A musical journey in the digital age
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good evening everyone my name is joel
sonny
and i am a violinist and an online video
creator
firstly i want to thank psg college for
inviting me to present at this wonderful
tedx event
i want you all to imagine something you
post a video of yourself
doing something that you love on youtube
and then the next morning you wake up to
see yourself on the front page
and you see your name and you see your
face
next to a million views
and then you actually wake up now this
was a dream that i had in high school
and i went to school that day quite
annoyed that i was woken up from such a
perfect dream
but today i’m here to tell you how i
turn that dream
into a reality except the only
difference is
that it wasn’t overnight and instead of
one million views
currently my music has been heard and
seen
by over 25 million people around the
world now let me tell you a bit about
myself
i was born in south india in a place
called kerala
and i was brought up in england and now
i live
in sydney australia now i had an amazing
grandfather
who happened to be an incredibly
talented violinist
and he really liked being in front of
the camera
in fact this is the very picture of him
that made me want to pick up the violin
and here is a picture of me practicing
the violin
after a few days of lessons now i had
around one and a half years worth of
violin lessons
from my lovely violin teacher caroline
and
since then i’ve been playing on my own
for around eight years
and i play everything by it i also
learned a lot about
music from my older brother who taught
me how to play the piano
in fact we grew up together playing in
church
and why am i telling you all of this
well essentially
if you want to find out where to start
pursuing your dreams
you have to find out what you are
passionate about
mine just happened to be music i believe
that taking the first step
is the most important thing when it
comes to succeeding in
anything so high school was where i met
my good friend
william and william was the person who
encouraged me to start my youtube
channel
and by encourage i mean annoy me every
day
for two weeks until i made one so i
finally gave in
and on a random day in 2016
i upload my first cover now i was hoping
this cover
would blow up but of course that didn’t
happen
and it ended up getting 50 views and two
comments
one of which was from my mom what i
learned from this process
of taking that first step was that i
really enjoyed
making videos and sharing my talent with
others
so i would then continue to make videos
and post them online
on and off for about three years i
wasn’t taking it too seriously
and i wasn’t getting many views but i
was enjoying
every second of it except one aspect
which was my main obstacle the
discouragement
now unlike what you may think this
discouragement did not come from people
online
but surprisingly it came from people i
knew in person
people who i would call friends and this
is the ugly side
of taking that first step towards your
dreams not everybody is going to support
you
and unfortunately this fear of what
others may think and say about
us is what often prevents us from even
trying
to take that step in the first place now
these comments from the people i knew
hurt me at first and was even quite
humiliating
at times but if you want to come with me
to the next step which i’m going to talk
about
you must with everything in you ignore
them
and keep moving forward so the next step
is when opportunity meets preparation
now let me take you back to 2020 only
for a second
i promise let’s go back to the time
when the lockdowns first began i
remember it being such a horrible time
for everyone people were hoarding toilet
paper
people couldn’t see their loved ones and
most of all
we were all isolated and disconnected
more than ever before
but at times like this i’m extremely
grateful for social media
because what i saw was a massive surge
of creativity
in musicians everywhere and you’d expect
nothing less from musicians who are
trapped in their homes 24 7.
and something else that we saw was that
everyone was consuming online content at
a greater rate than before
due to the need to be uplifted and
entertained
so around this time me and my friend
marcus were already filming
music video covers around sydney and at
night time
so that nobody was outside i remember us
filming and uploading
this one video that i was very proud of
but it didn’t end up getting
that many views and normally this would
not concern me too much
but then came those people who would
make fun of me
and they would say things like joel
nobody wants to watch your videos
you’re not cool enough and so on
and they’d basically try everything they
could to discourage me
but this time it did get to me a little
bit and
i was so close to deleting all my videos
and closing my channel all together
because for the first time i had felt
like a failure and i began to ask myself
why was i even doing any of this lucky
for me i didn’t do that
and instead exactly one month after
those people had said those things
i upload the video that would then
change
everything for me now currently this
video sits at around
2.5 million views on youtube
and my channel has been growing ever
since
and these same people who were once
making jokes about me
were now the ones saying congratulations
but more important than
any of those things was the astounding
response that i got from people
around the world i got many comments and
messages telling me that my music
had helped them with their anxiety their
depression
panic attacks and even help people get
to sleep
and there was one comment that stood out
to me and it was basically
this person who had a heart problem
and their doctor or cardiologist
recommended my video to them to lower
their anxiety
and blood pressure so in the end i got
much more than i dreamt of
which was a million views but i also got
to help people
and make their days a little bit better
so to conclude
the first step is the most important
step
we often wait for the perfect day to
start something
and in today’s age we always dream of
being
an overnight success or getting
something
without much friction or obstacles but
the reality is
that making a step towards your dream
right now
is the only way that you can learn and
grow
so that you’re prepared for the success
that is ultimately
coming your way and as the old chinese
proverb goes
a journey of a thousand miles starts
with the first step
i’d like to finish off by playing a
little song for you all and
this cover happens to be the one that
changed everything for me
back in 2020 and with that being said
thank you all for listening to my ted
talk
and i really hope you enjoy the rest of
this event
god bless
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me
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