Wondering how Marty Schwartz became the one-man brand known as Marty Music, responsible for teaching countless people how to play the guitar over the last 15 years or so via lessons on his YouTube channel (over 3.8 million subscribers and 2 billion video views) and website? Well, credit his infant daughter, a lazy guitar student, and Jimmy Page.
Videos by American Songwriter
His daughter was the reason Schwartz first started a YouTube page, so he could send videos of her to his family. The guitar student’s reluctance to practice gave Schwartz the idea to film a lesson, put it online, and check how many views it was receiving to ensure the kid was following through. As for Jimmy Page’s role in all this, Schwartz explained it all in an in-depth interview with American Songwriter.
“There was a week where a bunch of different kids wanted to learn ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ and I was sick of teaching it because there were so many in a row,” Schwartz recalls. “I already had the YouTube channel. I remembered thinking I can do that thing where I can tape it at home and put it on YouTube, so when a kid asks to learn ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ I can say, ‘I have a whole video on it that walks you through all the parts.’”
While these incidents provided the spark, the idea for internet guitar classes had been percolating with Schwartz for a while after he saw early social media sites like MySpace. “I envisioned a way where somebody would be able to teach thousands or maybe even millions of people at a time,” he says. “I just didn’t know that I would be doing it.”
Schwartz had already been teaching guitar face-to-face for a decade when the financial crisis circa 2007-08 caused him to lose many of his clients and a part-time gig at an elementary school. That’s when he decided he would pour his energy into the YouTube channel. The timing couldn’t have been better.
“It was the perfect storm,” Schwartz says. “I had a good decade’s worth of grinding it out as a teacher and gigging, to where I finally got to the point of wondering why I chose music as a career. I hit all those challenges and roadblocks, and then you have kids and you say, ‘What was I thinking?’ I was probably making more videos than a 20-year-old because I had a mortgage and diapers to pay for. You’re naturally going to work harder when you’re sitting there with those responsibilities.”
What Schwartz didn’t foresee was how teaching guitar to someone via video on the internet would offer certain advantages over face-to-face instruction. “With a video, there’s no social connection to me and what you’re watching,” he explains. “You’re not scared that you didn’t practice that week, or worried that you’re just socially shy and now you’re having to talk to this strange man, or that you freeze up when someone’s watching and you have to play it. Or the problem of, ‘What was that one thing he taught halfway through the lesson and I don’t remember it now?’ You can pause it. You can watch it over and over. You’re not being judged. You can take your time. Plus, you’re getting a zoom-in shot of what’s going on.”
He developed his teaching style by learning the hard way what not to do. Guitar lessons he took as a kid were ruined by the instructor’s insistence on teaching childish songs, which is why Schwartz highlights rock and pop classics in his videos and lets his in-person students choose their material. “The first thing that I do when I get a student is to try and teach them a melody that they like and recognize, as opposed to the BS of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’”
Once he made his way back to the guitar via the tutelage of some close friends in high school, he was surprised by his ability. “I had thought there was special magic you needed, and that I would never do it,” he says. “I never had a musical background or inclination as a little kid. I didn’t know I was a natural. To all of a sudden find I had a knack for it made me thirsty for more.”
That passion is evident in his videos, which is why it’s no surprise that he’s the “people’s teacher.” “I get so much from guitar,” Schwartz says. “Even If it wasn’t my career, I would still get so much therapeutic from it. It’s just such an important part of my life.”
Gibson Sidebar
In addition to his teaching duties, Marty Schwartz makes his own kind of music as a songwriter and performer. His gigs include a periodic appearance at the Gibson Garage dubbed Back to Basics, where Schwartz brings guitar players of all experience levels on stage to jam with his band. That connection to Gibson also led to the creation of his new signature guitar, the Marty Schwartz ES-335 in Sixties Cherry, which was released last month.
Schwartz knew what he wanted when given the task of designing the guitar. “I put together the nicest entry-level price-point guitar that you can be a total professional with. From my experience, I know I want it to stay in tune, sound good, look good, and feel solid. Even if you were taking your first guitar lesson, you’re going to learn better if you can invest in a little bit better entry-level guitar. It will be worth it.”
As for what it means to see the Marty Music logo on a Gibson guitar? “It’s like the ultimate symbol of the journey up to this point,” Schwartz says. “But even saying it, it sounds so unrealistic to me. You know when you have an image board or vision board? That was never on my vision board, man (laughs.) It seems too far-fetched. Vision boards are supposed to be attainable. It was never part of a thing I was going for. It’s more like this amazing reward to me.”
Photos courtesy Gibson
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