Diversity is proving a definite plus for Taupō musician Matthew Paull.

He heads back to Germany on June 2, “fingers crossed” after two cancelled flights, to resume life as a professional musician – while keeping an eye on streaming figures for his new side hustle as a composer of online piano pieces.

Paull, who completed a Bachelor of Music at Auckland University in jazz piano performance but also plays drums, guitar and dabbles in trombone and other brass, moved to Berlin in early 2016.

“Up until last year was basically a life of playing gigs with various bands, mostly keyboard, onstage with pop groups, rock bands, rap groups and jazz…

“I enjoy that stuff even though I studied jazz religiously for four years, I still really enjoy playing all those different types of music. It was pretty much my dream the whole time.”

Early aspirations didn’t involve composing – they were performance-based.

“And that actually did happen. In 2019, we went on a tour with something like 16 shows on a big tour bus, playing to crowds of 500-1000 people… That was with a German-speaking folk group, so it was very different.”

A full schedule of bookings for 2020 to return to after his usual end of year visit to family in New Zealand “obviously didn’t happen”.

“I was going to have this really cool summer in Germany playing some big shows with a pop artist.”

But from the ashes of a Covid-19 lockdown – in fact in lockdown for one piece – came an inspiration to write solo piano music again.

“It’s something I had experimented with when I was younger and during my studies, but I hadn’t done a lot of it.”

After his first release, Dreamboat, a meeting with a record label in Berlin resulted in a contract to produce more neo-classical piano pieces – though the production pressure was not too onerous.

“It’s only piano music, it’s not like writing a pop song, I’m not writing for an orchestra.”

Sliding into some large Spotify playlists had been key for second and third compositions, Homecoming and Muriwai, to hit their streaming straps, he said.

Together they get heard between 50,000 to 80,000 times a day, with Homecoming now tipping 2 million streams total.

“You have in your head we can release 10 tracks, and then we might start breaking in… but then just one morning after I released it the second song got into the biggest Spotify piano playlist. It was a very pleasant surprise for sure.”

As an earner though, figures involve some guesswork.

“From what I hear, you don’t really know until you get that first pay cheque. There’s no standard set of rules but… something like 4000 euros for a million streams.” (Around NZ$6500-$7000).

Paull is excited his third song is also proving popular.

“I was thinking it could just be a flash in the pan… Once you get these multiple songs in there it starts to build up a really nice return hopefully.

“But I only get paid out biannually so let’s see what happens.”

Credit:Stuff.co.nz