A Conversation with Brian Corbin

Brian Corbin, an exceptional blend of educator, realtor, performer, and entrepreneur, joins us to script a narrative where passion meets business. His life, a rich tapestry woven from the threads of music education and financial prowess, echoes the profound influence of those who taught him not just to perform, but to thrive. In a candid conversation, we journey with Brian through the emotional landscapes of music, discussing the sacrifices and triumphs that underscore the life of a musician, and how that resilience translates into shaping one's own definition of success. Brian and I discuss the importance of mentorship and fostering a community within the arts that encourages collaboration over competition. We touch on the crucial conversation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts, acknowledging the complex layers and opportunities these discussions bring forth. Tune in to this episode for an insightful symphony of discussions that promises to leave you inspired to find your own harmony between financial independence and artistic passion.

Brian Corbin Biography

Brian Corbin is a multifaceted clarinetist and music entrepreneur dedicated to enriching and diversifying the music industry through innovative product designs, entrepreneurial education, and addressing underserved communities.
 
 Brian is the President and founder of B. Corbin Clarinet Products, a manufacturing and distribution company dedicated to the highest quality, innovative clarinet products. What started as a clarinet repair venture to serve his students has blossomed into a haven for clarinet enthusiasts, offering meticulously crafted mouthpieces, barrels, and accessories, all proudly made and hand-finished by Brian in Virginia. 

As the company's heart and soul, Brian's collaboration with Boston-based Royal Global clarinets reflects his dedication to excellence, innovation, and accessibility in the industry as the principal North American distributor. He is also intimately involved in product design and development for Royal Global and has taken the lead on several projects that have made professional instruments more affordable and accessible. 

Beyond the realm of music, Brian is a licensed Realtor and real estate investor. Alongside his wife Lilly, an active duty Navy clarinetist, they specialize in assisting military personnel, first-time homebuyers, and self-employed individuals in building wealth through real estate, underpinned by Brian's certification as a Military Relocation Professional.

Brian is also an avid coffee roaster and has started a new coffee venture to support diversity in music education by donating proceeds to organizations with a similar vision. Brian has also served as President of New Works Project, a non-profit dedicated to democratizing the commissioning of new music by making music more accessible and representative.

Brian holds a Bachelor of Music Education from Indiana University and a Master of Music in Clarinet Performance from Florida State University. Esteemed mentors like Howard Klug, Deborah Bish, and Jonathan Holden have shaped his musical prowess. This rich educational background has translated into a vibrant career, performing with ensembles nationwide and giving clinics and seminars to various music and business students. Brian's passion for nurturing musicians at all stages of their journey, whether through top-tier equipment or entrepreneurial mentorship, helps position him as an inspirational figure in the nexus of music, business, and education.

Outro

Transcript

Austin McFarland: 0:46

All right. Hello everybody, I'm sitting here with the amazing Brian Corbin. So, brian, why don't you go ahead and get started to everybody who you are, what you do, why you do it all of the important things about you.

Brian Corbin: 0:59

Sure, man, that's a lot. So, first off, thanks Austin for having me on. I really appreciate it, man. Yeah, my name is Brian Corbin. I'm the owner of B Corbin Clarinet Products, which is a company that both manufacturers and distributes Clarinet products, and I'm also a real estate investor and a realtor, performer, educator. You know sort of a little bit of everything, which I guess is why we're here talking right now. So, yep, that's who I am in a nutshell. I'm originally from Northern Virginia, did some schooling at Indiana University where I got my music education degree, got a performance degree, my master's at Florida State University two great schools, learned a ton, and currently we're here in Norfolk, virginia, where my wife is stationed. She plays Clarinet in the Navy Fleet Band. So that's me in a nutshell generally, and I'm glad to be here, man.

Austin McFarland: 1:59

So you talked a little bit about schooling. Talk a little bit about that transition from I'm going to be an educator to now entrepreneur, and like how that evolved for you.

Brian Corbin: 2:12

Yeah, so first off, I wouldn't even really call it a transition, right, because I still view myself as an educator and I think I'll always continue to view myself as an educator at least I hope so and that's because, for me, you know, I got into music because of music education. So to begin with I had just phenomenal teachers. And this point I want to hit home because when we talk about things like cutting music education or the value of teachers or all of that, I can contribute without a doubt. You know this. My success is because of my educators, my music educators, from my first middle school band directors to my high school band director, to my educators at the university level. So when you talk about how I transitioned, you know for me I want that to be a lifelong thing.

Brian Corbin: 3:07

But what I did recognize, getting my music education degree at Indiana University, is that, first off, throughout a school that is, you know, filled with amazing performers and educators. And one of the things that my teacher, howard Clug, at Indiana, you know, really believed in was I don't care if you're a music educator, your music performer, whatever your degree is, we all need to know all of these things. So I was never pigeonholed as okay. Well, you're a music ed student, so you don't need to perform as well. No, that is definitely not the route that most of us believe in, right? So I was always held to the same standards that you know, performers, majors were, and because of that, I found the value of performing and educating and how, even as a performer, you're an educator as well. Perhaps that might be educating the audience right, or educating your colleagues in a performance on how you you know, how you perform, and that kind of thing. So I'll just say first off, that I hope I'll always be an educator, even if I'm not in the classroom.

