Season 1: Episode 5: Ray Mak, YouTube Star and Digital Entrepreneur

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Well, welcome back to another episode of Piano Pod with— I am Clara Zhang.

I am Yukimi Song.

And I am Eric Hunter.

And I'm Ray Mark.

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome, Ray! Well, The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song is a monthly podcast where we interview some of the brightest talents in the industry. Each episode features a guest speaker who is making bold new innovations that may change the way we play or teach piano.

Our guest last episode was Chantal Balestri, a world-class pianist, teacher, and a festival organizer. She spoke to us about the differences in music education between Europe and the United States, and she also mentioned about the Global Leaders Program and how she started her own music festival in Italy. And she also talked to us about what life is like in Italy right now during the pandemic. So So please, please check it out and to hear her interesting and valuable perspective.

If you are new to the podcast and want to find out more about us, check out our introductory episode on YouTube or SoundCloud using the links in the description below. Of course, you can also catch up on any episodes you've missed there.

Today our guest is the Malaysian YouTube sensation, Reetmak. Reetmak!

Thank you so much for coming!

We have to do this. That's right, I have to learn from Ray. Oh my gosh, how are you doing, Ray? How is everything?

Great, great. Now that I'm in Malaysia, I've become like the Malaysian YouTube sensation. But remember back then, about 12 years ago, I was in New York City and I was like the New York City music sensation back when YouTube was very new.

Yeah, well, so what time is it over there in Malaysia right now?

It is right now 10 AM, like 10:03 to be precise.

Oh wow, all right, and it's 9 PM here in New York City. And wow, how is the weather?

It's always summer.

It's always summer. Oh my gosh, that's what I love.

Really?

Always? Oh, how nice. Yeah, I mean, come to think of it, Even down lower than Taiwan, right? Malaysia is like—

we are like similar to Florida, you know. So, so we are like always Florida, but we are wet. So over here it rains a lot, especially like in this 3 months, it's gonna be a lot of rain, like everyday raining.

Wow.

Okay, well, you know, so Ray, why don't we get into this podcast today? How do we know each other? Who am I to you? Oh my goodness. And how do you call me?

Lao Shi.

That's right. Hao xie, son. So well, obviously, Ray speaks multiple languages, and he happened to be speaking Chinese. And when we were in Massachusetts, when I was doing my master's degree in piano performance, and Ray came, and he was a sensation then. Everybody was just like, oh my gosh. All the girls were like, "Ray, oh my gosh!" You know, like, Ray was like a list of, you know, piano. And I was like, "Who is this kid?" He was like, "Oh, Laozi, well, I can't read music, so can I join your class?" And I was like, "Okay, sure, why not?" So Ray, why don't you tell me how we, you know, met and how did you start this whole channel and, you know, become this person?

Okay, so, so, um, like you say, uh, we actually met in, uh, the class in Massachusetts, and then because we both speak Mandarin, like Chinese as well, so we click very easily.

You speak so many, it's just one of the languages you happen to speak, right?

And then of course, then we become like good friends, and then after that, even after college, we still keep in touch, and you actually took me to your school back in New York City.

That's right.

Yeah, and I met some of your very young students.

That's right, my first gig.

Yes, I can't remember what name was that school.

It's called David A. Boody Middle School. It's the only middle school in New York City that had a full piano program, and I was hired on the spot. And so our age was so close. Similar to them at that point.

We were still in our early 20s and they were in their mid-teens.

And I had no idea how big you already were until you came to the school and all these teenagers, like you said, the girls, what did they do? Tell us.

The girls wore makeup.

Oh my gosh. And they were like, Ray is very famous. Miss Clara, do you know? I was like, What do you mean? So that's the start of Remac, you know?

But right now, currently you have like how many YouTube subscribers?

I just reached 300,000. So considering it is pretty slow because, you know, music is a very niche thing and piano is even more niche. So it's not easy to gain subscriber. And then like in the middle, like about 2020, 2013, I actually moved my entire account from New York City to Malaysia. And that actually kind of screwed up the algorithm a bit. Yeah. So, so my views back then dropped instantly the very next day and only until recently it started to go back up.

So Ray, can I just ask, it's because you changed your location because obviously it's on YouTube. So the channel stayed the same, right? But because you were broadcasting from a different place in the world that screwed everything up?

Yes.

Okay.

You see, so in, in the past, there, there are like, uh, the front page of YouTube and there, there weren't any suggested videos, those kinds of things. So we, so during my time when I was in New York City, my channel was the top 50 musicians worldwide because there were less than 50 musicians on YouTube. So I was like the top 50 and YouTube always put me in the front page of YouTube. Whatever I post, within a very short time, it will be like thousands or tens of thousands or even like 100,000 of views. Then people who are in that time zone, back in New York City, they know when I will be posting. They always see me in the front page. But then when I moved my account, they're like, hey, where the hell is Ray Mak? Did he die? So in order for them to see me, they will actually have to search for my name, like Ray Mak. So I'm like, oh, okay. So the views dropped from like 100,000 a day, or like, let's say like a very high amount into like hundreds. I was like, oh shit, I'm dying. Yeah, so I have to rebuild my fans from the local community. And when comparatively in Malaysia, we only have 28 million people and back then not many people were on the internet. And if you compare the internet speed, when I was in America, it was 20 gigabytes, no, sorry, 20 megabytes per second of the internet speed. But when I, when I went back to Malaysia, it was 0.5. So, so it took me, yeah, so it took me like 40 times the amount of time to upload the same video. So I was like, I was devastated. But only until recently, also in Malaysia, our internet speed has increased a lot, and now we are actually on par with the US, if not faster. Yeah, we are actually on par already.

Well, you know what, I'm sorry, can I say something? Yeah, I am looking at this YouTube chat, and hello, hi, yay Raymak! And one person says, 3 guys, seriously? Like, yeah, it takes 3 of us to tackle this Ray Mack, this big figure. So go figure, right? Yeah, anyways, yeah, so, but we're very happy to have you, right? So the reason we invited you here is you have such a very interesting stories to get to where you are. So I kind of want to know how you started, um, playing the piano and also how you ended up like posting things on YouTube. So let's start from there.

