Ep. 16: Handpan lessons (with David Charrier of Master the Handpan)

A musician of multiple instruments, David Charrier is passionate about exploring rhythms and melodies. In 2004, He discovered the handpan, or as he describes it, a “sound sculpture” with enchanting tones.

David’s passion for studying music has allowed him to share his music around the world. Whether solo, as a duo, or with a bigger group, he has always loved helping people discover the handpan. As he grew his international acclaim, he started traveling often to share masterclasses and teach others how to play the handpan.

In order to continue to encourage and train as many handpan instrumentalists and enthusiasts as possible, David launched his online school in 2016, called MasterTheHandpan.com. And today, he has over 4000 students enrolled and learning the magic and mastery of a truly unique instrument.

Where to find David

• Master The Handpan: www.masterthehandpan.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/masterthehandpan
• David’s Website: handpandavid.com
• David’s Socials: Instagram, Facebook

Read the full transcript below.

David Charrier: People really needed to understand that. “A lot of people, they stop their project because they’re like, “I’m teaching something that already exists.” But actually no, even if the topic exists, even with kind of audience, whoever you are, that makes the whole difference. So people should just keep it on and don’t think about others and just being themselves and and push it to till the end.

Melissa Guller: Have you heard of the handpan? Me either, but it’s an instrument that I can only describe as a scale drum that looks like a UFO, but don’t worry. World renowned handpan expert David Charrier is here to teach us more about this fascinating instrument. David was one of the earliest people to start playing the handpan in 2004 and after years of his own self training and discovery, he started to play around the world. In this episode we’ll learn how David transformed his passion for a unique newer instrument into an online school, fully dedicated to teaching the art of the handpan. And although his topic couldn’t be more niche and it’s taken years to develop his craft, he’s found a way to reach thousands of online students. Let’s learn how he did it.

Announcer: Welcome to Everything is Teachable, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes to learn how everyday creators have transformed their skills and passions into online courses and businesses. To introduce this week’s episode, here’s your host, Melissa Guller.

Melissa Guller: Hey everyone. I’m Melissa from Team Teachable and today I’m here with David Charrier, a musician of multiple instruments. David is passionate about exploring rhythms and melodies. In 2004 he discovered the handpan, or as he describes it, a “sound sculpture” with in chanting tones. David’s passion for studying music has allowed him to share his music around the world, whether solo acid duo or with a bigger group. He has always loved helping people discover the handpan and as he grew his international acclaim, he started traveling often to share masterclasses and teach others how to play in order to continue to encourage and train as many handpan instrumentalists and enthusiasts as possible. David launched his online school in 2016 called Master the Handpan. And today, he has over 4,000 students enrolled and learning the magic and mastery of a truly unique instrument. So David, welcome to the podcast.

David Charrier: Hey. Hi Melissa. Hi everyone.

Melissa Guller: I know we’re so excited to hear more about you and the handpan, which I’m sure has already brought up questions for listeners. So how about to start off, you can tell us, you know, what is the handpan, not a particularly common instrument and how did you learn to play?

David Charrier: Yes. Yeah, that’s actually a very, uh, a very unusual instrument. A lot of people have this kind of joke like, you know, it looks like an UFO or a walk or a barbecue or whatever. It’s actually like a barbecue. Yeah, it looks like this kind of barbecue thing. It’s, I mean, for those who have never seen it, it’s, it’s really like two walks stick together. So it has this UFO shape made of steel and it’s actually, its ancestor is the steel pan from Trinidad, you know, South of the Caribbean’s. There’s the still pan. And so this instrument is kind of a a V two of the steel pan.

Melissa Guller: Mmhm. So how did you hear about this UFO of an instrument?

David Charrier: Yeah, so I was in a party, it was late at night and uh, someone told me, David, I know you are kind of a geek with Cassie of instruments, but you’ve never seen this one over there. Come with me. I was like, okay, let’s give it a look. And I just saw this guy surrounded by a crowd and he was playing this piece of steel but with such an amazing and magical sound. So that’s how I discover it now. Like 15 years ago.

Melissa Guller: Oh, so you had already been playing some other instruments than it sounds like.