Brian Corbin: 4:14

But what I did realize was a couple of things. I was student teaching. I was going out into middle schools doing clinics and helping out with sections and, to be 100% honest with you, austin, I realized how quickly a lot of music educators in today's society burn out, how much extra stuff they have to deal with that we're not necessarily taught we're not necessarily taught in school and, to be completely frank, how financially rewarding it often is not. And so for me, I just simply had a dream that one day I would love to be able to teach and not care about the money right and my ultimate goal, and even still to this day, is to be able to go out and if whether it's being a band director or teacher or whatever, knowing that my financial stability is not tied to my job as an educator because I always wanted to have the opportunity to say you know what? This isn't right for me. I'm here for the students.

Brian Corbin: 5:19

At any point in time where I was being, you know, stopped from it being the students as the priority in my life, I didn't want to be there anymore. So I said, you know, we had to figure something else out. And the truth is I'm sort of an entrepreneurial spirit, like I just always sort of had that I kind of joke and tell people and this is true, a true story that even in elementary school I remember and Stafford Virginia I was that kid that would find like lost pencils and erasers and pencil sharpeners. I put them in my pencil box and when a student the student needed something, I would sell them for like 25 cents or 50 cents. I would sell them a pencil or pencil sharpener that I found on the floor and then that was my extra money for lunch, for a second slice of pizza or dessert. So really that's where it started for me.

Brian Corbin: 6:13

I grew up with a hardworking family in the construction trade.

Brian Corbin: 6:18

My dad's a business owner. Pretty much everybody above me were entrepreneurial people. They just worked really hard for what they had. We didn't grow up with a lot of money, but we grew up with a work ethic that that proved to me. Well, as long as you would work, you could be successful. So to tie all that in, when I talk about a transition from being an educator to an entrepreneur, I actually think it's more along the lines of combining each one of those sort of natural assets and things I've learned and to one with the understanding that I just wanted something out of life that may be just being solely a music educator specifically a band director could give me, and I think those people that are doing it at a high level are incredibly special people. They're people you know way better than me and pretty much every way it's truly their calling. I don't think that you can meet any really great educator that doesn't tell you this is really what they want to do, or else they wouldn't be doing it.

Brian Corbin: 7:20

So it just came down to look, I wanted something out of life that was going to allow me to teach and perform without having to worry about that financial stability.

Austin McFarland: 7:30

And here we are today Talk a little bit about because I know, b Corbin, that Clarenette Products was born out of your barrel design work, because we met early in that whatever 2016, 2017, whatever that ICA in Orlando was I remember writing down in the elevator with you and hearing you talk about these barrel designs to be so excited, like, how did you get sort of into that space to create the company?

Brian Corbin: 8:01

Yeah, so that story also really started at Indiana University and it was again, I was a music education major. I, you know, part of that degree is you going out to do observations with local schools, with you going out to help, you know, with clinics and things like that. And what I saw was it really hit home for me because I'd go into these schools and I would see students with instruments that were not in good repair condition, right, and I recall, you know, my very first year of band where I was playing an old Selmer Bundy Clarenette out of our closet because my sister, you know, had it and didn't continue with band but we had an old Bundy in the closet and you know it took me a while, really until my second year, to realize that that instrument was holding me back. Right, I still remember the day, seventh grade, I got my brand new, you know, buffet B12 Clarenette, little plastic student Clarenette, and suddenly I went from being sort of the back of the section to the top of the section because my work ethic was always there. But now things were easier for me.

Brian Corbin: 9:09

So at IU when I went out and I saw these students you know, not everybody, but a few students here who I really couldn't help get the most out of them because their instruments weren't in good repair. I knew then I wanted to be the kind of educator that was going to be able to help my students out in that realm right. So for me it started with sophomore year. You know, I remember asking for Christmas, for you know one thing, one thing only, and that was a Clarenette repair kit, actually from an online music supply retailer, and I got it. It was like 100 bucks or something like that, and this also, by the way, goes into sort of my philosophy, where I typically only buy things that I feel like are investments, whether it's an investment to make me more money or it's an investment for my mental health or for all those things. So investment doesn't just mean financial reasons. But anyways, I got this repair kit and I just watched every YouTube video. I read every book I could from Eric Brands sort of outdated repair manual, fundamentals of a musical, acoustics by Arthur Benade and I spent those years at IU trying to learn a little bit more about instrument repair.

Brian Corbin: 10:29

I even watched our local music store repair person and he gave me a lot of tips. I actually worked there as a teacher in the band and orchestra rental manager. And so then I was able to go back into those schools and say, hey, you know what? I actually know how to fix this small problem so that you can get out your long B right, so that we're not afraid of the quote unquote break in the clarinet. And so that's really where it started, and by the time I left IU I was doing full repads. Now Brian today would laugh at the work that Brian back then was doing, to be honest with you, but it was a start and I was lucky to have colleagues who trusted me. I always did everything on my own instrument first before I would be willing to do anything on someone else's.

