8 high-paying jobs you can learn and earn from home. Have you been wanting to work from home? I mean, I think everybody does at some point in their life. But you know what? Nowadays, a lot of people have to work from home. With all the things that are going on in the world, it's super important to be able to earn a living even if you can't leave your house. So in this video, I'm going to show you 8 ways you can earn money from home and you can learn to do this in just a few days and be earning money and more than what the average person is earning in America right now. So let's go ahead and get started. Hey, I'm J.R. Fisher. Been selling online since 2009. Sometimes work from home, which is kind of nice, okay? And I've sold millions of dollars with both digital and physical product. And what I've figured out along the way is some things work, some things don't. And what I do is I share those things with you on the channel, the things that don't work and the things that do work to prevent you from wasting your time. And that way, you get more results faster, okay? Now, I would also like for you to subscribe. If you're new to my channel, there's a big button down there. Hit that subscribe button next to it. There's a bell. Looks like this. Hit that bell notification. And when you do, you'll become part of the Fisher family, the VIP group that gets notified every single time I do one of these videos. Okay, so let's jump right into it. But I also want to, I have a temporary thing I want to do. I have a $97 e-commerce course and I'm going to give it away for free. I'm going to put a link in the description below there. So click that link, grab my course, no credit card required. Just click and learn. Now, have you been working from home? Put that in the comments below. Tell me what you do from home. Have you wanted to work from home but not sure about what you need to do? Put that in the comments. I'll be happy to answer you there too. So let's go ahead and jump right in. I want to show you these eight things that you can do to earn money from home. I will say that working from home is kind of awesome because you can sit on your couch, you can sit in your recliner, you can sit at your kitchen table and actually earn a living. The problem is that a lot of people just don't know how to go about it. They may think that they have to have certain really difficult skills but in fact the skills to earn money at home can probably be learned in less than two or three days. Now I want to start with some really simple ones to earn money from home. Now obviously if your skills are higher you can earn more money but these here are things that almost anybody can learn in a few days and be making money tomorrow. Now you also may be thinking that there's no market for this stuff but there is, believe me. Our company alone you know employs people from their homes and the Philippines and India and all these different places around the world to work for our company. So I know they're in demand because I actually pay these people. Now the first one is translation. People need translations. Now if you speak any language and English people need English translated into you know Filipino language into the Indian language into you know Spanish or whatever and there's a big market for that. You can go to websites like Upwork and just type in translation and you can find plenty of jobs there. You can go to PayScale. You can go to Glassdoor and you can see what this pays and you can just charge those rates. As you can see on the screen right now this is three different locations here. Zip recruiter is saying anywhere from $12 to $50 an hour. PayScale is saying anywhere from $13 to $41 an hour. Then Glassdoor has got a yearly income there of $32 to $73,000 a year. So there's your proof right now that you can make money. Number two is editing and proof reading. There's a lot of people who try to write in English but that may not be their native language. So since it's not their native language they need somebody to go through and clean that up. Make it sound right. Make it you know palatable for Americans so they can consume it in English. There's a big market for that. Now as you can see on the screen right here the amount of money a proofreader makes varies. It says here from my experience in interviews with other freelance proofreaders you can expect to make between $25 and $44 per hour as a proofreader. If you choose proofreading niche like proofreading court transcripts you can earn even more per hour. So the more targeted you get with this proofreading you know whether it's you know survival industry whether it is SEO related whether it is cooking whatever it is the more targeted you get the more the rate goes up. Now that doesn't mean you have to just target one area. If you've got four or five different niches that you want to target with your proofreading you can do that. The fact is so many people are writing emails and blogs and ads in English but it's not their native language that they really need help cleaning that up. Now number three is software testing. This requires some skills for you to do software testing. However you can get the skills. Now what I did is I found a course right here you can see it on the screen now software Q&A testing the complete course for $11.99. So if you want to do software testing from home you can go there and do that and you know this course here is $11.99 that's pretty darn cheap. It says here there are 2.5 hours of on-demand and 14 downloadable resources. So in two and a half hours you can learn how to do this. Now number four is landing or sales page designer and a lot of you may be thinking well I don't know how to do coding I don't know how to do these pages and I do all this stuff you don't even have to. But I will tell you this can you know people charge from a simple page for 25 bucks or one up to thousands of dollars to design these things. So these particular pages can make you a lot of money if you think about it even if you're charging $100 a page you know do four pages in a day that's 400 bucks, 4 times 5, 2,000 that's $8,000 a month. So you can make a lot of money doing these pages. Now if you don't know how to design these things I suggest you using some of the softwares that are readily available out there like ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is a great one you can do sales pages, landing pages you can use lead pages that's another great one for producing sales pages. My favorite actually is Cartra. Cartra has templates for everything. You go into Cartra and you know if you want a sales page an opt-in page whatever it is they have a template there you can just plug in your client's information and produce the page form. Now in the description below I will put a link to Cartra you can click the link and go watch a video on what Cartra does and that way you actually don't have to learn much at all because the template is already there and when you get Cartra it's going to help you make all these things so you can go out and market your services for sales pages or landing pages and use templates that are already pre-made. Now the link will show you a video and everything that Cartra does however it also will give you a discounted price on the software if you choose to opt-in to get the software you can do it for only $1 so that's pretty cheap. Number five is copywriting. Copywriting has become a huge industry