(00:03):
Welcome

(00:04):
Back to behind the space bar episode eight. Should you become an Ableton live certified trainer? Hey everybody, this is will Doggett. Welcome to behind the space bar. This is a podcast for playback texts for musicians, music, directors, really anyone using the Ableton live on stage to perform. Uh, today's episode is gonna be really, really, uh, important. I think this is a question I get often. And so I am recording this episode to serve a couple different purposes. One to help answer the question for you. Should you become an Ableton live certified trainer? What is it? Is it worth it? How do you do it? And then to serve a selfish purpose for me, which is when people ask me, I could say, Hey, just check out this episode and I'm gonna explain it in detail today. What I want to answer is one, what is Ableton live certification two.

(00:47):
Is it worth it? Should you become an Ableton live certified trainer three? How do you become an Ableton live certified trainer? And then I wanna wrap up, uh, with two things at the end. No number one, I'm gonna share one thing you could do right now immediately, if you're interested in becoming a able to and live certified trainers. So make sure you stick around to hear that. And then after that, make sure you stick around to hear some top secret tips that I have for becoming certified and getting certified going through the process. These are things I've learned from my experience, as well as talking to other Ableton live certified trainers, as well as talking to some folks at Ableton about things that I think they look for that will help up you stand out. Okay. So we're gonna get to all of that today.

(01:25):
Let's start at the top though, and talk about what is an able to live certified trainer. I wanna share this. This was super fascinating to me. Let me one share how Ableton explains this on their site and then some stats on how many certified trainers currently exist. So this is pretty cool. Uh, able to live certified trainer is a professional educator, private tutor, professional, a producer engineer, musician, and consultant, um, or consultants, uh, that all specialize in helping the world make music with live. This is what I thought was interesting. Currently there are 360 of those folks in the world, and there are trainers in 50 countries offering instruction in 38 languages, um, which is really, really cool. Uh, Ableton says that the certification program emphasizes quality over quantity and only a select group of trainers and institutions and each geographical region receive certification. Um, this is stuff that we're gonna talk about at the end, because there's such a small amount of certified trainers.

(02:20):
There's a couple things you could do, I think, to stand out. And, uh, sometimes it just depends on where you live. Like they don't want tons of Ableton trainers, uh, located in one specific region. They wanna try to spread that out. Um, and so there's just a couple different tips and tricks that again, I will share, uh, at the end of this, uh, that I think will, will really, really help. So able to live certified trainer. Someone has an expertise, um, in using Ableton live, they have an expertise in performing with Ableton live. We're producing music with Ableton live. Uh, we we'll talk about a couple different things that I think are important, uh, in this process. And particularly when we talk about how to become a Ableton live certified trainer, things that I think are important, but it's someone that has a particular skillset and experience.

(03:03):
And, and one thing, one expertise in one thing, but you can understand many different contexts in which Ableton live is used. So a story I often tell is I've never stepped on stage as a professional DJ. That's just something I've never done. I've been a guitar player. I've been a lead vocalist. I've led worship as a worship leader. I've been a music director. Uh, I've played keys. I've done playback both on stage and off, but I have never been a DJ on stage. But if a DJ comes to me and says, Hey, will, can you help me understand how to use Ableton live a DJ context? I can say, well, I've never done it before, but I understand the context in which you king and now understand Ableton live well enough that, um, I can, I can help adapt Ableton live to work to your context, as opposed to your context, adapting, to work to Ableton live.

(03:48):
So I think that's an important skillset that worship leaders have, uh, uh, worship leaders, certified trainers have the reason I said worship leaders is this oftentimes I'll hear from particularly worship leaders, folks that are using able live in a church setting that will say, Hey, I've been using Ableton live for a year. I wanna become a certified trainer and I'll say, well, okay, that's great. You know, how are you making music with Ableton? Well, I don't really make music. I just use Ableton for tracks. Well, that's not a deal breaker, but if we go back to the beginning here, uh, consultants specialize in helping the world make music with Ableton live. Now making music with able to live performing on stage is a piece of that, which is great and is important. So that will help. But how will you talk to a DJ about this?

(04:27):
Well, you know, I just working with churches, blah, blah, blah, get that. That may not be the perfect fit for Ableton certification program. Now we'll keep talking about this a bit. Um, let me share a couple benefits that certified trainers get when you're certified, uh, one trainer will listing on ableton.com. So for me, let's see if I can actually pull this up and find this, uh, if I Google my name or at least it used to be, uh, I can go to, uh, the website here. Yeah, here we go. Let's share this. Uh, and you can find me with a very old picture. I need to update that picture. Um, find me on their website. So you get a description of what I've done links to different things, which I need to update a lot of these, cause I'm no longer on Twitter and things of the sort.