Brian Corbin: 11:13

And so I went to Florida State and at Florida State, once again there was a need for repair people, because I think there was somebody there before who had left, and so immediately I was the guy that those students came to. And to be frank, same situation Even the college students often didn't have funds to get their instruments repaired. So I did a ton of free repairs for students because, yes, I should have valued my time and I should have maybe taken money in some cases, but at the same time I knew where those students were. I knew, especially as a TA, as a teaching assistant there, that it was only going to make my job easier when my students also had instruments in good repair. But really, what happened was I started thinking, if I can do this, if I can do this repair, if I'm learning more about musical acoustics, I should expand and learn even more about the clarinet. And there was sort of a crossroads that I came to, which is I was playing on the same clarinet my entire career at IU and then I got to Florida State.

Brian Corbin: 12:19

I was an R13 clarinet probably still the most popular clarinet in the country, I would imagine, but certainly at that time it was the standard for people in my position. Well, I had cracked a bunch. It had lost a lot of resistance. It was pretty much yeah, I needed something else, but I didn't have funds right Because I didn't have money. I took out a lot of student loans and so it was either I figure out how to get a ton of money to buy a new instrument or maybe there's a solution that, as a repair tech, I can figure out that at least hold me over.

Brian Corbin: 12:56

And so what that led to was I started taking woodturning lessons In Florida. Learning from a woodturner, I started learning about how to construct certain pieces of wood. I even worked with another machining shop and another clarinet specialty shop and came up with a design that physics said would work to help my instrument retain some of those qualities that I was looking for, and today we know them as things like. You'll hear words thrown around as reverse taper and different numbers and bores and stuff like that, but I learned the relationship between mass and vibrations right, and so I took a design that I had on paper and I worked with another machine shop to produce my design and kind of crazily it worked, and so when you think about all the money I ended up investing into that design, I probably could have just purchased the new instrument and it would have been about the same.

Brian Corbin: 14:01

But the truth is that experience taught me a lot, a lot that I still use today, and that particular design, which was my focus barrel was born, and that was in my first year at Florida State that I started working on that, and in my first year, second semester, I officially started what is now known as B Corbin clarinet products, and then later that year I went to clarinet fest in Orlando. I added another design at that time because my then-girlfriend, now-wife, didn't quite like my focus barrel, but she wanted something different. So I designed something else and we took those designs, along with a couple of other things, to clarinet fest in Orlando and it really took off from there and I just kept going. So I kept learning more about other barrels, mouthpieces, bell and I started networking with people. And that's really where it started.

Austin McFarland: 14:58

So you talked a little bit about taking that time to do the free work while you were in school, not necessarily because it was the only work available, but because it would pay off in the long run. Do you feel like that network has helped you build the business that you have now?

Brian Corbin: 15:18

Absolutely and maybe not directly, so to speak, but certainly that those people early on remember the work I did. They remember how hard I worked for them and for others and that might turn into and has turned into hey, I've got a student in need of this or that, how can you help? And so I was able to help and of course it's paid itself back, in my opinion, 10 full, maybe not financially, but certainly in many other ways. So I think we can't always measure success. We can't always measure return on investment in dollars, but instead in potential future earning, sure, but also in your stability in the field and that kind of thing. So yeah, I look back and, to be frank with you, I'm not sure everybody necessarily appreciated what I did at that same level.

Brian Corbin: 16:15

I didn't even really until later on when people would say hey, I remember you were coming from two back-to-back rehearsals in an ensemble and I called you with an emergency repair and I came over to your apartment at 9.30 PM, right Knowing I had to be up really early again, and I sat there and I worked on those horns for them so that they could perform.

Brian Corbin: 16:35

I remember I had a friend who was performing a recital and he was playing Mozart on a basset actually a basset clarinet and right before the recital he had some issues and of course I wasn't there with my tools, but I was able to at least do a couple of things for them to get through. And those are the kind of memories and things that I think about and, whether those people remember or not, I remember it as a positive experience. So, doing those repairs for free while I don't really have the ability to do that today, back then it certainly paid off now because I also learned from that experience right and I also gained future friendships and business and networking and opportunities and those types of things.

Austin McFarland: 17:19

So all of us, as musicians, fight imposter syndrome or however you wanna phrase it, that fight back. Talk a little bit about your experience going through school and maybe, if you did or didn't battle some of that, knowing you were on a completely different trajectory than the rest of the studio around you because a lot of your colleagues were looking for that college teaching job. Or I'm gonna be a high level, high level teacher in some big metropolitan area, or I'm gonna perform. Talk a little bit about that.