and here's why because at this point every company now has to produce content that's what people want now they don't want to go to a site and just buy a product they want to read about the product they want to read about the industry they want to read about how to use these products so they need copywriters Now I pulled up this screen here on the last door and it shows the average copywriters making $58,465 a year and I will tell you that's not a bad income from staying home and you got to also factor in if you're working from home like I'm showing you how to do and all these different jobs you don't have to pay for transportation anymore you don't have to buy the clothes for the office anymore you don't have to buy your lunch out you can save a lot of money if you're actually working from home. Number six, video editor if you have any skills at all at editing and the truth is you can learn these skills nobody's born with video editing skills so any of these things where you're editing people's videos for them if you can make these videos a little bit better for them you can earn a good living How much does a video editor make says here, film and video editors earn average hourly wage of $28.97 Not bad I know people that charge a whole lot more typical salaries or between $14.77 and $56.82 per hour but understand you're doing this from home so you're cutting out a lot of expenses also I know a lot of video editors are charging $100 an hour and where do you do these? Well, you could use iMovie if you have a Mac computer that's a free program you can use you can use Adobe Premiere you can use Final Cut Pro that's a paid program but it's a really robust program you can do a lot with it I use Camtasia I like Camtasia a lot it's an awesome movie editing software but there's a lot of free ones out there too so you could initially start off doing editing with free softwares and then move on to one of these paid ones Number seven, photo editing now, photo editing is really important because nowadays people are really into it if you go to Instagram or Pinterest or whatever the photos have gotten really high quality a lot of these influencers are posting their photos but they're not that great so you could offer your services to these people what I would suggest you're doing is going to some of these people where you see the photos are not that good maybe there's a restaurant that's posted some pictures I would download those pictures I would edit them to make them look a lot better send them back to them and say hey, look what I did with your picture here would you like to hire me to make your pictures look better a restaurant has to make their food look really really good some of these influencers whether they're modeling or doing makeup or whatever they have to make those photos look really really good and they could use your services so I would show them up front what you can do send them a message and you're going to find that you'll get some clients now if you don't want to contact them directly you can go to a site like Upwork or Freelancer and just put your services up there and wait for people to contact you if you don't know how to edit photos no problem I would suggest you go to Peter McKinnon he has one of the biggest photo channels on YouTube you can go through and watch all of his videos he has courses also I'm not affiliated with it at all but I was amazed by his channel and how much you can learn on it for absolutely free number eight is a POD business POD is print on demand you can design your own t-shirts mugs hats whatever and put them on some of these sites you can put them on printify or printful and once you do that they actually drive the traffic to the site and you can sell your t-shirts you don't have to invest in inventory all you have to do is come up with a design you can do the design yourself you can hire somebody to do the designs most of these t-shirts don't have much design to them they're basically simple words on a shirt that make a statement if you're going to use one of these sites like Upwork or Freelancer or something like that I would suggest you getting as many ratings as soon as possible that you can and how you're going to do that if you don't have any jobs all you have to do is go in there and find jobs that are out there and maybe somebody has posted one for $50 and just contact them and say I need to get some good ratings I'll do your job for $5 I'll do it for $10 and basically your first few jobs are going to be absolutely free or just a few bucks and now you've got some examples of stuff that you can go file so that you can show other people and you've got some ratings it's really easy to get ratings that way just put forth the work first and you're going to get the ratings and then you'll get all the work you want afterwards have you tried to do some of these things what are you doing are you making some money from home right now I want to hear about it put it in the comments below if you have questions about any of these things or anything related to selling online please put it in the comments below don't forget I have a $97 e-commerce course that is absolutely free you can get it in the description below no credit card required just click and learn don't forget if you haven't done so subscribe to my channel there's a bell right next to the subscribe button you've got to hit it you've got to turn on all notifications that way you're part of the Fisher family and you'll be notified because you're a VIP every single time I do a new video and you won't miss a single one thank you so much for listening to this video and I'll see you in the next one there's a little bell right here so you can be notified every time I do a new video also click on one of those videos there keep watching on my channel


Minister of Communications and the Digital Economy Sopantami has said he is against attempts by the federal government to introduce a 5% excise duty on telecommunications services according to him the move would impact the sector and Nigerians negatively. He disclosed this while speaking in layers at the made-in-addition of the Nigerian Telecommunications Indigenous Content Expo organized by the Nigerian Office for Developing the Indigenous Telecommunications Sector. This is an agency done this out in the Nigerian Communications Commission. He said this on Monday. He also stated that the telecommunications sector already contributes a lot to the Nigerian economy and urged the government to consider taxing other sectors of the economy that were not contributing to the national development recently the federal government announced plans to implement a 5% excise duty on telecom services at the stakeholders forum on the implementation of excise duty on telecommunications services in Nigeria. Joining us this morning is Chike Ingberdi-Chea, a senior lecturer at the School of Media and Communications at Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos. Ms. Ingberdi-Chea, good morning to you. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for having me. Do you agree with, because I mean it's not a usual thing in the world but I mean it seems it's becoming more normal now to us in Nigeria of intergovernment, disagreement and confusion. But the ministers disagree with the federal government and do you agree with the reasons he's given and why he thinks this is a bad idea? Okay, first I think it's healthy in every government for peasants within that government to have a say in what happened in the administration. So we don't want a situation where everything the federal government says or comment from the executives or whatsoever should just be accepted hook, line and sinker. I think what the minister has said is very interesting and shows that at least to some extent there are peasants within the government that are beginning to think and then to see the significant impact of their policies and that the administration has really, really wrecked on people of Nigeria. It is shocking that at a time like this we would have a government imposing more tax and more tax on the very poor Nigerians. If you think about this critically you begin to wonder if this government is truly pro-people. I mean from their actions, from the policies and what they think about doing shows that they do not care so much about the welfare of the people in Nigeria. So I am in full support of the minister's position to go against the decision of the government to impose tax on the communication of the country, both voice and data, because there will be impact all across the economy. I mean, PMS has been increased, we know how much that has affected people and now they want to impose more tax, even if it's one percent or two or even five. It's going to affect some peasants. I mean let's come to terms and let's say the way it is there are massive, massive number of peasants living in poverty in this country. Imposing more tax is that going to take them off that poverty ladder or punch them further down the ladder? It's a question that the government would need to answer. You talked about it being healthy for a government official to air their views and to speak up and to be independent to say this is what I feel about government policy, which is good. But it seems there's a serious and worrying confusion in this current administration in the federal Republic of Nigeria and this is not the first time. We've had conflicting pieces of information being given by one agency or one head of a power state or ministry or department and then someone from another agency, ministry or department comes out to say, no, it's a different thing. And now, Panta May is saying he wasn't consulted. He wasn't invited to any meeting. And of course you remember that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who had herself previously said that they were going to give money to certain categories of Nigerians to help the cushioned effects of the COVID and then the economic recession on them. And later now did a U-turn when it was realized that that money to be given out was more than what the government said it was running short of. So she's now said that they will deduct this tax. Panta May as Minister of Communications and Digital Economy says he wasn't invited for any meeting, that no memo was sent to him, nothing. He doesn't know. And that his first issue with this is that before, like he says, before you make any decision, you have to invite stakeholders to make contributions. That's what he said. So what are your thoughts on this? You know the point is this government has shown time and again that they do not understand the act of governance. It's very simple. Even if you look at it from a family perspective, as small as a family, you cannot take a decision without consulting the people who are critical stakeholders in that particular instance. So it's even mind boggling to find out that the minister is making such a proposal on behalf of the government without consulting the minister directly responsible for the sector they want to impose more tax on. It tells you how disorganized, if you may, that the government has been right from the top and to the bottom. It's shocking. This is not the first time. This is not the second time. It's just appealing, appalling rather. In fact, we are not surprised because this is not the first time, as you've mentioned. Neither is it the second. Neither, in fact, would it even be the last? We hope this would be, but we just know that a government cannot run without having a synergy amongst themselves. I can't understand how the executives can solve issues. I mean, they've got meetings. If that's a proposal coming on, it shouldn't come out. At least they should have run that through with the minister responsible for communication and digital economy. I mean, they changed the name to minister for communication and digital economy. I mean, is this the best way to build the economy of a digital space to impose more tax? I am not surprised, Nigerians aren't surprised either, but we expect better from a government that claims that they really want to help move the country forward. To be fair to Ms. Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, this 5% excise duty has been in finance according to her. This 5% excise duty has been in the Finance Act 2020. If you remember, that was an issue. And of course, it received good coverage. She says it's been in the Finance Act 2020 since, but it just had not been implemented. And she said that the delay on its implementation was as a result of government's engagement with stakeholders. The same stakeholders that Mr. Meissi were not consulted. But anyway, I hope that they will reply to him so we know who is being on us here. So if this has already been in the law, then I mean maybe it's a cry too little, too late. What do you say? Yeah, yeah, if truly that's correct. I think the government needs to understand the times. I mean, it's not been long we had increase in the PMS. We haven't yet recovered from that. We know the price of commodities in the market. And now they want to impose this. There are timing for everything. Even if it's in the act and that they have the legal right to roll this out, the time is wrong. The time is absolutely wrong. People are suffering more. Absolutely. Yeah, if it did happen in 2020, they couldn't do it in 2020 because of COVID impact. And we haven't yet recovered from it. If we do the simple check to see how many persons are going down the poverty ladder from 2020 to date, the number isn't looking good. So even if the minister says that that's been approved long ago, it's in the act, it's just for them to roll it out, this is not the right time. Why didn't they do it before, I mean for a long time, kind of ago? So in every way you look at this, never a good time at all. Never a good time at all. And I always say, I mean, the simple point they would say is that they are doing this so they can increase the revenue of the government. But what happens to the jumbo and humongous packages that they receive? Can they cut that down? Are they still on strike? People are suffering. And our government making more money, enjoying themselves, leaving flashy lifestyle. So if we all must cut down, it should go across board. In fact, it should start from them. We know that our government is the most expensive in terms of their packages. Whether you want to look at it from the executive to the legislatures, the same thing. So much money is accrued to them, but the people should pay more. I mean, they wouldn't feel a 5% excise duty increase, but the masses would. So if she's making that point, the simple point is that this is not the right time because Nigerians are going down the economic ladder. All right, then you've already gotten to the next question I was about to ask, which is about the revenue government