The Sound of Gold with guest Piano professional Jovian Martinez

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0:51 Hi, welcome to the Sound of Gold. I'm so glad you're here, and I'm so glad I'm here, and we are here another week. The Sound of Goals is about music, musicians, music venues, music teachers, and music schools. My whole purpose for doing this is to keep music alive. Music is all around us all the time, and no matter what the sounds are, it's a form of music. There's a vibration and getting a little bit deeper into vibration. You know, if you hear a song, whether it's happy or sad, you kind of groove with it because it groves with your emotions, and emotions vibrate on depending on how you feel and how you think, and but mostly how you feel.

1:41 With that being said, I'd like to kind of focus on the instrument of the piano today and I personally am a piano teacher. I also perform and play, and it's I play other instruments, but this is my favorite instrument. It's my go to instrument. And as I'm here in my home studio at my piano, I want you to think about maybe if you were to play an instrument, if you don't already, what instrument would you play? And where in your community would you go for lessons? And if you don't already know some venues out there that you can go and meet music people, music friends, like at open mics and at restaurants that have live music.

2:33 They are out there. So depending on where you're tuning in from where you're listening from, no matter what level skill you are at when it comes to playing a music instrument, sorry like thinking before I speak here, it doesn't matter what level you're at. We all, even myself, like to be around music, be around musicians and music especially and have the opportunity to get better at what we know or even if we're just beginning learning an instrument. It's good to have connections that are in your community and they're not far. It's usually just on the web or a friend can recommend it, recommend someone in your community.

3:21 So I'm excited especially for today's show because I have a special guest on and as I mentioned, we're focusing on the piano. So my special guest lives in South Florida, lives in I believe lives in or has their facility in Boca Raton, Florida. And Jovi and are you backstage? Would you join us? If you are, yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes? Yes? How are you good? Yourself? Good? I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for the invitation, pleasure to be here. Yes, and here we are in South Florida, and Florida is usually the sunny state, but we woke up with a chill this morning. It's about forty nine. Degrees beautiful weather, which it was like this all yearround.

4:05 It is beautiful weather for me for a day or two. I'm good with it. But then yeah, but it is a nice change. Absolutely. You know, Drivin, we've we've met over the years. We're involved in piano. We're involved in inspiring students. We are the teachers. We we give a gift that we get to share because we're so passionate, and not just me and you, but all teachers out there. We do it out of passion. It's not like, oh, like this is like doctor salary or lawyer salary. You know. I think as a teacher you kind of overlook that because it's not about the salary. It's about what we can give to the community, what we can give our students, what we can provide from our heart and our passion and what. And I don't I want to make it about earning a living, but I want to. I want to focus on like your purpose. You you are a piano teacher and what I learned also just now is a piano tuner as well. But I want to go to the I would love for you to share with our audience what inspired you from a very early age to have you grow into this profession, this career. What inspired you? What where did you all begin with it?

5:30 Well? Oh, thank you. I think a lot of us we always have a background. Me personally, I started when I was younger. But if you want to go back to the very beginning, I think I remember when I first wanted to take music lessons. I mentioned it to my mom, but I didn't want to start with piano. Actually, I wanted to start with drums. Okay, movie at the time that was all about drums, and I started playing drums when I was I was a kid like around the house beating and everything. So my mom looked into music lessons. She's like, you know what, No, you're not going to play drums. It's too noisy. You're gonna play piano. I started with piano lessons at that time when I was around I want to say, twelve years old or so, so I started a little bit later than a lot of other students. But yeah, I started to pick up piano rather quickly through the years. I found out when I was a freshman in high school about the Dreyfist program, the Arts for piano, so I worked along working on some pieces. I auditioned, I got accepted, and I have to say Dreyfus is actually where I really started to change as far as music goes. The level of education there for music's on a whole different level. I had different piano teachers before, but the teachers there are the ones who truly inspired me. You know, we had amazing teachers at the time, doctor Lawton, Stephanie Katz, But I have to say, there was one teacher in particular where he actually was the one who inspired me to get into teaching, and he was our theory teacher, the phenomenal piano teacher as well, but Pedro Hernandez. He would make everything so fun and so enjoyable and actually would explain

7:00 music in a way that made sense. So when I was younger, when I was doing all these years of piano, I had a very good year and I would pick it by year. Not perfect pitch, but relative. I can figure out most of the notes. So I never truly learned how to read. I never truly understood a theory until I started working in Dreyfuss, and that one teacher, mister Hernandez, changed everything for me. I actually had a joy now learning understanding how simple music was was. I was like, wow, I wish teachers can explain music this way. And so that definitely inspired me and I started, you know, in high school. I started with a few other family friends. I started teaching their kids, and little by little it just built up. They enjoyed the way I would teach too, and yeah, funny enough, I have one of my very first students, she's now a piano teacher as well, and she already graduated from FA.

