Elliott Jeffries: A Musician with Dreams

I have not posted in awhile, there was a problem with my time and the value of writing a blog. Now I’m overwhelmed by tasks and maybe a blog will help me get organized. I have today off and will try to put time to some of these current projects:

Work on “Tiger” song.

Work on “Cruel Summer” for cdbaby song contest.

Watch work videos of class for my day job.

Practice songs for Prince band workshop.

Dig up backyard.

Fix stairwell light.

Redo caulk on stairs.

Redo caulk on bathtub.

Fix water damage holes on kitchen ceiling.

Organize garage, take things to dump.

Call dad to let him know were visiting Saturday.

There is a whole category on fixing house problems, these are lower priority and subsequently never get worked on.

My next least favorite is watching the work videos, they are 90 minutes each with additional coursework of about 30 minutes. 

The most interesting project is the “Cruel Summer” song, the beginning of making a song is always the most energetic part. So far I’ve worked on the intro and the verse.

The easiest is practicing for the Prince band workshop, six songs so far and I know them pretty well.

My “Tiger” song is coming along but I don’t feel like working on it for some reason, even though it would be the last song for my EP. I have been burned out with problems and concerns, just need to force this one out. If Dr. Wayne Dyer could hear that, he might shake his head while rolling over in his grave.

Wayne Dyer is on my list of people who are misleading even though we could all benefit from his message of being empathetic. He says to be happy, do what comes naturally and easily, ignoring that most of us have to spend a great deal of time putting out fires. Did he realize that he could also be speaking to drug addicts, criminals or any other type of people whose behavior is detrimental? I saw him on PBS giving a talk to mostly well off looking white people and felt his message was somewhat exclusive. However, I admit that I have not read his work and may be missing something. 

Anyways, for today and this week, I will attempt to apply time management.

Sunday:

8:30 to 12pm - Watch work videos and complete course work

12pm to 1pm - Lunch

1pm to 2pm - work on yard, shower

3pm to 4pm - practice Prince songs

4pm to 5pm - work on “Cruel Summer”

5pm to 6pm - work on Tiger

6pm to 7pm - Dinner

7pm to 8pm - call dad, get ready for next day: clean up, pack shipments, etc

Following my recent band workshop experience of practicing regularly with a consistent number of sets, I made some videos for Guitar Center's Songwriter 5 contest. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpZ7bKhPz1o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aqAHq_E5tg

Not really a new practice technique, just something I haven't been very disciplined about applying to my own songs. I posted the videos and notified my virtual acquaintances on social media. The contest rules recommend having buzz, clicks and votes. One thing I took away from the online marketing course I took a few months ago was that you only need 80% finished to launch something. For a perfectionist like me, this is welcome news! My videos were not perfect but they were at least 80% good  enough.

I recorded them in my garage, using sound recorded on both the camera and laptop, then mixing them together for a live sounding effect. One  track didn't sound right mixed with the camera sound so I used the computer recording but then I had two tracks with slightly different sounding production. I let it go because I'm trying to remove perfectionism from the equation. I also figured out how to copy plug in settings from one project to another in Reaper, a good technique to know for consistency. 

Another thing I discovered was my video backdrop hanging in front of the garage door was probably not the best place for it. I recently destroyed two sections of it on separate occasions when the garage door opened. Once I opened it without paying attention, and once my wife opened it from the outside. Before last month, I had not changed it for several years and used the same wrinkled section over and over until now. When I finally changed it to a new section, it gets destroyed twice! I got a few hits to my videos and did a little more promotion by messaging facebook and email contacts directly. It's funny when I talk to my mom about the internet; she thinks going viral is simply a matter of posting something and it will go viral automatically. I see how someone can get that impression by the large amount of views some youtube videos get.  How a lame video can do so well is beyond my understanding, it's like some mysterious secret everyone knows except me. Or I'm frightfully out of touch like my old man and don't have a clue what's going on. The important thing is I got my videos up and now I can move on. My plan is also using the videos for a craigslist ad and  get other musicians to play with. Many of the craigslist musician ads have little information and some will only send you a link to their music after you reply. With links,  I'm able to hear immediately whether it's my kind of music, nobody's wasting time this way. I always give some links to my music when I reply but so far I've I never heard back. Probably for the best, at least that's what I tell myself.

Most of our attention is on the instrument, amplifier and technique while ignoring the smaller part of the equation: the lowly guitar pick. These cheap little pieces of plastic don’t get the attention they deserve. My quest for the perfect pick started when I got my new guitar.