Okay. So when I was little, okay, when I was little, like 7 years old in about 1991, yeah, I still remember. So I was sent to this small music school called Piano Forte in Malaysia, which is in Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital of Malaysia. I learned piano and like the do, do, do, re, mi, and all those things. Then I started moving up the grades and all those, but the problem was, I was every night, I was reading comics, you know, comics back then, we don't have like YouTube or anything. So my entertainment was comic, like Doraemon, you know, like Dragon Ball and all those things. So I was reading comic. But I didn't want my dad to know that I was reading so much comic that I read it through the night. So I read it in the dark. So that screwed up my eyesight. So when my eyesight got screwed up and I start not to see things, like I start to not see the blackboard or whiteboards in school, and then I couldn't read music because the music started to appear like blurry to me. So I was like, oh shit, I can't read music anymore. And I don't want to tell my parents that I'm actually short-sighted. Okay. So I kept it a secret for quite a few years. So I kept it a secret for a few years and I lost the ability to read music. So I had to, every time when there's like some music exam or whatever, I'll ask my dad, hey dad, can you buy the tape? And you guys still remember what is tape? It's like—

we do, maybe some of our listeners don't.

So before CDs, there was this thing called the tape, okay? So I was like taking the tapes of like whatever exam pieces, those kind of things, and then I put it in a tape player and I listen to them and I had to find the notes one by one. So you imagine, it becomes like very, very difficult. And so there was one day, one of my piano teachers, I asked, I told her that, hey, I can't read music, I don't think I'm gonna do piano anymore, I'm not interested. So she's like, hey, then why don't you try listening using your ears? Like, uh, but it's gonna be very difficult for me if like, let's say I, I do it like on the classical music. So she she actually taught me a bit about pop music, which is like popular music today. So back then, the first piece that I played on the piano by ear, it was "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" by Elton John, which is the song from Lion King. Exactly. And because I played by ear, I could control the emotions and all those, and I played so well that I got invited by my school to play it at the The Piano Pod when I was like a little kid. So yeah, so then that kind of sparked my interest in music. And then I slowly move up and I learned a few other things like languages and all those things. Then I go to college. Okay. But when I go to college, my interest in music was actually just meh. It's not much. But until there was one day, in my college there was this hall, I think it's called the Student Union. I think Clara might know about it. So there's this very big hall called the Student Union, and there was a grand piano there at the side of the—

That's right.

At the side of the Student Union. And every day I walk past it, no one actually plays it. So I was like, oh my God, it's a Steinway piano. And every day I walk past it, no one plays it. It's like kind of waste. So I just go there and I simply play the song. And after I played, I was kind of like surrounded by girls. I was like, whoa, music can get me girls.

All about girls, right?

Yeah, figured out the secret, man.

Yeah, so then from then on, I became a little bit more interested in music again. And towards the last few— the last year of my time in university, I was looking for like jazz music so that I can learn how to play. So it's either jazz music, some like an elective class so that I can learn how to play jazz, but then it wasn't available. So I was like, oh shit, there's no jazz music. Then there's another class Then it says Clara Zhang, and it's like, oh, I can learn how to read the notes again. And then I went in, and then we— and then me and Clara became friends. So, huh, just like that. But for the YouTube thing, it was a bit of an accident, okay? Uh, so when I was in college, so I have a lot of hard drives. I don't know whether you have seen, like, okay, this— these are hard drives, and you can see on my— wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the youngsters, hard drive.

Yeah, for the youngsters, hard drive.

You know, I used to have this floppy disk.

Yeah, I had that too.

And sometimes the floppy disk gets stuck and you don't know what to do with, but now, yes, so go ahead, I'm sorry.

What happened was because hard drive, they kind of like have a lifespan They are pretty sensitive. Let us say if you drop it a little or if there is a lot of movement, what is going to happen is it will start to be slightly broken. I start to not be able to read the files in my hard drive like pictures and videos. I was trying to look for some online solution where I can put my pictures and videos onto the internet so I can back up my data.

So you were taking a lot of videos back then, right?

Yeah, I was taking a lot of videos back then because I was teaching martial arts. So I was teaching taekwondo back in UMass, and, um, I, I took a lot of videos and pictures of my friends and my students. So what, what I did is, uh, I start to lose those memories. Those are like my precious memories. So for pictures, I managed to put them up on two platforms. One is called Facebook, which is still running today. Another platform is called Multiply. So Multiply is no longer available because they closed down. But then for videos, there was this platform called YouTube. I was like, what the hell is that? And so I started posting a lot of my taekwondo and martial arts videos on YouTube. That's why if you have gone to my old videos, you may have seen some irrelevant, non-music stuff on my YouTube back then when I started YouTube. But I have removed some of them in the past because I was starting to gain weight and other things. I didn't want to show that part of me.

Uh, so, right, sorry, but I gotta jump in and ask, do you ever still put up martial arts videos? Because I think it would be really fun to see one now.

I bet your fans are gonna get a kick out of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know, I, I, if, if I manage to lose a little bit of weight, I, I may, I may put up some martial arts stuff.

I don't know, people are doing that right now. Hey, hey guys out there, listeners and viewers, if you want to see Ray Mack's video, just leave us a comment comment, and then I'll—

yeah, thumbs up if you want taekwondo.

Yeah, thumbs up, guys.

Oh, by the way, if you like this video, guys, um, just thumbs up and then subscribe to our channel, please. And, um, anyways, take it away, Ray. So keep it going.

Yeah, I don't even know if I can still fit in my black belt uniform.

See, he was a black belt. Don't you want to see this?

Yeah, you should definitely post your old, old videos and stuff.

All right.

Yeah, so, and then you started posting the music videos then?

No, so I started posting martial arts videos.

Martial arts first, and then—

Yeah, some martial arts videos and, and some of like that, some Asian, Asian night performance, this kind of thing. And, and back then the camera quality, they were really, really bad. Like, I I can't even see my face, you know what I mean? So it was so bad. And then during one of the Asian nights, there was one of my friends, her name was June.

June.