7:46 Oh how great is that? That's awesome? And I had gone I think last year I went to through MT and a in Music Teachers Association or a national association here in Pond Beach County. There was a thing at Dreyfus and we got to take a tour and it was my first time there. And I don't know whoever's tuning in, whether you're live in Florida or not. I'm sure there's a music school in your community you can look into. But Dreyfuss, particularly in Palm Beach County. I was blown away. I thought to myself, how can I rewind my life so I can be a student here in this school. They are so focused and so structured, and in a sense they're very hardcore because they're so in alignment with their purpose for teaching music. But at the same time, I mean that's what keeps us on track.

8:44 I mean, look at yourself. Yeah, it's a phenomenal school. So for any any parents who are thinking about it, definitely I could recommend it more than any of this other school I've gone to. It's definitely one of the schools that really inspired me. It changed me, and it helps you learn skills on a completely different level. So I can speak at least for the piano program there. I know all the programs are great, but the piano program is at such a high caliber. It's really what changed me from just being an okay musician to really leveling up my skills so much and then taking more steps and to get into the profession. And what's beautiful about this as well is that it's not like your regular elementary school or everybody's there with different ideas and different focuses and kind of not really knowing you know, what's going to become of them in the years to come. And I mean that in respect for like, you know, what's my career going to be.

9:37 I don't know. I'm just going to school. Like Dreyfus, is all about, like I said, focus, and everybody's like minded. Whether you play the piano or the drums, or guitar, or violin or flute, it's still all about music. So if you're in the cafeteria with you know, one hundred different kids, you're all not so different because you're all you know, calibrating musically. Oh yeah, And especially even aside from the academic and educational aspect. Just the fact that I remember I got in my junior year, so I was at a different high school before, so years at Palm Beat CenTra, at a different school, you know, comparing other public schools to this one. Just as a young person, if you're out, you know, having lunch, as you were saying the subjects of what other kids are talking about. Half the time they don't care about school, so they're either talking about parties or a bunch of other things. But at trips it would be interesting because all of your peers they're focused on their music or their art, or they have a new play that's coming and they're focused on those things.

10:37 So just as far as you know, an educational standpoint and at the same time a safe environment, I felt it was so much, so much better of an environment for young ones to not have so much problems like other public schools have because everybody's there is focused and if you're not, you know, if there's consequences, if you're not an exemplary student, they will kick you out. So definitely it's a great place to have a wholesome associateation and a great education for for young ones who are going to high school and. I know, I don't even know the half of it, and you've you've been there. I just I was so inspired just by my first visit there. And yes, I definitely I admitter of the fact you got to go there as a student, and uh yeah, it's just phenomenal.

11:18 I have to apologize for my my guests out there and you as well. If you hear some static in the background. I have cats, and I have a kitten that's growing and she's in a tunnel right now and she just thinks it's fun and funny that she's in this tunnel. So if you hear that that static, that's what it is. So but she's she's trying to behave I think that's really normal. Catory is curious. We were talking before too, and how you know, even our students. You know, I travel with different students and almost everybody has a pet nowadays, especially after the pandemic. I think everybody got a pet. So we always have you know, the students will have their dogs. Sometimes their cat will just stay by the piano and just hang out while we're having our lessons. So it's okay, We're used to it.

12:03 Thanks, So tell us a little bit more about where you're located. What you do you teach in Boca. M Yeah, so I'm in Boca Ratone and I focus more on piano lessons itself, just working with younger kids. I had it for a moment I was trying lessons at a studio where you know, students could come to the to the location here. But you know, throughout throughout the past few years, there's just so much more demand that I would get parents where they want a teacher to come to their house, and you see how things are, you know, going along with that too, not too many people like to go to the stores anymore. They buy everything on Amazon. Everything's online, anything to make it more convenient. So likewise, I had a lot more demand of parents asking for lessons in home, so I transitioned just to only in home lessons now, which is what I do. So, yeah, I travel in the Boca Ratone area. All my students are around like ninety five to like the ocean on the east side of Boca Ratone, And it's a lovely, lovely work to do. You know, you never work a day of in your life if you're doing what you enjoy.

13:05 So I definitely enjoy it. That's true. Now, what is the age range for your students? Yeah, for me personally, most of my students are anywhere between like seven to fourteen when they begin. I've had some adult students in the past. Just right now, I happen not to have any adult students, most adults. It's great. I think it's great if you can have adult lessons, they pick up so quickly. The only problem is as adults, we know, we have so many other priorities in our lives and we get busy. So working with young ones as a teacher, it's a little bit more reliable that we have study lessons every week. So I do focus on young ones, okay, And then when you start with a student, we each have our own technique, our own way of teaching. Do you go with like the John Thompson books, do you do the favorite books? Do you have a preference or do you just kind of have your own style?