(05:07):
Uh, but then it shows that I teach at, from studio to stage, which is enable to live certified training center, which is pretty cool. Um, so, uh, that is definitely beneficial to me as a certified trainer, as a marketing tool. Um, it's not the number one source of, of, uh, of revenue, number one source of traffic that I get, but it is beneficial. And it does help for me to say, Hey, from studio to stage is a certified training center for Ableton. That's Ableton's way of saying, Hey will knows what he's teaching from studio to stage as a place you can go. If you want to learn more about Ableton live, um, as a certified training, you get spec marketing support for training events. This is super helpful for me. If I go out to a conference, if I host an, uh, training event, I can reach out to, uh, folks at Ableton and say, Hey, would you, uh, mind, you know, helping promote this?

(05:54):
And if that makes sense and fits into their context, they will. But oftentimes they'll send me swag. They'll send me some free giveaways that I can offer at, um, at training because Ableton as a company is, is super big on education. They're super big on community and they're super big on, um, getting out there and helping folks, uh, you know, helping reach the community and help them learn how to use Ableton live and whatever context they're performing, whatever that are making music. So they definitely help with that. You get access to Ableton certified trainer, online community, uh, at the time that's on Facebook. I'm no longer on Facebook. So I miss out on that, uh, that particular piece of it, you get some exclusive industry accommodations from different companies, uh, and you get authorization to use the Ableton certified trainer logo. So for example, this not in the certified trainer logo, this is the certified training center logo, but I get authorization to use that as a certified trainer.

(06:43):
And then I think somewhere on the site here, yeah, there we go. So, uh, this Ableton certified trainer logo. Now, granted, you could find this online and you could go grab it and throw it on your site, but, um, uh, Ableton is not gonna be quite happy with you just using this logo. You have to be a certified trainer in good standing, uh, in order to use that. So those are a couple of the benefits you get as a certified trainer. Um, and, uh, and it says too, this is a benefit that helped me. Ableton site says this, uh, institutions, businesses, uh, educational places that employee certified trainers, uh, to offer courses in Ableton, I may apply to become and certified training centers and be listed online in Ableton's list of recommended institutions, which that's why from studio to Sage is a Ableton life certified training center.

(07:27):
Uh, as you saw here at the top, uh, because I am employed by from studio to stage, which I would hope I am, cuz it's my company. But, um, let's talk about this. This is super important. Uh, what Ableton cert certification is not, this is again a question I get often from people. Uh, you know, sometimes I get, should I become a certified trainer? Uh, how do I become a certified trainer? But one of the questions I get really often, which is why I think this, uh, section is important is, Hey, I just started using Ableton live. I'm really interested in it. I wanna learn more and become a certified trainer, um, or, Hey, I wanna learn how to use able to, to live. So I wanna become a certified trainer. So let's dive into what Ableton certification is not number one, it's not a certificate program from Berkeley or from an Ableton certified training center.

(08:08):
So for instance, uh, if you Google Ableton live certification or certificate program, you'll land on, um, Berkeley, uh, online has a certificate, an Ableton live professional certificate. It that is not able to live certification and it's kind of confusing. And the verbiage is, is not super clear, but the same way you can go to Berkeley online and get a different certificates and, and, um, uh, online, um, uh, go through their online education program and get like music, production, music, performance, um, uh, all those sorts of things. They have a certificate for able some live, uh, professional, and I'll include the link in the show notes of this in the description of the video. If you're watching on YouTube, um, that is not Ableton live certification. Um, you do not go to Berkeley and take a course and get a certificate and become a certified trainer.

(08:55):
Um, also another thing I have people come to me and they go to the site and they say, Hey, I saw that from CD to stages and Ableton certified training center. So how can I go through your program so that I can become a certified trainer and say, well, you could go through my program and it's gonna help you learn to use Ableton live on stage. You'll learn how to run tracks like a pro with Ableton live. Uh, but at the end I can't make you a certified trainer. And we'll talk about how to do that in a moment. Um, the second thing, and this is, again, the answer question I get from a lot of people is Ableton live certification is not a way to learn more about Ableton live. It's not a course that you take. It's not a, um, a quiz that you take.

(09:29):
You don't go for two days for a weekend and, uh, learn from an instructor and then take a is, and you pass to become an able to live certified trainer. So if you're interested in learning more about able to live, able to live certification is not how that's gonna happen. In fact, able to live certification has nothing about, um, uh, educating you. It has nothing to do with educating you on how to use able to live. Uh, we'll talk about what it is in just a moment. Uh, but it's not that. So if you're looking you for a way to learn how to use Ableton live, selfishly, I'd like to let you know about from studio to stage, uh, I'll include the link in the description of this if you're interested. Uh, but if you're interested in learning how to use Ableton live on stage in particular, how to run tracks like a pro with Ableton live, get access to 20, uh, 24 7 access to courses, community, and different content, um, both on how to use able to live, but as well as how to use all, uh, your content that you use with Ableton live like audio interfaces, mini controllers and stuff, uh, from studio to stage is the place to do that.

