, but, um,

you kind of casually glossed over, uh, we,

we have a trait in common in that we're both able to life certified trainers.

So when did you, um, when did you become a certified trainer?

Do you remember what year?

Yeah, November, 2013.

2013. Okay. I think that's, yeah. Similar to when I was certified. I can never,

uh, I can never remember exactly. I, uh, maybe it was before,

maybe it was around that time. But what do you,

if you could take me back to there, do you remember, uh,

why you pursued certification in the first place?

Yeah, because I was luckily,

again, Ableton very cool, supportive company.

And really part of the reason I got into using Live in the first place was when

I was going on YouTube.

And this is like back in the day when I first realized you can learn on YouTube.

That's awesome. You know, so I was looking up like Logic Pro tutorials,

how do you compress, how do you side chain? How do you do?

And I would always come across Ableton Live tutorials. Yeah.

And I would usually learn enough to apply it to Logic.

But after a while I was like, well, what is this Ableton Live?

I remember I got a version of it when I had Pro Tools like back in 2005,

but I didn't understand what it was and got into it. Um,

so then when I started sharing my racks, um, they were tweeting it,

they were sharing, sharing it too. And I was like, oh my God. You know,

I was like, I hit the big time. You know, like Ableton tweeted this,

it was really fun and exciting. So they were like,

they kind of knew me. I was in their orbit and I was teaching a little bit,

like I would do like workshops once in a while here in New York. Um,

and then I, I sort of started to see these two separate paths in my life.

Things that I always thought as separate things starting to come together a

little bit. Like, wow, I'm music and teacher.

I never thought about that cuz music teacher, you think of like, you know,

school band, saxophones, orchestras, marching band.

And I had nothing to do with that my whole life, so that wasn't gonna be me.

But these other things started popping up and then I was like, yeah, you know,

after

learning live pretty rigorously for those like first couple years I was

using it, I was like, you let's, what the heck? Let's see about this. You know,

and just applied and went through the process.

Do you, again, I'm taking you way back, but, uh,

I asked this question to my buddy Jeff Kaler, who as I'm recording this,

his episode Will Air on Monday and Nice. He was like, man,

you're taking me way back. But do you remember,

are there any particular highlights from the certification event that

stick out in your mind that you look back on either with like sheer terror

because they asked you something or like just pure joy of a really fun moment

from the certification event?

It was a great experience and it was probably the best professional

development experience I've had as a teacher. Mm-hmm.

Like of all the little meetings and workshops I've been through, through my job.

Wow. It was, it really was. And,

and I haven't ever been in a situation where there's a lot of critique going on,

you know, where you're critiquing others, they're critiquing you,

people from Ableton are critiquing you, you know, people like,

you know, because you've seen

The tutorial.

Yeah. Like, you like, so, um,

it, that was a really, that could be a really nerve wracking experience,

but they did it in such a way where it just felt so comfortable. Mm-hmm. And it,

it was genuinely helpful. They were trying to help. Yeah.

Um, and I took a lot away from that. You know, how you can,

like how I've been in art classes where you do critiques and it's scary and

this was just done so well. I appreciated that a lot. It was,

there were times when they asked questions that I just didn't know the answer

to. Or we even had, uh,

one of the people that was there was kind of, uh,

playing the role of the difficult audience member at times. Oh nice. Okay.

You know, so like trying to rattle you a little bit. So that was kind of fun.

That's, it's, it's funny as you're saying that it, um,

when I was talking to Jeff, I was reminded of, at the event,

I had to explain what warping was. And, uh,

Houston was like asking questions that he clearly knew what the answer was,

but I was like, oh, how do I explain this? But you,

you reminded me of such a great moment that's really similar to what you're

talking about of, uh,

I was in the middle of explaining something and probably in the kindest

gentles way possible, Houston like interrupted me. And he, again,

it's in front of this group of people,

which could be a very nerve-wracking thing, but he was like, will man,

you're a great teacher, but sometimes you get so lost in like,

you get so psyched on what you're showing us that you forget that you're like

supposed to take us somewhere.