Brian Corbin: 17:50

Oh, man, you're touching on some pretty sensitive points that you know right now. Imposter syndrome is an interesting thing because on one side it's something I continue to fight, maybe worse than ever today, and that's because you know all of us as musicians, especially those that have gone to music school, we see people who today, who maybe back then were just you thought, oh, they're going to take off, they're going to be successful no matter what they do. And today they're no longer in music or it plays a different role, and so I know a lot of us can get into a trap where we see people who are doing things other than what are expected of them as failure. And so for me, I always had interest outside of my major, and so when I think about imposter syndrome, I think about people giving me compliments and telling me how great I am at this or that, and while I was a young kid maybe I would have loved that. And today it's kind of hard to hear because all I can think about are the things I have to improve on, the things I need to do better. And so it's gotten to the point where a lot of us, as musicians, have to understand that we are individuals. And it's just like teachers say you're not really battling against other people, you're battling against yourself. But the truth of the matter is, when you're auditioning for one orchestra spot in your school and you don't get it, you feel like you failed, but somebody else has succeeded. Yet we're still expected to be happy for our colleagues and our classmates, even though knowing that being happy for them means that we didn't get it.

Brian Corbin: 19:39

And so when you talk about imposter syndrome, you talk about not feeling like you're qualified to do what you're doing, not feeling like your success is really all because of your efforts. But the truth is that I've had a lot of help, but without my work ethic, without my long nights and major sacrifices, I wouldn't get here where I am today. When we think about failure, I think we have to remember view failure as the beginning and the middle, but not the end. It's never the end goal. Don't let that trip you up. We have to fail to succeed and to learn from that. So certainly I had struggles because, as an educator, I have other education friends who may be seeing me as not being a band director as a failure. I have friends who may be seeing me not having a full-time performing job as a failure. And even in my own head, I remember little Brian thinking he was going to be the best band director in the world and I'm not doing that.

Brian Corbin: 20:46

And so what I want to tell all musicians and artists, and really everybody, is that impossible imposter syndrome is not something that has anything to do with you. It actually has to do with everybody else, right, because what we're afraid of with imposter syndrome specifically is how others view us. But you have control over how you view yourself, right, and so imposter syndrome it's not a problem you have to worry about. That's everybody else's problem. Let them deal with their, because you're not going to make everybody happy.

Brian Corbin: 21:24

Let's be frank, right, I've helped people do things and other people, even quote-unquote competitors. They see my success as their failure. Right, and part of that maybe we'll talk about it is why I actually switched into a larger distribution role for my company, because now, yes, I certainly am still viewed as a competitor, but now I feel like I'm helping more people by helping a larger pool of music dealers and musicians get a hold of really high quality products that help a lot of people. So, yeah, man, imposter syndrome something we all struggle with. I still struggle with it today.

Brian Corbin: 22:01

I just have to remind myself nobody else is sitting there worrying about my imposter syndrome. I'm the only one worrying about my imposter syndrome and it also leads into me being to be 100% honest with you Austin, I'm afraid to share my successes. I'm working on that. It's something I'm changing right now. There was a time in my life, early on and very recently, where if I shared a success, that's when a lot of people would come to me asking for more. So the more successful I was getting, the more people were asking of me, often for free, and it just got to a point where I wasn't able to sustain that. So I just sort of kept my successes private. But I realize now I'm doing a disservice to those like me who want to know how to raise themselves up from whatever it is, whether it's their mental state, whether it's its financial poverty, whether it's any of those things. I need to show people that, look, you can be where I was and you can be a lot higher and further than where I am today.

Austin McFarland: 23:07

I love that. I mean, impact isn't just the services and products you're providing, but it's also like you can also have an impact in sharing those successes and helping motivate other people. No, I love that sort of mindset. That's great. So let's talk a little bit about that transition from store, which we still are, to distribution center and how really that growth of let's talk to you and I have a discussion about the growth of royal, because I think this is something we don't get to talk about a lot, because you and I never get to sit down and have conversations like this. So talk about deciding to go that distribution route with Royal Global and we can help, try to help fill in the gaps to the people that maybe aren't clarinetists or don't know about Royal Global.

Brian Corbin: 23:59

Listening to this yeah, absolutely, and yeah right, Maybe we don't have enough time to go into the whole story.

Brian Corbin: 24:05

But certainly Royal or Royal Global is a really interesting story and I'm really blessed to be a part of that. When I first was introduced to the owner of Royal and the clarinet designer Yuan Gao, he was working with someone else at the time and he actually wasn't selling his actual own branded instruments. He was working with that particular person to get a label basically put on another factory as clarinet. So at that time I didn't realize that what he was doing I don't want to say in secret, but certainly I wasn't aware he was actually working on his own factory where it's dedicated specifically to just clarinets in the Royal Global line. And so some things happen. Long story short, there was a point where I sort of went out on my own as a repair technician and making my own products and kind of selling them on the side, traveling to universities, doing clinics, all those types of things. And there was a point where when he ended a relationship with the other party, he straight up asked me hey, man, we had a good working relationship. I think that we'd work well together. I'll give you input and we can work together to design clarinets that are going to be really great for people who maybe aren't looking to spend $10,000 on a piece of wood with holes in it. And so I said great, here are the things we have to do. We have to make sure we have all the right materials. Well, little did I know. This guy had invested large amounts of resources into getting the best wood. I mean, you're talking, he sources it directly from the lumber yards, right, you and I both visited China and saw this operation, because we saw him bringing these giant logs of wood. And so he's an American citizen. The company is an American company, based in Boston.

