Here in Arizona this is our busiest season. I have a day job as a Registered Investment Advisor so this is a double whammy! I am just practicing all my various instruments and learning new songs. I have had six concerts rescheduled. My advice is try to reschedule cancelled gigs immediately instead of just cancelling them. Take some advice from a very seasoned vet. This will end and there may be pent up demand. Call your clients and make plans for the future.
Thanks for the tip. Way to be proactive.
Also, this may be a good time to make repairs to equipment you could not do without.
Thanks for digging into the online gigging options.
Chet posted:
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4) Exploring on-line gigging options (all gigs cancelled for now).
Any help with #4 would be GREATLY appreciated!
What I've learned so far is:
A friend of mine tried Next Music Festival yesterday. The interface is very 'busy' and clunky, it's HEAVILY inundated with ads and seems game oriented with "music" as a add-on. Hard to use, hard to access.
My friend did some 'concerts' on Periscope -- I'm going to suggest that we revisit that platform.
I was in a Zoom meeting yesterday and it worked quite well. It's an option for invitation only "concerts" for up to 49 people (gallery mode) if people behave themselves (mute their audio) and give donations on another platform such as paypal it's an OK option. And it's only $15 a month for "meetings" longer than 40 minutes.
Meantime, as a 75 year old cardiac case, I'm completely self-quarantined for now...but still HEALTHY...gotta' walk around the farm more though...
Does anybody have more ideas or experience with online gigging options?
As a legend in my spare time, I'm still working full-time. But, my part-time acoustic group (The Windbags) is going to hold an online gig on April 3rd to take the place of our actual gig that was cancelled. I'm looking forward to giving that a whack!
My job is starting a 50/50 (week on/week off) schedule this week, so I'll be catching up on finishing up our demo music video, AV projects at church (video system and AV network upgrades), prep'ing new songs on the band "learn list", working on the band lighting setup, taking some guitars in for setup/repair and, of course, yardwork
Jeff
Please tell us about your demo music video. How are you producing that?
How professional does it have to be?
What kinds of venues are most receptive to or willing to hire because you have a demo music video?
What's on your "learn list"?
Jeff K posted:
Stay healthy, Chet. My CF daughter (and our cajon player) is in the same at-risk boat. If the 1918 flu epidemic treatment plan was any indication, they found that getting plenty of fresh air and sunshine really *was* beneficial in prevention and treatment, even to the point that they moved many ICU patients outside whenever possible to successfully aid the recovery of many. With many of us in a reduced work status, we should all take some of that time to "walk around the farm more", for both our physical AND mental well-being
Jeff
Good thought. I normally workout indoors, but it's supposed to hit 57 degrees and be sunny today (warmest day so far this year). It should be a good day to exercise my arms and push the chair away from the desk (and the computer). A walk sounds like a great idea.
She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO) and I were instructed to work from home. That resulted in the generation of a list of things that I need to do - e.g. install new smoke/CO detectors, paint a room etc etc.
I will get around to those. Eventually! Meanwhile I fixed the kitchen faucet and the light in the cold room ... so the list is held at bay. For now!
It's great to take pleasure in these kinds of accomplishments.
Last evening I discovered that the MetOpera is streaming some opera for free over the next few days. Today I watched a beautiful production of Carmen (Elina Garanca as Carmen and Robert Alagna as Don Jose) (IMHO one of the best operas). I plan to watch a few more - they are streaming one a day.
Hey, thanks for the tip. I found it here - The Met Opera
This evening I got in 10,000 steps in one walk ... which is a nice achievement. Bonus was that this walk was with SWMBO!
Oh and I can now work on some new cover songs that I have in my 'pipeline'.
What are you working on these days?
Over time we'll all figure out a new routine I guess. Stay safe all ... and keep smiling.
Over the years I have retired a lot of equipment made obsolete by my Bose gear. I did some excavation in the garage and uncovered some of my heavy guitar gear and a bunch of stuff I should have rented. Of course, if you're a traditionalist, there is no obsolete guitar gear. It's vintage.
I set up tube amps, power amps, guitar cabs and indulged some old-school guitar crazy (in stereo).
Some of you may remember I normally run my Kemper Profiling Amp through my L1/F1/S1 depending on the gig. Kemper players usually run direct to FRFR (Full Range Flat Response) Front of House systems with full-range stage monitors, but some like to use guitar cabs for on-stage monitoring. I haven't run guitar cabs on-stage with the Kemper. I like to travel light, and why bother when things sound great through the L1 behind me.
I've been experimenting and making a lot of noise and having a ball.
Fortunately, I'm not like a young performer I know who started recording and live-casting her solo shows from her apartment. Her neighbours asked her to stop. As she put it, "Everybody's home now."
I’m learning and incorporating more jazz standards like How High The Moon into our folks/light rock/country repertoire. Trying to figure out how to improvise over How High the Moon when it changes keys every two measures ??
What are you doing with your extra time these days?
I was looking for something here and a surprising reminder of the way we were popped up. Check out this discussion. Recording is fundamentally wrong...
And it was another warm day here. It's easy to do social distancing on this path.
Wonderful images ST these are <****> times for all of us, I hope you are using your extra, enforced, "time off" to increase your happiness and wellbeing (mine is oscillating wildly between 'ok' and 'pretty low' just now and I apologise if I have impacted on yours over the last several months)
Having spent the weekend closing down my caravan (holiday home/trailer in US English?). My wife and I are both in a 'higher risk' category, being in our mid 60's and with 'health conditions' so are self isolating until C19 abates. I'm planning to spend time in my home studio becoming a better player and, finally, getting some decent recordings done, along with sorting out the workshop, doing various jobs around the house and garden and trying to remain sane. We are much better off than many as we are in a position to weather the financial storm, for a while at least, so are not too worried from that POV but, amongst the stupid, selfish and occasionally nasty things people are doing there are plenty of examples of human kindness and empathy. Maybe our society will come out of this a nicer place to be...........
Edit: Forum-Admin changed an <<idiomatic/colloquial expression>> that may be questionable for some readers -- please see our Terms of Use link at the bottom of every page.
In the Chicago area, St Patrick’s Day began my involuntary vacation from my day-job. Gigs started getting canceled a bit earlier on Leap Year.
So far, my next gig isn’t until the first week of May. Let’s hope prom doesn’t get canceled, too.
Most of my time since then has been watching the news, having two heart attacks per day, canceling subscriptions, hugging my kids n wife, smoking 2 joints in the morning, paying the bill on the storage locker and insurance, cleaning my mic grills, smoking beef on my Weber grill, rocking karaoke, cleaning my cables, greasing the bearings on my hand cart, playing xbox, smoking a bowl or two or three or 420, chin ups, going for walks, quit drinking alcohol, kept ripping the bong, writing music, practicing guitar, piano, bass, and the egg shaker, wrestling with jimmy, and ultimately just not freaking out while looking at my 2020 calendar. You know... same ol’ same ol’.