13:57 Oh well, I mean I can kind of show you have my iPad with me. I do this with all the parents. I wasn't expecting we're going to go over this, but that's fine. So I literally have everything organized digitally and just a quick backstory like before of coour, I switched to everything being digital. It happened right before the pandemic. I was looking at, you know, my shelves. I had a bunch of shelves in the back just stop the thousands of pages of sheet music, and I was thinking about turning it digital since I traveled to my students. So I sent all my music to a company. They scanned it all, they made it digital. Then I had all of my music digital on my iPad. And then the pandemic hit and I was like, oh perfect, I have all my music already. I can share it online. So that's what I have here. So for the first lesson, I actually have like a little photo on dropbox and I always send us to the parents that can print out a copy too. So the first points I like to go over is I have like a little interview where I'll ask a student different questions, get to know everybody, oh nice, figure out what their goals are, and really just try to get the students to open up first.

14:57 That's what I like to try first, because it go straight to music. They tend to be a little shy about it. You know, you want to approach them, they can open up and then at the same time you get to talk to the parents figure out their goals. I like the parents to sit on the first lesson, look so they can see how lessons are like. But yeah, usually the first things I start off with, I just have a few points that I keep it really easy, starting off with finger numbers. Learn your finger numbers first, you know, that's very simple. We'll go into some basics, what your letters are on the piano, and then from there, Oh, either just show them one or two songs and have them playing songs right away, something simple. Mary had a little lamb. We have our finger numbers. Help you find your place, so we can try something harder, maybe even two hands if you can try finger numbers with like Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. But I just try to show them things like that for the first time, make it fun, show them a little bit of my skills too, what kind of songs. I know, what kind of songs they might want to learn. And I always try to leave them with the first lesson as having goals, like what are your goals that you want to accomplish? You want to play certain songs, maybe classical pieces, maybe it's pop songs or Disney songs, but make a list. They have a list of goals where they want to go. It just it helps them to be a little bit more inspired of knowing where they want to go rather than, oh, this is just going to be a weekly Chane lesson, So just gives them a little bit more direction. So that's personally how I do it. As far as method books, there's a few different approaches. It depends on the student what the parents are looking for. But there's usually Alfred Premier piano course. That's one that I like with younger students, you know, it has pictures to help them have it

16:27 a little bit more fun. It starts with the left hand first, so I like some of those principles, but sometimes I'll have it maybe teenage students. They don't need something that's as childish, so I'll use a different maybe an adult course of an express panel book, or sometimes the piano favor. So it really just depends on the student, their goals that they're looking for. For me, any method book works, it's what you add to it. What other techniques are you working on. How are you going to approach your your strength, your skills with skills, maybe working on hand and exercises and then just incorporating different classical pieces by level, and then other fun songs that they want to learn and just have a well rounded way of weekly practice rather than just one song in a book of one or two songs. It's a little bit more than to work on.

17:10 That's great. That's great. And then with your kids. For our listeners out there, do you do a half hour lesson or an hour lessoneror it depends on the age. So for me, it's a little bit different because I only travel to my students. I just have a flat rate, standard package that I give everybody and forty five minute lessons. So if there's let's say two kids in the family and they both want to share the forty five minute lesson take turns, that's fine, however they want to do it, But forty five minute lessons is usually what I recommend. You know, it gives you enough time to maybe break it into sections, maybe fifteen minutes of warm ups and scales. Maybe then we can do thirty minutes of your main lesson and then fifteen minutes of maybe something that we're working on, of a classical piece or anything else. So I try to break it up into those leaving the main area for the main lesson. But yeah, if there's families that want to share the lesson, I'm always fine with that too. But the reason I kind of organize it that way is just with my schedule, because I have to drive to every student. I'll do let's say my first class at three o'clock, we'll have a forty five minute lesson, and the ones that lessons over at three forty five. Now I have fifteen minutes to get to my next class at four, so every hour I have a different class. So that's just how I Yeah, that's smart.

18:22 Now for our listeners that are local and for our listeners that are not local, do you do zoom lessons as well? I was doing it during the pandemic, and I'll do it maybe I I had surgery in September, so we had to connect on zoom, But for the most part, no, I don't do zoom lessons. Again, I've had a lot more more demand of just in person lessons and home. If there's somebody who really needs it, maybe we could do something at night time after I get back from my other classes. But I focus more on in personally. And for those who would like to get in touch with you and schedule a lesson or find out more about how you teach. What would be the easiest way for them to connect with you. My cell phone number always works, but I also have a website that a lot of people use. On the website right there, you can just check availability, request a trial lesson, and select what theays times work best for you.