Brian Corbin: 26:08

But what we were never afraid of is telling people that, look, these clarinets are made in Asia, just like, by the way, most clarinets. But don't tell people. I said that, and but the country has literally nothing to do with the quality of the instrument. Right, it's how it's being made, it's who's making it and it's the quality control. Right, I tell people because I play multiple brands of clarinets. So, just to be honest with people, I'm not sort of a brand mollitus or anything like that. I play royal clarinets, I also play buffet clarinets, you know. And so because for me that's what works and also I'm not just going to buy instruments just because, but I tell people look, if you took that you know French factory, whatever brand it is, take that French factory and uproot it and move it to China, all the same workers are doing all the same thing with all the same materials. What changes? Only one thing the price. Right, because you're lowering the cost of a lot of that work.

Brian Corbin: 27:12

And that was our philosophy was let's actually do things at the highest standard, but because we can use, you know, more specialized labor that's a little bit more affordable, we're able to get instruments kind of back to where I think they really should be priced, honestly. And so he agreed yeah, I'll give you input, we'll work together, we'll listen from educators, we'll listen to repair techs, we'll do all those things. And during COVID really is where we got a lot of this stuff done, because 2020, nobody was going anywhere and we were able to sit down and work together on coming up with a lot of things. Many of our instruments, our innovations, came out of that time. So you know, when we talk about Royal and the growth of Royal, it really started because all we wanted to do was kind of put the instruments back in the hands of the people, right, and you're not going to change the minds of people who are, you know, maybe they're artists for certain companies, for whatever the reason, they just love the instruments. Great, more power to them. I respect that. Maybe they get a financial kickback, whatever. That's fine, you know. But that growth, with Royal having a good team, including you seeing the factory firsthand, going to the Shanghai show, realizing that there are a ton of clarinet brands but there's only a handful of clarinet factories, right? So let that sink in for a second. The same factory will produce clarinets for many brands, right?

Brian Corbin: 28:40

It's very easy to get your name, your logo, on a clarinet. We did it, you remember? I mean before, really, royal was taken off. I still have them here. I have instruments with my logo on them. They look terrible, my logo looks terrible on a clarinet.

Brian Corbin: 28:56

But and I quickly realized they were decent at first and I realized they weren't going to hold up. They weren't using the materials that should be used. They were cheap, yes, but they weren't what we wanted. So that's been amazing. And what I realized is okay, great, I can try to sell these on my own, but what legitimacy and credibility do I have right now in the market? At that time, none really. Instead, I need to be reaching out to educators to show them the quality, the value, so they can ask for these instruments. And long behold, that's what happened. The dealers that we have working with us working with Royal, for the most part are dealers who ask us for the instruments because they were being asked for the instruments. They were being asked can you provide a low-C bass clarinet that's not $15,000, right Like the one I bought at Florida State before I was with Royal. I still have it today.

Austin McFarland: 29:49

I love it.

Brian Corbin: 29:50

But if I had the option back then to buy something half the price and pay it off quicker, then I would have, because I think the quality is there. So it was very clear to me that if I wanted to help more people, including myself but if I wanted to help more people, I needed to spread and change that model. I needed to change from a buy everything from me to let me get this out to as many people and dealers as possible, so we can start to change the lives of these young students and young musicians, so they can see that quality is not necessarily only a factor of price or vice versa. So that's really where we started. We started as, hey, you can be the guy that sells them and hey, by the way, you can also distribute if you want them.

Brian Corbin: 30:38

So, yes, I'm making certainly a lot less money doing it this way, but I mean, how greedy do we need to be right? Isn't there a point where you say I'm happy, I'm living happily and I'm also doing good? And, in my opinion, not to get too spiritual or anything. But when you put it out there, it's going to come back to you, whether you're putting out positive or whether you're putting out negative, it's going to ultimately come back to you.

Brian Corbin: 31:04

That's just my personal belief, and so that's really where we are today trying to get these instruments into the hands of as many people and as many dealers as possible so we can have a positive impact not only on those students but on the educators, making it easier on them. And so it's a way for me also to stay connected to the music world, because, you know, I do things outside of music often for my mental health, but I do those things outside of music. But this is a way for me to stay connected. So, even if I'm not in the classroom as a band director, I know that an instrument I touched is actually in the classroom being utilized at a very high level, and that makes me feel very good, just to be frank with you.

Austin McFarland: 31:46

Yeah, so you keep circling back to impact. Every time we've, every stage of your career, we've come back to the impact you're trying to make in the lives of artists and musicians. So how do you fit being a real estate agent into that? I'm curious.

Brian Corbin: 32:03

Yeah, that's funny. So you know, during COVID I was in Hawaii and Hawaii was, I would say, probably the most strict state in terms of regulations, because people have to remember, of course, hawaii is an island or a set of islands, right In the middle of the Pacific Ocean and a large part of their entire economy is travel. So guess what is not good for a pandemic A lot of people coming in from all over the world, and so Hawaii shut down. In fact, I remember my family was visiting, my sister was getting married and my family was visiting, and it was like the day after they left that pretty much they stopped all travel to Hawaii.

