We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Darryl Chamberlain. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Darryl below.

Alright, Darryl thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

A-Flat Music Studio Inc. started as an idea which was based on my idea to reality principle. I say that everything starts with an idea. You add imagination to an idea, and an idea becomes a dream. You add focus to a dream, and a dream becomes a vision. You add hard work to a vision, and a vision becomes a reality. So, this whole thing started with the idea that I could create a music school by which to form a youth orchestra. The motivation for the idea came from my disappointment to see that none of the Kansas City public schools were participating in the American Royal parade when I returned after a 22-year absence. I had fond memories of attending the parade in my youth and seeing all of the Kansas City high schools in the parade strutting their stuff. There was a lot of competition among the high schools and every one of them wanted to be the best. The last thing that I did before leaving the city for work in Texas was to attend the parade. I even took pictures. However, when I returned 22 years later, there were no high schools from Kansas City in the parade. Adding to the disappointment were that the suburban schools had bands in our parade. I set about trying to find the answer. I found schools that no longer had band programs. I found schools that were struggling to get their band programs going. I found diminished band programs due to budget cuts. I found apathy for productive band programs. I was heartbroken. I felt that it would be a waste of time to go to the school board and petition them to reenergize the band programs, so I decided to start my own.

Of course, I had been doing the very thing for years when I was in Texas for years. So why not in Kansas City? I began buying instruments with money that I made from playing the piano in church. I purchased them from everywhere I could find them. I got to know all of the pawn shops intimately. I knew which ones had good products and which ones to avoid. I search the classified section in the newspaper. I searched on EBay and anywhere that used instruments were sold. After a few years, I had enough instruments for two concert bands. I began offering instrumental music lessons for $5.00 a lesson. I wanted to keep the price low so that low-to-moderate income parents could afford the lessons. The first ensemble that I formed was called the A-Flat Youth Ensemble. I got the idea that I wanted to teach in the public school system, so I put my instrumental music classes on hold. I finished my matriculation at UMKC in 2015 and was certified to teach. In 2016, I resumed my instrumental music classes and the A-Flat Youth Orchestra was born. I created a music fundamentals class through which I could teach kids who had no formal music training. Six months later, they made their first public performance. One year later, in June of 2017, we found ourselves on the front page of the Kansas City Star. Two months later were featured on the NBC Today Show’s Feel-Good Friday series.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I had been teaching instrumental music in Texas from which I formed a youth orchestra that I called, The Chamberlain Ensemble. I am a father of six boys, now men, five of whom are musicians. They boys learned to play in their public-school bands, but I refined what they knew musically. We began playing together around the community and other kids joined our band. I wrote most of the music that we performed but also purchased some of the music that we used. We played at all types of venues. It was here that I honed my skills in writing music for youth bands and arranging music. The Chamberlain Ensemble performed for about ten years across the midwestern state area.

The company that I worked for went out of business, so I decided to return home to Kansas City. It was upon my return in 2004 that I was dismayed to see how so many of the public schools in Kansas City had allowed their music programs to deteriorate. No one knew better than I how important music could be to a child who might become a future musician of fame. While in Texas, I was involved various aspects of education in the local schools. I had given my share of speeches before the school board, and before principals, and before the superintendent of schools. Too often I would hear how great my speech was. “We need to meet for lunch to discuss that further.” Discussion would never come as that person would forget all about the issue at hand once the meeting was over. So when I came to Kansas City, I was not interested in giving speeches to have the fall on death ears. That’s how I felt about it. So it wasn’t that the school board was not interested in what I had to say, I never bothered to petition them because of my experiences in Texas.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I hear too many churches tell me that they no longer have youth choirs and that it is hard to get the youth to come to church. However, I have a number of youths who come to me for classes every week and also pay to be there. I ask, what is going wrong in the churches? I also notice others who have tried to do what I am doing but are not so successful at it. One might ask me, what are you doing that is different? I answer that before I sell music classes, what I am selling first is dependability and reliability. I see my peers offering music classes but the cancel classes when something comes up that they would prefer to do. Parents like dependability. I never cancel classes, and I always start on time. Church youth directors will do this also where they might cancel choir rehearsal because of the rain and some other weather-related event. In any business venture, the proprietor must be dependable. Customers want to deal with a vendor who is reliable. They will set their schedules around your schedule. They need your schedule to be dependable. So, yes, I sell great music classes, but I sell dependability first. Dependability is a sign of respect of the customer.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We are halfway into our seventh year of operation. We have developed quite a following on social media. However, that takes a lot of work. Social media does not work for you, you have to work it. I started by Googling how to get better presence on facebook. I was surprised to find out that there were rules by which the facebook algorithm followed. If you add a picture to text, then the algorithm will push the post out farther. I also found that it was important for you to like your own posts and reposts go out slower. So, you must keep your information fresh. If I created an event of fundraiser, I would post something new on the event every day. Also, if I created an event, I invited everyone on my friend list to it. This was a challenge for me because I was maxed out for the friends that I could accept at 5000. That meant that I would do 5000 invites which would take about four days to invite them all. If people gave to a fundraiser, I made sure that I thanked each one individually. I never wrote one thank you message and cut and pasted it but rather, I tried to give each person a personal message. If you want a presence on social media, you have to be willing to work at it. Like I said, you must add hard work to your vision and the vision will become a reality.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aflatmusicstudio.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aflatmusicstudio
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJWW18wnS5g