David Charrier: Yeah, I’m a huge fan of percussion. Any style, any influence. I’ve been playing a lot of who do you D you, you know this kind of clay instrument you play with the air really North African in Jan, I’ve been playing Kahana drum kits. Anything that make sound

Melissa Guller: now I can see why a friend might recommend this instrument to you. It feels like you might be a bit of a collector of fun instrument.

David Charrier: Yeah, I have some pretty weird ones. But this one was the actually the best ever.

Melissa Guller: [laughs] So if this is the best instrument, how did you learn how to play? I can’t imagine there were too many qualified teachers.

David Charrier: It was, I mean the creators of these instruments, they didn’t teach us to play. So we just bought this instrument and we were, I mean in France, that’s where I am. I think you can guess by my accent, we were only two or three people in 2004 playing these instruments. So no method, nothing. We were just applying. This kills the techniques we had from other percussion instruments. So it was just random exploring the instrument, how it reacts, how it powered to make the best sound. And so it’s, it was brand new for us.

Melissa Guller: So you’re totally self-taught?

David Charrier: Yeah. There was literally no one able to teach back in 2000.

Melissa Guller: So how long were you playing the handpan before someone asked YOU, “Hey, how could I learn how to do that”

David Charrier: Hmm. I think I spent four years alone. I didn’t know anyone else leading the hand pen. I stayed at home exploring the instrument and 2008 first hand Ben gathering ever. So it was kind of an international uh, gathering in London, close to London and there were 25 people. Woo. Huge gathering. And, but it was amazing to see other people playing this instrument. I was like, Oh, you guys also play this weird thing. How did you get one? How do you play it? Let’s share, let’s exchange what we found on the instrument.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, I’m sure that must’ve been so fun to finally have other people to bond with about this instrument that I’m sure most of you didn’t know anyone else playing at the time.

David Charrier: Yeah. At that time. And there was maybe a thousand instrument in the whole world in 2004 even less so. Yeah, maybe three by country. Three or four by country.

Melissa Guller: That’s interesting. I’ve never really considered how many instruments there are in the world. And surely the number’s only growing all the time, which means there’s a growing need for new methods and instructors all the time too. Yep.

David Charrier: Now it’s green a lot because at that time, only one gay was able to build them for leaks from Bern in Switzerland. And we, we’ve had to wait until 2009 to really have some other maker is. But till 2010 there was only two, three, four makers in the world and just four numbers are right now there should be around 250 makers.

Melissa Guller: Wow. So I’m sure that’s had a big influence on how many people not only want to learn but maybe have access to an instrument at all to learn.

David Charrier: Exactly. It’s growing exponentially and it’s getting crazy and now there is a lot of demand for learning. There’s a lot of teachers also, you know, and the, the instrument is really at his early age.

Melissa Guller: Yeah. That’s an exciting time to be part of an instrument, becoming well known or well played. So at what point did you shift from just playing it on your own to moving into either teaching or how did that evolve?

David Charrier: Yeah, good question. I have always loved sharing what I was discovering on my instrument. Uh, hope I’m not pretentious to say that, but I’ve been known internally internationally quite soon, traveling around the world, sharing my music and stuff. So I got asked a lot, Davy, can you teach me some stuff? So in the beginning there was one or two guys sometimes every month and then it got into a lot of demand. So I started to organize workshops, group workshops here in there, in France, then in Europe. Then I got invited USA, China everywhere to teach soy. It grew a lot at, but it all started with just some one-on-one, one to one lessons. And then I tried Skype rows, so many things.

Melissa Guller: It was cool. Hmm. How did those Skype lessons work? Is it possible to teach an instrument over Skype?

David Charrier: Honestly, no. The instrument is reversed. I mean, if you have a Skype lesson with me, my right is on your left. Yeah. So that’s tricky. You know, so I would need either a camera from above, from the bowl of may head so that may right will be on your right. And you know, with the lag connection time zone, uh, it’s kinda hard.

Melissa Guller: Hmm. It must be. And even little things like it must be on a smaller screen, hard to see where is somebodies hand hitting and it must just be more difficult for you as the instructor to

David Charrier: Oh yeah. And it’s really tiring and difficult because of the audio is not very good, it’s lagging and that it was good. But I’m glad I moved into some online courses where I could control everything.

