We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nico Rinehart a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nico, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Believe it or not, the most difficult part of what I do isn’t the script-making, the research, or the ideas. Tailoring all of that to do well on YouTube is the difficult part. While the most important thing is to make content that is original and high quality, some aspects could hurt or help your video which seems counterintuitive. I had to learn the patterns in videos that did well and those that didn’t. When to look at the numbers and when the numbers were deceiving. It’s mostly trial and error which is discouraging. To understand what makes a good video, you need to make ten awful videos till one hits. I find it fun to nerd over stats and numbers and strategize how to make it all go up. That is not to say that script writing and research weren’t a learning curve either. Still, I was in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program in high school so researching and writing papers became second nature to me and I grew to like writing essays. Video essays are an extension of all I learned in those years of extended essays, IAs, Etc. IB also helps me a lot through the class “Theory of Knowledge” where we talk about the sciences, arts, and a multitude of areas of interest and discuss bias, methods of research, and implications of how we interpret said research. It’s a big reason why in each of my videos I always discuss the music in relation to the culture and how those push and pull on each other. I might also discuss bias in my findings or the difficulty of balancing subjectivity with objectivity. I might have thought a class on “how to learn” was dumb at the time but it is the class that I use most often now. Pay attention in school kids, everything you learn is a new tool in your toolbox. Be prepared.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Nico Rinehart. I am an 18-year-old kid who just graduated high school and is in a gap year in Nashville. I started an internship at a studio when I found my true calling: Video essay discussions on music culture, industry, and history. I am incredibly lucky that I found success on a platform that is so hard to break into. I’ve loved music for years and loved making videos my whole life. My skillset lends to my line of work perfectly. I make videos on YouTube discussing music/audio history and the culture around it. I am no expert. I start my videos by having a question myself. “Why are so many Christmas songs everyone knows from the 40s-50s?”. I start my research to answer my question. I take my findings to craft a thesis and make a script. I present what I find in an easy-to-digest video with. a clear focus and direction. After presenting the facts I discuss my thoughts on it. My videos start a discussion that is continued in the comments and I truly read every single comment. It’s my favorite part. I have also launched a clothing brand called Lyre & Loom where we make high-quality clothes and work with small artists to make audio and music-related designs that don’t just look like YouTuber merch. None of the clothes I sell has my name on it. It is a standalone brand I run in collaboration with a lot of very talented people.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The things I hear in the comments are the most rewarding aspects. I’ve gotten teachers telling me they show my videos in their classrooms. I have engineers in big studios in LA who tell me how impressed they are with my knowledge and insight. All of that is best confirmation that I am doing something right. There is the occasional hate comment and unfortunately, they stay in your mind more than the nice ones. It’s incredibly important to know that every single kind of person can see your video. You’re going to get some bad apples. If they didn’t say something mean on your channel they’d go to another video and do the same. It is not a reflection on you.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I started an internship at a studio where the man running it is also a YouTuber. I was there because I had it set in my mind that I was going to be an audio engineer. I quickly discovered It was not the job for me. Everything I found fun about it was taken away when you need to adhere to the client and the client only. I didn’t realize that I only like engineering for myself. I was scared I had an identity crisis. The man running the studio saw I had an interest in content and encouraged me to make videos. My fourth video blew up. I had 20 subscribers and that video grew to over 50 thousand views. I had what it took. A month later I made a video that got over 350 thousand. I know have a partnership with Sweetwater. It feels like my dreams are just beginning. I have never been so excited for tomorrow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nicorinehart-shop.fourthwall.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicorinehart
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nicorinehart
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/c/NicoRinehart