June Chen. I don't know if you can remember her. So June Chen, she was like recording my video of me playing for the Asian night. So I was playing some Final Fantasy music. Those kind of thing. And then that video, back in those days, it went kind of viral, you know, back when YouTube only have like less than 10,000 users. That video had 6,000 views, you know what I mean? So like 60% of the YouTube user has watched me. So I asked Jun, hey Jun, can I get your video and put it up on my YouTube? And she's like, yeah, sure. So I put it up, and that's when people start to know that, oh, this martial art guy can play music. So you see, martial art and music is something usually like very— it's a very big gap. It's a very—

right, it's very different.

Like, usually if you can do martial arts, you can't do music. If you can do music, you can't do martial arts. So I can do both. So, uh, and people will start to be curious and other things. Then they are like, hey, Ray, 'Can you post more music stuff?' I'm like, 'Oh, okay.' So I started posting a lot more music. And then back then I was playing different pianos in the school. And when I graduated, I also played in other schools like in UMass Boston and all those things. And I managed to record those as well, and then I put it up on YouTube.

And I remember, I remember you made one of the recordings like on my keyboard, you know, like I remember hanging out, you know, and eating some sushi, I don't know, and you were like, oh, teacher, teacher, let me see, you know, like let me show you this one little song. Like I couldn't remember what it was, but then, you know, so many people, as soon as you upload it, you know, it was just like everybody, and I just you know, didn't really understand yet, you know. So what year was that again?

Let's remind our, you know, that was at least 12, at least 12 years ago, at least.

So 2008, 2007?

Yeah, 2007, 2008, back when I was living in New York City in Grand Street.

That's right, I remember, I remember. Wow, back in the days. I mean, you were always As a person of so many trades, I mean, your name, you speak how many languages?

Do you speak 6 languages?

Oh my God, yeah, probably say hello in all these 6 languages. What 6 languages, right?

Okay, in Malaysia, we usually speak Malay, which is our national language, and of course English. And my family, we speak Cantonese, which is the language they speak in like Guangdong and Hong Kong.

That's right.

Yeah, and then I also speak Mandarin, which is the language that I speak with Clara.

That's right, you speak very well.

I've learned Japanese for 6 years when I was a teenager, and then I've learned Korean for another 6 years before I got married. Yeah, so—

Oh, the Asian languages are difficult because they are very different.

Yeah, yeah, and I often mix up Korean and Japanese because some of the things are so similar.

Yeah, there's a common origin.

So for our fans that are watching, if you have any questions for Ray or want him to speak in a language that you require, you know, right on our channel right now.

I'm reading some of the comments. Epic! Ray Mack, you're here! Yo, Ray Mack!

Hey, what's up?

Yeah, the best Taekwondo supreme leader, the bison leader, supreme leader, Mr. Worldwide.

Oh my gosh.

Anyway, so you guys, if you have any questions to Ray, just leave us a comment, leave them in the chat.

Hey Ray, so I just wanted to point out that basically you started using YouTube because this was before cloud storage, so you're basically using it for backup. Right. So we have your current YouTube fame because of essentially hardware failure.

Oh yes.

Right.

Because of the hard drives.

That's so crazy. Incredible. Yeah.

So it's like kind of like a blessing in disguise, you know, otherwise I would have just lost all my files and then yeah, I really had to find somewhere. That's why if you notice on my Facebook alone, there are like more than 10,000 pictures on my Facebook alone because I treat my Facebook as a hard drive rather than as like Facebook social media. I was using Facebook as a hard drive. So that's why there are so many, like even on YouTube, there are like 800 videos, 900 videos now.

Amazing.

Well, you know, that's your beginning of your YouTube. So as I was asking, you know, can we get to some like real secrets? When did you start making money from YouTube?

Okay, so today and in the past is a bit different. In the past, there was no monetization, like all the way until about 2000 ish, about 2010-ish, but there was no monetization, no ads, no nothing in YouTube. So in around 2010, 2011-ish, I got personally invited by Google when Google take over YouTube. So YouTube used to be a platform by themselves, they weren't owned by Google, but then Google bought them and with a lot of money. So when Google bought them and they start to insert advertisements and all those things, I got invited as one of the first few partners. In fact, the first partner in my country, in Malaysia.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So back then they would send me a snail mail. You know what's a snail mail? It's like those, you know, like postal, which takes like one week to reach me in Malaysia. So I had to sign that snail mail and to activate this thing called the AdSense. AdSense is where YouTubers make money. Okay, so I signed it and I snail mailed it back all the way to US, and then they manually activated my channel for advertisement. Okay, so that's how I start to make money. And back then The money, they can't even transfer it to our bank. They have to put it in Western Union. So every month I have to line up or queue up with a lot of people at Western Union just to collect a little bit of money, like not a lot back then. So it was definitely an experience to experience that, where all the new YouTubers, they don't they don't get this kind of experience because, uh, that was back then.

You know, right, it really makes me think. I didn't realize that it took so long for us to get here from there. We're really much more connected globally now than we were before.

Yes, we are. Things have changed so much. Like, like Google, they can actually directly bang into us. Everything can be communicated through emails and other things. But back then All official items are snail mail. Like today, you won't even be invited to make money on YouTube. You have to register yourself, and whether they let you monetize or not is another story. But for me, I was invited, so it is a bit different. Because of that, I also have two different verifications on YouTube. One is called the 100,000 verification tick, another is YouTube official artist. So that is the reason that made my channel stand out a bit as well.

That's very interesting, you know, it's like you never really think about these two things. You just, you know, in our generation, I guess we, you know, graduate from school and that YouTube or FaceTime started, right? And I mean, we're about the same age, and YouTube started. But one thing I really want to ask you, you know, where do you get the courage, right? Like, I mean, I remember back in the days you were like, oh, Teacher Teacher, you should post some too, you know? I was like, no, I'm a classical pianist, like, I'm not gonna post anything, it's too embarrassing. And you're like, no, just, uh, So, I mean, how did you get the courage to do it in the beginning?

So for me, I'm not really a perfectionist. But a lot of classical musicians, as I understand, are pretty perfect. Okay, so let's say when a classical musician is playing in a concert, when there is even the slightest mistake which a layman can't hear, the classical musician may even cry.

Yeah, it's the end of the world.

What are you talking about?

I've never done that.

I never cried.