I ordered my PRS Custom 24 online because I played one in a store and thought it was great. I was replacing my broken Les Paul Epiphone and was curious about PRS. I found out a lot about guitars after this purchase because this was not an easy transition. Learning is a good thing ultimately, but it can be frustrating.

The first thing I learned was this guitar was set up with light gauge strings. The second thing I learned was that changing the gauge meant setting it up again because a luthier would have to widen the nut slots for thicker strings. Since I had been using regular strings, my 1mm pick was now too heavy for this lighter gauge.

I found out my pick was too heavy when I had tuning issues in the band workshop. Sean said the pick was bending the strings and sounding too hard. A softer attack with a different pick fixed the problem but the lighter pick was more flexible than I was used to. I found a medium pick I could adjust to but it wasn’t perfect, rhythm and lead is more sensitive to pick gauges on lighter strings.

Changing the string gauge was not an option because I was experiencing fretting hand problems. The workshop involved more chording and there was less time for practicing my scales. My hand was going tingly and numb from the new regimen, I didn’t want to exacerbate it by increasing the string thickness. At my age I have to start doing things more lightly.

When the workshop ended, I went back to practicing scales sequences and found my new pick was now too floppy. I ordered the next gauge up and it was too stiff for rhythm. I bought an assortment of picks and found some that were close but left me wanting. Thus began my search for the Holy Grail of guitar picks.

For regular gauge strings playing rock/metal, a heavier pick is the norm. Lead with a heavy pick is faster because of how the pick pushes through the strings in directional picking and more accuracy in alternate picking. Rock rhythm is mostly power chords, rock strumming and palm muting. Doing this on lighter strings is a challenge for me but I found out a lot of guitarists do use lighter strings. 

A thick pick on light strings must involve a lighter playing style and I briefly tried that in some of the workshop sessions. I daintily strummed for a softer sound and found too many dynamics for me to control when not striking the strings properly. I heard one technique is using different picks for rhythm and lead. Great for some people but I’ll keep looking for now.

The other factor is string breakage when playing a thicker pick on light strings. The shape affects how the strings are hit, a sharper point has more articulation. Maybe a thicker pick would be viable if I found the right shape and held it at the right angle. In any case, it’s apparent the perfect pick may also be a compromise in style but at least I’ll be closer to where I’m trying to go.

I ordered various packs of picks at different gauges, finding no more comprehensive assorted packages so now I’m building my own small collection. I’m getting closer to the ideal, zeroing in on the 60mm to 73mm range. The strange thing is that thickness is not the same as stiffness, material is important. A 73mm nylon will feel softer than a 60mm derlin. 

I’ve gotten back into recording since the band disbanded. There was an opportunity for another gig but Sean couldn’t do it. He’s a pro for God’s sake, but I had to ask anyways. Sort of regrettable we never had a student bassist but there were some other weak links anyways, so probably for the best. The whole workshop experience was like going on a date and then afterwards, nobody calls the other back.

Now my attention is on a plug in suite called Soundtoys 5. I downloaded a demo of version 4 last month and the trial expired today. Quite miraculously, the new version was just now released and I was able to activate another demo on that! I’ve only lately been able to get into it more because now I don’t have to spend all my time rehearsing.

I first heard of it when the great Steve Hillage mentioned it on twitter. I barely use twitter but I happened to notice a link to an interview when I was doing one of my occasional twitter welfare checks. He talked about how challenging it was to get the delay right for live shows and now he uses Echoboy. I checked it out and saw it was a plug in from Soundtoys.

After I got it going in Reaper, I heard how impressive it was. Not only just echo/delay but also re-verb, chorus, and some guitar and bass enhancements. There were a lot of presets and tweak ability, on top of that more plug ins! Filters, various sound destruction and other enhancers, some hard to describe. On the surface, it looks like too much for someone who likes things simple.

Fortunately the presets make it easy to explore and I found all these plug ins really help make your recordings sound commercially produced. The price is a factor at $499 (though not much different from $495 for the old version) and the new version has more plug ins. I’ve been spending so much money on music equipment lately that I’ve become weary of reaching for my wallet.

But once I heard what they did to my music, it was like I was hooked. It’s hard to go back when you hear how much better your music production can sound. Tone is the elusive factor, so subtle yet so obvious and the plug ins give you everything a high end studio has. As I wearily pulled out my wallet for the old version, fate stepped in and gave me an extension with the new release, how serendipitous is that?