And so along the way you're like showing us how you made this pad and you're

like super pumped on it and we all like are joining in, in your enthusiasm.

But this conversation was about, you know,

how to load an instrument rack into able to live.

And 20 minutes later you're like, so that's how I made a pad. And um,

I forgot about that till that very moment you said that.

Cuz it took me back to him. I mean, that's something I'm still working on.

But that took me back to such a like, gentle way to accept, you know,

feedback in front of a group of people that I was like, yeah, that's huge. Like,

for him to pinpoint that and to draw it out and do it in a way that doesn't make

me like instantly put up my defenses. Mm-hmm. That's, that's a skill. Yeah.

That's really good.

Yeah. They really had it down to an art at ours. Um, and you know,

the other people that I was going through the event with, we bonded, you know,

we're going through this difficult thing together and it,

it wasn't like a competition, like only the best two get through. So, yeah.

You know, it was nothing like that.

So it was very communal and everyone was there to help.

And that could have really been a situation that was much different with,

with just a few tweaks. It would've been scary,

hellish and, you know, just awful.

But it was really done well. So yeah. That's, and you like, that's good.

People might not know,

but they're not teaching you how to use Ableton Live.

That's not the point. It's, it's more of about teaching and,

and that stuff. And for me as a teacher, you know, I,

I felt like I was kind of good at that already, but I learned so much.

Hmm. A lot of things that I took to my regular job.

That's really good. I, um,

I wanna start to wrap up our conversation talking about, again,

going back to the book and it's,

it's something you very recently as we're recording this, have released. Um, I,

uh, I, I was really, uh,

one impressed with your candor and your humility, uh,

by an email a couple months ago, maybe,

I don't even know exactly how long ago it was, um,

where you shared an experience with the book that I,

I don't wanna steal the thunder cause I'd love for you to kind of tell some of

this story. But, um,

some of us are so afraid of failing that we never start. Hmm. And they're,

and then what you realize is that failure is, you know,

I said this I think in recording a podcast like a, a day or so ago,

so it's still fresh in my mind, but like the,

the journey and the path of success is,

is basically paved by failures and mistakes. So it's part of the process.

Um, but some of us again,

are so afraid of even starting because we're afraid we may potentially fail,

but then people that are doing the work and consistently showing up realize

you're going to fail. Can you explain,

and I'm super excited that you have it there for people watching YouTube

actually see this. Can you explain, um, the, the,

the book cover fiasco and um,

what kind of happened with you when you released, uh, your, your brand new book,

kind of the first edition, if you will?

Yeah. This is fun and,

and this is a good make lemonade out of lemon's story, I guess too.

But, you know, you just make a great point. Like,

you have to be willing to fail Yeah. At, at everything.

Just like if you were a little baby afraid to fail,

you would never learn how to walk. But you can keep getting up and keep going.

You just have to accept that that's gonna happen. Yeah. So yeah,

here's the book, the Five Minute Music Producer. Um,

I have two copies of it because I'll show you the problem. Uh,

so I was, it was really cool. I got this thing done,

made it into an ebook, and then I realized on Amazon you can do, um, you know,

hard copy books. So this is great. So I'll, I'll make hard copy versions too.

They print them on demand and I got it printed.

I got myself a copy. I was bringing it around,

I was showing people friends of mine, oh, check it out. Like it's, it's real,

you know, you can hold this thing.

And I guess I sent out an email about it or something,

um, and I got a reply from it and it, and it said something like,

too bad.

The typo on the cover negates everything you have to say inside the book.

And I'm like, what? And I looked, and I hope you can, this'll focus for you.

But I spelled production wrong.

I mixed up the t and the eye,

funny irony,

I guess too is I'm really sensitive to this typo because when I started the

music production club,

I had a logo that had the same typo on it for like six months before I missed.

