8. Grow Your YouTube Channel w/Dave Pollack

In this episode of The Music Executive, Cinnamon Denise speaks with New Jersey-based saxophonist and YouTuber Dave Pollack. 

The discussion covers Pollack's musical journey, from his early days learning piano and saxophone to his current dual roles as a middle school band teacher and content creator. 

Dave shares his insights on maintaining consistency in content creation, leveraging audience engagement, and balancing a demanding schedule. 

The episode highlights helpful tips for aspiring YouTubers and content creators on managing time, finding inspiration, and incorporating content creation into daily life. The episode wraps up with a live recording of 'Sometimes Isn't Always,' featuring Dave and other talented musicians.

Chapters

• 1:57 Dave Pollack's Musical Journey
• 4:06 Growing a YouTube Channel Audience
• 4:43 Consistent Content Creation
• 12:20 Balancing Content Creation & Life

Transcript

Hey, Music Executives Cinnamon Denise here. That Cinnamon like the Spice and Denise, like Denise, and the music that you are hearing is at Tune. Called Sometimes Isn't Always by our favorite friend in the neighborhood, Mr. Fred Rogers. We have Will Maki on bass, Dom Columbia on drums. Michael Burnaby on piano, and our guest Dave Pollock on saxophone.

Dave, how are you doing today? I'm doing wonderful. So happy to be here and to talk to you. How are you doing? I'm wonderful. Dave, I got a question for you. Okay. We do this on every episode. Uhoh, what's your favorite pizza topping? Oh, see, here's the, here's the thing. I'm from New Jersey, right? So we have something called the the Trenton, like tomato pie.

So where, where, where it's, it's a Trenton tomato pie. So it's not chunks of tomatoes on top? No, no, no. It's literally just. Well, a lot of people put the cheese on first and the sauce on top, but I actually like, this is gonna sound so, so corny, but I like plain pizza the best. That's the, is that a cop out?

Can I answer that or No, it's just cheese pizza. Yeah, but, but like, it's like, or I guess like maybe, uh, like an older style. So I, I'm, I'm big into like the tomato sauce. I love having a good sauce on top. So it's like, it's gotta have like sweet tomatoes. Um, but if I had to pick, okay, so that's a cop out I guess.

But if I had to pick an actual topping, ah, I think I'm gonna go sausage, sausage, Italian sausage, spicy sausage, whatever. Forgot whatever they got. I'm not too pick whatever they got. Well y'all heard it here on the music executive. Spicy Italian sausage is what we're going with y'all. Dave Pollock is a New Jersey based saxophonist or saxophonist who is juggling many things in his life right now.

He has an amazing YouTube channel, is an incredible band director, and we all know how influential band directors and band teachers can be in our lives and throughout our musical careers. So Dave, do you wanna tell us a little bit more about yourself? I mean, you hit on the main things there. Uh, but yeah, I mean, I, you know, I've been playing, uh, instruments forever.

You know, I started on piano when I was very little, like four or five years old. Moved to saxophone. Like a lot of kids do. They pick up a band instrument in elementary school when I was about nine. You know, I ended up going to college for music performance at first because I, you know, I was one of those people who wanted to be a jazz performing musician.

That's all I wanted to do. I wanted to tour the world and make, make. Albums, uh, for the kids out there, an album is a collection of songs that you put out at one time. It's like a playlist that you created for everybody. It's like a Spotify playlist that you picked. Uh, I know it's weird, but, you know, I wanted to do that, which is cool and everything, but I think once I was in college, I, I saw kind of what the reality of what that life was.

I kind of decided, and I talked to some people about like, quality of not just quality of life, but like what I should expect about this versus this path. And certain things that I wanted in life outside of music weren't really attainable if my life was gonna be just, you know, being on the road playing music, if that's even viable.

Like, a lot of people say that, but like, you know, are, there's gigs even out there. So I kind of switched over into the, the teaching element because I was always into that Anyway. Into music festivals and just performing with bands and stuff. So, you know, I got a degree teaching, teaching degree and performing.

It's kinda like a dual thing. And yeah, I've been teaching middle school band, public school for, this is my 10th year performing a lot still while I do that, like you said, doing YouTube stuff, which is relatively new last couple years. But yeah, I think you, you hit it all. But that's kind of the, the little bit of the backstory about kind of where I got to where I am, you know, wanted to perform, got teaching, and now I'm doing both.