needs to generate. We have financial cash crunch in the public sector. Indeed, these are the words of the finance minister as represented at that event where the earlier announced that they're going to impact on this move. She says it's public knowledge that our revenue cannot run our financial obligations. And so we have to shift our attention to not all revenue. I mean, it's a case of the devil in deep blue sea. Between Nigeria's government shutting down, though we don't have the shutdown we see in the United States, but in terms of not being able to meet its financial obligations and nation grinding to a halt and paying an extra 5% excise duty, which brings the tax obligations or payment by the consumers. Because the telecoms operators saying they're not going to do anything about this, the consumers will pay. This is because they already paying 39 multiple taxes in the telecom sector. The operators are already paying 39 multiple taxes. So they're saying that the consumers will ultimately pay this extra 5%, which now will mean that you and I, apart from 7.5% VAT are paying 5% extra. But between the government shutting down or having difficulty in providing infrastructure services, paying salaries and all that, and actually running as a government and us paying this extra 5%, which will you choose? Government grinding to a halt or paying an extra 5% for phone calls and data? I think that offer shouldn't even be on the table, you know. Because so let's take it simple. The government spends so much to run their affairs. So, so much.  And these people get paid. They've all got so many, so many things around them. So, so many. So, and I hope they understand that this increase or these excise duty increase kind of, it's going to permeate into virtually all sectors of the economy. Because the hospital, every sector that uses data would have to make an increase. I mean, even down to the primary and secondary schools and even units, there will be an increase there. Hospitals, I mean, we use, I mean, hospitals use equipment and some of them use data. There will be an increase. So, however they want to look at it, there will be massive impact on the populace. But they have got to look into themselves, cut down, cut down on the, on the, on the excise and the wastages. We know how this country operates when it comes to corruption and excessive kind of payment, expenses, flying left, right, center. If they cut and close those leakages, I don't think we'll be, we'll be, we'll be placed on these, on this, on this point of picking between that and the other. Because, because truly, we've got to face it. If they want to increase, I mean, we've, we've had so much now and borrowed, and what we have can't even, can't even meet up to what we need to do. It can't even service our debt. It, it's very simple, very simple. I don't think truly that they really understand the act of taking care of a nation. If you, if you truly want to show the people that we are living in that time, it should start from you. You can't leave a fly live. You can't leave the way you want to leave. Your packages are being paid, and then you come up to tell people, we need to increase taxes here and there. It will finally come back on the people, and everyone would have to pay for it, just the same way we're paying now for the new increase in PMS. And that's it. Absolutely. So the minister knows better, but the point is that the government isn't sincere to us, you know, to ensuring that we are in this together. We are not in this together. The government is on a different line. And the people that are being governed on the other line, level of poverty, I repeat again in this country, is so much.  And it's appalling that they are thinking of increasing a 5% stop on voice and data. Shocking. Interesting. You've already also again gone on to what I was about to say, which is fantastic, the effect on the economy, you know, phone calls and data, you know, the citizens will use as customers, consumers of mobile telecommunications in Nigeria will have to pay more. You've said it will affect the economy negatively.  This data penetration and availability and, you know, the cost of data now going up, you know, you think it will affect the economy negatively in what ways you think it will affect the economy negatively. Let's look at data exclusively. And after that, you tell us how you think Nigerians should react or respond. I think it's clear. We use data and everything we're doing. In fact, our conversation right now, it's made possible due to data. And that's it. In schools, they use data. I mean primary schools even. Secondary schools, unions, hospitals, name it, the bank. Very soon we'll begin to get increased right now in service charges. Hopefully, I know, right? Because the bank will want to make profits. So for every monies, they invest in things just to provide services for you. The end users would have to pay for them. So by the time you check, I mean, almost everyone has a bank account. When they begin to take away 20 naira and increase it to 30 naira or 40 naira, who feels the crunch, you know, it's going to affect our economy and the people in this economy directly. Like I said, the government who roll out these policies don't get affected. Do they understand what it means to key up to get few? They don't because they get their fail. Some of them even in the government houses, you know, so they wouldn't understand the pain an average person is going through. And I think what we need to do as a people is to resist this. Even though we know it's gone far, but I think people should roll their voices out and speak against it. The minister has done so well to object it, to go against it. I think all we need to do is to put our voice there and support that and see where that takes us to. Because truly the government isn't there to lead people however they like. Certain people feel the crunch and we are the people who feel the crunch. They don't see they don't understand what is what is what is happening. Do they go to the markets to see the price of commodities there? For every day you go back to the market, prices increase. And now voice data increase. Now you know what that's going to happen, right? In fact, very soon you'd see the new term starts very soon. If this policy takes effect, you see an increase. Perhaps maybe a couple of thousands of Naira in some primary school tuition fees. And even the secondary schools because they would have to take care of these things. Parents would have to pay for it and it's going to be in all sectors of the economy. All sectors, absolutely. All right, we have to go but you've said it all. You've said it all and indeed seeing a minister of the federal government challenging a policy of the same government and questioning the methods of another minister makes you ask is the president really in control of his cabinet? Dr. Chike Imbaadichie is a senior lecturer, School of Media and Communications at the Pan-Atlantic University. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you Kofi, thank you for having me. All right, all right. And that's the size of our package today. We'll watch this space definitely and follow this story right here on the breakfast. For more you can follow us on social media on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at PlusTVAfrica on YouTube, PlusTVAfrica and PlusTVAfrica lifestyle. My name is Kofi Bertels. Good morning.