(10:30):
Um, becoming and able to live certified trainer is not the place to learn how to use able to live. And in fact, if you Don, how to use Ableton live, you're not gonna become a certified trainer. Uh, Ableton live certification is not a test to get a certificate again. It's, uh, I know some different certifications or different softwares. Uh, you go to a testing or certification center. Someone teaches you, you get a textbook, you go through it at the end, you get a, you do a little quiz or test to pass. And if you pass you, you get a certificate that is not able to live certification. Uh, the other thing I wanna mention here, able to live certification is not a guarantee that you'll succeed. It's not a guarantee that you become certified and suddenly you're gonna make more money. You're gonna get more clients, you're gonna get more gigs.

(11:11):
Uh, it's not even a guarantee that you're gonna become a better musician if you're, you're watching and listening to this as a, as a musician, as a performer. And you're like, I wanna become a certified trainer so I can get better performing live on stage. Again, that's not the goal of this. So let's, let's talk about how to become an Ableton live certified trainer. Uh, this is the very tactical practical piece of this. Uh, before I do that though, I wanna talk about based on Ableton lives, um, uh, site, what their qualifications coming as certified trainer are number one Ableson platform, knowledge and skills. You've gotta know Ableton. The, the biggest thing that helped me, someone emailed me, uh, I think it was John a couple months ago and said, will, how do you, um, uh, how, how do you know so much about able to live like, um, I, I, I appreciate your knowledge that you have the skillset you have.

(11:59):
How did you learn what you know about able to live and one, it was experience, but number two, it was, I read the manual from front to back. And I think if you're not the type of person that isn't interested in reading manuals, go back to episode one. RTFM why reading manuals is the key to your success, uh, of the behind the space bar podcast. Go back, listen to that. If that's not something you're interested in being in a certified trainer may not be for you, but for me, I read the manual front to back and I understood the verbiage of able to live. Um, a lot of times I'll watch people do tutorials, uh, and, uh, unable to live, um, on YouTube in particular. Cause that's medium. I work in a lot and I'll see them teach and they'll say, okay, so we're over here in clip view and uh, in able to live.

(12:41):
And then over here, we're gonna go to recording view and I'll go, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's, that's not what you call it. It's arrangement view. And it's session view, um, using the correct terms are super important and you can only give those correct arms by, um, by reading the manual. But in addition to that, you know, sometimes you work with someone who, um, uh, has read the manual through and through, they know all the details, but you've gotta have the skills too. So it's not just knowledge. You gotta have skills. You can show someone where to go to get the compressor. You can show them, um, you know, explain what the threshold is versus make gained, but you've gotta also have the skillset to understand how to use a compressor. How does a compressor work, uh, and having some domain knowledge of making music, performing music is, is super helpful as well too, uh, in Ableton says it this way.

(13:27):
You've gotta be able to, you've gotta know Ableton products inside and out. Be able to explain functions and features in a detailed but clear way. A lot of times sometimes, um, a lot of times sometimes, often I will be teaching in front of folks at an Ableton event. And someone will ask a, uh, uh, maybe an obscure question or a question that I don't know the answer to. And sometimes because I know enough about Ableton, I can tell them, you could probably go this way. Or sometimes I'll say, you know, I'm not really sure let's or if you were able to do that, this is where you would go to do that. Or I'll say for sure, I know that's not possible or say, you know, uh, hopefully that comes in the future, something like that. Um, but that's only because of my knowledge of Ableton live and the skills that I've had both as a musician, as a sound designer, someone who's performed on stage to know how to do that.

(14:11):
The second thing Ableton says second qualification. They say to have a two skills, says a certified trainer has exemplary teaching skills and knows how to explain simple facts as well as complex concepts in any situation. And I think that's a big one. Again, let me pick on worship leaders for a moment. I, I had my Freud and slip earlier where I said worship leaders instead of certified trainers. The reason is a lot of times, uh, there's something about, um, the, the particularly young worship leaders that are go-geters, they're like super interested in this. They start using able to live and after using able to live for a month, they're convinced they're gonna change the world and go teach everyone to, to, to use Ableton live, uh, which is great. That's awesome. Good for you. That's how I got started. It was in a church context as a worship leader, uh, and I was super pumped and excited to use it.

(14:57):
And I thought I'm gonna go change the world and teach her when, how to use able to live and incredibly fortunate, blessed to have the opportunity to not necessarily change the world, but to do, uh, to teach able to live, but what I had to learn and what I had to develop and what still developing is the skill to teach. So I was able to do this specific thing. Uh, I had the skill, uh, to do the thing, but I had to then learn the skill of how to teach the thing and te doing a skill or doing a thing versus teaching a thing is a completely different skill set, and really the only way to get better at it. It's not going to school. It's not getting a teaching degree. Those are tools and resources that will help you, but it's to do it.