Nice. Well, here's the thing, y'all, Dave just brushed over his YouTube channel, which is what we're gearing our focus towards a little bit here on the podcast. And Dave, tell us about how you've really developed this YouTube channel. And the thing about it is y'all, Dave has a consistent flow of content creation, and this is something that.

I have experienced firsthand that is difficult to do. Um, it's difficult to be consistent and consistency and persistency is the key to these things. So Dave, talk to us a little bit about that and some tips you have for being consistent with your content posting. It's one of these things, so I, you know, just for people, uh, who don't know, I.

Have, I guess, technically had my YouTube channel since 2009. We're in 2021 now. But I didn't really actually, I, I went back recently and looked, the first videos I posted where I specifically made them for putting on YouTube for people to look at was my smooth jazz series, which I believe was the beginning of 2017.

So four years ago, basically, you know, I struggled in the beginning with consistency and I made jokes about it. 'cause at in the beginning I was like, oh, I'm gonna do a one video a week consistent. So I said, I'll see you next week. See you next week. Then when I skip a few weeks, I said, uh, hey, I'll see you, uh, when I see you.

You know? So that, I honestly think that is one of the most important things, not only just for like consistency being that is one of the most important, not only for keeping an audience or keeping people engaged or building the channel, but also for you as a creator. Because if you go just like anything else, like, like.

If you're eating a, if you have a diet, being consistent with your diet is more important than how crazy the diet is because if you go super crazy and only eat, you know, lettuce and broccoli for, for a while, you're gonna like rebound and just go binge on pizza and cake and it's not gonna be consistent.

It's one of those things that helps you then you know that it's coming up, setting a schedule. So one of the things I'm gonna say is one of the tips I have, this is like a quintessential tip or it's cliche, is enjoy what you do and make it kind of part of your life. Versus I have my life and then there's this extra thing I have to do.

You know, that's the first thing. So, and I know it's really easy for me to say, like, just enjoy what you do and you'll never work a day in your life. No, it is a lot of work. It's definitely a lot of work, you know, that, um, and anybody who's ever tried to do this knows it's a lot of work, but definitely make it part of your life.

So, like, for example. When I'm, when I make my YouTube videos now, like during the day, you know, when I'm teaching, or even on the weekend or something, if I have an idea, and this is like kind of another point I have, but if you have an idea, I don't say, well, right now I'm not working on this, so I'm not, I'm not gonna deal with this idea.

No, I write that idea down right away, or I do a voice recording of, of an idea I have or something. So that way it, it's always kind of there. Or if I even have the, the inspiration strikes to record right then. Like I've done that where I literally had an idea, you know, while I'm eating dinner, I'll run up here, get the lights on, turn the camera on, and go.

I don't need to sit there and plan it. Now the style of my videos isn't like this super long processed thing. Like some, some of my videos are just off the cuff so I can kind of, I. Do that, you know? Yeah. If it's, if it's a more well thought out, more, more, uh, whatever kind of channel where you need more planning time, it's a little different.

So first thing is make it part of your life, not just an extra thing. And the next thing is, like I said, create, whenever you have the inspiration, because you might lose that one idea, or you might, you know, you might have lulls and you will have lulls and inspiration. And that also brings me to another point of banking content.

You know, batch recording content, if you. Just say you wanna record or put out videos once a week, that doesn't mean you should always record once a week. You know, if you feel the inspiration to record five times on a weekend, well now you just recorded five weeks worth of content. So that way in the next week, if you don't, in in, you know, week two, you just record a week's one through five and during week two, if you can't think of anything to record for week two, it's okay.

You already have week two covered. You know, so recording a bunch upfront if possible. You know, this could be for any kind of content, you know, having it available and then releasing it. Then here's the, here's the trick though. You need self-discipline, because I fall victim to this. I'll batch record a bunch of videos on a weekend, and because I'm so excited about 'em, I'll be like, guys, I'm releasing four videos this week.

That's cool, that's great. And people are like, well, this is amazing. But then the problem is one, now they expect more videos. And two, I completely threw off my schedule and now. Instead of releasing the one that I had planned, and then I could have had three, the next three weeks covered. I just threw all four of those all four weeks, an entire month's worth of videos in one week.

