#secondfloormusic

I'm so grateful to have had the chance to work with The Sicklers at SecondFloorMusic. The last 2 days I spent there were mainly devoted to signing with them as a composer. It's an honor to have my songs be apart of their up-incoming Jazzleadsheets.com website. Don has taught me soo much history about the music and we will continue to work on these projects beyond high school. If you can please check out my tunes which will eventually be uploaded to the site! Tomorrow I'm headed to Switzerland for something new... to play in the Bern Jazz Festival!

Today I met Emily (she works at SecondFloorMusic) and I am very grateful to have had the chance to speak with her. She is soo knowledgeable about the business of music. We talked about a lot: Youtube, Band Agreements, marketing music, licensing, laws... everything you name it. She gave me a great idea about what happens behind the scenes and it's way more complicated and intense than I thought but very good to know. After, I headed to Jazz House Kids for a special rehearsal for Inside the Jazz Note. Inside the Jazz Note is an event JHK has each year where out artist Director/World Renowned Bassist Christian McBride brings in a professional friend of his to play with us. This year we get to play with the great Sheila E. and I can't wait for our performance with her tomorrow during Inside the Jazz Note at MSU.

Busy day at SecondFloorMusic with the Sicklers'. First MSM student Elijah Shiffer and I finished recording ballads composed by the great Lucky Thompson for Don. Maureen helped us record those as well as Elijah's own tune he brought in today, a few compositions of mine and another composition of Buddy Montgomery's and one of Sonny Clark's. It was all about recording today and I even had a good talk with Don about the business of publishing and how he has sub-publishers all over the world helping to maintain his composers' and SecondFloorMusic's rights. After, I helped with transcribing some music that will go up on the NEW Jazzleadsheets.com (This website is going to be AWESOME when it's finished).

May 7th - Buddy Montgomery is truly a name that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Don Sickler was introducing Buddy to me by having me edit his page on Jazzleadhsheets.com. Don told me the stories about how amazing Buddy was and how he was such a natural talent. He would come over to Don's studio and play his compositions and Don and his workers would transcribe them on the spot. Buddy was constantly composing which was good and bad because when they were trying to transcribe his tunes, he would play them differently each time. I got the chance to look over the transcriptions and play through them to make sure everything sounded good and in preparation for a recording I'm going to do for Don's new website.

May 5th - Today was great! I did a little more work on the media side of the business helping with the new Jazzleadsheets.com page (not up yet but it will be very soon get excited!). Then I did something a little different. Don had me playing through some compositions of Dexter Gordon, Ronnie Matthews, Buddy Montgomery and others. I was looking at the leadsheets that SecondFloorMusic will be putting up soon and double checking for correct notation, suggesting piano fingerings etc. Don is really helping me learn about the publishing side of the music but also the history. I've learned so much in the days that I've been there so far but I'm excited for more.

Today I started interning with the Sicklers’ at SecondFloor Music. It was great getting to work the media side of the business. I also talked to Mr. Don Sickler about growing as a musician and he blatantly said, “do other sh**”. How musicians live their lives even outside of the music really influences what they write, how they think about music and how they play it. Music is a deep form of expression so I plan to continue being involved in other things so that I can be a better musician and a better person. 

Excited to start Mayterm and begin working with Mr. Don Sickler at Second Floor Music, head off to Switzerland to play in the Bern Jazz Festival with The New Legacy Quartet and after, work with the very people that showed me what jazz was in the first place… Jazz House Kids