(15:33):
The only way to get better at doing YouTube videos is to create a YouTube video every single day. And you'll learn how to do it. The only way to get better at teaching a classroom full of students is to teach a classroom full of students. I did that for a year and realized I'm never gonna teach a classroom full of students. Again, the only way to get better at teaching a workshop live and in person is guess what to teach a lot of workshops live and in person, and, um, teaching skills is super important. So you may know how to do something in Ableton live really well. You may be a, um, um, a, a skilled, a particular trade, a specific use of Ableton live, but you've gotta be able to teach that to other people. And in fact, uh, Ableton certification, you know, answering the question, should you certified trainer, if you're not interested in education in, in any former fashion, then I don't know that it makes sense.

(16:18):
And I'm jumping ahead. We'll get there in just a moment. Final thing here. Uh, Ableton as a company says that if you want to become a certified trainer, you should have experience in the field and technical and theoretical knowledge. Here's how they explain that they say certified of trainers, know their way around music, audio, and music technology, and music theory. That's a big one and are also comfortable adapting to a quickly changing product landscape. Uh, and that's really true because, uh, almost every year, uh, I think every year, so far since I've become a certified trainer, Ableton's release a new version of the software with new things and you gotta keep up with it. Um, they ask every year when they re-certify folks, you know, if you're not interested in, in staying a certified trainer, then you don't have to, you don't have to fill out the forms.

(17:01):
You don't have to fill out the documents, but it's super important that you stay up with it. And it's also important that you have experience doing it. Um, and I think not just theoretical knowledge, like not just, uh, I understand theoretically and it, in theory, how to use able to live, uh, to run tracks on stage, to create music, to record songs, to create keys sounds, but I've done that. And I have a proven track record and, and proven experience of knowing how to do that. Now let's get to the very tactical bits here. How do you become able to live certified trainer? I wanna make sure you're paying, uh, special attention here, because if you have any interest in becoming able to live certified trainer, and if you understand that this is not a means to learn able to live, it's not a means to, uh, get guaranteed success.

(17:43):
It's not gonna suddenly send you tons of leads for training. Um, if you're still locked in and you're still interested, uh, how to become able to live certified trainer, um, number one is you need to apply for an event, uh, and so able to live certification. This is the number one most important thing you could do right now. If you're listening to this, uh, if you are interested in any form or fashion and, um, in becoming a certified trainer, you need to go right in know, well, finish this podcast and then go and apply for an able to live certification event. Um, you, when you get there, you have a form you have to fill out, uh, an interest form. You submit a professional CV, a letter of motivation, uh, example, live and push course curriculum or lesson plan. Uh, just an outline they say not to do to L max two pages.

(18:30):
And that's just super important, a video of yourself teaching live or push. This can be either a video of yourself teaching in front of a live audience, or just directly into the camera. Um, and here's really what they're looking for is they want to see, see, and hear you teaching, uh, in a live situation, which is super important, because again, a bit of this is not just your knowledge, not just your skill level, uh, not just your experience, but your teaching ability. So you could be out on the road for 20 years as a playback tech, but if you can't teach someone else how to be a playback tech, it doesn't matter. Um, you don't have to be out on the road actively as a playback tech to be a great person, to teach people how to be playback techs. That's something Ableton's interest in it.

(19:08):
So number one, to become a certified trainer, if you're interested in that whatsoever, go to the link. I have the description of this click on that and go fill out the interest form, uh, for a upcoming Aton event. Once you fill out that interest form, you'll see on the page they have, at least the time I looked a couple days ago, they have two events scheduled for 2022, which is when I'm recording this. Uh, but they add new events all the time. And based on interest, they may potentially add, let's say one of the us in LA, maybe one overseas in Berlin, wherever, uh, uh, fill out that interest form. That's super, super important. That's step one. And then from there, you can go through and do the CV, the resume, the motivation, um, and your curriculum play as well as submitting the video. But number one is, fill out that application.

(19:51):
Number two is do a phone interview. This is one of my favorite parts of the certification process. As I mentioned for me, I was certified in, uh, 2010. At least I think that date is right. That seems about right. Cause I think that's around when I moved to Florida, uh, and I remember doing the phone interview and I was so incredibly nervous. I literally had taken the manual and I had already read the manual way through, but I grabbed a, a, a, a, um, what do you call these highlighters? There we go. And I opened the manual and this is when we had printed manuals. And I bet I still have that manual somewhere around here. I don't know if it's on my shelf. I don't see it currently, but I need to find it and, and maybe frame that, uh, because that manual had tons of sticky notes in it, uh, had tons of, uh, Sharpie, highlighter, all in it, uh, pin notes and everything.

