Links
And The Lists You May Encounter...
I am on waaay too many email lists, and that means I end up on even more mailing lists as my email addresses apparently get passed around like a note in third period gym class or something. Every one of them want to sell me something. Some are kind enough, and therefore interesting enough, to tell me something useful as they’re pitching their thing, so I don’t unsubscribe from them. If it’s just hard sell though, nothing of vaue to me along with the pitch, it’s straight to Unsubscribe Jail. The ones that I keep I sometimes pass along to you, Faithful Reader, and if you find it helpful, you may, or not, want to risk the Great Unsolicited Email Flood that will likely result. I get a subtle thrill from unsubscribing and/or blocking free rider jerks who send me crap about something I don’t want just because I asked for something I do want. Meh. Let your conscience and aggravation levels be your guide. By the way, while I won’t call them out, I did email a couple of the people whose products and such I link to in order to ask (very politely) if they would be interested in doing an email interview for this SubStack. One showed some interest, but apparently lost track of me and stopped responding, the other, no response at all. I get it, everybody’s busy. But y’all know (or should know) who you are, and you’re missing out on helping my great readers, and maybe getting your hands on the filthy lucre your products generate in the process. We’ll see if that shows ’em, he says, without holding his breath….
Thursday is “links and places to go learn things day”, so here we go:
So this one is helpful but difficult to get to. I applaud the website for finding a way to keep people from linking directly (if that’s what they did), but I get no money from them and if any of my readers decide to subscribe to them they end up with more customers. Whatever. Click the link, you’ll probably see “Page Not Found” - enter “Split Sheets” in the handy search box, and you’ll find a great article with templates. Some people’s websites, sheesh….
We’ve talked a lot about how to get your music heard without going through the whole record label thing. Independent artists who compose, self publish, and record their music own rights to royalty streams - and if that describes you, take a look at the link. Remember, you have 3 different royalty streams available - Composer (you, and any co-writers), Publisher (your business entity, usually an LLC, and the business entities of anyone who also holds co-publishing rights), and Master Recording (you and anyone you’ve agreed to share Master Recording rights with - maybe your engineer/producer/studio). You’ll work out percentages of rights with others for each ownership right (Composer, Publisher, Master Recording) in some fashion - better if it’s memorialized in a split sheet as in the link above, maybe best with your lawyer’s help if it get’s complicated, or you anticipate disagreements over who owns what.
Releasing Your Independently Created (and hopefully copyrighted) Music
We’ve also recently explored writing music to lyrics rather than the other way around. Chords (harmonies), and more specifically chord changes at lyrical phrasing points is reasonably easy, melody is much more difficult. Here’s a resource for the hard part:
I wish I was making money from promoting Disc Makers/CD Baby - they are engaged in some of the smartest marketing around. Actual, usable information from their blog, for anyone, whether you’re a customer or not, presented in a straightforward, nonpolitical way. Very refreshing. 3 articles for vocalists, each with some great insights.
Planning For Singing Performances
Finally, an email from Griff Hamlin, a blues guitarist who has courses, for both acoustic and electric guitar players on, wait for it…. playing blues guitar (not free, btw). Still, great stuff in the emails he sends out (free, btw), and since I can’t link to it, I just pasted the whole thing in. I’m reasonably sure the copyright is held by his company, Blues Guitar Unleashed, Inc. Check out the link in the email below to see if his courses are right for you. Disclaimer: I’m not compensated in any way, by Mr. Hamlin or anyone else, in any of the links in this post, or for that matter, any of my posts. Just sayin’…
Everything inside the quotations is Mr. Hamlin’s email, not content by me:
“Remove the thinking about it
I've had a conversation regarding practice-time with 2 students this week... something must by in the air ;)
When I was in my late 20s, I was going to school full time studying music, playing 5-6 nights per week on gigs, and teaching all day on Saturdays...
To say that I was busy was the most ridiculous understatement!
Having time to practice at all, let alone the things I needed to practice for school, was extremely difficult...
And you may relate to that.
But I found that when I had one item at the "top of my list" that I was going to practice on, that it was easy to grab 3-5 minutes periodically throughout my day:
- I'd get to the gig, get setup, and have a few minutes before downbeat so I could run through some stuff then...
- between sets I'd actually take my guitar out to the parking lot and practice in my truck...
- If I was teaching and my student was a few minutes late, there was a few more minutes...
Those years were where I learned the value of a few short practice sessions throughout a day.
So here's two important things to try and do to help:
1 - Keep a guitar handy somewhere. If you have to take it out of a case, find a cable, haul out a pedalboard and pull some books off the amp, it's not going to happen.
It has to be, sit in the chair, grab the guitar, flip a switch and go.
2 - Don't think about what you're going to practice. No matter how many things you have on your list that you want to learn, keep one of them on the top.
When you sit down, it's right there on the music stand, or it's something you have memorized and you just work it.
If there's ANY decision making that goes on at that moment... it's over, you won't do much.
Now obviously, this isn't everyone. But it helped me a great deal and it's helped many of my students over the years as well.
I hope that if you struggle to have enough time to practice, that you'll start to look for little times in the day when maybe you're waiting on your spouse, or waiting for something to cook, or waiting for a show to start...
When you look for all those little pockets of time, and you make it easy to grab your guitar and run a few things, you'll get a lot more practice time than you realize.
Talk soon,
Griff
Courses, Jam Tracks, Songs.. oh my! Check out the Course Catalog here:
https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/course-catalog
Check out the new album from Griff Hamlin and the Single Barrel Blues Band here:
If you need to update your contact info or unsubscribe from future emails:
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Griff Hamlin's Guitar Unleashed, Inc.
1705 W. University Dr.
Ste 108-133
McKinney, Texas 75069
United States
(877) 662-5837”
Ok, so regular post tomorrow!
Cheers, and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic