The idea for the project came from a personal frustration. Kazokas explained that when he started his second year of study at the UT, he started learning the drums. However, one year in, he noticed his progress slowing down. ‘It was still fun, but I didn’t know what I was doing.’ With the aim of getting more motivated again, he started looking for a teacher, but found only professional teachers, all outside of his price range and many only available in Dutch. ‘I knew there are plenty of other student musicians out there who could teach me a thing or two, but those are difficult to find if you don’t know the right people.’
Forwarding Tikkies
These frustrations came up when following an entrepreneurship course for his study, and during this course the first ideas were developed for a platform that could connect musicians so they can create and collaborate and learn from each other. Thus, the idea for Note-Bridge was born. ‘I bumped into someone at Vrijhof and started talking to him about the idea, and he was interested and that’s how I found my first teacher for the platform,’ Kazokas says. Then at a different event he found an interested student, so he just linked them to each other. ‘At that point we had no website or automation yet, so for the first half year I spent a lot of time simply forwarding Tikkies.’
Kazokas then heard from a friend that he might be able to get some Computer Science students to help him automate the process, by seeing if it could be part of the project of their fourth module. He pitched the app and got six groups working on his project. Some were so enthusiastic they continued working on it after the project ended. Together with the teaching assistant of the course and some of the Computer Science students they developed a website, where people around Enschede could offer and receive cheap music lessons from each other. ‘We were working on it all summer, while also participating in the UT Challenge, getting different milestones, starting posting on Instagram...’
Talking to a thousand students
On the side, Kazokas was also still trying to finish up his study and doing his part-time job. Until four months ago, when their new website went live. ‘Now that my days of forwarding Tikkies were over, I was looking for a new challenge to help me grow Note-Bridge, which is how I started challenging myself to talk to a thousand people.’ He also documented this process on the Instagram using reels. ‘In the beginning I was quite scared talking to people. This one day I just started drinking from 12, to give myself some courage.’ After speaking to around six hundred people he got over his shyness, and his goal of talking to a thousand people is now reached.
Enschede as starting base
So far, it seems to be effective in getting the word out. ‘Recently I walked up to some students to talk to them about music and they were like: ‘No way, are you from Note-Bridge’, Kazokas recalls. ‘We still have a long way to go now that we’re growing a little bit, but I’m excited for it.’ In the future he hopes to make his platform also available outside of Enschede, creating a national or even global music community. But for now, Kazokas is happy with Enschede as his starting base. ‘I don’t think there could be a more ideal place. Here we can try connecting people from the UT and the city, breaking the barrier with ArtEz for example. This way, I hope to make music more accessible for everyone. Not everyone wants to learn music at a high level. For most it is just a hobby. This way, we are hoping to help those people get a bit better.’
The start-up is also trying to create events, so people can meet and connect in person. This evening, in cooperation with the UTmost big band, people can try out instruments from 18:00 – 19:00, and then there will be a jam session from 19:30. ‘We’ll have microphones, drums, a piano, and a bar from the Vestingbar, so I think it’ll be a nice eventing,’ says Kazokas. If this event is a success they hope to do something similar again in September.