Brian Corbin: 32:45

So during that time, guess what? We weren't doing too much. Certainly I wasn't selling anything because there was a lot of uncertainty in the world. And financially even though I wasn't actually paying myself at that time which maybe is a different discussion certainly we weren't making. We weren't making money. Now I was fortunate because my wife is an active duty military and so she had a job. We continued to get housing allowance, so I was okay, I wasn't hurting, right. I just wasn't certainly making any money.

Brian Corbin: 33:19

And so I spent that time learning an incredible amount of skills. I sharpened my woodturning skills and ended up selling little trinkets and things handmade pens and things like that, just to make ends meet. And so I started to build up a lot of other skills and do a lot of research and say, hey, what can I do so that if this ever happened again, where suddenly nobody was buying clarinets and for whatever reason, this company went belly up, what could I do to try to protect myself a little bit so that financially we weren't that much in a whole, we got student loans to deal with at this time. All those things and real estate was an option for me that I thought about, because A Hawaii is a market that's really interesting. Prices are very high, it's very expensive to live in Hawaii, but in terms of investments, almost every 10 years for a long time, the value doubles. That's insane. So that's kind of where it started and it wasn't really serious until we got out of COVID. Things were working really well, we were traveling a lot and business was picking up.

Brian Corbin: 34:29

And then you talk to your CPA and as a self-employed individual for those that don't know you got to pay taxes. I haven't been a W-2 worker pretty much ever in my life, unless you count being a TA at college, which that's peanuts. But I remember getting hit with a five-figure tax bill that I had to pay and, to be frank with you, that was a lot of money. And so I started to think about okay, well, I got to set myself up for the future. I got to start thinking about things that take advantage of the tax code. I got to start thinking about things that maybe when I'm still sleeping at night, there's some sort of passive income coming. What can I use as a military spouse who has access to all the benefits that come along with that, the VA loan that no money down, etc. What can I do to set myself up and potentially my family in the future In real estate?

Brian Corbin: 35:27

Was that thing that I could do because it wasn't going to mean a nine-to-five job for me. Some people do that full-time. That's great. That's not where I am today, largely my day-to-day, all day spent on clarinet stuff. But outside of that, I was able to figure out a way to involve real estate in this particular business. So perfect example we moved from Hawaii and going to Virginia, I was able, as a licensed real estate agent, to refer myself to another realtor and I got a commission check for our own house that we purchased using a VA loan with no money down right. On Monday, literally two days ago, we closed on a second property that I'm going to get a full commission check from, because I was the real estate agent that also purchased this property, this investment property, and so now I've got more flexibility in purchasing homes because I can negotiate with my commission right.

Brian Corbin: 36:27

So not necessarily music related, but I want other people to understand you can do things outside of what you may see as your identity to help you do the things you actually love. Because I'll be honest with you, austin, there's been many points in my life where performing felt like work, it didn't feel fun, where practicing was not something I wanted to do and even today I don't have a most amazing practice routine, maybe like my wife, but I wanted to do things that was going to keep music fresh for me. So that only has just been a financial blessing for us. It has also been something that has kept music alive in my heart and reduces that dreaded burnout that I bet almost all musicians at some point have either felt or come close to feeling. So, yes, I'm a realtor. I help people buy and sell properties. I'm also an investor, but I really truly do believe in long term financial strategies, the things that were not taught in school, right Avoiding credit card debt, retirement accounts, building up your emergency fund, all those types of things.

Austin McFarland: 37:34

I love that you're talking about the thing that I think is missing in all of our education, not just specifically our music education, you know, talking about the tax code and stuff like that but also, like we as musicians, when we're talking about career development through school. Don't talk about the need for passive income or the work that you know how that can benefit us in keeping the creative aspects of our jobs as artists like fresh. I love that you took the pandemic and figured something out out of it. I think that's great.

Brian Corbin: 38:09

Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this Austin yeah, the skills that successful musicians have are very aligned with the skills that successful business owners have and entrepreneurs Okay, and for me this is critical because we're missing an opportunity in school to align these goals right. You're already doing things that in the business world, people will pay lots of money to learn. Take, for example, the concept of delayed gratification. There, in my opinion, is almost nothing as important as understanding that you may do work today that will pay off later in life. Musicians know that better than, I'd argue, almost anybody, right, I know I remember being a freelancer right Performing, having to spend dozens of hours learning music to get paid $100 a service right One weekend. I may be making $300, $400, $500 over several days, but it actually took me, you know, multiple weeks to learn the music or whatever right In terms of that investment. So when we think about delayed gratification, every time you step into a practice room you are delaying your gratification. You are trying to get better at something so that maybe one week, two weeks, three weeks a year from now, that work pays off and you're going to be better off for it. So, first off, absolutely that's a skill that musicians are. Whether they realize it or not, they're taking advantage of, and that's something that business owners and people who are trying to get their financial life together have to understand. Right, you probably shouldn't have that $5 coffee if you can make coffee at home for 17 cents right Now. Some people are going to be throwing up their arms at me. But look, that's not the stuff that you have to think about, right?

