Music educator Rick Beato just returned from his most ambitious European tour yet — six cities in two weeks — but what he's discovered about music education and guitar manufacturing might matter more than the shows themselves. Through factory tours at legendary microphone and guitar builders, and conversations with engineers who've shaped modern recording, Beato uncovers something unexpected: the roots of his teaching philosophy trace back to a public school system in upstate New York that provided instruments for every student.", ## The Tour That Almost Didn't Happen
Beato played Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, London, and Dublin over two weeks. Each show ran nearly two hours, with the final thirty minutes requiring him to pick up his guitar — a challenge he faced without warming up.
"That was really difficult," Beato admitted. "An hour and a half into the shows, I'd have to play with no warmup. So I'd be like, 'Okay, I'm going to warm up.' And then I would play."
Only in Dublin did things change: he sat at the keyboard, improvised, warmed up properly, and actually looked cool on stage. That show featured an unexpected addition — someone threw fog onto the stage during his performance, creating a dramatic effect despite his production manager Mike's objections.
"The guy didn't listen to Mike," Beato laughed. "But I thought the pictures looked pretty cool."
Factory Tours and Interviews
Between shows, Beato visited several facilities that revealed how professional audio equipment actually gets made.
In Berlin, he toured Noyman Microphones' factory, including their anechoic chamber — a wire-net suspended room filled with sound-deadening material so quiet it can make people go crazy. The tour covered microphone design, polar patterns, frequency response measurements, and spectrographic analysis.
"They showed me how they use microphones to measure the polar patterns and the frequency response of the microphones and how they rotate things," Beato explained. "It's fascinating. I think you'll really like it and I love microphone design — Noyman is kings of this."
In Stockholm, he visited Strandberg Guitars' headquarters for a tour with friend Ola Strandberg, capturing footage he hadn't documented before despite having visited previously.
"I told Ola, 'Next time I come up, I'll do a video there.' So I did a video with Ola," Beato said."
In Helsinki, the day before his show, he toured Neural DSP's factory, meeting Doug who runs the company and started DarkGlass before founding Neural. The facility showcased engineers and designers working on digital signal processing.
"Doug's invited me there for years. He's like, 'Next time you're in Finland.' And I was like, 'Doug, when am I ever going to be in Finland?' Of course," Beato laughed. "And then that was great."
London and Abbey Road
In London, he visited Abbey Road the day before his show and interviewed Ken Scott — one of the most famous recording engineers in history, who worked with the Beatles, Elton John, David Bowie, George Harrison, and countless others.
"He's one of the most famous engineers ever," Beato said."
He also interviewed Andy Edwards, a YouTuber and musician, during that stop. All these videos will be released over the coming month.
The Origins of Music Education
Beato discussed his background in education during his live shows — specifically how growing up in upstate New York shaped his views on music education.
"I think it's incredibly important," he said. "And for those not fortunate enough to have a school in a small town in upstate New York that has 11 full-time faculty and they have everyone has a private lesson every week. Everyone has their own instrument that the school provides them. Including people like myself when I played the bass. I had a bass at home and at school — if you played large instruments, they did that."
He recalled retrieving his old high school transcript while getting inducted into the Fairport Music Hall of Fame in Rochester. He discovered he had taken a music theory course his senior year that he couldn't remember doing.
"I think I don't remember doing it because I was taking lessons outside of school at the same time," he said. "And having that time, one of the reasons why I even thought to audition for music school is because I was hanging out in the music department all the time."
The BATbook and Ear Training Courses
Beato promoted his two flagship courses — the BATbook interactive and his ear training course — currently available for $99 total, which locks in pricing before planned updates and a major overhaul coming in December.
The BATbook began as a handwritten 325-page book he used while teaching at Ithaca College in the late 1980s. It evolved into chord grids with dots representing finger positions, allowing students to learn arpeggios and fingering patterns visually rather than through standard notation.
"My book has tab now," Beato explained. "So I would have to write all those things out and it was very difficult for the students to learn them. So then I was like, okay, I'm going to make dots, chord grids with dots."
When he started his YouTube channel in 2016, he digitized the book into a PDF, eventually expanding to 500 pages with updated examples and video course components covering scales, chord progressions, and music theory fundamentals.
The ear training course developed from teaching his son Dylan and students without perfect pitch. It builds relative pitch through intervals — starting with seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, then progressing to identifying major versus minor chords, diminished and augmented voicings, and complex chord extensions like add9 or add4.
"Being able to recognize that that's a minor 9 arpeggio by ear is incredibly important," Beato said. "It's also important if you hear the chord like this — that would be a minor add9 as a chord voicing, right?"
Both courses are available through Friday at the locked-in price of $99.
Favorite Cities
Among the six cities visited, Oslo and Helsinki stood out as the most meaningful new experiences.
"I think I liked all the cities," Beato said. "The two cities I had never been to were Oslo and Helsinki. And I had only been to Dublin once, but it was 20-something years ago. So seeing those two cities was really cool."
"Seeing those two cities was really cool."", "counterpoints": "Critics might note that Beato's promotion of his courses during a tour recap feels less like a travelogue and more like extended advertising — the educational content about music education background, while interesting, serves primarily to sell $99 course packages. Additionally, his factory tours and interviews are presented as coming attractions rather than completed reporting, leaving readers with promises rather than finished coverage.", "bottom_line": "This piece succeeds in showing how a musician's European tour reveals unexpected connections between manufacturing, education history, and personal philosophy. The strongest content involves the Noyman Microphones factory tour and Beato's own educational background — both genuinely insightful. The vulnerability is structural: the promotional material interrupts the narrative flow repeatedly, making the article feel like it was adapted from a sales pitch rather than journalism. For listeners wanting to understand what actually happens in professional microphone manufacturing or how music education shaped a career, this delivers. For those seeking pure tour coverage, it's less satisfying.