Melissa Guller: So you were teaching in person around the world, which is amazing. And so how did that evolve? What, what went online first?

David Charrier: Okay. So I got married and I knew I should slow down a little bit traveling, you know, that was a kind of a first, the first thing I was like, okay, first I need to slow down traveling. And then I had this two friends, they were reading some books about marketing, Jeff Walker, all these kinds of guy. And they told me, David, stop trolling. I was like, okay guys, but how can I make my living out of my concert and teaching and everything? They said, David, you should just do some online courses. And I was like, what is it possible? How where when blah, blah blah. And so they just gave me the idea and I was like, okay. Rather than touring all around the world to give this workshops, I’m going to just record my workshop. Literally what I’m teaching over there, I’m going to record it at home and let’s give it a try. And so they told me there is a great platform we are already using called Teachable. And they really loved the punchline, like Everything is Teachable. And I was like, for sure even though the hand band is double and I’m going to give it a try. So I just started with Teachable. I loved the doors, stayed in my bedroom for hours and hours and I recorded 70 videos.

Melissa Guller: Wow. So those seven or eight videos, how long about was each one of those?

David Charrier: So I knew already before getting into all these online things and all these tips about the length, I knew that people need to learn step by step. You know there are too many things to consider. You need to touch the instrument correctly at the right temple with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I knew I should go step by step the groove itself. Then the playing it with notes and blah blah blah, hug. How do you say going one difficulty at the time. Like layers.

Melissa Guller: Perfect sense. Yeah. Like one, one lesson at a time or one skill at a time.

David Charrier: One skill at a time. Exactly. So I knew I could, I should do some videos from five to 10 minutes maximum and also I just know people are busy and they cannot just see a video of 45 minutes and click here and there and know they needed a great curriculum was really step-by-step lessons.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible] well I loved what you said too. Not just is it step by step, but they need time to actually pick up an instrument and play. And if you had an hour long video, I’m guessing some people might not even try to pick up the instrument until the video was over.

David Charrier: Oh yeah. People are busy, lazy, procrastinating. And so if they open the lesson and they sit six minutes, yeah, I have time while while the water is boiling or whale, uh, the baby’s sleeping or you know, so

Melissa Guller: that’s a great point. It makes it feel very attainable. Like six minutes. I can do this 60 minutes.

David Charrier: Yeah. And we’re all the same. You know, when you scroll a blog post, you just crawl and on the side you look at this gray little button and you see how long it’s going to be, the, the article. And if you can, if you see you can make it within 10 minutes, you’re like, let’s go.

Melissa Guller: That’s such a good point. So it’s good for listeners, just always imagine, you know, what is your reader, what is your student thinking? How much time do they really have? And if you could break it down into bite sized chunks, they’re probably more likely to think, okay, let me do this. So you built your first course, you said it had seven or eight videos. How did you get it out in the world and get some of those first students?

David Charrier: So I had already, before launching anything, I had already a lot of contact. I’m a social guy, I had this website, I was online on YouTube, on Facebook. I mean where are the people are? I was already on this Facebook group about the instrument. It’s accessories and everything, you know. So I had already a lot of people following me. So, but before launching the course, I really made sure people were aware about my new course. So I just opened the landing page saying, guys, now it’s going to be believable to learn from me at home, wherever

Melissa Guller: you are, whenever you want, you don’t depend on my availability on Skype. You don’t need to wake up at 2:00 AM in order to have escape lesson with me in France. So it’s going to be possible. I have my biggest ever project going on. And follow me, sign up and you will be notified, received the news and then maybe some exercises for free, try it out and [inaudible] and you had said you were in all of these different communities even you know when you were traveling, doing all the workshops, you had built up a little bit of a, a name for yourself over what, four plus years you had said you were playing. I think that’s so important because it’s easy to feel like somebody could launch an online course and then students are just waiting, but why can’t that happen for me? But I think behind the scenes, a lot of people launching online courses, they’ve been really cultivating both their expertise and even their, their knowledge in groups. Maybe they’ve become known as somebody who really contributes knowledge about something and so people are aware of them and that takes a lot of time to build up. It doesn’t just happen overnight.