(20:35):
And I was studying really, really deep. And I was super nervous that I was gonna be asked about warping, which I didn't feel like I had a great understanding on. So I, I really dove deep into what is warping. How do you explain it? How does Ableton think about it? Why does it work the, the way that it works? I, I just dove deep into that. I also, I just remember particularly being really nervous about Corpus and, uh, Corpus is an effect in, in able to line. For some reason, I was just nervous, cuz I didn't know fully how to use that instrument. I was, I just really nervous about that, but I did a phone interview, my buddy Houston, who now is a, a buddy of mine, um, called me and Houston said, Hey, let's, you know, let's chat through this. And uh, and I was super fortunate that my phone interview went really well and Houston and I hit it off and talked about it.

(21:17):
Uh, but essentially at that phone interview. Um, and, and I don't know that this is how it always goes. I, uh, I've heard from, uh, some friends that have gone through the phone interview then heard later that they didn't get it. So I don't think this is the same experience as everyone. Uh, but you do the phone interview. And then, uh, for me, I, in that phone interview, Houston basically invited me to the event. And this was a unique scenario because this event in Seattle was happening basically like a week later. Uh, maybe it was two weeks after our phone call, but it was like, Hey, we, we've got one spot left, you fit the bill. You're gonna be a great fit. Are you interested if you're in, here's the deal. So did the phone interview, um, you'll do your interview. It's basically kind of, what's your skill level, they'll ask you a question about able to live, um, uh, a question that you really only know if you've read the manual really well.

(22:07):
Again, I was stressed by about Corpus. I think we talked about warping and I'll get to my warping story a little more in depth here in a moment. Um, uh, things like the difference between, um, um, modulation and automation and just really kind of discreet things, you know, max alive. How would you use max alive? What does max alive do? Things like that? Do your phone interview, you'll hear then back from then. And um, if you've passed, if you've done well, uh, and if they invite you to an event now, one thing I wanna mention here between doing phone interview and you being invited to the event, uh, there is a fee associated with that. Um, I honestly don't remember what the cost of mind was. I wanna say it was in the like $2,000 range potentially then, um, I, I don't know what the cost is now and I'm assuming they still charge for this.

(22:53):
Maybe they don't. Now I do not know that particular piece of that. They'll explain all that to you, uh, during the phone interview or if you get accepted, they'll explain the next step. So don't quote me on that, but I know that there was a cost and it was fairly substantial. I was incredibly blessed and incredibly fortunate that, um, the organization I was working for at the time, the church I worked for said, Hey, we wanna pay for you to become a certified trainer. And that was amazing because that was a, a goal of mine for a very long time. I, once I got into able to live, got into using it for tracks and kind of got interested in teaching, I was like, this is all my list. This is my to-do list to become a certified trainer. Uh, there's no way I can afford that.

(23:31):
And the church said, we're gonna pay for you to go and do that, which is amazing. So anyway, you do your phone interview, you get accepted or not, you not getting accepted doesn't necessarily mean you don't know able to live. It doesn't mean that, uh, you don't have the skillset. Um, I've, uh, I have a friend that, uh, he knows able to live fairly well, but he routinely didn't get accepted because he has, um, his skillset was in one particular area of using live. Plus he was in a geographical region where there are already a lot of certified trainers. So sometimes it's like, you know, I live in Austin, um, uh, in, in Texas, there's a lot of stuff, uh, and a lot of things happening, but it's like, you know, I don't know that there'll be more certified trainers in Austin because it's such a big geographical region.

(24:15):
Um, now I was certified when I was in Florida. I was living in Florida at the time. So that's a different story there. But, um, uh, as, as a small kind of protip look at geographically where you live, how many certified trainers there are. I imagine if you live somewhere, you know, I haven't looked at the site here, uh, and I don't know that I can even get to this, uh, live as we're talking, but you can actually let's explore. So if you're watching live you'll, you'll see me, uh, go through this. If I go to the certified trainer site, filtered by trainers and go to United States, city states, uh, you can see all the states and cities where they have people. I was gonna say like, if you live in South Dakota or like Idaho, uh, but like Kansas Topeka, Kansas, there's some people, um, um, Missoula, Montana, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, like just looking at the different, uh, cities here.

(25:01):
Uh, you go and look at this and go, okay. You know, there's some people in Houston, there's obviously Austin, um, New York, just different places, but looking if your state, you know, doesn't have, uh, anyone listed there, um, that may be a really good benefit to you. And I know Ableton as a company has stats where they look at, we have a, a large group of users, uh, based on people have purchased Ableton and maybe gone to a user group or whatever that are in this area. And so if there's high demand and there's not someone already there in that group, in that region as a certified trainer, you got a good shot. So anyway, pay attention to that. Third thing though, was a attended event. And here's the thing I wanted to talk about. Uh, my certification event was amazingly fun. It was so fun.