I did send an email to  Blue Bear with ideas for improving the turnout for shows. There are some positive things that can be done if the communication is improved. Most of the work is incumbent on the students but I feel they need a little more guidance and inspiration from the school. 

I'm not exactly innocent in this matter. I’m a little shy about promoting events because I'm so stingy about my own time. It just feels wrong asking people to see a show when it's probably unlikely I would go myself, haha! Then there was the factor that this was an amateur performance, even though our band was still good enough to be enjoyable. I printed up some flyers to post at work and made a general announcement the day before the show but this was pretty much last minute. The flyers slowed down my roll out. I didn't print them up until the weekend before and I forgot to bring them to work the first day of the week. I told myself that at least people knew about the show (even if they couldn't go) and most people at work don't live in the city anyway. What surprised me most about performing is how much spontaneous energy there is in playing live. I don't remember much about my last performance (which was also at Blue Bear) other than I was there. But this time I felt like my playing came alive even though my stage presence was stiff and nervous. I realized how crucial it was to have an audience and experience the transcendent sensation of creating a moment with everyone in the room. I wrote an email to Sean about the ideas I had and he referred me to a staff member. I felt that performing is 50% of the class experience and we had been putting 90% of our energy into rehearsing instead of trying to build an audience. We still need to put the same amount of energy into practicing but there is a lot more that we could do in promoting. My point was that the students would take a more active role in marketing themselves with direction and motivation from Blue Bear. Also the venue should be in a more accessible place on a different night or we could go to where people are rather than making them come to us. The staff member replied in detail about the difficulties achieving some of these goals. That's why the audience is entirely dependent on band members bringing people to the show. I replied that the school could give the students an encouraging guide for promoting. I outlined a strategy to send a weekly email newsletter to the bands, describing things to do in sequence like picking a band name, making a simple website, placing free ads and etc. 

As far as venues go, the tech industry has been gentrifying the musical scene in San Francisco by driving up real estate and causing some places to go away. But there are still bars with stages for bands, maybe some restaurants or coffee shops could be considered too. 

We did a great show, it is awesome to finally play on a stage. There wasn’t much room to move around because cables were everywhere so I stood in place mostly. But the room was big and it expanded our sound. Then there was the excitement of having an audience made everyone play good.

It wasn’t much of an audience, I only got one person to go myself. He was from work and I was so grateful someone showed up. Our singer brought in the most people. There were probably 10 to 15 people total and the lights prevented me from seeing them. 

I tuned up before mostly every song since I’ve been having tuning issues with my guitar. My amp sounded harsher than I liked, I wish there was the luxury of tweaking it. I guess amps sound different turned up. I could hear myself when I was in front of it but not if I moved away. 

The harshness was from balancing the tone in the rehearsal space to but I could have taken out some brightness on stage. I hope the audience didn’t suffer too much, maybe it’s best there weren’t too many of them!

Having an audience really adds to a player’s ability. I had never considered this before since most practicing is behind closed doors. You are trying harder to impress so there are less mistakes and more passion when you are trying engage and connect.

I did make a couple mistakes, mostly on my song nemesis  “Peace, Love and Understanding” but they were minor. My solo’s were all good and “Into the Sun” went off well except for the harshness on the rhythm guitar. Even the problematic “Brass in Pocket” sounded good, probably because of doubling down on tuning. 

We gave Sean a goodbye card with cash, we all felt good about the class. I drank three martinis and hung out with Zalman for the rest of the bands. I was drunk enough to be a little social and network a bit. I exchanged cards with a drummer I liked and congratulated some players on their performances. 

I called in sick the next day because I stilled smelled of alcohol. The thing I thought about most was how to get people to a show? It is too hard to get strangers to see you because everyone is more busy than ever. Most of the people you know won’t go and I can’t even be bothered myself!

All the technology today is keeping everyone at home so the only solution for an unknown band would be to ride on another band’s coat tails or go play where there are already lots of people. Festivals or parties would a couple examples. I think Blue Bear should rethink their strategy of solely relying on band members to figure out how to bring the audience or at least give some direction.

I tried to bring a little promotion into our class but it was hard to get everyone on board. There was no discussion about strategies from Blue Bear other than tell your family and friends. But getting an audience to play for is 50 percent of the equation! 

Maybe it’s an uphill battle, most musicians seem unconcerned when it comes to the more serious side of music. I remember the last two times I auditioned for bands a few years ago and the other players seemed offended when I brought up the topic of charts. Of course, these are the musicians that will never go anywhere and I’m not trying to lump Blue Bear with those guys.

