Saturday, October 30, 2004
More on Guitar Lessons in Sarasota/Venice
Back to teaching lessons Yesterday. Now I remember what I missed. Nothing more satisfying than giving somebody new information they can use. Yeah, I know, I did that for a living for 34 years and retired. Do I miss it? Yes and no. In classroom teaching you seldom get direct feedback. You have to remind the students that they didn't know something before you taught them. They admit it grudgingly sometimes or not at all. They often forget years later that you had anything to do with it. That just goes with the territory. So it's unbelievably uplifting on those occasions when an old student gets back to you and lets you know you did something useful for them.Teaching guitar, especially to songwriters like my student Jim, is almost instant gratification. We work on things he can do to improve his song, he does it, he leaves smiling and returns for more. I think one thing I can add to that service is recording demos and duplicating them for him to use. Another new service brought to you by...
I've nearly come to a decision to buy the equipment to duplicate my own CD's. This would make it easier for me to distribute my product and to create new products in the form of EP's I can use as various rewards. Also it would be a handy service for my guitar students who are interested in distributing their own music.
If Osama Bin Laden's recent appearance and interjection into this election actually has an effect on it either way, what might we expect next? American advertising agencies will offer him clandestine contracts to make videos endorsing or not endorsing their products? Record companies will get him to publish his own top 40? He will be offered an unofficial secret cabinet post by the winning side?
posted by Bud @ 1:53 PM
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Friday, October 29, 2004
Free Music Lessons in Sarasota, Earn Money Too
Getting useful feedback on the CD clips I posted on my web site. Starting to see trends that I won't tip off just yet as I know many people are still ruminating about entering the contest.I agreed to become the organizer of the Sarasota Musicians Meetup group. I have high hopes for turning this into a group of people who can help each other find gigs and sell CD's. The power of numbers can be harnessed here. We need to find some venues and someone who will work toward finding them and getting us booked in them. I'm thinking an initial pooled investment to advertise for a part time position. Or a couple of part timers. They would work for percentages of gigs and unlimited free music lessons.
I'm going to be seeking some older students who want free guitar lessons in return for an internship with me. They would have to have good personalities and good appearance. They would sell my CD at gigs, collect e-mail addresses at gigs and help with promotion. This is also an idea I would urge members of my group to employ.
Doing more business than music lately. Friday is a music day. Teaching lessons too.
posted by Bud @ 7:07 AM
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Ashlee, Eminem, Emotional Civil War
Another good recording session with Mark last night. Two songs to go and this CD is ready for mastering and printing.I don't think much of Ashlee Simpson's game but I really hate to see performers beat up so badly. Performing is difficult enough without having to endure the criticism of legions of people whose only talent is to criticize other people. She couldn't be further from what I do but if I can forgive certain loved ones from voting the way they do, I can cut this young chica some slack. If her fans like her, who cares? I don't and I don't.
Eminem is actually an easier target but I have to extend my "be nice to hard working performers" policy to even this wannabe ghetto youth. It's hard for old white guys to understand the message of a baggy pants grabbing his crotch as some sort of exclamation point but as long as he gets some actual ghetto youths to vote, that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. The first amendment guarantees our right to make a video of ourselves touching our privates for emphasis while screaming barely intelligible lyrics into a microphone. I'll defend that right to the death. Especially if it gets some people to vote even though their registration cards may be ripped up by you know who. If they try and lose, they have a few years to show their outrage, hopefully by filling out the card completely and voicing their opinions at the next polling opportunity.
About half of us are going to have to live with an election result we won't like after next week. I think we need to start practicing now to contain either our gloating or our intense anger. Mathematically, every other person you meet is going to feel the opposite way you do. So we all have to suck it up or risk a civil war of the emotions. Emotional turmoil leads to good art and I think we're in for a lot of that no matter who wins because nobody will have a clear mandate. Art is way better than blowing yourself up to make a point.
posted by Bud @ 1:58 PM
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Long Gray Line of Florida Voters and Fooling the Fat Gremlins
We voted early yesterday. Florida is one of those vote early states. The logic being, I suppose that if you couldn't get it right in one day, now you have about 15 of them to screw it up, manipulate it and hand it to your brother. I've heard some people complaining that this election might be decided by the legions of lawyers who are watching the polls and monitoring the various already reported registering/voting irregularities. Not sure this is a bad thing as long as it comes out on the side of the people who are getting turned away, having their registration cards shredded, or having their vote lost in the Dibold cyberspace. The lines were nearly an hour long. It was a long gray line. Mostly retired folks, that is. Poll workers said it has been that way every day since polls opened last week. I wonder if that means there will be a huge turnout when it's all over. Or if retired folks just have nothing else to do during the day. This is Florida, however, and I have no confidence the vote will be counted accurately or fairly. That's all I'll say on the subject, however, as I promised myself not to get political in this Blog. Or Religious, which these days is the same thing. Oops.Lots of hits on my web site yesterday to take advantage of my free CD giveaway contest. Still time to get in on that. Click the flashing icon on the left of this page or click here. Got some nice comments. Even from people I don't know. Education never stops. Haven't heard from the nun community yet, though. If such a thing still exists.