(25:42):
It was in Seattle at the art Institute. It was two days. Um, it like the two days of great weather that they have in Seattle over year. At least that's what they said. It wasn't raining. It was just amazing, um, certification event last or two days, each participant is expected to demonstrate they're teaching and live skills in seven different, uh, several different presentations during these two days, uh, two weeks before the actual event. And this is where it's super cool. This is one thing I wanna talk about. Each invited participant will receive preparation material that will thoroughly explain exactly what is is expected. Now I do not know how they're currently running current certification events. Um, and so this could potentially, uh, could be completely different. But I remember at our event, um, one, I was given a topic to present on, uh, again, remember me talking about being nervous.

(26:30):
Uh, thankfully it wasn't about Corpus. Uh, at least I don't think it was, but the one thing I do remember was, um, explain to someone who's never used, able to lie before. What waring is, why it's beneficial and how to warp, and if you've ever taught, able to live or, or coached someone unable to live, or even used able to live, you know, warping is a really hard concept to understand and get. So I got that concept and was super stressed about it. Um, and as far as I remember, I did really well going through that. Uh, but I got that about two weeks before the event, which for me was like a day after my phone call, cuz we were like leading right at the, to the event. But I got a specific topic that I was given to teach on. Then in addition, in addition to that, and again, this may particularly change, uh, or may have been specific just to my scenario.

(27:13):
In addition to that, it was, um, like bring your setup and show kind of your live rig and how you use Ableton live. And then when we got there, we had some really cool opportunities to, uh, that gave us some same pulls in. Again, they may not do this anymore, but they gave us some samples and said, you have an hour to create a song. So again, that's where if you just use able to live to perform on stage, I think you need to also be a songwriter, be a musician, understand music theory. And what was really cool to me about that particular moment is, uh, I think there were eight different people in our certification group. If I remember correctly in all eight of us, our song using the same samples sounded completely different. Um, and you've seen the YouTube videos of like, you know, one sample, four producers, whatever that sort of thing.

(27:52):
That's, that's really what happened in this event was I think we had five different samples. Everyone got up and did a song presented. It talked about how they do the song. And it was just all completely different, which is really, really, really cool. We went through the event and um, there were times where Houston and Tommy who were the two people that were, um, kind of orchestrating our event would ask questions as if they knew nothing about Ableton live. And these are two, two guys at the company that obviously knew Ableton, you know, uh, almost better than anyone else in the world, but they would ask questions. I did my warping thing and they, you know, ask, well, you know, why should I use warping or whatever to really test your knowledge and skillset. And that was super beneficial because, um, when you get into a, a scenario teaching, you're gonna be in a classroom, particularly when you're at a workshop you're in a classroom teaching and half the room is gonna have no experience of Ableton.

(28:42):
The other half is gonna be absolute experts and they're both you to speak to them consistently throughout the same presentation. And that's difficult. That's why for me doing workshops at conferences, for example, has become one of my least favorite things to do because it's just difficult to talk to the, that wide range of people and give them the same experience consistently without the beginner people feeling left behind without the advanced people feeling left out. Uh, but that was really, really helpful. And for me, and then step four is you go through that event. If you make it, if you get the, the correct knowledge, um, then you finally, you will become a certified trainer. So let's, let's wrap up here. Um, I wanna talk about answering the question cuz that's the name of the episode? Should you become a certified trainer? And then finally I wanna wrap up with, uh, stuff I haven't talked about or shared publicly before.

(29:31):
I don't think is some top secret, uh, top secret tips to having a better chance of getting, uh, accepted. So, uh, should you become a certified trainer? I kind of hinted at this earlier if you're an educator and you're teaching Ableton live in a classroom environment for high school students, college students, um, maybe you teach at a, a trade school, like an art Institute or something like that. Um, then I think there's a lot of benefit to you becoming a certified trainer because it's gonna help you learn to teach better. Uh, I learn so much about teaching interacting with the room Gina room. I, I didn't learn anything about able to live in that time period because it's not again, you don't sit and get taught to for two days. You sit and get tested for two days basically to make sure, uh, you have the proper knowledge.

