25.000 Subscribers: A Q&A and a Cup of Tea
There are moments in this work as a musician when you stop and realise something has quietly grown around you. 25.000 people now follow my channel, and that number is hard to picture until you imagine a room filled with that many faces. I made a Q&A video to mark the occasion, sat down with a cup of tea, and answered the questions you sent in. If you'd like to make a cup yourself before watching, I'd recommend it.
Watch the video
Before reading on, here is the full conversation:
How I found my musical voice
A lot of you asked about where I studied and how my playing developed, especially in arranging for classical guitar. The short version is that my path was not a straight line, and I'm glad for that.
I started on steel string guitar, not nylon. I grew up surrounded by acoustic guitar music, and the players who shaped my early ears were Tommy Emmanuel, Don Ross, and the wider fingerstyle world. From there I did a Bachelor of Music in Utrecht, which was less about guitar specifically and more about finding your own voice as a musician. That gave me a very broad foundation: different genres, different ensembles, different ways of thinking about sound.
The turning point came in Dresden. I went there first for an Erasmus year, then stayed for a Master's. The teachers there, especially Reentko Dirks, Thomas Fellow, Stephan Bormann, Nora Buschmann, and Daniel Wirtz, opened up nylon string for me in a way I had not expected. I switched from playing without nails to playing with them. It was almost a metamorphosis. And I started composing much more seriously, in the direction my music takes today.
What I play now is really a mixture of all of that: the steel string background, the broad musical thinking from Utrecht, and the classical nylon language from Dresden. It took years to find a way to weave those threads together, and I feel very grateful for every part of the journey.
The musician I would most like to play with
This question made me pause. The first name that came to mind was my dad. I grew up with his guitar music always in the house, and we played together on stage when I was a teenager. Those were some of my earliest experiences as a musician, and they shaped everything that came after.
Beyond that, the names I think of are less about collaborating and more about wanting to sit close and listen: Tigran Hamasyan, Chick Corea, Jacob Collier, Gregory Alan Isakov. And then there is the wish to play with a full orchestra again. I once performed with the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw in the Netherlands, and I would love to do something like that with my own compositions one day.
My guitars
A few of you asked which guitar is my favourite, and I took the chance to show all three.
The one I use most is a nylon crossover built by Christina Kobler in Austria. I have had it since August 2016, almost ten years now. It is my main stage guitar and the one I usually compose on. The wood on the back has a pattern that looks a little like a man caught in a tree, and there is an infinity symbol on the neck that I see every time I play. My initials sit at the 12th fret.
For amplification on this guitar I use a Miniflex Model 1 microphone inside the body combined with a Fishman Matrix Infinity piezo under the bridge. Both signals run into a Felix Grace preamp, where I can blend them and shape the tone of each individually. I take out some lows from the microphone and some highs from the piezo so it does not sound too nasal. A simple reverb pedal sits at the end of the chain. It is a modest setup, but it sounds the way I want it to.
My second guitar is a steel string built by Rebecca Urlacher in the US, custom made with a slightly wider neck so I can play the same repertoire I play on nylon. Acoustically it has more projection and resonance than my nylon crossover, which is built primarily for the stage. I love it for pieces that simply sound better on steel string.
The third is a baritone steel string by Alexander Voss-Schütte from Bremen. I used it heavily on Meraki, the duo album I made with Ladislav Pazdera. When I first played this guitar I fell in love with it immediately. Alexander hadn't planned to sell it, but we both felt something between me and the instrument, and I am very grateful that it ended up in my hands.
I also have a Dobro resonator lap steel that belonged to my dad. It is played with finger picks and a slide held in the left hand. The sound is very specific and I enjoy experimenting with it occasionally, even if it is not central to my own writing. (And I forgot to mention this in the video, but I play the banjo a little, too!)
On ear training
This is a huge subject, and I cannot do it justice in a few sentences, but what worked best for me was starting with intervals and connecting each one to a melody I already knew. A fifth, for example, attached to the first two notes of a song you can hum without thinking. From there it becomes a matter of listening to a lot of music, learning chords by ear, and gradually trusting your own recognition.
For me the most important thing is listening. When I learn a new piece, I listen to it many times before I play a note. After enough repetitions you start to feel where the music is going. You know what comes next before it arrives. That is the foundation. The analysis comes on top.
Breaking through a plateau
One of you wrote in about feeling stuck, lacking repertoire when you only practise technical exercises. I understand that feeling completely. Technique without music behind it loses its meaning quickly.
Find the pieces that genuinely inspire you. Pieces you hear and think, one day I want to play that. Even if they are too difficult right now, the desire to learn them will give you the motivation that technical exercises alone cannot. Then the techniques you need become tools toward a goal you actually care about, instead of ends in themselves. The motivation only sticks when you know what you are working toward.
Staying mentally and physically healthy
This is something I think about often. Working as an independent musician makes it easy to keep going past the point where rest would serve the work better. I try to walk in nature regularly, especially when I notice the urge to keep pushing through. Walking clears something that sitting at a desk cannot.
I also go to the gym, jog, try to eat well. But it is not only about food. It is also about what I take in through screens, through social media, through what I read and watch. Whatever goes in eventually comes out as energy or as something creative, and I try to be careful about that.
Creative ideas, in particular, do not come to me when I sit at my desk. They come when I experience something. Sometimes you have to do something a little out of the ordinary in your life to feel that drive again.
What comes next
Yes, I am working on a new album. The music is written. What remains is the recording, the artwork, the planning around release. Composing is actually the smallest part of making an album...
A few of you also asked about touring the US. I would love to make that happen. The visa side makes it harder than touring elsewhere, but I am hoping to find a way in the coming years. In the meantime, a larger autumn tour will be announced soon. And the new studio you can see in parts of this video is now finished, which means many more videos to come.
A thank you
25.000 of you. I still find it hard to picture properly. I know there are musicians with far larger audiences, but for me this number is real and personal. Thank you for being part of this journey.
If you would like to share how long you have been following along, or what made you stay, I would genuinely love to read it. And if there is something specific you would like me to make next, tell me. Many of the ideas I work on began as a comment from someone watching.
For now, enjoy the rest of your day. I'll see you in the next video.