Report from diet central: it seems you can get away with taking one day a week off from the diet exercise dungeon. My weight did not go up with the eat fest of Sunday and the lack of cardio exercise yesterday. I think the fat gremlins in my body got faked out. Just when they thought they were in hog heaven again they got zapped with a 1100 calorie day, an hour of yoga and an intense bike ride with my heart in the fat burning zone for the better part of an hour. So that's my newest strategy. Keep the little fat cell cretins guessing.
posted by Bud @ 7:19 AM
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Monday, October 25, 2004
Lebanese Smoothies and the Zen of Singing
Dinner last night at Bonefish Grill with Mark and Nancy. Delayed birthday dinner for Cathy and Nancy. Really fun banter.Nancy: Yeah, there's a Lebanese restaurant there and they have falafel and smoothies.
Mark: I'm not sure the smoothies are Lebanese though.
Bud: Yeah I don't think they have ice in Lebanon. Only sand.
Mark: Yeah, I'll have a Strawberry Sandy, please.
The night went on and on like that. Fun time and I ate way too much. But, as always, that was instructive. Social situations tend to make me forget about my food limits. Unless I heavily gird my resistance ahead of time. Two consecutive out of control eating weekends can make me swell up like a herniated sausage. Not an attractive look on a short guy.
Will redo some vocals today after Yoga. If I get this yogic concentration while singing thing down, I could teach a course at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck. Bree once took a course there called the Zen of Tennis so why not? Cathy is talking more and more about renting a house in Rhinebeck for July. Itâ's worth a shot.
posted by Bud @ 9:36 AM
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Sunday, October 24, 2004
Nun Song
Last night we went to a local Venice Little Theater production of Nunsense. My penning of the song Sr. Mary Confusing should have been fair warning to those I went with that I might have serious issues with the subject matter of this play. Still, I went with an open mind. I was immediately creeped out by the sight of nuns doing their scary nun thing while singing, dancing and hinting at various ribald jokes. I was surprised I was so creeped out. The performances were very strong. Terrific cast. I was, however, restraining myself from bolting. I politely clapped in all the appropriate places. That left this morning's one hour bike sprint onto Venice Island and back for heavy self analysis...It's not that every nun (and priest) I ever had in 17 years of Catholic school was horrible. There are a few I have fond memories of. But that didn't make them any less scary. My kindergarten nun was Sr. Mary Magdalene. She was a sweet grandmother type but I, nevertheless, cried about halfway through the first day. Had I been aware at age 5 the significance of the name of Jesus' lover juxtaposed on this old lady, I'm not sure I would have felt all that much better. The next three or four nuns I had in Philadelphia and South Jersey scared the bejesus out of me. I know they didn't always mean to. But often they did. They certainly planted the seeds for my later rejection of organized religion. It was in third grade in South Jersey that I was told by my piano teacher nun that I was too stupid to learn music. She later became my sixth grade nun. It was around this time I developed a nervous stomach that didn't go away until eighth grade. That nun was very sweet to me but no less crazy scary as she slapped the living crap out of the biggest guy in the room on a regular basis. The high school nuns were a mixed bag of sweet but totally inept teachers and frothing mad nasty ladies who I realized later were trapped in a hopelessly frustrating life style. One of them told me straight out that I couldn't sing. Yes, Sister. Thank you for your candor, Sister. May you suffocate in your wimple, Sister.
I even taught in a catholic elementary school in New York for three years while I got my masters degree in teaching. I'm grateful to the nun who hired me more than she could ever know. She was sweet. She saw something in me and gave me a shot. A few of the nuns on that faculty were also very nice to me. By this time, nuns were wearing dresses cut just below the knee and showing some hair and forearm. They were more like actual people. I also had a marvelous sister-in-law who was for a short time a nun. As it turns out nearly all of the nuns during this period, those that I liked the most, dropped out of the convent and resumed normal if not emotionally scarred lives.
So I certainly forgive these ladies who terrorized me and stifled my development and gave me bad dreams and serious doubts about myself. They were the products of an institution I have no good feelings for. It's hard sometimes to separate the institution from the people but I can and I do. I love hundreds of people whose beliefs I abhor. I just don't want to see singing, dancing, wisecracking nuns cavorting on stage as if that institution did nothing damaging to me. And many others, I should imagine. It was too much like watching Springtime For Hitler.
posted by Bud @ 9:08 AM
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Saturday, October 23, 2004
Young Artist as an Old Guy
Does a butterfly ever wonder what it is and how it looks? Does a gorilla sit and ponder what a bad ass he must look like? Do schooling minnows say to each other, â"Yo, get your fins back in line so we can look like a big fish!" Do flowers converse with bees about how seductive they look?Self awareness can be a serious problem for the artist, I think. I'm forced to concentrate, lately on identifying not only what genre my music fits into but who it appeals to and how it makes them feel. This is called marketing. I guess plants and animals do marketing on a more subtle basis. For me, though, it feels crass. Nevertheless, this project has to at least pay for itself or I can't afford to express myself. Already in too deep financially. I know I appeal to some people so I might as well find out who and where they are so I can give them more.
Butterfly: Yo, check me out! You think all this delicate color flickering gently on the breeze is cool? Wait till I lay some eggs, bro. Yeah, thatâ"I'll do some serious milkweed damage but have you ever seen a whole flock of me? I'm talkin' some serious waves of undulating color.
Gorilla: I'm bad! Check out this forehead. You can't get a more threatening forehead than that. You'd have to have a forehead like the grill of a '72 Cadillac to look this mean. Check these biceps, man. I ain't even flexin'. I flex, you gonna run away. You gonna hide in the exotic bird exhibit for the rest of the day.
Flower: You can't resist me, honey. You want a date?
Okay as long as it's so natural, I have to ask everybody I know to check out my music and let me know what they think. You could win a free CD and I could learn to make more of the same or get back in the studio and figure something else out.
posted by Bud @ 8:55 AM
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