And now I kinda shot myself in the foot because of that. So, you know, record a bunch at a time if you can, but then you gotta have that self-discipline to still stay on your own schedule. You know, another thing is for consistency is engaging with your audience if you can, whatever kind of audience that is.

You know, and with the age of social media, if you're putting content online, you know, social media is such a powerful tool. Whatever kind of social media you want to go to, I'm not on all of them. I basically stick to YouTube and Instagram. Those are my two, um, that I use. Engaging with the audience is great for consistency one because if you know, they're always commenting and you're commenting back, you're making it part of your day to check, oh, let me check what people have said.

Let me continue with it. It keeps it on the forefront of your mind versus. You post a video and don't think about your channel again for a week, or you post whatever and don't think about, you know, for a week. You kind of keep it always there. And also it just makes me more inspired to do things when I see that people enjoy what I'm doing.

When I see people go, oh my God, this was such a great video. I can't wait to hear the next song you did, or, I can't wait to see the next video. I'm like, yeah, you know what? Or another thing is a lot, a lot of times we struggle with consistencies because we run out of ideas, right? Like we just don't have an endless supply.

So the comments give me great ideas. I get lots of ideas from people that said, Hey, this thing you did was really funny and great. Imagine if you did blank. And if enough people say that, and especially other people go, yeah, I would love to see Dave try this. I definitely take those ideas. Not, not because I'm trying to steal content, but because if I know they're gonna like it and it's an idea that they came up with, I didn't even have to come up with, that's a win-win all around.

And the final thing I do have one more is just create, just do it. Even if it's not the most perfect thing ever. Even if it's not, you know, oh my God, this isn't gonna change the world. The hardest part about writing a book is sitting down to write a book. The hardest part about making a podcast is just talking, just turning on the camera or the mic and talking.

Every video doesn't have to be your best video, but your next video or whatever, you know, content, I say video, your next one could be your best. So every video you make, or every piece of content you make is another chance to improve upon what you did before. So don't think it, everything has to be perfect before you do it.

'cause then you can fall into paralysis by analysis where you're like, oh my God, but what if I, what if I don't do this? Just do it. And then if it doesn't come out, great. Okay, what can you do better next time? Make another one and then make another one. I think I tell people, they're like, they start a channel like, yo, I've made like.

20 videos so far and I've only gained 30 subscribers. I said, yeah, I think it took me 150 videos to gain my first 200 subscribers or, or something, you know, whatever wild number. I said, 150 videos, not 10, not 20, not 50. So that consistency in building and just doing it, just, you know, put yourself out there and then it makes everything else, the ball roll downhill just so much easier.

Well, that's there's, I mean, there's a bunch of tips. Yeah, no, for sure. Well, that's why it's important to enjoy it first, you know, that's why you brought that point up first. Like, it's important to actually like it, or else you're going to start hating it. So, yeah, you know it, that's super important and. Why?

It's like people subscribe to people or people follow people. So they like you for like you and your ideas. So if you're forcing it and you don't actually like it, people are gonna know. You know, people are gonna find out. They, they can, you know, people aren't dumb. They're gonna be like, wait a minute, do you even like playing saxophone?

Do you like what you're doing here? Do you like having these conversations? I think it sounds forced. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a way to get them to tune out really quickly. Now, the thing about all of this is it actually has to be good to a certain extent, the content, right? So how are you creating time, right?

There's that, right? So how are you, how are you creating time to create the content and for your case practice, you know, still perfect your craft. Yeah, that's. So this is, I think, the hardest thing that people struggle with. I mean, consistency obviously is a really important thing, but I think the balance is kind of what sets it all off.

And for me, you know, I teach a lot all day, every day basically. And I'm still performing. Well, you know, if you're listening to this, it's February 2nd, 2021. There's not a lot of live performances happening. Uh, you know, so we're, we're, you know, we're doing, uh, I do a lot of that and I think for me, once again, it's all tied together.

So for me it's like, you know, I'm doing music no matter what I'm doing, whether it's teaching or performing or making content. So in that sense, I'm always kind of doing the same thing, whether I'm. Teaching whether I'm playing a gig, it's still music related. So it's always, it's not like, oh, I'm teaching now.

I have to do YouTube. It's like, like I said before, kind of make it, you know, connected, but also. On the flip side, I think it's good to have to do other things. Now, this isn't really, I guess this doesn't really help with the balance issue of it, which I'll get to in a second. But it's, you know, it's nice that, you know, I, yeah, I can be practicing something and I'm like, ah, getting down on this.