(30:13):
Um, but if you're an educator, I think that's super beneficial. You'll learn a lot about teaching, able to live. You'll see how other people teach and their process and their method. And you'll learn a lot from that. Uh, number two, if you're a consultant, if you're in the playback world, if you want to, uh, I talked about picked on worship leaders, somebody circle back to worship leaders. I won't pick on you this time. If you're a worship leader that makes music records, songs and able to live, um, and uh, you want to, um, go teach other people how to do that. Uh, you have a, uh, you know, a proven track record of songs and content you've created. You're a good teacher and instructor, um, and you want to go help other churches, you wanna help other artists do this, uh, then potentially become, uh, consider becoming a certified trainer that could be beneficial to you again, it's not like it's gonna suddenly give you tons of leads that you've never gotten before, but it does give you connect Zed Ableton as a company they've sent me business and connected me with people that reached out cuz they were in the Austin region or they were particularly related to a, a, an area type of music I've worked with.

(31:12):
And they said, Hey, talk to will will is your guy, um, number three, if it's a marketable skill for you, uh, if, if you being able to say, Hey, I'm a certified trainer, um, gets you through the door with people. If it helps you, then I think you could, should consider doing it again. If you're an artist that just performs on stage, you have no desire to teach. You have no desire to consult folks. Um, I don't think certification is for you. If you are, um, someone who's just getting started with able to live, you have no interest in teaching it. Uh, you don't hardly even know it. Then cert certification is not for you and you're not gonna be accepted into the certification program anyway, because you don't have, um, the experience. You don't have the teaching ability. So if you're an educator consultant, if it's a marketable skill for you, then I think, um, you should consider becoming a certified trainer.

(32:00):
Now let's talk about it again. These are top secret tips for I'm a better chance of getting accepted. I can't guarantee that you get accepted, but these are things I've learned from my experience and as well as working with other certified trainers, talking to folks at Ableton that I think are really good. Number one, show your work. If someone can Google your name and say will dog it and find tons of YouTube videos, find songs you've released, find patches that you've released, that speaks volumes, uh, and, and does way more than someone who says, yeah, I'm a songwriter. I'm a blah, blah, blah. Well, what songs have you released? Well, yeah, I'm, I'm working on my fourth EP. Well, where's your first through 30 piece. Well, uh, they're getting mastered right now. Okay. Well, when are you gonna release 'em? Well, you know, it's like real artist ship, right?

(32:44):
Uh, if you are creating art and you're releasing art, if you're creating content, teaching content and you're releasing, uh, content, and you can go to the site and see, uh, you can Google find your name, see the stuff you're doing, that's really gonna help. Number two be so it, they can't ignore you. This is a great book by Cal Newport. In fact, let me make a note here. I'm gonna link this book up, uh, in the description. If you've never read this book, it's, it's really great. It's a quote that Steve Martin once said where someone came to Steve and said, Steve, how do you, you know, get opportunities as a comedian or, or whatever it was. And Steve said, be so good that they can't ignore you. And that's the idea of show your work, do your work, but get to the point where when Ableton calls you, they say, yeah, we know who you are.

(33:22):
We we're very familiar with your work. The only way you can do that is by showing your work. And then number three, put in the work. And by that, I just mean, um, don't use Ableton lie. And again, I'll pick on worship leaders again, I don't know what it is about worship leaders, but there's something about, Hey, I've used Ableton lie for a month. So I've decided to create a YouTube channel to explain to everyone how to do this. Uh, and I want to go become certified, uh, and, and do this well, you gotta do the work. You've gotta get experience across lots of different, um, area skill sets. If you have interest. That's great. Well, go volunteer to do that for free for a band local in the area and say, Hey, listen, I know you guys are just starting out. I'm start out.

(34:00):
I have an interest in this. What if I did this for free for you guys in exchange, you just, if it works out, you write a testimony or record a video and say, Hey, will was really good at this. That that's important. Um, uh, you gotta put in the work, number four, you have to understand different context. Again, a worship leader using tracks. You don't have to be a DJ on stage, uh, at a EDM festival in front of 50,000 people. You don't have to be doing that to have the empathy and the understanding of that person's context, to be able to relate to them. So as a worship leader, using tracks on stage on a Sunday, that wants to be a certified trainer. You can learn enough about a DJ concept. So then when a DJ comes to you, you can say, yeah, I can help you do this.

(34:41):
And she can understand that you understand her scenario enough and understand Ableton live enough, that you can connect and, and, um, and serve her in that way, learning to use able to live in her context. So understand context of using able to live other than your context, if you're a singer songwriter, uh, learn how EDM producers use able to live to produce music. If you, um, only use able to live for tracks with your, uh, small cover band, then understand how people record with able to live. Um, uh, if you just use able to live to produce your own music, EDM music, understand how singer songwriters produce music, understand how people use able to live for sound design, understand how people use able to live stage for tracks. Again, you don't have to have done it. You have to have that theoretical knowledge, but understand enough about able to live to do that.