It's the end of the world, but for Ray Mak, okay, for me, I can play the worst thing and I still feel good because, oh, I've done it, you know. And I will only hear the mistake when I listen to my own videos again. Then I'm like, oh man, this is bad. Yeah, but to me, It is kind of like a memory. It is a piece of memory rather than to make it perfect for other people. To me, after I pose, I listen. I get to listen to my own music and enjoy my own music. That is why I do not really care when it is wrong or badly played or too fast, too loud. Or because there will be a lot of people who will be judging me. Hey, Ray, that's not the way you put your fingers. I'm like, okay, there is actually ways to put your fingers on the piano because they're like, oh, Ray, your fingers are flat. That's not the correct way. I'm like, oh shit. So I learned, I learned from that as well. So when, when they give me comments, I take everything as constructive rather than, oh shit, it's the end of the world, you know? So if they tell me, "Hey Ray, that is wrong. You should play that part louder or that part softer." I'm like, "Okay." So in future, my live part, that means when I'm playing live or if there's another future recording, I will do it a bit differently. So that's how I kind of get the courage because I understand that as human, we will never be perfect. We will never be perfect. So most of my songs, if you can hear on YouTube, is never perfect. It's quite bad.

Well, everybody check out Ray's channel and let us know.

So I have a question. Can I? So then when does the whole thing become more like your— I don't want to say income, but let's say career. Yeah, yeah, career, and then also maybe source of income.

Yeah, one of those.

Okay, sure. So, okay, um, and then also, did that help you in terms of reaching your goal, you know, in your life?

Okay, uh, you see, I believe that goals in life changes all the time. When we reach one goal, then there will be a newer goal. When we have bought this car, there will be a better car. When we have bought a house, there will be a better house. Goals change all the time. But with YouTube, I am able to achieve a lot because of the leverage. If let us say I were to choose music as a path, I can be either a performer, I can perform in hotels, or I can perform live music. If let's say music as a career, you know what I mean? I can teach music. I can't even teach, I can't read notes. Okay, so that is out of the picture.

You can learn some.

I learn some.

Sure, a lot of people would be willing to learn what you do.

Yeah, so the power of leverage means instead of me physically going there to perform a song or 3 songs for like, let's say, $50, $100, I put it up on YouTube. The money that is generated may be very little. It is like having a pipe with very little money. But when you are going to play in like a hotel or a performance, it could be a whole pail, a whole bucket of water, which is a lot of money. But in YouTube, every song that you post up is like a pipe with very little water flowing, but I have 900 pipes. You get what I mean? I have 900 pipes. So, 900 pipes with very little water flowing, and some of the pipes, they may have so much water, they burst. It depends on what video goes viral. Some of the videos, they go viral. Some of the videos, they just remain there until one day they go viral again. So that pipe is like a pipeline, you know, rather than me physically going. Because what if something happened to me? You know, what if like something chopped off my hands? Then I can't perform anymore. Or what if I happen to like break up or have a bad day? I can't perform. But on YouTube, I'm immortalized. I have immortalized my 19-year-old self on YouTube. You know what I mean? So people would be like, oh my God, Ray used to be so skinny, look at him, he's like a fat ass now. You know what I mean?

They eat that up, don't they?

Well, you know, one thing I just heard you said that's really true, that, you know, I feel like I haven't learned to really enjoy my own playing until I start maybe studying with my current teacher, which, you know, I'm 30, what? 32 years into my training now. I won't tell anybody my age, but— and my teacher was like, you know what, it's just you, you record yourself and you listen back, and then you just really enjoy. So what, you make a mistake or two, you know, we are all human. And when you can get to that level, and you, I feel like you actually got there much earlier than a lot of people, you know, you kind of just took it lightly and you didn't take things too personally. And later on, we want to ask you how people, all your fans treat you on YouTube.

I know so many people love you and that's how many people hate me as well.

It's always gonna be haters.

Yeah, so about the career thing, so on YouTube, aside from the money from AdSense, actually about amount of the money comes from our sponsors. For example, everything that I'm wearing and everything that I'm using is kind of like sponsored, like maybe my headphones, my mouse, my speakers, my everything is sponsored. I just need to talk about it. Even my hard drives today are sponsored, okay? Because I told them, hey, I always have bad hard drive, my hard drive always break down, you know, sponsor me the best hard drive that will not break down. So they sponsor me. So I'm a part of like Seagate and all those things that I get sponsors. Everything that I use is also sponsored. So I get to use things not only for free, but I get paid to use things. You get what I mean? So, and then I'm also the ambassador for Yamaha Music for now. So I get to use this nice— this is a flagship Yamaha, Montage.

Wow, that is a lot of money.

That's right.

So how many sponsors do you have? How many sponsors?

I lost count. I have a lot of sponsors, but some of them are one-time, some of them are more, some of them are long-term. So like the shirt that I'm wearing, this is long-term. It belongs to my friend, then yeah, so this kind of thing. So that contributes to a part of the money. And then on YouTube, we also have when you become a bit famous, when you have a little bit of fame, not like to be like super famous, they have a little bit of fame, you actually can help businesses. So when you have business, for example, you appear in like a store or something, so there's an appearance fee. So for me to appear somewhere, there can be some appearance fee. So those are like maybe $1,000 to $3,000 US per appearance, you know, to appear.

Wow, that's a big deal.

Yeah, but I don't get that a lot because I'm not good looking, you know what I mean?

Oh, come on, Ray.

I bet a lot of your fans would disagree. Ray, we have a request from the chat. Melvin Wong asks, could we get Ray to say good morning handsome in Cantonese?

Uh-huh. Zousan langzai.

Zousan!

I understood that one word.

All right, well then I hope you got that.

You just made him happy.

I hope so.

Great!

That's right.

But Ray, I wanted to ask you, I would say probably the number one question that people are going to have is there's a lot of people, a lot of musicians out there with YouTube channels that want to blow up big the way you did, but are having trouble getting started. They're having trouble attracting viewers, getting new subscribers, getting stuff to go viral. What would your advice for them be?