19:11 And if I'm not available, I always have other teachers I'm glad to recommend to. So we have being that we're live and we're on the television platform per se. We also have radio that we're being streamed into. So for those of us that cannot see us, please share with us the name that you use to log in to find you. Oh you mean the website? Yes, yes, yes, So my website is just the initials of my name, So Jovian Martinez. My website's named JM. Piano and yeah. On that website, it's just we tried to make it very modern and easy to use. So all my information is on there for available for booking for events or if it's you know, requesting as a teacher. But the goal that I have and I talked to you about it before I get so much different information. If it's people who are calling me to either sell a piano, which is not something that I do, or sometimes you know, hiring musicians they want to have a quartet of musicians to play at a wedding with strings. I play strings. It's not what I do. But a lot of people still contact me through the website. So I think the goal that I'm trying to have over time is I'm trying to make it more of like a one stop shop for everything piano related. So if you come to this site locally, hey, you can find all the different piano teachers, the top piano teachers in our area locally, or Hey, you can find a list of different musicians that are available for weddings.

20:32 Or you can find piano tuners, or hey, these are all the different piano stores in our area. These are different books you can buy. Oh, you want a keyboard instead of an acoustic piano, Well, here's Amazon links to all the different keyboards I would recommend for beginners or for advance. So I'm just trying to make it a one place for everybody that you know, any piano related questions, they can find what they're looking for. That's great and I want to talk more about that, but I want to detour a little bit. Do you being at your piano teacher, do you also perform or is that not in your schedule? No, I do performances, not as often. I got contacted the other day to play in Meisner Park. I really prioritize my student schedules, so they were contacting me to perform like on a Tuesday at like six o'clock, But that's right when I have I still have a few other lessons until like nine o'clock at night. So of course I'm going to put a priority to my students, especially because what I have the arrangement with the parents is that they lock and they prepay for a whole semester.

21:29 So there's nineteen lessons in a semester, and I try to do my best to not cancel any of those. So sometimes, you know, a lot of opportunities I do have to turn them down, but I'll pass them forward to other musicians that I know I'm not able to. But I did have a nice privilege to work in the summertime. I got to assist a choir director with teaching the choir how to play notes or sing their notes. And just double checking everything on the piano. So that that was a really fun project that we did in the summer. But every once in a while, I'll try to perform if I can, but I probably need to perform now more more often. I haven't been doing it as often as as i'd like to. But like you said, you have your priority, and as a teacher myself too that you know that is my priority because being a teacher. For those that are not teachers, you know, it's a wonderful exchange because we not only are as a speak for myself, not only am I working with my student, but we're building a relationship where we can understand each other and so that when you know we're I'm teaching again, I'm speaking for myself. When I'm teaching them piano, I'm understanding them where they're at.

22:36 So I'm helping. I'm kind of growing with them because I'm kind of connect with them where they're at, and so building that relationship and not having outside influences break that because we it's a commitment that you know, it's it's our passion, but it's a commitment we make because it's what we. Do exactly, and that's the difference too, of being a full time teacher is your focus. I mean, your your main job is working with your students. It's what you love to do. But that is your your main priority, rather than having other people who they have their nine to five jobs, or maybe they do other things and then they teach on the side. It's different. So when you're a teacher full time that should always take priority.

23:17 Yes, or even if you perform out which I get to do sometimes and you do as well, it's still the children. Whether it's children, I have adults students also, So whether no matter who it is, my students come first, that's the priority because they are you know, they my students are with me for a long time. I'm sure yours are too, and so it's it's a gift that keeps giving itself both ways. We're teaching, we're influencing where and then we learn from the students too. Again speaking for myself, so it's yeah, I think it's a wonderful a wonderful I'm not gonna say job. It's not a job, but it's a wonderful profession to be in and it's a wonderful space to have this opportunity to be that person to inspire and you are as well. And with that being said, I know for so many years, Jovian you have had me on your website. We met once or I saw an email or something from you, and you said, yes, I'm going to put you on my website.

24:21 You have done so much for our community, not only in Boca but all of South Florida. There are so many teachers in so many different areas that you help promote just because and that's such a gift that you share with us, and it's so kind of you. And I can't say enough about the generosity that you've given to our community and offering this. Can you kind of touched on it a little bit, but can you go a little bit more in debt As far as this website that you have that all of the teachers get to. Be on, Yeah, of course you're welcome to see the website yourself. It's called ja dash or hyphen dam hyphen piano dot com. And if you go to teachers, we just have a list of all the different teachers that we could find that are actively teaching in the area.