That's amazing. So I'm aware of how to spell production and I'm sensitive to it.

But then I saw that, I was like, no way. And I was at work when,

when I got this and I was feeling good, I was proud of myself. Like,

I did this thing, I made the book and suddenly like a gut punch.

And I look at it, I'm like, oh my God. And like, people have ordered it, people,

it's out, it's, I'm plastering it all over the internet, you know?

And I'm just like, oh my God. And I'm an English teacher too, by the way.

So you're not supposed to make these mistakes.

I'm telling people to proofread their work all the time. Yeah.

I just didn't see it. I just didn't see it.

And people I showed it to didn't see it, and I,

I just felt so shot down like

this destroys me as an English teacher, as a musician,

as any sort of like person that you'd want to read a book from an

author authority, any expertise is out the window.

I just felt like they finally caught you, man,

because so much of what I do, like, I, I wonder like,

how am I talking to this person? How am why do you want me on your podcast?

Like, what, who am I fooling here? You know, how did I get this to happen? Like,

someone's gonna like realize that I'm a phony real soon.

And that was the day, that was the day it all came crashing down.

I was just really down on myself about it.

I felt horrible and just like a loser, you know? Yeah.

It wore off, you know, after a day or two, you know, I, I was like, all right,

well, like, what am I gonna do now? You know? Do I just quietly fix it?

Luckily Amazon prints on demand,

so I don't have a thousand of these sitting in a box somewhere that I'm stuck

with. But do I hide it? Do I just like alter it? And I was like,

you know what, this, there's something of value here. Yeah.

So I did decide to come clean, and I also, there's part of me too,

that I didn't want someone to be like, Hey, idiot, I know what you did.

So sometimes the best thing to do is to like, confess and admit,

but I felt there was that lesson in there too,

of how you're gonna make mistakes from time to time, you know? And,

uh, it was really cool after I sent out that email, I,

I think I did a podcast on it too. Um, people were like,

no one was like, I knew it. Finally,

I've been waiting for you to fall for so long. Yeah. It, it was,

people were supportive and nice. I got a lot of stories from people. Um,

even my parents were telling me when they, with their business,

they made all these flyers and they sp for they were business in Florida and

they spelled Florida wrong or what? Flo That's awesome. And, um,

you know, there was so many people that like came out and said nice things,

but it was, well, for one, it's like a good ego check. You know? Just,

just remember, you know, you, you might be proud that you wrote a book,

but you're still an an idiot like the rest of us. And

it, it was a good chance too, to just say like, like, I, I, I lived,

I survived, you know? And other people have said the same thing.

So you can always correct horse, you can always fix it. And, um,

just because that one word is wrong doesn't mean the whole thing is garbage.

Doesn't mean I'm garbage. Yeah. But for that moment, I did,

I felt like it was proof of all of my like,

deepest fears. The the inner critic was right. And yeah,

your whole life,

you've just been fooling people and you're probably gonna get fired from your

job now. And everyone finally figured you out.

I, I love that. I mean, I think all of us deal, whether we admit it or not,

we all deal with imposter syndrome. And that idea, I mean, you said it exactly.

Well, that's the way I think, like all, you know, I had a, a, I had,

I shared today on Instagram, um,

I just was overcome with this incredible feeling of, um, wow,

how fortunate and blessed am I, uh,

to work with the companies I work with to have people that like reach out and

say, will, will you talk about our product? And I'm like, uh, did,

was this the wrong will? Like, did you mean to send this to someone else?

You know, and I, I,

the thing I love about your story is all of a struggle with imposter syndrome.

And I even the Exactly you said it.

There's a day in my mind where someone's gonna go. I, I discovered, you know,

he's not really who he says he is. He's a liar. He's blah, blah, blah.

And I love that you,

you had that day and then the next day you woke up and the

next day after that, you woke up and you woke up.

And like you lived through that.