Okay. There are a few things that you have to follow. Okay. For example, first is persistence. Okay. That means no matter what happened, no matter what people say, and no matter how much hate You just persist, you know, and persevere. Persevere. So no matter what happened to you, you just do it. Don't think too much because a lot of musicians are perfectionists. Okay, musicians are perfectionists because music is like perfect, you know what I mean? So they are perfectionists. They want things, the beat to be on the exact point. So it makes it very difficult for them because every time a musician would play halfway and there's a small little mistake, and that's the end of the video. They won't even want to continue recording, you know what I mean? And to go back and play again, it could be quite difficult, you know what I mean? So don't think too much. If you make a mistake, just continue. It's like, imagine you are playing a concert. Imagine you are playing a concert. And of course, on YouTube, consistency is very important because, for example, if you are playing music, if let's say you have a schedule to post on every Friday, you post every Friday.

Is that what you do?

Yeah, that's what I do. For me, it's every week. So every week, no matter what day, I would make a song and I'll post it up. Yeah, so it's that, that kind of consistency is very, very important, right?

Just to jump in for one second, so you put up a video on Friday every single week, and for how many years have you been doing this?

Uh, I put it— I, I don't only put out on Friday. If let's say on, on that week I have more time, I'll put up 2 videos. So it could be one on Tuesday, one on Thursday, or one on Wednesday. Friday, you know. So I've been consistently doing that since at least 2008.

Wow. Wow.

So that's it.

That is the difference that makes the Ray Mack.

That's a commitment. That's really a commitment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But also engaging audience is— isn't that part of the deal? Right, so tell us the secrets.

On YouTube, I believe communication is very important. So I've actually lost quite a lot of my views and subscribers when I moved my account from New York City to Kuala Lumpur, okay, because of the algorithm changes. So when the algorithm changed, I can't keep in touch as usual when I was back then in— back in the States. So I have to rebuild again. So when I have to rebuild, I have to start communicating with my fans all the way back in the States in their time zone rather than in my time zone, because time zone is super important. Like right now is your 9:41 PM, but it's my 10:41 AM. So that kind of time difference actually makes a lot of difference in the time that we are posting. And in, and in the time that we are communicating. So what I did is, uh, I always, uh, whether it's on my comment section or on other people's comment section, I try my best to communicate with the fans. And for some reason, because my account is double verified, okay, so when your account is double verified, a few things can happen. People will get curious because my account, sometimes it can be a music note, but sometimes it can be a verification tick. When they get curious, no matter what I say, even if I go to some other people's channel and I say, "Hi," if that video blows up, my comment will blow up together. You get what I mean? People will be liking that comment. Because of that, my comments tend to appear on top. Of every, almost every single video. Okay. Almost every single video. And yeah, so I find it really fun to do that. So on a daily basis, I'll go to some of my recommendations and I just say hi, or I watch a video, I'll comment a little. And for some reason, every comment that I put will be on the top. Okay. And the people get more and more curious, like, 'Who the hell is this fella?' You know, 'Who the hell is this Ray Mak guy? Why is he always at the top?' But they don't know that I'm always at the top because when people like my comments, they will appear on the top. And why people like my comments is because I'm double verified. Like, they'll be like, 'Hey, sometimes Ray is on a verification— he has a verification tick, and sometimes he has an official artist tick. What the hell is happening?' You know, 'Is he two different person?' So because of the curiosity, they start to like my thing. And when they come over to my channel, there will be some people who will be sending hate and some people who will be sending love. So I will respond to both hate and love. If they hate me—

How do you respond to haters?

Okay, how do I respond to haters?

Yeah, I'm curious.

I always believe there's goodness in everyone, no matter how much hate they can portray. There is always goodness in everyone. When they send me hate, instead of giving back hate, I tell them, "At least you dropped by. I am very appreciative and I really thank you for dropping by even though you hate me." That would change how they look at me. They will be like, "Oh shit, I think I said the wrong stuff." From hating, they would apologize after, and they become very, like, strong fans, you know. So instead of replying hate with hate, why can't we just reply, reply with love, you know what I mean?

Because that's one of the reasons I dread myself to be on YouTube and, you know, post things, because of the haters. But the way you're approaching them is actually quite positive.

Yes, yes. And sometimes, like, all these haters or lovers, I would even go to their channel because I know some of these haters, why do they hate me? Because they may be trying to do the same thing, but they don't see result. So, but when they see me doing the same thing and I see result, they don't feel so comfortable. It's human nature. When you see someone else successful, you don't feel so Good. So what I do is instead of having them having a miserable day, I actually go to their channel personally and watch their videos, subscribe to them, and I tell them, hey, you're not bad. You're actually doing a very good job. It's going to take time, you know, don't give up. So instead of telling them hate stuff, hey, hey, get the fuck out, you know, I'll just tell them, hey, you are doing a very good job. I know you are feeling this because of this kind of frustration. So I'm just going to come and support you. I'm dropping by to support a bro or a sis. Then they will change totally. Like, they will— oh my God.

But that's really amazing. I think for the younger generation especially, I mean, they probably think of you as like big brother, you know, forever a big brother, even though you're a father now. And, you know, but I know a lot of my students always talk about, oh my gosh, you know, some of them met you, quite a few different generations of my students, right? Like Maya, I saw that little video. I mean, she's still, you know, playing. And when I said that you were going to be on, you know, I think just what you were talking about, the persistence, right? Like, and then not reacting negatively even when things not so pleasant happen, right?

Yes. Yeah, like, so it's kind of like the saying, when life throws you lemon, you make lemonade. You know what I mean? So for me, instead of making lemonade, I make lemon cakes, lemonade, everything, you know, from whatever that is given to me. So it all turns out positive.

Well, on that note, Yukimi and Eric, why don't you, you know, maybe we should ask Ray a question on what he's doing.

Yeah, I got a question. Hang on one second. Where was it? Oh yeah, so I thought of this just now while you were talking, Ray. So how does one make a viral video, or can you predict when a video is going to go viral?

We can never predict when a video is going viral, but we can kind of know if, let us say, our videos can get on the recommendation tab. On YouTube, in the past, there was nothing like this, but recently YouTube has changed their algorithm in a way that the algorithm follows the fans instead of following your keywords. In the past, it's all about SEO optimization, and I'm an expert in SEO optimization. But because I'm an expert in SEO optimization, I can't really switch to following the fans because I'm not a celebrity. You know what I mean? I was not a celebrity.

You are now.

So what happened is I used to do a lot of SEO, search engine optimization thing. But it helps, it helped me a lot on Google search. So if you Google Ray Mak on Google, you will see all the pictures, all the videos, and everything is my face. That is called SEO optimization because I put myself on top of all search engines. But Google algorithm— on YouTube algorithm is different from Google algorithm. Google algorithm is actually following more of SEO and advertisement, but YouTube algorithm follow your fans. So if you are able to please your fans, you fly. You get what I mean? So I know that if I can please my fans, I can personally make them very happy, they will support me. So that's what I strive to do, and I know a lot of my fans are thriving new YouTubers. So, so that's why I do my best to support all these new YouTubers and, and help them to fly. If I can help them to get like 100 subscribers, I can tell you they'll be so happy that they can't even sleep, you know what I mean? So how do you do that nowadays? I, I can just go and comment on them, or let's say I share their channel on my channel, then they will start to see some traction, even though they don't fly to 100 subscribers in a split second, but they will see a bit of traction. And they will see, if they go on their analytics, they will see a big spike over there when I talk about them. And when they talk about me, they will also see a big spike because now my name sparks a lot of curiosity on YouTube, like why this Ray guy is everywhere. They did not know that it is because of my double verification, and I have been doing this for a pretty long time. To get on the recommendation tab, you just need to know what your fans like to watch. Let us say when I go to my analytics, I noticed that a lot of my fans are guys, and they are aged 16 to 23, for example, or actually they are younger, they may be just 9. Okay, let us say they are aged 9 to 23. I will see what do people of that age like. For example, these people will be liking anime. They may be liking some game music, or they may be ex-Minecraft players. I will be playing a few of the Minecraft games and the Minecraft songs., and when I see a little bit of traction, I'll play a few more, you know what I mean? So that's kind of like how we predict and think of what to post. But a lot of times I also try to post whatever that my fans like. So I noticed I recently have a spike in fans from India. Okay. And I listen to a lot of Indian music, so might as well I listen to them a lot, might as well just play them on the piano. But Indian music is very difficult to play because Indian music is played with a variety of instruments that have like trills, you know, which is not easy to do on piano. It's like Indian, like, you know. So when I'm able to make a version that is as similar to the original music Like that, that means when you listen to my piano version, you know it's Indian. Even if you close your eyes, you know that, oh, this is an Indian music. Then they would really appreciate. And the thing about Indian fans is that when they appreciate, they show it. Like Chinese people, Asian, Korean, when they appreciate, they don't show it. They're like, okay, okay, this is good. They won't even press the like button. That's That's how Chinese fans are.

They're too shy and competitive, right? Sometimes competitive.

Yes, competitive is the word. But Indian fans, they're different. They would go all out, you know, and really promote your things. So that's what I like about Indian people. They would, when they support you, they would really go all out to support you. So that's why, like, especially in the recent few videos I played a few songs that my Indian fans requested. Yeah.

Wow.

Yes.

Hey, hey, hey, if you're from India.

Speaking of that, I have a question. So how do you deal with copyright? You know, sometimes you have arrangement of pop songs and things. So because I can kind of play a little bit of famous pop tunes here and there, but I'm always afraid of the copyright issue. So how do you deal with that? Tell us.

The amazing thing about YouTube is copyright is shareable. For example, when I play a song that is created by Alan Walker, YouTube would automatically detect that this is a cover song, and whatever monetisation that they receive will be automatically shared to Alan Walker's company. I do not have to do anything because the copyright is shared. The only thing is that when the company did not apply for the sharing, like for example a lot of Chinese songs, so a lot of Chinese songs they didn't apply for the copyright sharing, the function, that kind of function. When I post, they would just detect it as copyrighted music and sometimes they may attack by striking your account, which is very dangerous. Okay, so what I do is if I play a Chinese song, before I play, I would inform the company first that I will be playing your song. But English song, Japanese and Korean, especially Korean, they are really good with the copyright sharing thing. So no matter how we play it, the YouTube algorithm would automatically detect the song as a cover song, and it will know that this song is that song. YouTube is so good. When they hear a tune, they would automatically detect that this song is that song.

That's crazy. I did not know that.

Yeah, it's kind of like, like facial recognition.

Wow.

So can I— yeah, no wonder, because I posted some my students, uh, the students' recital, and then some of my students played a famous pop tune, but it was unlisted. But there was like a warning that I got from YouTube. There are a few pieces and a few songs in the, um, you know, program where violates, or if it's not your, your channel is not monetized, then that's okay, kind of a message. I was like, how do they know this?

Yeah, they know. So the YouTube system can— they can actually detect videos. They can also detect, like, let's say if you are taking video from someone else or you are taking music from someone else, even if the tune is similar. So they would know that, oh, this song is actually Gangnam Style, you know, for example. Yeah, it's super amazing. The A is artificial intelligence.

Wow, this is the age we are living in, right?

I know, we're living in the future. Exactly.

I used to listen to tape.

Wow, yes. And then how are you doing this year, you know, with the pandemic and everything?

Okay, actually, to me, the pandemic is like a blessing in disguise.

Oh wow.

Because the pandemic has caused me to to first of all rent. Like, my family have some rental properties which we rent out, but rental collection has been difficult because businesses are not doing well. So we are not doing very well as well on rental part, but that forces me to change. So if I'll be like looking at my businesses, oh, now I can't go out to meet people for USANA, for example. Okay. I can't go out to meet people. So when I go— can't go out to meet people, uh, especially for a period of time, is, is not very good for my business in the long term. Okay, so I was, I was like, I have to change, uh, the style, yeah, that I'm doing business. So for USANA, I would be having an online live stream, and I, I teach instead of one-to-one, I teach one to 100 people. So which, which is a blessing in disguise. And then I got onto Spotify, I got into YouTube Music and all those things, and each of them generate a little bit of income to replace the income loss that I have in this, what do you call it, the rental income losses and USANA income losses. And because of doing that and because of the pandemic, in the past I used to travel a lot, okay? In the past, I used to travel a lot, but now with the pandemic, I'm stuck at home. I'm doing nothing, you know, so I'll be watching YouTube videos. So the difference between me watching YouTube videos and other people watching YouTube videos is I'm quite verbal. That means I watch a video, I'll comment on it. "Oh, it's quite nice. I like it." I will say it out, you know. A lot of people, if they like it, like typical Asian society, when they like something, they won't say it. Especially Asian people, they see a girl, oh my gosh, she's so beautiful, but they would just be standing there and not approaching the girl. But I'm that type that I'll approach the girl and I'll say, hey, I'm Ray, and she'll be my girlfriend or something.