David Charrier: Yes, it takes a lot of time and I mean 90% of the job has been done before I even discovered Teachable. 90% of the job was traveling, giving business card, being nice with the people, not even in order to think about later on selling anything. But just that’s me. I’m really social, always speaking about what you’re doing, being on YouTube, releasing some, some great videos, commenting, posting, being there, putting your name into people ahead and just giving, giving things. And uh, so I, I grew, that’s kind of, that’s a base within the years without even thinking about selling later on something.

Melissa Guller: I think that’s so important because this instrument is something you’re really passionate about. You mentioned earlier you enjoy teaching, sharing your knowledge and you were already doing it even with no necessary exchange for money in different forms like YouTube or online. That’s something that if listeners are tuning in and just imagine whatever topic you might want to be creating an online course about, imagine putting in all of this work, creating some kind of content, whether it’s a YouTube or a podcast or a blog. I imagine just participating in different communities and being helpful. And if that idea doesn’t excite you, then it’s going to be really hard to put in the work it takes to build an online course and build an audience.

David Charrier: Yeah, and I think if you had asked people from all these festivals, I was going to many festivals and you’d tell them, Hey, how is David Shire? They will say this gay love teaching. Even before doing anything online, I was known for the gay who loves teaching and I love that and I’ve always given and for free, so many hours, so many of my time, you know when I wasn’t at some festivals, I just see this guy playing his handpan. He says, Hey Davey, they recognize you from YouTube, but I was like, Hey, how are you doing? And I was just sitting next to him checking how he was playing, jamming with him, spending time and giving kind of a little 1520 minutes bit of advice if he was asking like I was giving for free, and so I was already a teaching lover.

Melissa Guller: That’s I think really important thing. That’s a good takeaway for listeners. If it’s not something that you would love to teach, then maybe reconsider what topic might be speaking to you.

David Charrier: You need to be passionate cause people, they feel it, they feel and they don’t want to buy on any knowledge. They buy an environment, they buy kind of who you are and I received a lot of feedback like this is more than an online course. It’s kind of a coaching and and motivating. They tell me you are twins missing more than skill. You’re transmitting your passion for this instrument and you keep us motivated to learn and

Melissa Guller: that’s so wonderful. I mean first of all, congratulations. That’s maybe the highest praise you could possibly get from a student. Yeah, and I want to just go back to what you said. You said they don’t just buy knowledge, they buy who you are. I think that’s such a big part of creating anything online. There could be a dozen of other courses. I mean maybe not a dozen handpan courses. You’ve got a little bit of a unique thing going here, but any topic, there could be dozens or even hundreds of people teaching that topic. But they wouldn’t teach it the way that you do or have the passion and the way that you do or the style like you. So it really is unique what you’re offering because of how you do it and who you are.

David Charrier: And that’s, people really needed to understand that. So, um, I know a lot of people, they stop their project because they’re like, I’m teaching something that already exists, but actually not even if the topic exists, even we’ve kind of have the same name and same true Calum of whatever who you are and make the whole difference. So people should just keep it on and don’t think about others and just being themselves and, and push it till the end.

Melissa Guller: That’s such great advice. Going back to your online school, we talked about the first course launch. Talk me through what happened after that. How has it grown over time?

David Charrier: So yeah, no that it was really cheap. Like one camera, one microphone. I didn’t wait it to be very perfect. I just wanted to launch, you know, to say Hey, here it is. And then I knew I will redo it. Adapted and do some changes and stuff. So I, I had this 200 bucks camera, like Canaan or a hundred something really like 200 of his microphone. And so I realized this course, it was a big, big launch. Like lot of students are enrolled in the first day. They were really and eager to buy and after that I just realize it in English. So I started in French, then English, and then I just did, okay, that’s the beginner course I’m going to do intimidate. So I shot again, 70 videos for intermediate, both English and French. And then I was like, okay, well should I teach some advanced stuff?