Brian Corbin: 40:07

How about the concept of networking? Musicians network by default. Okay, so you're in an ensemble, you have to be in studio class, right? You're doing all these things. You're going to auditions, you're networking constantly and you should be taking advantage of that. Well, guess what Most successful entrepreneurs and business people are doing? They're networking because you don't know how that contact from five years ago may influence you later. Right, that colleague of mine who was in my studio five, six, eight years ago. Now they have students who are looking for high quality instruments, but their budget is limited, so they're asking me about this instrument or financing options. That's networking you need to take advantage of.

Brian Corbin: 40:51

So delayed gratification perfectly aligns with musicians artists in general, I should say and business people, entrepreneurs. So delayed gratification, networking. But how about also just general work ethic, right? The ability for the successful musicians to not really feel like it but still practice anyway because they've built a routine right. They know that, even though they stayed up late that night or did whatever at six in the morning, that's the only time you have in your whole day, especially as a music grad student, to practice. So guess what you have to do? You have to get your butt up and go practice right. Entrepreneurs, business people, same thing. You're doing so much work, often unpaid work, that you have to have a work ethic that drives you right. Understanding. Still, you got to balance it with your mental and physical health.

Brian Corbin: 41:43

But those are just a few of the skills that I think are aligned perfectly with musicians, artists in general and successful entrepreneurs and business people. It's also something that spurred my new passion. Love that you've got a podcast and that you're talking about it. I'm going to do the same thing and share with people my story and specific things that you can do to tie in what you're doing now, the thing you love, with financial stability and success in the future. So we have to figure out a way to get our music schools and our teachers to open up a little bit about what other things can you do that relies on these same skills. You don't have to go out and learn a ton of extra skills. You already have them. Just shift them towards a different perspective and you'll be really surprised how far you'll go.

Austin McFarland: 42:35

Yeah, I completely agree, and I think it's not even just the music schools. I think we have to also talk even at, like, the high school level. I know for me living this sort of what I've called the musicpreneur lifestyle, where I wear a lot of hats in a lot of different arenas, but one of the things that I do is spend a lot of time with junior, high and high school kids, and when they finally grasp that I'm not a band director, that I do other things outside the classroom, then it's like mind blown, world opens up, that I can do more with music than I can see and, like my kids even will sometimes bring me ideas like hey, what if we did this? Or how could we do this?

Austin McFarland: 43:20

And so I think you're absolutely right in that we need to this broader conversation and us as active working artists need to be willing to share that stuff, even the bad, but especially the good, to help sort of spread that knowledge, which is part of what the podcast is about is letting people see that there are great people, and, yes, I'm utilizing my network to start, but if I were to come to you and say who are three people that you think would fit the podcast. You have a network of people that probably three other people that I don't even know within the clarinet community or the music broader music community that are living this sort of artist, musicpreneur lifestyle, whatever you want to call it that are really successful and that we could go to them for okay, how did you do it? So I think we have to also be able to learn from each other, which involves sharing that, which can be an interesting topic right now, because that tends to bleed into diversity, equity, inclusion, which is a whole different world and carries some baggage with it.

Brian Corbin: 44:34

Yeah, no, I think you're right, and part of that sharing of knowledge also comes from the ability to let go of your own selfish needs. And I don't mean necessarily selfish in a bad way, because in many ways we have to be selfish. Right, as musicians, you really have to be selfish, because you're often competing against a lot of people for one spot, right, and so the idea of being selfish isn't necessarily just negative, right, you have to be selfish often with your time. You have to be selfish often with your resources. You need to take care of yourself. But, by that same token, when you share with others, just like I said earlier, I think it's going to come back to you and it's something that I've had to overcome because when I was doing what I was doing early on young kid in his 20s trying to start a clarinet business and in college I didn't really have exactly a blueprint to follow.

Brian Corbin: 45:31

I know there are plenty of people who've done similar things like me. I have colleagues who were doing the same thing, maybe really disconnected from each other, but there was no blueprint, right? The people I looked up to were typically people who had been in the business for decades already. There wasn't a lot of young folks like myself doing it and since then I'm certainly not taking any credit for that, but certainly since then there's been a lot more people doing that kind of thing right. There have been a lot of other sort of young people, still in college or fresh out of college who are learning their repair skills or they're starting clarinet shops or they're doing those types of things. Seeing there's another avenue and there was a point in my life where I thought, oh man, look at them, they're going to take business away from me, right. That was my early part of my life where I was being selfish for the wrong reasons, when in reality now, if I had the idea then that I have now, which is I'm excited for them because that means that more people will see that it's possible and more people will do it. It also gives me an opportunity to work with those people. So again, maybe we're a sort of competitors, but actually we're working together. Is there a way where everybody can be happy doing this? So certainly there was no blueprint not to say I've laid any blueprint, because I haven't really talked that much other than like right now and a few clinics and classes when people ask me to come speak. I haven't really talked about it, but it's time for us to open up to people and share our knowledge, knowing that, hey look, if you sharing that knowledge and somebody using that knowledge for their benefit is going to crush you, then you probably aren't diversified enough. Right, we have to be excited for people around us, because that's what's going to keep our industry going.