(35:28):
And then finally, number five, what's your unique spin? What's your unique, uh, uh, uh, thing that you're bringing to this at the time, uh, in 2010 when I was certified, uh, my unique spin was I'm a worship leader who does, uh, who had a company at the time called loops and worship. I was creating sound design content for Ableton live. I was creating tutorials for Ableton live and I was a worship leader. Um, and I was involved in a church context and there were no worship leader, no certified trainers in worship world in the worship market. So, um, I got certified and that was kind of my unique niche. Now, I still remember the day that I cried when my buddy Matt McCoy became certified. And I remember being at an event and looking and go going, no, I'm no longer the only certified trainer for worship, but I digress.

(36:14):
Uh, but what was unique for me at that time was I had a unique spin that I was bringing to this. I was not an EDM producer. Um, I was not an educator at an art Institute. Uh, I was someone who had a business teaching people to use able to live. I was a consultant. I was creating content. They could see I was doing the work. They could see, I had the knowledge and I was using it in and week out on stage to perform. And it was a different context than what all the other certified trainers had. So don't be ashamed of your unique context, whether that's EDM, producer, bedroom, producer, DJ on stage person using this for tracks, with your cover band, locally person, using this as a playback tech out on the road with major artists, worship leader at a small church.

(36:57):
What of context is, uh, lean into that and let that be a unique spin for you. So here's where I wanna wrap up. Finally, here's the one thing I want you to do. If you have any interest interest in being able to live certified trainer, if you've listened to this and you understand what certification is, you feel like it benefits you then number one, most important thing you should do go fill out that interest form. Don't think twice about it. You, you know, you don't have to pray about it. You don't have to talk to your friends and say, should I do this? Fill out the interest form you filling out the interest form. Doesn't guarantee that you're in. It doesn't mean you have to pay anything. It just means you're interested and your interest. And again, enough interest in a certain region, enough interest by a certain people, you know, living in the us versus living in Hong Kong versus we, that that's gonna create how the that's gonna make them want to create an event for you.

(37:45):
So get that interest form filled out. Uh, number two, though, it's possible. You listened to this episode and you came to this. Maybe you emailed me and said, Hey, will, um, I want to, I wanna become a certified trainer. And by you saying you wanted to become a certified trainer. What you really meant was, Hey, will I wanna learn more about Ableton live? And if that's you, then you've gotten through the episode and realized I'm not ready for certification. I'm not an educator. I'm not a consultant. I just wanna learn to use Ableton live better than head from studio to stage.com. Um, check out the site, check out the free tutorials. We post a new tutorial every single day for free. You don't have to pay thing for that. Every single day, 10:00 AM central. I've got a new tutorial out showing you how to use able to live on stage, how to run tracks like a pro.

(38:27):
But here's the unique thing. If you become a subscriber and from CDs stage student, you get access to over 40 different courses, 24 7 on demand access. You don't have to join a zoom call and be there at a specific time. You get free resources, you get 200 credits. You can use every single month to download content from the store. Plus in addition to that, what I think is the super important part is you get access to a supportive community. That's not gonna let you quit. That's gonna encourage you. That's gonna help answer your questions and you get a monthly call every single month with me and the rest of the students where you can ask me a question. If you go to purchase a 1 0 1 session with me today, it's $500. If you join from studio to stage as a monthly subscriber, you get a call with me every single month included.

(39:08):
So the amount of value you get of courses that would run 250 bucks a pop. When I was@multitracks.com, we sold the courses that I was teaching for for $250. You get over 40 courses. Now I'm not great at math. So 40 times, two 50, whatever that is, you get 200 credits, which is the equivalent to $200. You can use on the site to buy anything and everything you see in the shop, uh, not anything and everything, but you can get the advanced track template, which is $200. You get that when you subscribe, um, using credits, uh, you get that monthly call, just so, so much stuff. But again, if you're listening to this and you're going, I wanna learn how to use able to live on stage. I thought it was certification as a way to do that. What you should do is head it from studio to stage.com, check it out.

(39:49):
We've got a lot of free resources that you can click and download, um, uh, that you can get for free, but that's gonna the way that you learn how to use Ableton live. Um, if you have any questions after this, if you want to go a little further, shoot me an email questions at, from studio to stage, uh, dot com again, that's questions at, from studio to stage.com. Uh, and I'll do my best to answer you or, or, or send you a note of, um, uh, you know, what, what you could do or how you could, uh, access that info. Uh, another way if I can't answer that, but again, if you're interested in certification, go fill out that interest form. If you wanna learn more about able to live, then that was your purpose of watching this, listening to this episode, then head of from studio to stage.com. If you have any questions that I didn't answer in this episode, then again, shoot me an email questions at, from studio to the stage.com and with that, um, I will see you next week. We're gonna continue this conversation. We're gonna continue talking about how to use able to live better on stage, how to run tracks I and pro with Ableton live. Um, and again, thanks so much for listening. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next week. 10:00 AM central for the next episode of behind the space. Take care, everybody. See you next week. Bye.