David Charrier: Will people really buy some advents? You know, when you’re an advanced player, you are more willing to just share and talk with some other admins, players maybe you don’t buy. So I was like, okay, let’s pose the advents content. And I realized I had tilt almost everything I knew. I mean that 70% and the other 30% no one will be really interested in. So I decided to open the door to other teacher. I was like, nah, I grew, I grew up a big database was a lot of students. I reached 4,000 students and I was like, okay that’s, let’s give it a try. So I contacted some friends, some of the top world players and I said, guys, I have all these students, I have all these emails. This call is now known, well referenced. Would you like to join the adventure and the shoot your own masterclass.

David Charrier: I was really uh, influenced by you know, masterclass.com aiding Spacey, jati, firster, Hans Zimmer and all these guys. And I was like, let’s do this for hand. Let’s bring up top players. And so I book a studio for three months and I invited all these guys one by one, one week each and I, we shot some tutorials and it’s going to be released in October one by one so that my student can go further cause I’m kind of limited one guy, one style. And I want my students to learn from other perspective approaches, kills and everything. So now the school is growing a lot.

Melissa Guller: Hmm. I think that’s such a smart idea to expand. And bring in more teachers because like you said, you have a specific style and you maybe had maxed out the teaching that you could do, but that didn’t mean that your students had maxed out on what they could learn. Right. And so bringing in another instructor and other perspective for anybody listening, it could be a different skill set. It could be something complimentary to what they had already taught. And it’s a really smart way to expand what your website can really do for people.

David Charrier: Exactly. And yeah, and we’re limited and it’s nice, I mean, for people who want to do some online business to just finger what is complimentary to me, I’m going to release a course about how to stretch before you play the handpan because I’ve thought about that. I met that woman, she said, Oh you really, uh, your posture is bad. I was like, thank you. How can I make this better? She’s there looking for noticing. Thank you for noticing. That’s nice of you. And once she said that, I was like, okay, I have an ID. And so we watched hundreds of viewers on lane and I told her, look at all these players, what is bad, what is good, how can we make it better? And she analyzed everything and we did a an online school and online course story about postures, stretching the right hate for the instrument, your back, your neck, your arms raised and everything. And we have this really valuable online course. So either I’m going to offer it as a bonus, you know, somewhere in my funnel or I’m going to just sell it. I haven’t thought about it yet, but,

Melissa Guller: well, what I love hearing you describe this too is you obviously know quite a bit about your instrument, but of course most of us are lifelong learners. And you learned quite a bit about your own posture and I’m sure all of this while you were working together. So as the creator of master, the Hampton of the school, bringing in other experts must be fun for you as well to get to learn new things.

David Charrier: Yes, exactly. I’m learning and I am helping my students to be better in everything. So my goal still stayed the same. I want to equip people to give them a maximum of tour, whether it’s from me or from other people and they feel this, that it’s not on the all about me, but I want to bring them a lot of different approach as I was seeing and skills and everything. So yeah, now they will be able to stretch themselves properly in order to last long on stage or at home. And yeah,

Melissa Guller: that makes perfect sense. I know you touched on your marketing funnel, so I’m curious as much as you’re comfortable sharing, what is your current marketing strategy look like?

David Charrier: My strategy, so that’s a tough word, but it’s, it’s a strategy. I mean it’s an, it’s how to make people happy and make money and many people are like, Hey, you’re doing a big business or whatever. But I think it’s very compatible to think about their people and their money. And so this is called for me as trategy, I cannot say, hi everyone. I have a new course. It’s 150 bucks by now. I cannot do this. Even for me when I go and try to buy something, I need a little taste of it. I need to see the, the content is okay for me and blah blah blah. So what I’m doing actually is I’m just giving a lot, giving to people they can try. So my funnel is really, Hey you want to learn the handpan, let’s give it a try, look at this exercise and other one, another one, another one and if you want to go further, I have a full course.

David Charrier: All these videos are extracted from my full course, which has that amount of video. Here are the knowledge and the skills and the transformation. It will operate and a, if you want to go further you can have the whole course and you can buy and I have some discounts. I always have a little timer for discounts that helps people to make a decision and I really liked this time or it’s a really ethical timer. I mean when I say it’s three days, it’s really three days. If you refresh your page after three days, it’s really over. And I’m using a deadline funnel. Great, great tool

Melissa Guller: that is a great tool. And just in case this is new for people, why do you think it’s so important to give that discount an end date versus letting it go on forever?