Things are coming together as our premiere approaches. I wouldn’t say it’s the best it could be but it’s better than it has been. It’s an intense class for me because I’m trying to wring out the most benefit I can.

Still there’s only so many hours in a day but the good news is that I don’t have to spend more than an hour practicing our set. I’ve already put in enough time learning the songs, some of them even turned out to be quite easy.

“Gold on the Ceiling” is easy for me to remember though it does have some tricky licks. Here’s our version from last practice.

https://soundcloud.com/elliott-jeffries/gold-on-the-ceiling-cover

The other major music events in my life are how much money I’ve been spending on music equipment and I’m not done! After my major guitar purchase I had to upgrade my amp. That meant new tubes which is a story in itself.

Little did I realize the cost of tubes amps, I only knew they are supposed to sound the best. Next time I’m getting a solid state but I have to admit I’ve learned some useful things about tubes. The first thing is that you have to bias new tubes.

After many hours of research and deciding to bias them myself instead of paying a tech to do it for $80, I got a cheap multi meter. It burned out somewhere when I was checking my live amp and there was no accessible fuse replacement. Then I realized you don’t really need a meter, you can do it by looking, listening and feeling.

If the tube glow too brightly and the amp gets too hot then turn down the potentiometer and vice versa. All I needed was the location to adjust it and I could of saved many hours trying figure this stuff out. This is an example of techs over complicating simple tasks but I understand the need for documenting the process.

My digital recorder died because I left a battery inside for too long without using it and I decided to buy a replacement. I want to record our band workshop rehearsals; I was inspired by our vocalist who recorded us with her smartphone which came out good except I was too far back in the mix. 

Then there are other miscellaneous accessories, it’s all adding up but I need gear! The sad thing is that recouping the cost seems impossible and I’ve got nothing to show for it than I have an expensive hobby. Even making paintings is cheaper than this! 

I’m a little frustrated about how hard it is to make money with music and the having living expenses. At least I don’t take drugs or have some other silly spending habit but I don’t talk to my wife about gear, software and production costs. It has become irrational but I can’t stop. 

Like usual, I exaggerated my suspicions and paranoia for no apparent reason other than I'm sometimes overly anxious. We've played "Into the Sun" on two nights since my last blog. The first night was naturally rough but I was more concerned that it was going to happen at all. The second night we slowed a down a bit at my request and tried to make it a little more funky. As I feared, the drums were going to be trickier than the other instruments but only because some people DON'T PRACTICE. No matter how complicated a song (within reason) you can still learn parts by dedicating a bit of time. Our leader got everyone pointed in the same direction and we hopped right “Into the Sun”. Since my role is primary I just do the song that I've been practicing and hope everyone follows along. Our singer gave me some nice harmonies on the chorus, an unexpected and delightful benefit. Singing it gave me some strange looks, I'm still try to find my voice. The vocals I posted on my rough recording are an octave lower than what I'm attempting in class. Occasionally I can feel my voice coming in with the proper tone when I can get the right breath and relaxation. Let's just say I haven't got any compliments yet but I think it's getting there. I'm still not feeling much rapport with the group, their response to emails is tepid. Our assignment last week was to decide what next week's new song would be. We had one list posted by the drummer and I picked some songs and the other guitarist picked one song.  Our singer responded a few days later and there was one song that showed up on almost everyone's list; Bebe Le Strange. I emailed everyone if they were OK to go with this one and got no response. I emailed Sean and told him that it wasn't confirmed but it looked like Bebe Le Strange was a go based on my speculation. In the meantime I got busy learning the song because I knew what was going to happen next and I wasn't waiting any longer. Sean finally got back to me the following Wednesday saying he'd charted it. Even though there was no official consensus, I knew we were getting into the song that evening. There wasn't too much problem for me since I'd been practicing it and I'm carrying a lot of the songs, at least in the beginning. I'm happy to do it because it’s great experience but I'm not at the level Sean is. He can step into any song seamlessly on short notice. Our singer is great too, she also has that talent for not needing to over practice, unlike myself.

I had a really good day practicing today. My normal routine consists of going through scales and exercises but not much in the way of songs. This workshop has me focused on playing songs rather than exercises.

We have a really interesting set list so far. Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”. Who would’ve thought this could be a great hybrid metal/pop song? My group doesn’t know it yet but when I propose doing a Led Zeppelin/Van Halen version like the one of I’ve been practicing , they might come around.