I almost picture like next to your studio there, you need a sign that says, uh,

you know, how many days since last incident and you just, you know, like,

write that down. And, because again, you could look at that and go,

my career's over, everything's done. But again,

that plays into the story of where we started of like,

you've just consistently showing up, and if you're gonna consistently show up,

you're gonna make mistakes. And if you want to avoid making mistakes,

just never start in the first place. But like, who, who, that would be terrible.

You know, like,

you gotta gotta like step on that path and start that journey so that you have

the joy of like, the joy of creating.

That's one way to ensure you'll never fail, is to never try. Yep. Yeah.

And it happens from time to time and, and, you know,

in the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty good problem to have. Yeah. Yep.

There's a lot worse things that can go down in life. And it's,

it's a funny anecdote at this point. Hmm. You know, but at that moment, yeah.

Like I remember the way my stomach felt, the, the dropping feeling.

And yeah, it does feel awful,

but I don't know, maybe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And,

um, just keep going. Just Yeah. And,

and roll with it, you know, sometimes. Yeah. I think it is a good story,

you know, and I, and that was a choice I had to make, you know,

my wife said like, well, how hard is it to fix? And it's like, well, honestly,

it's like uploading a few image of files. It's not too bad.

But

we get a chance to sort of write the stories we tell ourselves

in our life. You know,

we get to kind of narrat narrate what happens to us a little bit.

And I think it's helpful to choose stories that are beneficial to

us and are helpful rather than the ones that harm us.

We might have froze. Huh.

Well Brian, ironically enough, as your, uh, mid story, uh,

the electric company comes out to reset arm meter and, uh,

disrupts this terrible, or this, this beautiful, uh,

elegant telling of how any, any problem can be solved, any wrong,

can be righted. Um, and so, uh, I thought, okay,

that's kind of ironic that, uh, that the power went out mid midstream there.

But, um, I, I'd love to, uh, again, I'm thankful that you,

I want to publicly give you props for saying, Hey,

I made a mistake, uh, owning up to it. Cuz like you said, you could have just,

it's print on demand. So like the, the first edition copy is, is very,

very valuable right now. If anyone has it out there, uh, don't listen on eBay.

Or maybe listen a few years later, but, um, you very easily could have fixed it.

And no one except for that one guy probably would've ever known.

But I love that you like stepped into that and,

and in a way that kind of became a story that added to your validity as someone

who practices what they preach, which is like, show up every day,

you're gonna make mistakes. Just keep doing it. You know? And, um, I just, I, I,

again, publicly,

I wanna say thank you for doing that because for all of us that create anything

publicly, um, actually, I,

I have a question as I'm talking that came to mind that I wanna get your take on

this and then we'll, we'll wrap up here cuz uh,

I know you have to go soon and I'm so thankful for your time. But, um,

how do you, as someone who creates content publicly,

how do you deal with criticism?

There's going to be criticism from time to time,

so you have to just know it's coming. Yeah.

And and that's so many things in this process. Like when you're making music,

even you're gonna have the self critic there.

No matter how much I'm feeling a new idea,

I got a new guitar riff or I'm working on a song and it's just like, yes,

this is awesome. It's the best thing I ever made. At some point I'm gonna think,

Ugh, I don't know. I'm gonna lose it. I'm gonna, uh,

but I can't get my voice to sound right or whatever

of the infinite possible problems I could conjure up in my mind,

it's going to come up. Yeah. So you have to just accept that. Right.

So, um,

when this person told me that I had this error, you know,

they said in this kind of snarky way, like, oh, that negates everything.

It's like I had a part of me that wanted to be like, oh yeah, you know? Yeah.

And like get aggressive and fight it. Um, but I never do that.

Um,

I've found that most of the time if somebody

does make some kind of comment, no half the time you can just let it go. Yeah.

Um, but I always try to address it in a kind way Hmm.

Um, in a way of understanding. Um,

and it almost always diffuses it. Hmm.

And I had one email always sticks out in my head a lot

cuz it had a particularly crude insult that I'd never heard before.