David Charrier: We are all the same. We need, uh, we need the reason to buy and to make a choice. We are always putting at tomorrow what we can do today. And if we have a great reason to buy now, we will do it. So this is why I’m offering boners and I have this deadline just to help people to make a decision. And I’m, I’m, I’m comfortable with this cause I know my content is good. You know, so I’m not, I know I’m not cheating. I’m, no, I know they will love it. I have 285 five stars. I have only one four-star. Wow. So I know my, I know my content is good. So, um, I’m very happy to say, Hey, I have a good, good discount, like 30% off, but I’m only giving it for three days.

Melissa Guller: It reminds me of any time any of us have maybe a deadline at work or we have something that we’ve been putting off, unless there’s an actual deadline that work is never going to get done. Or that paper from college was never gonna write itself.

David Charrier: Yes, and everyone who got as a business or who works with the team, we all know we need the deadline in life for everything we’re doing.

Melissa Guller: [inaudible]

David Charrier: we hit the deadline. That’s how we make choices. We know we have to move before this date. We have to prepare the bedroom for the baby before this date. We all have deadlines in everything.

Melissa Guller: I think you said it perfectly. You said you need to give people a reason to buy and the reason is the end date. And I think that makes a ton of sense. And I I loved, I wanted to circle back where you talked about giving certain videos that are actually parts of the longer course, giving people the ability to try before they buy and to sample. I think that’s such a smart move because it can feel very intimidating as a student, a prospective buyer to just look at somebody’s sales page and think, Oh, I don’t know this person really well. How am I going to know if I’ll really like their course or learn anything? But your approach just puts that customer at ease because they can actually see it.

David Charrier: Yeah. If, if they need to hear my voice, they need to see me. They need to say how I’m saying hi or goodbye if I’m a funny guy or not. If I’m cold, they need to feel it and to see it so they, they just learn and I’m not giving a bite of it. I’m giving a full free course at the end of this free course. You can stop. Honestly, you can stop. You’ve learned great stuff from Viro till the end. I’m not giving 22nd of something. I’m giving the whole pattern, the whole rhythm, some variations, and then I’m giving another exercises. People are afraid to give. For example, I’m also giving my album free when they buy the course, people like you give your album, I don’t care, I’m giving, I’m giving. So what I’m doing is I used to have to kind of funnel the first funnel was by email a a here is a free course. Tomorrow you will receive another one and tomorrow and again another one. And then I changed that and now they have an access to eight videos, over 78 videos, and they are already in the environments of Teachable, you know what I mean?

Melissa Guller: Have you created a sample course and you’ve just put eight videos inside?

David Charrier: Actually, I have duplicate my real course and I have put at the top as a section a the free lessons and so they can see that these lessons are available and they can scroll. They are in the environment of Teachable, they can scroll, they see the whole curriculum and they see it’s luck.

Melissa Guller: So that really is just the perfect test experience because it is an online course. It’s just not the full thing.

David Charrier: It’s not the full thing and I really liked the fact that I’m repeating it. They are in the environment. It used to be by email one video, which was a private YouTube video, but I was like, let’s bring them to the platform so that they can see how cool, how great looking user-friendly is the platform because if they want to go further, this is where they will be learning. So they need to see the platform.

Melissa Guller: That’s a great point because that’s a big reason why, you know, we built Teachable in the first place. It was meant to be a tool, a platform for creators and then we just fade into the background. The way that if somebody builds their website in WordPress or Squarespace, I don’t know necessarily how their website was built. I just know that this person looks really professional and so same thing here. People will go into your course environment and it doesn’t look like YouTube. It looks like a real online product and it looks really high quality and there’s, you know, a lot of thought that went into there because we want you to look really good.

David Charrier: Yeah. And that’s what I love about teacher ball is the interface is very clean, very professional and people, they see that. And so the whole chain from my email till the end, everything is professional, everything is good looking and that’s very important. They are not on YouTube on a private thing. I like it better this V to this version two of my funnel. I like it.