25:11 I can tell you, to make a long story short, I made it more out of laziness because every time I would get other parents who were to call me that are outside of my area, I only teach Invoca. I'm getting calls in Palm Beach and Jupiter. We're down in Coral Springs and I don't teach in those areas. So rather than oh, let me help you find a teacher and contact somebody directly who's in that area, I just found out a lot of easier. Well, hey, you know what, here's a directory of all the teachers from the city. Call these. So it was more to save my time ultimately, that was the main reason. But at the same time, if there's possible leads that can go to other teachers, a lot of teachers don't even have a website, they don't have anyway that they would get that lead. So if you can share that, you know, with somebody else, then then definitely would be a good help for them too.

25:58 Yes, and then this morning when I posted for our show, it was hashtag hashtag jmpiano dot com. And so if you're tuning in and not watching, because it is posted on our shows today on the on the viewer side, but on the audio side, again it's hashtag jmpiano dot com and as as you mentioned earlier, it's it's a huge gift to help advertise. It's a huge you know it, even though it was kind of something that you did on the fly, by just making your life easier, you you helped so many other people by doing that. That's such an inspiration to share. And it's well, I don't know if inspiration is the right word, but it's not.

26:45 Everybody does that, so you know, it's just so nice that you've done that. It's it's very kind. Very very I'm glad to do so. And there's there's other places, you know. You you search on Google you're looking for piano teachers, you might find a thing like the MTNA, for example, has to find a teacher that you can search to their directory by zip code. We also have the Broward can County Music Teachers Association has a great directory as well as Palm Beach. There are some things that I find, for example, if you're looking for a teacher for the Palm Beach directory, it only works if you're on a computer, but if you go to a cell phone it won't work. So I also check so all the teachers that we have on there. I've called everybody individually. A lot of numbers, unfortunately, are teachers who are retired, yes any war, or they've moved away, or the numbers are disconnected. So even though there's a lot of other, you know, information you can find from other places, I've made sure that all the teachers on there are like the top forty teachers that we have in South Florida that are actively teaching, they're accepting students, and their phone numbers are working. So it's taking a little bit of time to build everything. It's not something I did so much on the flight. It takes some time to organize it.

27:50 Oh sure, it's yeah, it's a big website. It's not just you know line. I mean, you really went in debt, not in debt in depth, in depth, in depth. When you go to the website, you can see that you put the time into it, is what I mean. So for listeners out there that may not be in Florida, would you well, I would have to think that there's websites in other states and other communities. What would you suggest for our listeners? If you know they're listening in Wisconsin or they're listening in North Dakota, what would be the best way to maybe find a piano teacher in their.

28:32 Neighbor you know. For me, what I've found that I've had multiple students where they either moved to another state like New York. I always recommend the Music Teachers National Association. So on their website, you know itself, you could type into your zip code or what state or city you're in, and you can see a list of all the different teachers. Not just piano. You can look up any instrument and they'll show you all the teachers by area. Again, a lot of teachers might be retired, but at least you'll have a few numbers that you can contact, or if you're a teacher yourself trying to help another family, you can you can take the initiative to help make a few calls and see who's who's available. But yeah, definitely I would recommend the Music Teachers National Association. It works across the whole country. There's a few other places. I know World Conservatory of Music has a directory too, but it's a very limited amount of teachers. I think they're more based in Canada. What else do we have have another one I was thinking of. Yeah, I would say mainly mainly those two oh, there's there's also places you can do things like thumbtack lessons dot Com. There's still some teachers that are on there. I do find the majority, though, are teachers who teach online on those platforms. So you might search for let's say you're looking for lessons in Florida here, and even though you use thumbtack, the top teachers that will come up it says Florida. But then when you try to book them, they're actually in New York, but they'll teach you in Florida online. So it's a little misleading on those aspects. So that's why I always recommend things like the Music Teachers National Association.

29:56 Great great, and you mentioned earlier to you and I agree with you. There's sometimes when I have students that are not well, maybe they're home not feeling great, but they still want to take a lesson. It'll be a zoom lesson instead of a one on one. However, there's no there there's how would I say it, There's nothing like that one on one lesson. There's no, it's not the same when it's online. It's just a beautiful opportunity to get to work one on one with a teacher because it just it's so much more easier because you really get to know again building relationships, and I have the recommend one on one. Although I will say I too take lessons online also, but I get to connect with the teacher sometimes because I still take lessons. But what are your thoughts on? Of course you do more live lessons than online, and when we were going through the COVID, we all had to make exceptions.