Hey everybody Welcome to culture hub. Thanks for coming out You're a part of a unique group of people. You're the first People to come in person to culture hub since the pandemic started in New York So we're really happy that you're here and it's very meaningful to see people back in this space So thank you I Want to thank Lamama Experimental Theatre Club and the Seoul Institute of the Arts Which are two founding partners and without them the Programming at culture hub wouldn't be possible and I also want to thank the New York City Artist Corps grants which are Revitalizing live performance around the city and and really helping us come back even in these still strange times It's been a great experience over the past few days getting to put this show together with the waves of gravity team and I hope you enjoy the show We are you'll get to meet everyone all the creative team at the end of the show We're gonna have a short Q&A We would love it if you stayed and ask any questions that you might have We're also live streaming out to Audiences online to sort of expand the reach so folks out online if you want to participate in that Q&A There's you can do so from the culture hub watch page There's a chat function built in and if you want to throw out any questions even during the show feel free If everyone can silence your cell phones if you haven't already Those of you at home can leave them on In case of an emergency we have two fire exits We actually have a fire exit to the back here and we also have the stairs, which you probably came up on the way in and As everyone is in the whole building is vaccinated So thank you for being vaccinated and but we're still going to ask you to remain masked You know covering your nose and mouth through the duration of the performance. I'm while you're here. We really appreciate it so Without further ado, I give you Neil more guy Hybridized Fused process of the coming. Do you remember being a kid? I do anybody It's all a blur to me I'm had a different pace back then For most people their childhood was isolated memories The moment you live in as a child is a much bigger percentage of all the moments you All your life you've just been a kid You don't have an experience of that larger Time cycle. I have this concept about the gravity of the moment That's right. You can increase the weight of the moment and you can make time slow down Just like an Einstein's theory of general relativity, you know that one. I do anybody Well, basically the faster you're moving the slower time goes and the more gravity there is the slower time goes This is true My poetic take on Einstein's theory is that if something serious is happening or you Consciously increase the gravity the weight of the moment through your focus sound and attention You can actually slow down your experience And those gravity moments in life stick out fun sad serious You know what I'm talking about when you're a kid and you're having fun time can go so quickly Right, but then if you have that heavy moment happen as a kid That's heavy man. It can be really slow It can feel much slower than even now when I'm trying to slow down Consciously Wapping time and space Fakely remember lying awake at night in our house in Westboro. Maybe being bored. I couldn't sleep. I Remember lying in bed and time moving really slowly And there's this girl named Belda. I didn't like her or anything It was just her name Belda and her name just kept going through my head Belda It was just kept going through my head and I was so bored I had these waves of boredom And it just took so long that time was just can I just go to sleep Belda, Belda, we had some boredom What if we could create waves of gravity like when two black holes collide? literally when two black holes collide an actual Wave of gravity is formed that changes the fabric of space and time Another night there was a moment where I remember lying in bed Maybe playing with my Star Wars figures It was a similar state of melancholy and I was thinking about death somehow. It was it was vague And my dad came into my room. He said, what are you doing? I said, I'm just thinking Said you're too young for that.  Stop thinking what happened just a few months later I was 12 years old. I got a call from the hospital. It was late at night My dad was still out playing tennis now. My mother worked at a hospital So I was surprised that they were asking for her They should have known that she was in India at that moment They asked for a neighbor who might be looking out for my brother and I moments later. I watched As he pulled into our driveway Walked up to the front door and that moment took forever And he told me that my father had passed from a heart attack Now I have these isolated images from him Some random memories certain ones stick out more than others. Oh And I have his LP collection the only media known to last and I have some of his mannerisms My family in India tell me that you know, I move like him.  Did he ever move like this? Did he ever move like this? Did he ever move like this? Like this Maybe I should stop thinking I wouldn't say that sitar was my music had become my calling It was calling me away from life as an engineering student That's right. I was studying civil engineering because it seemed like the most civil thing to do at the time classes Calculus chemistry physics electricity and magnetism That e-mag Didn't do too well. I had to do the remag Thankfully, I didn't have to do three mag Any other failed engineers here using my left brain in class and then my right brain outside of class Playing guitar writing my own music and working at the radio station where I hosted a show called continental drift And I learned about music from all over the world It wasn't until later that I learned to refuse those parts of my brain When I started about the science and mathematics of sound and music After I graduated from Georgia Tech, I went to India and I started studying sitar You have to start with the basics You start with sitting. That's right.  In fact, that's why they call it sitar No, that's not that's not But it's sitting is such an important part. You have to learn this discipline of just sitting and doing that one thing For a while and I haven't been all that disciplined. So that was hard for me These strings of the sitar can take a while to tune Sing back at you with these waves of harmonious overtone rich sound Do this one thing the Raga science years later Finishing my MFA thesis and I was thinking about concepts of the physics and metaphysics of music Questions about sound and time. Can we have sound without time? Can time exist outside of sound? Swimming and all these concepts MFA portfolio was due Cindy can I speak with Neil? Cindy Lauper I'm playing with Wycliffe on David Letterman tomorrow. We want us to talk player and I heard you might be the guy. Oh Yeah, yeah, I definitely Play some hip-hop beats. Have you ever done that before we need someone who has done that before.  