It's like, you know what? But I have this idea for a funny comedic YouTube video. Let me just do that and that can help me clear my head even for the other things. That's not really great for balance once again. But here's how I balance it, okay? And this is, this is not, doesn't work for everybody, but I'm the kind of person I don't need.

To complete something when I sit down to do it. So for example, if I have like a 45 minute break, I might like write a script for a video in that 45 minutes real fast. Or I'll film the first part of the video in 45 minutes. Or I'll record just a, an audio for a video in 45 minutes and I'll, alright, I'll finish it later tonight.

I'll finish it tomorrow. I'll finish it next week. I record in pieces so I, you know, some people I know they say, oh, I have to set up the lights, I have to set up the camera, I have to block out my schedule and do it. That might work. But once again, how, how often do you have that really blocked off set amount of time that you can just do that?

You know, people have, you know, families, people have pets to deal with, people have kids, you know, so I think for me it's about filling in the cracks. If that could be kind of the main thing here is, you know, any little bits of time, if I have the inspiration, just jump on that little bit at a time. Jump on, you know, I teach in the morning, right?

I, the, the school day starts at eight 30. I've recorded videos before school. I've woken up and been like, you know what? I'm just gonna record. It'll take me an hour to get everything done. I'm gonna start recording at seven 15. And sometimes I just do that, you know, or stay up late to do it. So there's no real good way to do it.

Whatever works for you. But I think never, there's never gonna be a perfect circumstance for doing any content creation. It may seem perfect. You might see, oh my God, look at these lights. Look how pretty everything is. Wow, everything's set up. It must be so easy. They don't see that my light has a bunch of tape on it because it was too bright and the piece broke.

So there's tape. It looks really ugly, but like you just make it work, right? So like, just, just like when filming, it might look like you spent all this time on it did this, but sometimes it's just you gotta get it done. And that goes to the just kind of do it thing. Just create. At least for me that really works.

You know, I'm also from New Jersey. I have that east coast kind of like go, go, go, go, go, go, go. As you can hear when I'm talking, obviously. But that's kind of how I've always been. So that's kind of how I do the back end of all my creation stuff. You know, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but I'm always just filling in the cracks.

Little here, a little here, little here, a little here. Yeah. That's not the greatest for everybody, but it works for me. Right? So how much of a schedule are you on really? Like really and truly, how much of a schedule a content creating schedule are you on? None. None really? No. Truly. Whether you're asking for actually putting out the content or recording the answer's the same.

I record when I like, feel like I can record it. Like this past weekend, I recorded three videos. You know, one of them released today another, you know, another might release next week or something. But I actually experimented with, you know, every Wednesday at 4:00 PM is gonna be when my video comes out every day at this.

And personally for my content, because my content's kind of all over the place too, it's not consistent content. I think I can get away with being a little inconsistent. I try to do once a week. Now that's what I do is one a week, sometimes two, but mostly now it's for 2021, it's gonna be one a week and.

During the week, I like to release it like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, in the middle of the week. But once again, it's up in the air, you know, and, and that's not, once again, it's not for everybody and it's not for every con like style of content. Some people, when they have really consistent content, it's nice when they release it.

Every, whatever. I have my two minute Tuesday where I released a tips, two minutes worth of tips every Tuesday. You know, that's consistency. Or they've done, you know, I've done every Monday at 5:00 PM for five years. You know, I would stay consistent at that point, but I never really got into a consistent groove and people, and I put out polls.

That's the other thing about engaging with the audience. I actually put out polls about which day of the week do you prefer? And like, it's always split. It's always like, you know, 20% Monday, 20% Tuesday, 20% Wednesday. So, and then when I say like, do you prefer consistent or does it matter? And most people just say like.

Hey, you know, whenever you put it out, I'll watch it. And that's also building an audience that, you know, either comes to expect certain things maybe 'cause I set the bar really low for my audience. They, they know not to expect consistency in that sense. But I'm posting every week. I don't, I've, I, I don't think I've missed a week in a while, in many months, so.

Right. There's that. So, so the, the main thing that I'm hearing is you have to find a way to make it sustainable for you. Yes. That's, yeah, that's what I'm hearing. That's where the consistency thing comes in, when you make it sustainable, when you make it a process, uh, or at least something that you go when you, when you feel the inspiration and you're taking advantage of the time, time management, even though you're not on a schedule, you're still managing your time really well.