31:01 I can be upfront, I'm not a fan of online. It will never compare it to being in person, especially with beginner students. You know, when you need to help a student, oh, fix their hand placement because they're not sure if they're on the wrong letter. They think they're in seat position but they're not. It's much easier to help correct those little details in person. Their posture, a lot of different details come into effect. You can see and note if their fingers patterns are being used or crossing with the right technique. A lot of things that might be overlooked online with you know, maybe glitches or a lot of moments where things are freezing online. But again online is still great too. When I was teaching during the pandemic, I tried to make it as fun as possible for the kids. So I would have one camera where I could speak to them, but then i'd have another camera facing downwards, something like something like this.

31:49 I had another other so they can see the fingers of what you're playing, and then i'd have another camera which would just be my whiteboard. So on my iPad, I would write down, you know, if we're taking any notes a theory lesson, if we're working on sheet music, I'd already have the sheet music there digitally write any additional notes and I can send them after a PDF copy of what we learned on with the annotations. So I tried my best to make it as you know, interesting as possible for the students, so they have, you know, multiple angles they could learn from. And of course there's also games. I find games is such a necessity for young ones to keep their focus and keep practicing. I love using music Theory dot net and if you download the aptors one that's called Tanudo, you can customize different music theory games of something simple like site reading one note at a time, and I could do that through zoom.

32:38 I could pop up on the screen and they can go ahead and tell me the answers, and we can you know, work on our notes. So all using all of those features definitely helped me a lot to teach on Zoom, but one thousand percent, I still definitely prefer teaching in person. Now I know what my answer is. I want the audience to hear your answer. If you have a news you didn't think signing up And I get this all the time. They either start they don't have a keyboard, they don't have a piano, and then your student comes, student says, oh, you know, should we get a piano? What is usually your response? So I think a level of dedication that the parents show from the beginning of having an instrument. It also shows how serious they are, because you know, a child might not be too serious about something. They're young, they might not even know what they want yet. But you don't have to invest in buying a grand piano from the first lesson. That's not the point. If you're able to hey, then by all means and see if that's better, that's great. But yeah, some parents decide they want to start off with a simple keyboard. You know, you can find either a used keyboard online or sometimes like on Facebook marketplaces, you might even find an acoustic piano, maybe for a cheap price. But yeah, starting with something simple, even if it's not eighty eight keys, I'm okay with that as long as it's just as you're starting out.

33:53 But once students reach around level two, you start working on a lot more notes that are on the really high end and the low end of the piano, and you need all full eighty eight keys. So I always give parents to options. If you want to buy a keyboard, just make sure it's eighty eight keys and that it's weighted, because a lot of keyboards are very flimsy. They don't have any and you know, I'm sure you've seen it before. If kids are working on a keyboard where there's no weight to it and they try to transition to a real acoustic piano, they're not able to play their pieces most of the time. It's too heavy. They can't can't handle it. So you always need weight behind the keys if you're going to get a keyboard or getting an acoustic piano, if it's upright. An upright piano is going to save you a lot. They tend to go for maybe two thousand on average, so you can always find something.

34:36 Sometimes even one hundred bucks. I see them on Facebook times is a parent getting rid of them. So you can definitely get a good deal on something. Just you know, make sure it's an okay condition. Sometimes they're not in the best condition. But yeah, eighty eight keys and weighted, that's that's my only recommendation. Yeah, I've had a lot of students ask, and I usually say, we'll start off with the keyboard, something that's affordable, le's than one hundred dollars, and then as the child grows, I'm thinking young you know, if it's something that they continue to go grow with, then definitely make the investment. And like you said, marketplace is a fabulous place to find a piano. A lot of times people are retired and they don't want it. They just don't want piano anymore, or families have grown up and they just it's sitting in the house cloth and collecting dusts and just pick it up and then you have a mover come and you just pay for it to be moved.

35:29 Exactly. Again, a lot of piano dealer stores are not going to like that. They're not going to recommend it, you know, because they have a business to run too. Of course, if you are ever going to buy a pianol that way, I think, at least like I tell my students, so always consult me, send me some pictures, videos. Sometimes you have people that aren't taking care of it. Maybe they just left it in their garage and it's gotten so much humidity, or maybe the soundboard is cracked, so maybe you know, as soon as you look at it in front, it might look fine, but you have to make sure a few other things to get a good quality panel that you're Again that's why a lot of people go with an actual pianel dealership of a place that sells pianos. They make sure it's some good conditions. So you have to kind of weigh the pros and cons when you make a decision. But if you have somebody that you can consult with, you know, a teacher, you know, like yourself, and they want to send you some videos just making sure this kind of looks okay, I think that's usually a pretty safe choice as well, if you're trying to find something cheap.