I'm not union, but I'll join the union Oh, hold on. Hold on. Let me talk to my manager. Hold on. I'll join it. It's okay. Okay. You don't have to be union Okay, all right. I'm so excited to play with you. You wanted to tell me about the music See you tomorrow Okay. All right. That's cool. All right. We'll see you tomorrow. All right. That sounds good. Okay. This is good Our next guest is a Grammy award-winning musician whose new EP is entitled from the hut to the projects to the mansion We you want to chair? Can we get you a chair? I'm sorry. I didn't curtain me. You need a chair. You're right. Okay Where are my man he meant to be there? I don't know. That's where he's supposed to be That's right. I was meant to be there. That is where I was supposed But the best part, you know, the best part was when we in the commercial break We plugged in our instruments and Paul Schaefer and the band were jamming on this Bob Marley song that you all know And Paul gave me this look through his sunglasses. He broke down the band And I just started playing long I asked why for the after party was that Dave flew by Right there in four minutes of song I was the only sitar player ever to play It's true ask Paul Schaefer That's right, this is sitar he knew it he knew it. That's good. He was telling everybody else, too How's everybody doing? That's really good to hear because this show is not just about me But it's about you and me your focused Energy and attention create and shape the space. That's right. In fact, has anybody ever heard of entrainment? Entrainment. Yeah, what's entrainment? That's right. That's basically right entrainment is a physical Phenomenon applied to all waveforms Like-minded waveforms, they like to sync up. They like to come together If they're kind of close then the energy will bring them together to one to one thing That's entrainment. Have you ever seen people walking in NYC and their arms and legs just start moving naturally together in unison? Or let's see Or you're in great conversation with somebody and the ideas are flowing and you're on the same wavelength man or Oh, yeah, did you know that the earth and moon are entrained such that We only see one face of the moon as it travels around the earth every 28 days That's entertainment. I mean entrainment It's the process of like waveforms syncing together This drum is called DAF It's a great tool for entraining minds It's from Iran, from Persia. In fact, I wanted to go to Iran once I was in India traveling around I had a letter from Jalal Zulfunun, this very senior maestro of Persian music who had accompanied in dozens of concerts So then I went to the Iranian embassy to try to get a visa. I showed him my letter This won't work. You need a letter from your own embassy Okay, all right.  This guy took a long time to show up I was waiting there forever. I showed him the Jalal letter I said I just want to go to Iran and study The Iranians tell me that I need a letter from you guys in order to go to Iran What can we do? We don't need to show any such letters, especially now for the Iranians Oh man, that's harsh. Okay, so I go back to the Iranian embassy This time I brought my DAF. I was sure I could get this visa So I give them the letter again. I explain how I just want to go to Iran, study the music And imbibe the culture. It just wasn't working So in a flash of genius, I pulled out my DAF and started playing Our eternal time signatures. Arts in the room What I really wanted to do right now is tell you about this This special vocal style that we are all singing all the time We just don't know it. We're not aware of it We can't always hear these different dimensions of our own voices Or in the voices of others Judicious attention to the mathematically aligned infinite musical harmonics The universe of overtones inside all waveforms, all sounds Like right here, right now, the magic of the sitara sound is in the juwari That's the bridge that gives life to the sound That buzz you here, infinite in number, the life of the party And now with the voice, just gonna hum. That's the best way to dampen the overtones Overtones revealed. The reverb. It's just me, the microphone, and all of you My handy dandy overtone warp tunnel right here That's right. These concentric rings that you see represent different pitches, different frequencies So you can actually see in living color the universe of sounds If you do this, if you sing, well first let me tell you That our voices contain all these other dimensions We just have to learn to pull back the curtain a little bit Now you don't have to ask how you do this, Neil You have to ask, why do you do this, Neil? That's because why, very slowly, is U-O-I-A-E And sweeps up through the overtones You can see in my overtone warp tunnel, little secret That last little bit, primordial sound, you can get four distinct overtones It's so therapeutic to make the Y sound If you do this 20 times in a row with deep breaths in between, I guarantee you'll feel transformed So remember that when you go home and practice in the bathroom No really, I used to walk around New York City looking for the most reverby, echoey spaces I could find Stairwells, the subway The train would come by and the brakes would be screeching I would be singing at the top of my lungs, but nobody could hear me Anybody else? Anybody else do that? Yes, okay, alright, alright, we're like-minded people here I've worked with these sounds for 20 years And I found a lot of comfort and support in discovering these tones within the tones, the overtones Living in that sound, the pure sound, is a healing experience I made a song about the creation of the universe It's a kids song, I've written a lot of them over the years But this one is my first time, I wanted to make it simple, about the sound, that's the one And how that sound created the universe and the galaxy and the stars and planets and all of us Because we're all made from the same stardust This is the concept of the Big Bang, the sound that created the universe How do you tell that story to a child? First there was the sound I'm teaching it to my two-year-old daughter Lila She's so inspired by all things space She asks to see the moon every night, she knows the names of the planets in order She wants to know about the galaxies I think I did something right there, but I was actually a much younger man In a different space and time And I did not realize it then, but perhaps I wrote this story for my first daughter, Rihanna Shortly after she was born, Rihanna passed After only a few days of being on this planet This was almost 20 years ago Rihanna was here for such a short time But she had such a huge impact on my life How can those few days of space and time feel so much longer than the days themselves? How can one person's life have so many ripples and waves throughout my much longer life? Losing a loved one is one of the heaviest moments you can go through And yet time just keeps marching on I learned lots about music and played hundreds of gigs Learned how to cook like a champ Had long rafting trips through the Grand Canyon I even got my MFA in interdisciplinary arts and learned how to mix it all up And I have to get real for talking about the black holes here My partner Jessica Who had such a zest for life and was so connected to earth and nature