Brian Corbin: 47:21

And when you mention things like diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, all those things, that's really a touchy spot for me, because, if people don't know, I'm a black man and so I grew up in Northern Virginia, which is a fairly diverse area. You're talking about a lot of government and military workers, right, but most black people, and really any minority or people who happen to be a minority wherever they are, will tell you about some of the struggles that we often have. That aren't always visible, right, Not always me. Everybody is a minority in some way somewhere, but it's just simply the fact that I was going into a world that is largely dominated by people who don't look like me or don't come from backgrounds that I come from. So I never, ever, use it as an excuse. I never use that as a reason to feel bad about myself, but I always used it as a way to actually strengthen myself and build myself up.

Brian Corbin: 48:27

And so when we talk today about, you know, people wanting to increase diversity in those representation, I love it, awesome, I'm all for it. But I'll be honest with you and say that I often highly disagree with the methods of which people are going about it. And for me, it comes from experience, because what I really believe is you know, give a man a fish, right? You know the rest, give a man a fish, they'll eat for a day. Teacher man a fish, they'll eat for a lifetime. And so sure I can, I can help with with representation. I can show up on a poster, I can show up as as the person you want to flaunt as coming to your classroom to speak, but the true help is Teaching those people how to rise up above their situation in their circumstances.

Brian Corbin: 49:19

Okay, that to me, is what excites me is being able to go into a low-income community or help, you know, typically underrepresented communities see the pathway forward, because one of the things we often try to do this has been going on for as long as probably history, but we try to change people's minds, right. That's why, you know, politics in today's world is so Gross. Honestly, I mean not to get political, but it's because we're often trying to change the minds of the other side when, in reality, what you need to do is start to shape the minds of those who maybe have yet to take a firm stance and also understand what compromise looks like right for me. I'm not going to waste my time Fighting and arguing and yelling with people who don't share my same viewpoints. Instead, I'm going to listen to those people. I'm going to let them know my viewpoint. At the end of that conversation, possibly one or both of us comes away with a new perspective on how to think things. But if I don't change their mind, that's fine. Instead, I'm going to work on helping people sort of fight the system, both within and without, in achieve, despite the circumstances right, despite those circumstances, you're still going to find your way.

Brian Corbin: 50:42

Don't get it twisted, man. I certainly have been in situations where, because of who I am or what I look like has been a negative, and I've been in situations where that has actually been a positive, and usually it hurts worse when it's been a positive. Right To be used as a token, potentially, not not that I think that that's always the case, but to be viewed as well, there is a successful black man who is educated right and speaks a certain way. Well, if he can do it, so can everybody else. That stuff kind of kills me, because what we take away is we take away the Valid experiences and cultural differences from those who don't necessarily have the education that I have or speak the way I have, or whatever the case may be.

Brian Corbin: 51:29

So in our field, I actually think by combining, you know, the arts with entrepreneurship, you're actually helping create a more diverse world because you're giving people more opportunities. Right, I'm sorry, I know that you want to be the principal of insert famous orchestra here, but Statistics say it's incredibly unlikely. And so if you spend all of your time on that one goal Rather than keeping that goal but having other goals, then you may find yourself being 30, 35, 40 with regrets, and that's not something I want to be a part of. I'd rather be a part of building up the community, bringing people from different backgrounds, both socio, economically, you know, ethnically and racially, and gender and sexual orientation, all of those things we have to understand and that together we're stronger. But you're not gonna force people to accept things. Instead, we must teach, and that's why it always goes back to education, because my whole life has been shaped by the excellent Educators and mentors, frankly, that I've had in my life.

Austin McFarland: 52:41

I Love that, I love that, yeah, I think that's a good place for us to leave it. I think that's a great ending. So how, then, can the audience connect with you? Where's a good place or good way for those that want to connect with you? How can they connect? Absolutely, you can reach out to me.

Brian Corbin: 53:02

On Instagram. My personal Instagram is the Brian Corbin. You can, of course, find me on the business page at Corbin clarinet products on Instagram as well. Of course I'm gonna be there On Instagram as well. Of course I'm on Facebook there. I'm gonna start getting that that social media thing, back up here soon. You can reach me at my website if you're interested in clarinet products, specifically at Corbin clarinet products. Calm and watch those pages, because there are some new exciting things also coming as well, and I'd love to connect with people. You know, give me some time. I do receive a ton of messages every day and I'm trying to be better about valuing my time. But certainly reach out to me at Corbin clarinet products and at the Brian Corbin to kind of see what I'm, what I'm up to these days.

Austin McFarland: 53:52

Awesome. Thanks, brian, for speaking with me today and we'll see you next time.

Brian Corbin: 53:57

Thanks, for having me awesome, always a pleasure.