Melissa Guller: That makes a lot of sense. Well, hopefully listeners won’t mind. I’ll drop a quick link that if people do want to check out Teachable totally for free, you can visit Teachable.com/podcast but absolutely no pressure to buy anything. Just feel free to poke around if you want to see what we’re talking about. And of course, at the end of this episode we’ll also share a link to David’s website so people can check out your courses too.

David Charrier: And guys go ahead and give it a try to Teachable honestly. And, uh, no one asked me to say that. Honestly. I tried many things. I read many things and I’m staying, I’m staying on Teachable. It has been now three years in something and honestly very cool. Greater support and everything. So,

Melissa Guller: or we’re just too busy complimenting each other. As I say, we’re so lucky to have creators like you cause this is certainly the most fun part of my role here is getting to hear how graders like you have used the platform. And so to bring us back to listener, as much as I would love to hear your compliments all day, they’re very nice. Has there been any part of this online course creation journey for you that’s been maybe unexpected or surprising?

David Charrier: Huh. Honestly, I have been surprised by how many people were we’re ready to buy in to learn. There was a real demand and I think that when you have the rights content that match their needs and the answers their questions, it works. I’ve been very surprised when I started this business. I was like honesty, me and my wife, we were like, yeah, it’s, we’re going to make like five, 600 euros a month so that it helps, you know, and we’ve been surprised that’s now that my principle way of making a living and know we’ve been, yeah, now we have grown. I mean now four people are in the team, we’re doing a lot of other projects. It’s growing a lot. I’m very surprised.

Melissa Guller: Hmm. I think that’s probably a common feeling to have because until you experience something like this yourself where you’ve sold, you know, your first set of online courses and then more people come back and in your case your courses are high quality and I’m sure students are recommending it to friends and then it just continues to grow. I think that even in 2019 right now, it’s surprising to many people how real the fulltime income is that you can earn from teaching your knowledge online. And certainly we’ve seen it here at Teachable a thousand times over where we have creators earning their full time income to support themselves and their families by teaching online courses.

David Charrier: Yeah. Yeah. Full time for me and full time for one guy, my web guys full time and I have then two, three freelancers. They work part time and so it was also really cool too just to hire some people and to that’s fun. I was like, Hey I’m an entrepreneur cause I would have been nurses aid before just to let you know.

Melissa Guller: So you were in other words, not in a very techie or computer oriented position before.

David Charrier: No, nurses aid at a hospital and then I made a living, was my concerts, a bit of teaching and then I went full time in online courses and I have to say that I said no to many things to be focused on my online thing and even I received some friends, I mean some friends told me, Davey you should go back and do some stages and and concerts. And I was like no guys, for three years I’m going to stop and be focused on my online thing. That’s also important. Yeah, three years working a lot.

Melissa Guller: I think that that’s so important and I appreciate that you mentioned this, that you’ve said no to things and that we’ve already talked about the four years that you were playing and then the three years that you’ve been building. I mean this really does take a lot of, not just time, but a commitment to continue doing this and it does not happen overnight and it doesn’t just happen once it happens because you did this every day.

David Charrier: Yeah, yeah. And you, you said four years, but I’ve been playing on my own for years before meeting people. Then I spent five more years doing concerts and everything and in 2016 I started the online course. So it was already total 11 years of practice, concerts and everything.

Melissa Guller: Yeah. Wow. I mean before, I mean it’s certainly paying off now, but I think it’s really, like I said, I think it’s a really important note to make is that you did not just wake up one morning and said, I’m going to learn this instrument and then teach it to somebody tomorrow. I mean, this is a well honed craft that you’ve had for years. Well, before we go, I’d love to know what’s next for you. You started hinting at, you know, other people on your team or just what are you thinking about?

David Charrier: Um, after radiation we’ve launched that doing some great partnership with people. This project that we’re releasing starting on October, it’s called learn from the best, you know, with all these players, all these people. And um, the future is still welcoming a lot of teachers so that it could be a platform with loads, tones of, of, uh, masterclasses. So my future, maybe my answer is a bit cheap, but I am not thinking about very, very far. I’m just moving to the next step. It’s my priority and I am full time on that affiliation and launching new courses with some other players.