Thank you. Yeah. I, I feel like an, an efficiency, that's another big one. Yeah. With the balance is I'm super efficient nowadays, like. I can, like, there are some days, literally there are some videos on my channel that I had the idea in the morning and there was, I had a two hour break. I filmed it, edited it, and uploaded it within those two hours.

So like, and, and like, and it looks the same as all my other videos on the channel, some of them. And which, which hurts my well, which hurts my soul sometimes. 'cause I look in another video, I'm like, oh my God, I spent 25 hours on this one and it has less views than the one that took me two. You know? So. You also can't do that to yourself.

It's a, it's a mental game individually. But yeah, efficiency, like being super fast with things is, I think, really important. Or not fast, but just efficient. Don't waste time efficient. Yeah. Don't waste time. Wasting Time is no good for anything. For any, exactly. Wow. This is, I don't have time for that. We don't, I don't have time for this.

Oh my, no, not, not in Jersey. Right. I imagine you gotta go get outta the left lane. Let's go. Let's go. Right, let's go. I have this song that I wrote, um, these lyrics too, that has yet to be released. It. When you say that, it reminds me of it and it goes, look at you getting things your way. Pulling doors that say push driving slow in the fast lane.

Hey, that's a, I love that. See that makes me happy. That reminds, I like hearing reminds that, that reminds me of that. I'm definitely the person that drives slow in the fast lane. Just you drive slow. In the slow lane, there's a lane for you. It's literally right there. Well, the people in the slow lane drive too slow.

Oh, okay. Oh, so wait a minute. Maybe you actually don't drive slow. You're just thinking I like that. I'm so, I'm somewhere in the middle because there's only, there's only two lanes and so I'm like, look, you're too slow. But it's fast over here, so I driving and that's as long as you're passing someone in the left lane.

Exactly. Well, Dave, thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate you. My pleasure. Where can the audience follow you to the mall? To the park? Just don't follow me home. Right. Uh, um, uh, I guess the, like I said before, the two main things are Instagram and YouTube. So my Instagram is at Dave Pollock music and uh, YouTube is just youtube.com/dave Pollock.

It's pretty straightforward. Yeah. You can find me those two places. Yeah. I think, I guess if the Instagram is where I post more like daily stuff and behind the scenes and just all music, YouTube is just kind of the, the produced videos, that's where they go. Gotcha, gotcha. Well, y'all, Dave has really done his thing.

Just, I don't even know any, anything else to say. He's really, he's really doing it, so I'm trying. Yeah. I guess, and, and if there's like a final thought I, I know I keep talking. Yeah, no, go ahead. Honestly though, like. Because so many people ask me a lot of the questions about building channels and especially with everything going on in the last year, a lot of people are starting to do these.

And I, I keep my, by the way, I keep saying channels because that's what I do. Whatever you do is, is awesome. You know, whatever kind of art form we're talking here, but it, it has to work for you and there's no set way. It's very easy to go online and have somebody go, here are the five tips to be successful.

Do this, do this. And you're like, but wait a minute. But I, I have to wake up, you know, at three in the morning because of my day job. I have a kid, I. Make it work for you, whatever you need to do to make it work. If, if you don't have a tripod, balance it on some books. If you don't have a camera, use a phone.

If you don't have a phone, use a webcam on computer If you don't have a computer. You're probably just not recording videos then, but you know what I mean. So just there's, there's no excuse in that sense. There's no excuse. Anybody can release whatever they want for free on the internet and reach a large number of people.

There's YouTube channels with over a million subscribers that I follow that have been using an old GoPro the whole time. They don't use any external microphones, no lights, no cameras. They don't even use their phone. Just an old beat up GoPro that they filmed and they have a million subscribers and they probably make, you know, very good living doing it.

So. It's about content, like you said. Gotta make good content, good content, consistent, good content, um, any way you can do it. And uh, nice. Yeah. Dave, thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate you music executives. I hope you enjoyed this episode. The music you're about to hear is from the beginning of the episode as well.

Sometimes isn't always. It was so beautiful. We had to play it. The rest of it for you. It's actually a live recording at a club that they were playing up in Philadelphia. So go ahead and enjoy the rest of the music, but we'll see y'all in the next episode. With love, yoga and music. See y'all later.