By Michelle Pitcher
Editor-in-Chief
The MacBook is perched on the coffee table, while 2012 Coppell High School graduates Christian van Hoose and Hanuy Kim sit in front of it, absentmindedly strum the guitar and brainstorming ideas for their next YouTube video.
Approximately 72 hours of footage is uploaded to YouTube every minute. There are no barriers to entry into this market; anyone with Internet access can make an account and view the unlimited supply of public videos on the site.
With this in mind, many talented users are turning to this video-sharing tool to try to refine their musical abilities and gain feedback. Kim and van Hoose launched their channel (www.youtube.com/Coppellbounds) on Dec.1 and since then have gained a total of 2,191 video views and 50 subscribers.
“I had a YouTube channel before, and it actually got views,” van Hoose said. “I thought if Hanuy and I started one, it could be our big break.”
The pair does acoustic covers of popular songs. Their most popular video, which received over 700 views, was a Korean pop song. The wide range of music the pair puts on their channel has allowed for more feedback from viewers.
“People are talking about it,” Kim said. “People have texted us, and we’re starting to get requests. We have never gotten any bad responses. There has been some constructive criticism, but it was mostly about the video quality.”
After the first few videos, Kim and van Hoose decided to invest in a new microphone to improve the quality of their sound.
“When we got new equipment, people started to notice,” van Hoose said. “That means people had been watching for a while and started to notice a difference.”
The pair says they started the channel with the full understanding that it was possible to get discovered, but they are not relying on YouTube to get them where they want to be. They plan to use the feedback to improve their sound, and they hope to eventually send samples to record labels.
“We don’t want to be YouTubers who get stuck on YouTube,” van Hoose said.
Sophomore Guarav Bagaria got a head start on the site, launching his personal channel (www.youtube.com/thegbagaria) on July 25, 2011. Since then, his videos have gotten a total of 23,253 views. With an extensive background in classical piano, Bagaria finally found his passion when he started playing popular music.
“I started playing piano when I was 5, and I took classical lessons until I was 9,” Bagaria said. “I hated it. At age 10 I quit lessons and started playing popular songs by ear. That’s when I started loving it.”
Like Kim and van Hoose, Bagaria does acoustic covers of popular songs, but he incorporates the piano into several of his videos. Unlike the former two, however, Bagaria began posting for a more personal reason.
“I started this channel because I wanted to have something to show for all my hard work,” Bagaria said. “I put a lot of time into my music, and I wanted to be able to show people what I’ve done.”
Bagaria hopes that his YouTube activity will eventually make him stand out in the college application process. Until then, he is focusing on playing more live shows with his band, Backstage Disco. After their responsibilities settle down, he hopes to add videos of their performances to his YouTube page as well.
YouTube poses an interesting question for musicians, fans and executives everywhere; are free services like YouTube changing the face of the music industry? According to DFTBA Records President Alan Lastufka, the site can not only provide exposure, but it can also provide roughly half of an artist’s income via ad revenue.
While these young artists continue to create and share music, they are taking part in an adapting and ever-changing business. For now, they are hoping only to learn and improve.
“It’s also kind of like a video journal,” van Hoose said. “We can look back and see how far we’ve come.”