It’s the riff in the very beginning, just change the attitude slightly and you can see it!

I got into a bit of a debate about the arrangement our band leader gave us for the Pretender’s “Brass in the Pocket”. I felt he left out a part of the pre-chorus section but he insisted he didn’t.

I found exactly what was missing and sent him a polite email with links to my sources even though he’s defensive about this kind of thing. Sean prides himself on figuring out songs by ear but I’m just saying, why do extra work when someone has already done it?

And if you make a mistake transcribing something, so what? It’s not like anyone’s keeping “score”.

Our vocalist suggested canceling a song that I had been practicing last weekend. She said it wasn’t in the correct key and of course, this issue could be easily addressed by changing the key. 

There was an undercurrent of  women vs men in song choice; the complaint was partly about  not having enough songs by women even though she suggested the very same songs by men in the beginning!

Our second guitarist is not very confident about his playing. He has an excellent sense of humor and I’m hoping he can play bass instead. We need a bassist because our bassist never showed. 

The drummer has only been playing for two years and he’s also taking an additional band workshop. I hope he’s not to busy to practice, but I’m wondering because his tempo is inconsistent.

I’m not the greatest guitarist  either, learning on new song under pressure in a group makes any weakness even more apparent. We had had some messy, incomprehensible playing figuring out last weeks addition to our song list but I always make up by studying the song on my own time afterwards. 

Here’s a link to my video of “Brass in my Pocket” I made to get Sean’s approval before presenting it to the rest of the band.

Last week was a little scatterbrained, sorting through the clutter of what I want to do and what I’m able to do. Being capable of doing several things reasonably well requires discipline and time management, not easy traits for us emotional and impulsive creative types. 

Art requires passion, expressing emotion, trusting your intuition and spiritual impulses. Anyone can live life this way if they’re brave enough. We get trapped in limited mindsets that stifle our true selves by the obligations thrust upon us by our choices and circumstances.

The successful seem to be either very disciplined, uncompromising spiritual or a combination of both. May we all be fortunate to develop these qualities, more lives would have purpose. But we are mostly simple humans, bobbing along in the ocean and taking on whatever comes our way. 

The stage of my journey has now entered a new phase. It’s a 10 week project with other people to perform a show, more commonly known as a band workshop. Working with others creates a bigger sense of urgency than working by yourself. I’m putting my other music and art projects on hold because of the focus needed to face the upcoming challenges.

We had our first session to decide our set list. Then we started off learning two songs. The line up consists of another guitarist, bassist, drummer and vocalist. I’ve worked with Sean, our leader before and we all left feeling we made good progress that first night. 

The next day I thought about the strategy for arranging two guitars and contacted the other guitarist, Glenn. I proposed that I mostly play chord inversions so we could avoid playing in unison and have some harmony. He agreed and I was relieved there wasn’t any sensitivity with musicians suggesting what the other should be playing.

These are the exchanges that provide the drama and excitement of working with others. Feeling out personalities, forming relationships, the give and take may be daunting to anticipate in new situations. Keeping positive is the best approach but you never know when someone may just decide they don’t like you.

Musicians can be a particularly touchy about people they work with, the biggest factor is how well you play. But they will also judge on appearance, personality compatibility, politics and musical taste. Some will even factor in whether you smoke dope or drink. 

For now I’m working on inversions, something I’ve studied a little but never applied much. The first two songs are Elvis Costello’s “Peace, Love and Understanding” and Joe Jackson’s “It’s Different for Girls”. I was very excited to learn and refine these songs, I played for about eight hours yesterday.

Seems like I have too many things going on. I want to be an artist, a musician and I recently started taking a course on internet marketing. I love the idea of having a business that can run automatically, who wouldn’t?

Last month, I had lots of time convalescing at home after a minor surgery. I was online most of that time, trying to figure out ways to get money. I ran across a great website called clickbank.com which has a well structured course for marketing. 

It effectively sells itself on the allure of working at home and becoming independent. The course is very good so far, though I have the feeling  most people bought it because of the get rich quick sales pitch. However, if it’s judged on educational value, you’ll  get your money’s worth.

The problem I’m having is that doing my music, art and online business plan is a little too much. Finding a product to sell online has been a soul searching experience. I don’t produce anything quickly or in quantity to support myself and I’m having inner conflict with selling other peoples products.

It’s not that I mind selling other people’s art, I just don’t see how do that successfully without sacrificing what little productivity I have. The ClickBank University course stresses finding your passion for choosing a product but then says to re-evaluate if your passion can’t be monetized. 