Melissa Guller: You know, I love that though, because you’re focusing on today and of course a little bit into the future, but I think it’s very grounded that you’re imagining what could happen within the next few months. And certainly I’m sure you imagine longterm success for your business, but the way you’re doing that as thinking about, you know, what can we do next?

David Charrier: Yeah, what a punchline or seeing a really like is what’s best next. And that’s something every, not every morning, but when we have escape meeting, whatever, I’m like, okay guys, we have a lot of ads. We are kind of overwhelmed. Some things you don’t even sleep cause you have too many things in your mind. Stop and I’m seeing to the team stop what’s best next and let’s focus on that. But for sure I have plans for the future but I leave them somewhere and maybe I work a beat on the ref on the SEO for my future projects. I think that could be also smart is okay. For example, if my future project is to sell hand pens, let’s say I want to sell hand pens. It’s not my priority wine right now, but I’m going to work on the SEO with this just to anticipate the future.

David Charrier: Or maybe I’m going to open a a lending page, seeing Hey, which like masterly hen pan to select some cool instruments for you. You know you might have a hard time to choose the right instrument, the right scale and everything. We are selecting the great best instrument for you. Drop your email and as soon as we have some good news for you we’ll let you know. So it’s my future project, maybe one lending page, a beat of SEO on the website through nice blog articles and stuff and everything. But that’s it. And I just on my next move,

Melissa Guller: very smart. I like that. What’s best next? I’m going to think about that. Well I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention before we go that one of my favorite things about your school other than your clear passion for what you teach is that I think a lot of people worry, am I picking a topic that is too niche that people won’t want to come back or I won’t have enough content. But you’ve built an entire business around one instrument, not even a fairly well known instrument. One, you know, fairly unique instrument. And it seems like the opportunities just keep growing for you as you’ve continued to focus versus expanding into other instruments. So I love that about your approach. I mean you are the handpan guy at this point, which is a wonderful place to be in.

David Charrier: It is cool. Yeah, there are a lot of great other dudes, but I, yeah, it was the right time also to do this. So that’s what I’m going to, I want to say to people. So is if you feel like it’s the moment jump cause right now 20 people have the same ID as you, 10 we’ll give it a try. Five we’ll keep it on. So hurry up and be the one who sticks it out and be the one. Yeah.

Melissa Guller: Well I think that that is perfect advice to end on. So David, it’s been such a pleasure having you and if I ever come across the handpan somehow, maybe I’ll see if I can do a little something. So David, before we wrap up, do you have any final words of inspiration or just anything you’d like to share before we leave?

David Charrier: Hmm. For listeners. I would say guys, if you have, think about the three CS, a concept, content and communication. If you have a good concept, great content and a great communication, you’ll be successful. If you have only two of those things or only one, it’s not a good day. It’s not a good thing. Work on all these great concept. They’re great content people. They want some great content and then just communicate it well and you have all the tools for that. I would like to say something also real quick to my students guys, I love you. I have a lot of projects for you. Drop me any may see hi. I’ll see you also on the private group and everything. I love you guys and I’ll keep doing my best for you. And one last thing just for you guys Teachable. If you could say hi to the team for me, Melissa. I’m grateful for your platform, and you guys actually are part of my success. Honestly, I’m not just saying that. You are helping me a lot, providing me the right platform and thank you very much and you can say that to the team.

Melissa Guller: Yeah, I’ll absolutely pass that along. Well David, just thank you again for joining. It was such a wonderful time that we shared together learning more about you in the handpan.

David Charrier: Thank you Melissa. Have a great one.

Melissa Guller: Thank you for joining us this week. You can learn more about David, Master the Handpan and Teachable in the show notes at teachable.com/eit16. And before you go make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they’re released! And if you’re enjoying our show, we’d really appreciate a five star review. On behalf of Team Teachable, we hope you enjoyed this episode about the handpan with David Charrier. We’ll see you in the next episode of Everything is Teachable.