Jessica, she too passed It's hard to hear and even harder to say But she was in a lot of pain And she took her own life It was 10 years later that it only just started the process of trying to pull back See the larger picture, like an astronomer through a telescope Searching for the big cycles of time On the small things you can see without a telescope Don't make sense But since then I have been making my own path forward And choosing to move on in time Through healing and sound and music and community With Brooklyn Raga Massive Anybody know it? I thought so We literally started our weekly jam session the month after Jessica passed It's been an ongoing music therapy A place to experiment with new ideas Be with friends And also create space for other performers and lovers of Raga music Today we've been trying to slow down Feel the gravity of each moment But time is going to catch up with us Just like making improvisational music We don't know how it will end until it's over First there was that First there was that First there was the sound First there was the sound First there was the sound First there was the sound First there was the sound From that sound Was made from that See them from First there was the sound First there was the First there was the sound First there was the sound First there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first there was the sound, first Now time has moved on. Since I was born, I'm in a new space in time. And teaching this song to my daughter, Leela, makes me so happy. First there was the sound First there was the sound First there was the sound First there was the sound Everybody sing First there was the sound You guys still with me? Time for the last song I know We want this time to last forever But you know time moves on And it's time for the last song I'm gonna do a little tuning A little setting up here We've seen all our great director Maybe I was sad inside I'm not sure, but it made them sad So I wanted to sing an upbeat song A song about having been scared of hope Having any hope at all I started to worry During the better times of lightness And joy, that oh no There's another black hole just waiting around the corner So I've been afraid of hope But I hope for hope Hope is a thing worth hoping for But right now today I am here with you And I wonder is getting together In a room full of people again During COVID a form of hope I'm excited to make this It's a story telling a form of hope It's making music a form of hope Let's hope another word for healing I'm gonna do a quick Q&A Or a brief Q&A in a moment So you can stretch if you need to People on the ground Okay, anybody here Have a question Or a comment Or anything for Neil or Seema or me This is Neil Merguy, he didn't introduce himself So Neil Merguy And Seema Lisa Pandia Who did art and video And then my name is McCall I'm the director, so anybody? So what was it like to work as husband And wife as a question? With a baby? I'm not going to realize here right now So this whole week we could just work together And it's great We've been working together On and off over the years And she's been part of helping me Develop this whole thing As I Been working with my looping And expanded that To include video Video looping as well as audio looping And producing this kind of psychedelic Live stream With sounds and visuals And then we used some of Seema's artwork And then I thought Well, I'm already doing The making the music And mixing the audio and the video I'm just not doing enough here So then we added the theatrical element I would say that You know the We both are artists At our own right and I found that the videos Actually came as being inspired By Neal's work So they have evolved together And but I'd say working On this show in particular It was nice to have McColl As like kind of our pivot point So it's like oh I want Neal to do this I'm not going to nag him I'm just going to tell the director To tell him that So that helped working together Yeah and there was a lot Of these intimate stories That McColl and And I You know we mined my MFA And you know just My mind and picked out stories From my life but actually that was Kind of that was part of the process That I couldn't work with Seema too much on It was like just too close To personal those harder stories But I've known McColl For 25 years or so So you know She's very familiar Oh this doesn't work but I'm pretty Okay I was just saying have you tried Or attempted using your music Intentionally for therapeutic purposes Like maybe with communities When you were in India or even if you were here That Yeah definitely I participated In kind of I mean concerts are healing too But then there's a certain more intentional Kind of sound healing Space that I've definitely Been active in And not in India yet I'd like to do that And also during the pandemic Over zoom a little bit too Doing this whole like you know Visual part Over zoom with kids And school kids and adults And schools has also been very Empowering but Definitely want to do more of that And it's part of ceremonies too Definitely anybody else yes The platform you mean About the stage The platform if it was for acoustic reasons I think it sounds better to be higher For sure but also the presentation You know presentation It was a little higher than I would have liked But these are these great Great things that they have I think it does change the sound for sure But you know there's so many speakers around too That You know it's better to be raised for sure Yeah Thank you Happy to take Any questions Also I don't know if we're monitoring The chat but if anybody Online also has any questions No Yes using Ableton Live To loop the audio And in conjunction With VDMX which is a VGA software to do the Video so There were times when I was controlling The video and Other times where you know they were controlling SEMA's videos From the back and when I was controlling It yeah I have like MIDI Keys set to start Looping in Ableton and in VDMX At the same time and then I can run All these effects on the videos And audio of course too And then you know Mix and match the video and audio Through both of those softwares together I haven't seen too Many people actually try to do video looping And audio looping at the same time This might not be working Is it working? Try it again Here My question is In your process of Creation How much of what you're creating is like I have an idea and I'm going to figure Out how to make it With these tools and how much of it is I have these tools like what can I do With them Actually this has all been like A pandemic project And at the beginning Of the pandemic I'd already had this kind of looping Practice that I'd used different Starting with a boss pedal And then expanding to this app Called loopy on an iPad And then at the beginning of the Pandemic I was like okay let's go To Ableton and do the real thing And because I knew it was just so much More sophisticated But then at that time I had the vision For the video And to do that In conjunction And I was just like exploring so many Different softwares to see how to do it So I definitely had the vision