36:20 And it's so true. I'll take myself as an example. Years ago, I went or I looked on marketplace, and I fell in love with the piano and it was left in a church and the church was more of a home style, and they said they just wanted to get rid of it, and I go, oh, yeah, I'll take it. And even for myself as a music teacher, I didn't even think. I go, oh, well, you know, I can have it tuned and fixed and brought it home. The piano was over seventy years old and it was not in the best of shape, and I was I was like, shame on me, I should know better. So when I got another piano, I did a little bit more investigating and went and tried it out myself and contacting my piano tuner had them on video, and so did a little bit more in depth look at or look into the keyboard and the inside of the piano, because it's so important. Even me as a piano teacher for over playing over twenty or playing over forty five years and teaching over twenty you know it. Unless you go through the experience of it, you really don't think about the interesting inancy, the word, all the details that are involved in what makes a piano work. And I know there are because I know this from Tobias Hamilton from Hamilton Pianos there are over ten thousand pieces, even the littlest of pieces that in a piano. You're a piano tuner, you know more than I know, So you know, we when you go to buy a piano, it's not

37:51 just okay, yeah, don't do what I did. You know, really look into what you're buying and yeah, Hamilton Pianos, Bob's Organs, and then I don't know, there's more. There's Yamaha store up in Jupiter. I don't know what you have down in Boca. I'm sure you only have the Steinway Gallery, which I believe they just changed their name to the Pianet like the Piano Gallery they have now since Steinway. Actually they're moving. They're moving corporate to sit downtown Palm Beach. Okay, we're gonna have a new Steinway and Palm Beach, which should be nice. Yeah. Yeah, those are most of the main stores. I mean, there's Showcase in Pompino as well. I was talking to the owner. Unfortunately, it seems like they're going to be closing soon. There is a lot of decline that people aren't buying acoustic pianos anymore, and a lot of panel stores have been closing. So you do see a lot of things that are moving towards more digital, and with reason, you get it. But I hope, I hope we still have people keep people acoustic pianos alive in the area because it never compares to something digital. You're going to get a piano, there's a few things you want to check, and I can tell you a piano tuner. I've seen some pianos that are pretty disgusting, but we found termites inside it. Pianos and yeah, if you don't want to move something like that into your house. So that's why you always have to make sure that it's being maintained, it's being taken care of. And rather than just open up and seeing that the keys look okay, always open up inside of the piano, make sure that the strings are fine. You can easily see if it's in good conditions if you see a lot of cobwebs and a lot of problems and especially rust. I have one of

39:21 my friends they bought they bought the piano for like four hundred bucks. They thought they got a good deal. When I looked at it to tune it for them, it was missing so many strings. It was covered and rust. All the strings oh wow. And I talked to another you know, piano tuner that I know in the area to see I always get advice from him, Andy Lustig, And he saw it and he's like, this is just trash. This needs to go in the barbage. Yeah, the cost to fix all of those strings would cost thousands, So sometimes it's not even worth it, and it's just because some people keep it in poor conditions. So again, always double check what you're gonna buy. Now, if somebody wants to contact you to tune their piano, do you have do you just in Boca? Do you travel a little bit for that?

40:03 I'll travel a little more for piano tuning, So I just stay in a softword area. Again, because I only tune in the mornings, I have a little bit more liberty with time. But yeah, usually by I try to have my last tuning appointment, maybe by like eleven o'clock in the afternoon, because after that I'll just be focusing on teaching the rest of the day. So yeah, no, anywhere between. I guess like Jupiter to your field is usually the area that I'll tune in. And again, for our audience, what is a good way to contact you? If they want their piano tuned. I mean, you can use my phone number on my website. I have a button also that you can request a tuning. And again, if I'm not available, I'm always glad to recommend a few other tuners too. And would you be so kind just to share your number because we don't have that posted. We have your website posted.

40:48 Yeah, my phone number is five six one nine zero seven seven three one zero. Okay, great, And so you teach piano, you tune pianos, and you're in. You went a little bit into sharing with us. He started very young. Did you have inspirations when it came to your growth as. A musician, inspiration of maybe other musicians? Right? Sure, yeah, I can tell you so. I can tell you off the bat. My favorite musician as far as a pianist goes, not a classical musician. Actually, well, he played some classical but maybe you've heard of John Schmidt. He's an amazing performer. When I was in tenth grade, I want to say, is when I first saw his video. I think he just came out on the They have a page on YouTube.

41:36 The piano guys. I'm sure you recognize us, Yes, the piano guy John Schmidt. He did a cover with the cellist of Taylor Swift love story Yesh cold Play song, and when I saw him perform, I've never seen anybody play piano like him because he enjoys music so much. You'll see him dance. He is dancing any song you see. If you watch him, he's always dancing when he plays the piano. He gives it so much life, so inspirations to perform. Definitely. I got so motivated. I tried to find the sheet music for that song and I was like ooh, and I couldn't find it, so I had to learn everything by ear and I picked it up with another colleague of mine, Barry full saw me. Now he's actually he's in the Canada Orchestra where he's performing Symphonic And yes we did. We did an awesome cover when when we're back in school about that. But yeah, John Schmidt has always been one of the musicians has always inspired me. I wish I could play like him.