That was pretty creative. Uh, it's probably not appropriate for this podcast,

but again, I had that, there's that urge, you know,

that ego thing kicks in and macho something happens to you and you're like,

yeah, you know, you wanna send it right back at them.

And that's part of the sad thing about negative energy too,

is it brings out negative energy in people. Yeah.

But I responded with like, you know,

I'm really sorry to hear that this is upsetting you so much. I I never,

that was never my intention.

I'm trying to help and if there's anything I can do in a different way that

would be better for you next time, I'd be interested to hear.

Cuz I wanna make the best stuff I can make of, so I just kindness and, you know,

understanding. And I got a reply that was like, Hey,

I'm sorry I was in a bad mood. And, uh, and to be honest,

I've been following you a while and I'm kind of jealous, like all this stuff.

Like, I didn't think you'd read it.

It's like they don't know me. No. Yeah. You know,

as much as like even they might follow, like they, they don't really know me,

so you can't take it personally.

And I've found that either if you respond with kindness and

understanding or don't respond, sometimes the people will stick up for you.

That's happened too. Yeah. Yeah.

But just send positivity because just as the negativity

coming towards you inspires negativity in you initially.

That's kind of like the initial reaction. Um,

the positivity seems to do the same thing.

It brings out the positivity and I've,

I don't think I've ever had anyone double down, you know,

to come back at me. And this has happened at school as well.

Every once in a while you run into a teenager who's having a bad day and

they might curse at you or something.

And I've found that if I mellow out and just say

like, you know, one kid in particular was fighting with his girlfriend.

His girlfriend was in my class and they,

they were always out in the hallway before class and this one day they were

fighting and he like cursed as he left and he punched the locker and I was like,

Hey man, what's going on and f you, you know, and all this. I was like, Hey,

hey, come here, come here. Just relax.

Like it sucks fighting with your girlfriend, you know,

and I've done it. Everyone's done it. No one likes it. It's horrible.

But hang out here for a second because you're gonna have more problems than just

your girlfriend right now if you keep going through the hallway banging on

lockers. Yeah. Somebody else is gonna see this and get mad and you're gonna,

you know, it's gonna be worse. And like, he like melted, you know,

right there just like, ah, she's like, she doesn't understand, blah, blah, blah.

You know, whatever the issue was. And it,

it cha that relationship with that kid was so much better after that.

Whereas if I would've doubled down on it and been like, oh yeah,

you think you can talk to Mr. Funk that way,

I'd have an enemy for life, you know? Yeah. I'd,

I'd be seeing you in the hallway and like dirty looks probably and stuff. Yeah.

It's, it's the better way to go. Yeah.

It's not always easy to take the high ground, but it,

I think that's the best way to approach it is either don't give it any attention

or offer positivity and kindness.

Yeah. That's really good. I love,

my wife and I are really big fancy Gary Vaynerchuk and Gary v.

He like, I don't, I don't know, you know,

what's in the water up there in Jersey, but he's just like,

the past six months he's just on this role on just being kind

to people, being kind to haters, you know, and just this idea of like, um, and,

and the first time I saw it,

he was like in a live stream and someone said something negative and he like

zeroed in on it. And I think our tendency is, I,

I've even felt a difference in me of like,

my tendency used to be to mock people that made bad comments and then like

my crowd would kind of sometimes hop on and like comment back to then I'm like,

no, that's not what I intended.

And it's hard for me as a guy who's like naturally sarcastic.

Like sometimes I'll have fun with people and just be like a smart ass kind of

back, not, not in a, like a mean way, but just that's who I am. Mm-hmm. But, um,

I just love that Gary vs just like, man,

I'm just gonna show love to this person because something is happening in their

life that is causing them to act out that the last thing they need is,

like you said, I you said that so well. That like, the negative energy, uh,

that you're putting out is going to,

you can like sense it and you kind of tense up and you're like, oh, what's the,

what's the vibe? Like, this is really weird.