First to try to do that But then along the way It's like oh what can I do now What can I do now? Like that I have a question for Nicole Which is just how it was To work with somebody That you know you've had Long friendship with and to be able To extract This story Which I think Is I think you did a beautiful Job at really bringing that Story together and You know not telling Neil's full journey But certainly like pulling out These moments that came together In such a beautiful way and I'm Just curious what that process Was like Well we agreed that Well I read Neil's I'm a faith thesis More than 200 pages So I read a thesis Which was about as he speaks about In the show like how you know Connecting like sound And actually Space and time And so it's like some of it I didn't understand But actually in his thesis he also writes very personally And like had made a lot of connections Between things that Have happened in his life And these High concept ideas and I think that's pretty cool And so sort of At first everything was on the table But then it's also like this is a person This is Neil's life you know So I'm not trying to put something On stage that Neil doesn't want So really you know Neil sort of led The process in terms of like you know we I said these are really interesting to me These stories that are in the thesis Neil and I have had conversations and I was like I remember having this conversation with you that was interesting Can we put some of that in there you know So Some of that was like basically conversations With Neil but also I think like every step of the way I was like Don't put something out there That you don't want to put out there Just you know There's no like pushing to put something Out there and whatever you want to put out Is because it's part of your story And you're at a place where you Are able to put those stories out there Is that true do you feel that way Yeah I will just add that You know when I approached McColl you know I was developing This whole sound Visual experience and I was like Wow I need to put a story To that and I've really been wanting to Work with McColl for a long time So he called her up and then It was her I was like I don't know what the story is I just know there's some story And it was her suggesting well It should be your story And not some other story So that's I didn't like intent To tell my story when we started this A couple months ago but That's the way it is And it's been great to work with her And of course Sema makes all these Beautiful pieces of art With tabla heads and Is animated some of those things Into the videos that you saw here So it's a family It's a family affair Yes My favorite part of the show was When you were making like sounds And The video behind you was like Interacting and it was closing in on you Or expanding based on the Why you know But then it's like Can you like talk about what that was Like what were we seeing And why was it reacting that way And then Sema like Since you were creating These shapes and The visuals How did the sound And what that was informed What you were making And does that backdrop also have anything To do with that Well first about the backdrop So I have a whole series Of artwork that's based off Of used tabla heads And for me it's about You know the embodiment of rhythm And rhythm and Repetition and sound And sound waves being This force of the universe As Neil put so eloquently Over the last hour But this form I use in a lot of my artwork And a lot of the visuals that you saw Also on the Screen are kind of based off Of these mushroom shapes that are Based off of Two sine waves kind of Facing each other so One sine wave and another sine wave So it almost creates Almost like Self-referential feedbacks If one could say that And so I would say I had A lot of the visuals that you saw Were based off of stills of the artwork Sculptures And drawings and things that I have But then It wasn't enough to I think say oh this is really cool I just want to put it up you know It's going to be cool you know Like the visuals At least my intention in making them Was to be an aide in the storytelling That Neil was doing so You know I think certain choices like In the piece that you're talking about Where he's doing a lot of the overtone singing You know the round piece Actually really matches the The overtone warp tunnel which is Kind of incidental But it worked really well But it's also like you know Kind of that really slow moving Visual that's not going to Interfere with the music But it's something that's there to Aide in the feeling and not like To overtake the music and I think That was kind of like the Choice in a lot of them And maybe just one more quick Thing is that You know in the idea of Feedback you know you saw a lot Of visual feedback you know Of Neil and things like that You know feedback Being an interesting mathematical Phenomena that creates fractals In sound and visuals And things and so even some of the Background videos were Based off of fractals That we created by Taking a camera Facing it into the computer And getting a visual Feedback so and seeing just What came up in the chaos That we recorded and then using Some of that as like the background Footage along with NASA stuff so So yeah There was also some video Feedback in the last scene where You could see my arm when it had Like 20 arms and stuff yeah that was All visual feedback but you were Asking about the overtone warp Tunnel that's um it's Frequency Basically FFT Basically you can you know You get the audio Information and you can see like On a graph the Frequency But this was like a radial One so I took that And I added you know different effects To it and colors to it To create that that's Yeah specific audio reactive thing To travel through the warp tunnel To get to these other destinations Yeah Satya Your personal process of sharing Your story like this It's you know I didn't set out to do this Necessarily um But it feels good you know it's I don't always talk About About it I feel like I talk About it a lot but Seema says no you never Talk about it about the kind Of the darker things right you know losing You know having The loss um So it feels good it feels Like a natural evolution you know And you know I'm literally Am doing The healing work and playing the music After telling the story I'm doing it I've been doing it and I'm doing it Even more on the stage here And with all your help and Hopefully it's a group kind of healing Experience all right I think yeah I think that's great thank you all For being here all right Stick around I'm happy to talk to everybody And get some drinks if anybody wants To get some drinks with us


Welcome to the value of Bitcoin Conference.  This is not about stealing, this is trying to perform a policy on the difficult circumstances. The key point that I wanted to discuss today is the idea that Bitcoin currently serves as the only working alternative to central banks. The event is perfect and it's very interesting and I really like the clash of opinions. In the end the free market hopefully can decide which kind of money is basically the best money. Have a great evening.