42:26 Maybe maybe one day I can, I can get close. But but definitely he's an amazing performer. Oh great, great, Yeah, you know, there there are inspirations out there. And as a teacher, you know you can you can be assured that you're an inspiration to someone else also with what you're doing and how you play. And yeah, I think that's one of the parts as being a teacher and why you do it because somebody inspired you. Yes, you want to pass on that that knowledge. I mean the art. If not the way things are going right now, AI would just take over or you know, maybe the arts continue dying down and we got to do what we can. It's something that we're passionate about and when you share that passion with others, it only grows.

43:10 Yeah, and I agree with that. And AI cannot replicate the human the human spirit, or the spirit isn't even human, but the spirit of the human body. Not to get you into it, but you can't replicate that. That's just it's so original and so authentic, is what I want to say. So but anyway, we have a couple more minutes. Jovin, thank you so much for being available today and being on the show. Is there any last few words that you'd like to share with us with our audiences that are listening. I mean, unless there's a certain question that the audience has, I'm not sure you know. One thing I've always been encouraging local piano teachers about is to get into teaching.

43:57 I was talking to a few different teachers in the area recently, and you know, I had one who was talking about how they lost their job and you know, they're they're thinking about getting back into teaching because they took out a conservatory for over a day past. And if you know another teacher as well that he's working as a teacher. But a lot of times when you're starting out as a as a teacher, you're getting into it, there's a lot of questions as far as like how to organize your business strategy. And even though you love music as a passion, you still have to make sure you have you know, good studio policies. You have to figure out, well, what are your cancelation policies, you know, if a student needs to have a makeup lesson, or you know, what should my prices even be. So there's a lot of things on the business aspect that I think a lot of times teachers don't know what to do on that regard. So I always like to just kind of like share a few recommendations, you know, especially something as simple as prices. You know, we have a lot of teachers that the standard rate is anywhere between maybe seventy to one hundred an hour that you go in the area right now. But sometimes you'll either have somebody who's if you retire and they don't need that much, so they'll just maybe post for like fifteen hours what they do. And then you have other parents who start, you know, saying, oh, this teacher charges fifty, why don't you do that, And then teachers start to kind of compete with each other and oh, I'm going to do it for thirty it will be less. And that's at the end of the day, we still have to make a living. So rather than competing with your prices, I always try to recommend if your prices can be, you know, around the standard rate. I was talking, for example, to Miss Balco the other day. She charges ninety an hour in her studio. That's pretty standard over in Boca. Most

45:28 studios charge about one hundred an hour. So if you're at least staying around the standard rate, it's going to help yourself out so much rather than trying to compete and lower your prices. And I think that's just you know, that's my one advice i'd give to teachers, don't try to low ball yourself. You know, set your value where it's at, and in the long run, having twenty students at a higher rate is going to give you so much more than having forty students at half the cost. You know, you're going to have price as much time for yourself and you're still getting paid about the same at the end of the day, you know, cost of living has gone up. So yeah, that's always my recommendation because sometimes I've heard of teachers where they're charging twenty an hour and they think, oh, well, you know, the post office charges twenty something an hour for me, twenty an hour, that's not bad. And I'm talking to somebody who has a bachelor's degree in music, and you know, so sometimes there's just that aspect of not knowing what it truly costs, because you know, you might think twenty an hour sounds great, but we're not teaching eight hours a day. There's usually maybe four to five hours that we can teach because you know, kids get out of scoro at around three o'clock. So you have to make sure you're charging enough that you can make ends meet and be able to pay your bills. But there's nothing wrong with staying around the standard rate. So that's one of my points I always like to share with teachers.

46:42 Thank you, thank you well, thank you Jovian again for making the time for today. Thank you for being such an inspiration in the community and to all the South Florida teachers being included. I so appreciate the time and the effort that you put into especially your recent just your comments that you made is so helpful and so supportive. And the community is a better place because you're in it. So thank you, oh, thank you. Always a pleasure. Yes, all right, well, thank you Jovian. We will be in touch soon and we have a couple of minutes left and I look forward to finishing off our show today by saying thank you for being a part of the Sound of Gold. And as you know, my whole purpose for doing this is to keep music alive, to keep the business of having real instruments and people, real people playing them. I mean, that's what it's all about.

47:40 That's where that's where there're no for me as a musician, that's where my heart is. So stay we all, stay healthy, stay happy, and join me next week to find out who my yes will be