It's that fast. Back in the days, right? Back in the days, your teacher won't take out all your secrets.

Yes.

Well, so that really explains, you know, so this year when everybody's struggling, you, you are actually doing, you know, doing well, right? Like more people are watching you.

3 times better.

Oh my gosh.

Wow.

Oh my gosh.

It's amazing. So can I just read a few things from the comments?

And one of the—

Liron says, "Braymak is my inspiration and why I am on YouTube now posting music." Thanks, Ray. And another person says, hehe, I'm in class sneaking just to watch the stream.

Share with your friends.

And then some, some people are saying, I see his comments like 10 times per day. So, oh my God, people know. Yeah, but I'm, I'm just, um, I know it's almost an hour, we have to go a few minutes, uh, over, but I hope you have the time. So I have the time. Okay, what equipment and software do you use when you record? Because I saw the videos and that it was really pretty, um, good, actually an excellent quality. So I was wondering if you ever use Keyscape. You know what I mean by Keyscape?

Nope, I don't know what's Keyscape.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what that is, but, um, sometimes I, I watch, uh, Instagram or something and then, uh, pianist, you know, record himself from home or something. They use the software to make it sound really professional, but it costs like $500, I think.

Yeah, no, I don't have $500.

Maybe I— we get— we mentioned this name, so we may get the sponsorship. Sponsorship!

Sponsor us!

Anyway, so yeah, what kind of software or equipment do you use or recommend?

So for me, if you know, if you actually watch my YouTube videos, you notice that it's an evolution. So in the beginning, like many, many years ago, I used like a cheap-ass camera, which like I can't even see my face, you know what I mean? It was like so bad. And then slowly I evolved to like a slightly better like camera. It was this one. Let me just show you real quick. So this was like what they call the Handycam. So this was DVD quality. That means the quality was a little bit better. And then over the years, my dad got me this HD camera. You see the word HD over there. And then, but back then it was all poor quality, especially audio quality was very bad. People would be complaining, "Hey, Ray, you play too loud." It is not because I play too loud. It is because that microphone captures the sound and it captures the pitch a little bit too treble, too high, and it pierced people's ears when they listen. It is really, really bad quality. So when I reached 100,000 subscribers, and being the first 100,000 subscriber in my country, YouTube actually gave me like something special. I have the budget to buy equipment. So like when normal people get 100,000 subscribers, they would just get a silver play button, okay, like this.

All right, right. Oh my gosh, the famous button.

Yeah, the famous button.

I'm going to take a photo.

Wow.

Yeah, okay, come.

All right, fans, ask more questions.

Oh, all right. So typical YouTubers, when they reach 100,000 subscribers, they will just get this play button. But for me, I get a budget from YouTube where I can spend on my equipment. So the first thing that I bought was a microphone. So from then on, my audio quality for my YouTube start to improve because now I have a proper microphone. But the piano start to become a bit old, you know. My piano has been with me for like the past 30 years, you know. So the sound is like not as good as when it was in the beginning. So then I start to switch to digital. There also another reason that I switched to digital is because my neighbor, they start to renovate their house a lot. So when there's a lot of renovations, I can't be recording, you know what I mean? Like every time I like ting ting ting and then there will be like a lot of renovation going on. I couldn't record. I am not live anymore. So luckily in the past, I have an old keyboard that my dad bought for me. So I connect that keyboard straight to the camera and then I start playing.

Okay.

And I start playing. So there was like a lot of sound quality issues back then. And then Sony noticed the sound quality issue. Sony was like, what the hell? Your sound quality is so bad. Let us sponsor you a Sony video camera. That you can connect your keyboard directly. So I got sponsored by Sony, that camera, and my sound quality becomes better because now it's directly from YouTube, from the keyboard. Okay. But then in around 2016, I got myself a computer. So I start, instead of recording live and shooting live, I get to record in MIDI form. And because my fans have been asking for notes, okay, so I managed to record my things in MIDI form, and then I post it as notes for my fans so that they can play the music as well. So I collaborate with this musicnotes.com and then flowkey.com so that they can have my music, copyrighted music. Post under their platforms to be sold to fans for a very low price.

You know what I mean?

So that I made a little bit of money as well.

Okay.

And then nowadays Yamaha, because now I'm the ambassador for Yamaha. That's right. So my sound quality is like even much better because now I have all the equipment that I require. I can make MIDI. So I have this software called Studio One. So I actually use Studio One to record my keyboard, so which is this Montage keyboard.

Oh wow.

So I'll record and then I'll pre-record some of my videos and then I will just sync it with my video that I record. Record. So that's why the quality is a lot better now.

All right, you're giving away all your secrets.

That's right. I mean, you played in Yamaha Hall. Didn't, uh, Richard Clayderman come to see you or something at one time? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember he's very popular in Asia, right?

So I was the only one who got to like meet Richard Clayderman, like not, not anyone else. Like they can't even stand near for us Asian viewers.

That's like a big, big deal, right? And I see, I see on comment here, it was like, this is a really rare, uh, conversation, you know. Wow, 900 views, every videos, you know. Ray is my inspiration. Oh my gosh. So ask more questions.

Speaking of that, so yeah, Ray, uh, where does this— Ray is your name, Ray Mag? Is that real name or is that stage name?