Selling art that I like is very competitive. This leaves either selling art I don’t like or spend lots of time trying to arrange agreements with interesting artists and their representatives. 

I couldn’t figure out my own angle for music that wouldn’t completely suck out my musical energy. There is a glut of good music products.

My enthusiasm for online marketing has waned since I went back to work after a month of daydreaming. Now I have less time to daydream or do my own things. I still find marketing interesting and the goal of becoming independent is tempting.

I have not decided if I will continue the marketing course. My wish is that I could make a song or painting each week to upload, I’d much rather be selling my own product than someone else’s. Perhaps it’s better to prioritize my productivity and return to the marketing later.

I’m cursed with being interested in many things and being talented in two fields. Maybe I could do everything I wanted with focused time management.  This is theoretically possible with a planned out schedule. To make things more confusing, Clickbank says the best solution to become independent through online marketing.

The good that came out of all this career introspection is now I have more focus for my art and music. In my ever dwindling lifetime, I haven’t made a penny on either of these despite spending a small fortune on equipment and supplies. God gave us all gifts but didn’t give instructions. 

I’ve been enjoying a bit of time off recovering from umbilical hernia surgery but noticed my focus has drifted wildly as I spent my days surfing the web. Previous to this little vacation, I sometimes became bored with the internet. Now my imagination has taken me to many intriguing places, fueled by the idea that I could stay at home forever making money online! One reason was uncertainty about my financial situation for the month I took off to convalesce because my company has a bureaucratic disability process. I never really knew if I was going to be compensated for my claims until the end of my recovery. 

Another reason is the old standby of financial independence; to have the things I want while potentially making even more money than ever. No more boss, peers, broken down car and rigid schedule with one foot hanging precariously over the edge of bankruptcy while hanging on to the precipice of indentured servitude, always being threatened about becoming obsolete in a rapidly changing world. This bleak picture motivated me to explore setting up businesses online that could generate cash for me while I played guitar or painted. I know it’s a dream but at least there’s a reason we dream and  wherever there’s hope, there’s possibility! Otherwise why do we do anything at all, right?  

My first step was to make a lists of everything that I liked in general and things I had direct experience doing. Some of the things I had experience doing weren’t that interesting to me even though I was good at it and there were some things I felt could be interesting that I had no experience in. My list also included things people liked or would need and then I looked for anything on my lists that had connections. I rated my emotional interests with all the things on a spreadsheet and starting researching my results. 

I ended up with a short list of products and services that I was interested in or had experience with that I liked. Some of these are:

Money. I like this the most because it is the key to independence. But it’s something I know very little about other than I use it to pay bills and not much else.

Sleep. Very elusive but key to a sense of well being.

Quiet. Also seemingly elusive and particular to sensitive people, most of whom are annoying to the normal people.

These are not exactly tangible products but this brainstorming approach was to identify things important to me in the hope of monetizing products about them. I did come up some interesting ideas based on these categories like: 

Building sleeping chambers,  marketing ramelteon (a promising sounding prescription sleeping medication which I’ve never taken), marketing retreat getaways for creative people and selling my own mutual fund by copying other portfolios.

More directly related to my skills were:

Making an online music collaboration course. The idea of collaboration has always intrigued me because I’m always surprised at how resistant artists can be when agreeing on a vision despite the benefits of working together.

Marketing other artists work. I’m so slow finishing things as a musician and artist that I sometimes wonder if my productivity isn’t much better than doing nothing at all. 

In the process of coming up with this list, which includes other less relevant ideas, I went on a research tangent that left me wondering at the end of the day; what exactly did I accomplish? Fortunately I had the time to indulge exploring many things, even though they mostly led to dead ends. One idea that I thought would have potential was selling absinthe because it looks like an appealing branding experience, but there is so little room for newcomers in boutique niches unless you have some capital. I still think the idea of a boutique bar serving absinthe would be successful but then I’m veering off course by not keeping things online.

Ultimately I settled on the idea of affiliate marketing. I signed up for a course on both vendor and affiliate marketing with clickbank and bought the whole deluxe package because I can return it within 60 days if it doesn’t work for me. The deluxe package promises to have everything up and running quickly. Selling music and art related products would still be within the congruent boundaries of my primary skills. I will be learning what appears to be a crucial skill set in the evolving economy. Hopefully I didn’t bite off more than I could chew: I go back to my job next week and I’m participating in an eight week band workshop beginning the following week. And yes, I’m still working on my cd.