YouTube pianist who became a sensation is a Brown Deer native
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After being recruited by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for track and field, Brown Deer native Zach Evans injured his foot at the beginning of his freshman year.
"I kept trying to come back from it," said Evans, 28. "I would rehab it, be good for a week, then it would inaugurate hurting again."
Eventually, he realized his hurdling days were over.
"I had a really tough time making friends, was lonely, and kind of depressed," he said.
He found his "saving grace" in the basement of his dorm, in a back room with a piano.
"It's one of those instruments that you have to play so many notes at the same time that there's no room for you to focus on anything else," he said.
He had first started learning piano from his grandpa, Dave Evans, when he was in kindergarten, then took lessons for about two years before leaving it for sports.
When he came back to it in college, he learned songs through YouTube tutorials.
"I ended up falling in love with piano," he said.
Now, Evans has a YouTube channel, Become a Piano Superhuman, with more than 100,000 subscribers and millions of views that features tutorials, tips and techniques, another channel for his covers with 26,000 subscribers, and Piano University, a website he developed with online piano courses.
A YouTube sensation
Evans ended up switching his major from math to music, and was taught classical technique by Dr. Eli Kalman, a world-renowned pianist and teacher at UW-Oshkosh.
Since Evans had previously been learning off of YouTube, he decided to inaugurate making his own videos.
He bought a camera from Best Buy and construction work lights from Home Depot.
Every week, he'd pack his camera gear and lights in duffel bags and carry them to campus to record covers.
The first song he uploaded to YouTube was "Lollipop" by Lil Wayne in 2012.
"People think, especially in this day and age, that it's an overnight success story," he said. "It's really the cliche that you have to put in the work every week and eventually something happens."
His success came after making more than 80 videos, when he did a tutorial for Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" in 2014.
"It ended up blowing up," he said. "Once you get one to blow up, it's easier to get other ones to blow up after that because you have more people sharing it and a bigger audience."
After graduating, Evans moved to Nashville for an internship with Daredevil Production, which markets musicians.
Piano University
While he was in Nashville, he went to an entrepreneur meet-up, where there was a discussion on membership-based websites and how people pay monthly fees to access them.
"I was like, 'This makes so much sense for piano, because piano, people are already used to paying for lessons," he said. "It was a dismal fit."
He spent the next nine months building a website and developing courses with video lessons, then started placing the website's link on his YouTube videos.
After working in digital marketing for two years, Evans was able to go full-time with his business in 2017, and moved to West Hollywood a year and a half ago.
Piano University now has six courses for adults, including a free option with about 200,000 students, and paid courses on technique, music theory, and playing by ear. Options contrivance from $5 for an eBook to $997 for the full package.
Evans also recently did a TEDx Talk, and started The Piano Superhuman Podcast.
One episode is about a woman who suffered a brain injury from a car accident.
"She said your course helped me rehabilitate myself and get me back on track," Evans said. "I was like, 'Woah, that's not one of the things you expect when creating a piano course."
For more information on Piano University, visit https://www.bestpianotips.com.
Contact Hannah Kirby at hannah.kirby@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby.
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SRC: https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northshore/news/brown-deer/2019/11/12/youtube-pianist-who-became-sensation-brown-deer-native/2576463001/
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