But if you just kind of hit that with kindness and just hit people with like,

man, you know, thank you for, thank you for bringing,

like you said that responsive, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Like, do you have suggestions? And that just melts people, you know,

like right away. That's, um, yeah, it's really good Brian. Really,

really good stuff.

It's, it's good for your own mental health too, you know,

so you're not stewing on that poison. Yeah. You know, and,

and it's a good example to other people too. Yeah. You know, and,

and plus if you do lash out on that person and if you've got a

crowd of people on your side, it could turn ugly and you,

that's not what you want either. Yeah. You don't want,

you don't wanna ruin someone's day and make 'em more bitter than they already

are. Yeah. And it's, it's almost never you, I mean,

how personal could it really be? You know? Yeah. It's,

there's something else and most of the time you're the straw that broke the

camel's back. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Or its just, that's good. It's just someone screwing around,

they didn't think you'd ever read it and they're just, yeah,

maybe they're having fun with, watch this, I'm gonna write this, you know? Yeah.

Haha. And then, yeah. So yeah, it's gonna happen though,

but you gotta you gotta be prepared for it and just know it's gonna be there and

once in a while when it comes, usually it's good to take a breath,

don't fire off the email or the comment right then and there. Yeah.

Try to let better judgment prevail. Yeah.

That's really good. I, I've definitely, I have learned there's,

there's times for me to respond and there's times for me to,

before responding to get up, to walk away, to walk outside,

get a breath of fresh air, pause for a couple seconds and then come back.

And most of the time when I do that I go, eh, it's not worth replying anyway.

You know, and move on or, or respond in a much kinder way. Um,

man, I, Brian, I think that's such a great way to kind of wrap up the show, um,

and, and wrap up the podcast cuz it's,

there's this just kind of constant theme of,

as we've been talking of like showing up and doing the work, um, and, and,

and not letting fear, not letting the fear failure.

Not letting the fear of criticism get in the way of whether you're writing

songs, creating videos, creating sample packs, writing blog posts,

whatever it is. Like just doing that work daily.

I have two questions to end the podcast. One,

what's one practical tip you can give to people?

Let's stick in that theme of showing up.

What's one practical tip you can give people that we haven't already discussed

that would help them show up consistently to do the work?

You can schedule it. You, I mean,

that does help if you put it down on a schedule and treat it like an appointment

you have with somebody else. That's helps.

And sometimes even make an appointment with somebody else.

Make a promise with somebody else. Like, Hey, we're gonna do this thing today.

That's a big thing in our music production club when,

especially when like January rolls around and we do the January thing,

trying to make the song every day. Um,

I often see them doing it and I say, I gotta do it too. I, I can't not,

you know, I gotta, I gotta, and then I get you going, um, and,

and don't demand a lot from yourself. Like I,

I I think forget about quality, just let, let it,

uh, it's about showing up. Who cares how good it comes out.

You kind of can't control that. You can't control how much you like what you do.

Um, you can't control how much other people especially will like it.

Some days you have it, some days you don't.

And just realize that you gotta get some of those days out of the way once in a

while. Yeah, Man, that's good. But yeah, keep it,

keep the commitments small and try to keep it,

if you can schedule it or just, I always,

I do the five minute thing a lot where I'm really fooling myself.

Like I,

I know that once I get started I get inspired,

but it's very rare that I get inspired and then start

That's good. Inspired inspiration comes later usually I find. Yeah.

So you have to like start rubbing the sticks together to get the spark. Yeah.

The spark doesn't come, then you rub the sticks. Yeah. You know,

That's, I think, I think Seth Godin,

I may be butchering this and I may be mixing gurus, but I'm pretty sure in,

in Seth Godin's book the Practice,

I think he says Inspiration is for amateurs or maybe that's a press field quote

or something. But yeah,

that idea of like showing up and doing the work is the thing. It's not waiting.