Okay, so Ray is actually my real name, okay, my real name, but it's not an official kind of name. So my official name, my surname is Mak. Okay, surname means family name, so my family name is Mak. In Chinese is mai, maitong nao, like McDonald's, okay, like McDonald's. So Mak, so like the McDonald's, the Mac, okay, it's the same Mac in Chinese. Okay, Mark, and then my first name, official first name is Hon Kit. H-O-N K-I-T. If you notice on my username of all my accounts, it is the same username, Mark Hon Kit. But how did I get this Ray? When I was flying to America, on my way to America, and I was with my ex-girlfriend back then. Who is now also still my good friend. She was telling me, "If you go to America and if you use Hon Kit, people would be calling you, 'Hey Hon, hey Hon, hey Hon, what's up? Hey Hon.'" Oh my God, I don't want to be called Hon. I was like, "What's a good English name for me?" Then she was reminding me, "Hey, you can't read music, right? You can't read music notes." So since I can't read music, who is the pianist that is blind? Ray Charles.

Oh, that's right.

So the blind pianist is Ray Charles, and I got the Ray from there. So Ray Mack, you know what I mean?

Perfect. Yeah. So I have to ask you this question because I know we have to wrap it up, but because it was specifically from Instagram post, and she says, um, What are 2 key successful tips to share? From Modern.Woman.

Oh, okay.

2 key—

Modern Woman, she is big.

She's big. She's big.

She's big.

2 key successful tips.

Okay, first of all, I've mentioned a bit earlier, so the 2 Ps— actually, I follow a lot of Ps, but the 2 main Ps that I follow are persistence and perseverance. That means no matter what happened, the word give up wouldn't even come across my mind. Because the moment you let that word come across your mind, you will really feel like giving up. Especially when we talk about all this kind of social media thing. My son's account, which is He's 2 years old now. So my son's YouTube account, he had like less than 10 subscribers and all 10 of them are my family, you know. It's like nothing at all. We just post to see him grow. We want to see, oh, this is my son's first haircut, or this is my son's first time walking, you know, this kind of thing. And now he has over 2,000 subscribers and over a million views. It's because we didn't even think of giving up, and we never thought of really monetizing his thing. It's just that we want to keep it as a memory to us. And one of his videos went viral, you know. So YouTube is a very strange place. When, when let's say you have, uh, let's say 100 videos and your 101th video goes viral, the fans would look at all your previous 100 videos and your whole account will fly. You get what I mean? A true fan would do that. So, so for example, like my account, right, uh, it used to be okay-ish, you know, but then when I played Gangnam Style So people who look at my Gangnam Style, they actually look at maybe at least 50 of my other videos. So it is because I persevered and the word give up never came across my mind. But another thing that is very good is because I don't rely on YouTube as a main source of income, because when I rely on that, I'll be damn desperate. It's like in the past, there was a period of time that I tried to rely on stock market as my main source of income. And if you would remember, I came to your house and I cried.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I'm playing the piano and cry.

Yeah, I play the piano and cry. So, so I, I lost like, like 6 figures within a night, you know what I mean? So, so when you are very— when you try to rely on something as your main source of bread and butter, you will become very desperate. So don't, don't do that. Make YouTube and social media as a hobby. You post it not because you want to show other people your life. It's because when you know that in the next 5 years and 10 years, you look back, "Oh yeah, this was me 5 years ago. Oh, I was so cute." You know what I mean? So it's like I go back and watch my video. If you have seen this Richard Clayderman ballet for Adeline, okay?

Sure.

Super famous song. Everyone knows Richard Clayderman for that song. Okay, so 12 years ago when I started playing palette point, it was horrible, you know. The quality, the sound quality, recording quality, everything was horrible. But then fast forward 10 years later, okay, I got Yamaha sponsorship, I became the ambassador, I played on the most expensive, uh, CFX Concert Grand Piano for the same song, and it sounds ridiculously good. So, and I got to meet Richard Clayderman.

That's right.

Wow. I love that piano, CFX.

CFX.

Oh yeah. Gorgeous. So delicious.

Gorgeous. So when I get to compare my 12 years ago and like fast forward like 10, 12 years later, it's like, it's a very nice comparison. I'm like, oh, last time I was like this, you know, now I'm like this. So you don't take social media too seriously. As in, when we take things too seriously, we will try to be too perfect. No, don't do that. Just whatever shit that comes out, just post it up. Don't take it too seriously. Make it a fun thing. So the 2 Ps: persevere no matter what happens. And like I mentioned earlier as well, consistency. That means if you're already posting something that your fans like, and then don't go and change like too much. Fans will follow you for who you are, but make them happy. You know, that, that is another key to become pretty successful.

Great. I think we're going to have to wrap up pretty soon, but I wanted to ask you one more question because I'm sure just like anybody else, you've got to have your off days. And one of your users, Nova X, asked, what inspires you and how do you stay motivated?

Uh, okay. So the, the comments inspire me. Okay. So people would come to my, my, uh, channel and they're like, hey Ray, you're good. Don't give up. Ignore the haters and all those things. But I, I never ignore the haters. I always address the haters nicely with love. I'll never ignore them. And because I know haters hate me when they have self-esteem issues, so I will help them boost their self-esteem. And from haters, I turn them into lovers, you know what I mean? So that kind of thing, it keeps me going rather than the monetary benefit. So it is actually the fans keep me going.

Yeah, great answer. I love it.

That is such a beautiful answer and, you know, just inspiration for everybody for the young generation.

Yeah, I was— yeah, I, I actually had a great time talking to you today. Yeah, this is actually our Piano Pod's very first live show, so I have been so nervous the entire week. That's right, we kind of decided to do this the last moment and it was like—

exactly.

But it's great. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you, Ray.

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Well, keep on inspiring everyone in the world, especially during this difficult year, right? And everyone follow Ray. And so that concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Thank you, Ray, for joining us.

And please follow The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.

Oh, thank you so much. Yes, yes, yes, we all have to do this. That's right. Thank you for our audience for listening and your questions.

Yes.

All right, okay. And then if you enjoyed today's episode, please hit the thumbs up button below. Be sure to subscribe our channel and Facebook page and so forth. And we're new podcast and need your help getting the word out. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram using the links in— I don't know if it's going to be in description, but you'll find it in YouTube, our channel. Um, description.

That's right.

And of course, if you have any feedback for us, we are happy to receive it. You can leave us a comment or a DM via social media, and you can email us at thepianopodnyc@gmail.com.

Hope to see you next time on The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Good night and good morning, everyone.

Good night and good morning.

Have a good day. Good morning. All right, thank you.

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