Yeah. It's a very Stephen Pressfield way of looking at things. Yeah.

That's really good. Sit your ass down and go. Yeah.

That's,

That's a, that's it. And hope the inspiration the muse shows up. Yeah.

The muse finds you when your ass is in the chair. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Well,

my second question,

which is definitely not as deep in philosophical as the first one is, uh,

where can people go to find out more about what you're up to?

Music production club, the, the podcast. Uh,

what's the best place for people to hit?

Brian funk.com.

It's easy.

Not brain funk dot brain funk.

That's

Right. We do it.

Put brian fuck.com.

Well, I, yeah, I get everything connected there.

Nice. Perfect. Brian, thanks so much for your time. This is, uh, thank you man.

This has been inspiring to me. Like I'm ready to go create, uh, this is like,

this is the conversation I've wanted to have with, with,

with someone who's kind of on the same wavelink of the importance of showing up.

So, uh, again, thanks for being here. Thanks for the work you do,

the inspiration to all of us to keep creating, to keep going. Um,

this has been fun.

Thanks man. It's been a lot of fun for me too. And, uh,

I look forward to when we reverse the roles here and, uh, yes,

I have you on my show so we can continue this because that's a lot of the

stuff I like to get into too. And it,

it's important to surround yourself with people that are positive and yeah.

Encouraging like yourself. So I look forward to the next time we get to chat.

Likewise. Thanks Brian.

Thank you.

Goodness. Uh, I hope you enjoyed that conversation again. Uh,

as these always go, I feel like we could talk much, much longer. Uh,

as I'm recording this, uh, I'm super excited cuz next week, a week from today,

uh, I'll be recording an episode, uh, with Brian for his podcast.

And I cannot wait to do that. Uh,

we'll link to that in the show notes of this episode,

either as it comes out or if it's already happened. I don't know how the, the,

the, the time continuum works, but we'll figure it out and we'll link it up.

But gosh, I had such a great time listening and, and chatting with Brian and,

uh, I told him off, I said, gosh, I, I've been looking forward to this.

And I love talking to people that have kind of the similar heart and similar

approach of the importance of showing up the importance of consistency. Uh,

and that's something that, um, sometimes I do well,

but something I really struggle with, but something that I value Val highly.

And I mentioned this in the show, but, um, I'm not sure what's more important,

quantity or quality, but I do know that quantity leads,

leads to quality and, uh, so super grateful and thankful, uh,

to Brian for his time. Hope you enjoyed this podcast. Um, do me a favor,

check out the links in the description of this podcast. Uh,

I would love for you to head over to, uh,

Brian's music production club and subscribe even if you're only subscribed for a

month or so. I figured you'd get tons and tons of value out of it, uh,

because of just kind of who he is as a person,

the way he inspires people to create. Honestly,

I'm inspired after our conversation. I'm ready to like go create some patches.

I'm ready to write some music. Uh,

I'm ready to record some more courses and videos.

And so I think you're gonna get the same experience if you go sign up for the

music production club and make sure you go and subscribe and follow his podcast.

Uh, he is some really, really great producers, great Ableton,

live certified trainers. Um, you're, you're definitely going to enjoy it.

So again, thanks to Brian for being on the podcast.

Thank you for to you for listening if you listen every single week. Gosh,

thank you so much. If this is your first time listening, thank you so much.

I hope you enjoyed it and hope to see you back next week.

If you're watching on YouTube, you know the drill.

Make sure to subscribe and enable the bell icon so you see when episodes like

this go live and when you see when tutorials go live.

And if you're listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify, uh, do me a favor, follow,

subscribe to the show and if you enjoy it, then leave a rating or review. Uh,

and most importantly, no matter where you're watching or listening,

if you enjoy today's episode,

share it with someone that you think will also enjoy it. Uh,

this is a super fun conversation and I can't wait for my next one.

Thanks so much for listening and watching, and we'll see you on the next one.

Take care everybody. Bye.