Learn about yourself - join a band

Music and the arts open up the mind to new ways of exploring the world, whether that is spirituality, personal relationships, sports or business,  in fact anything that we can term the human experience because through music and the arts we are dealing with various areas of consciousness and within that, creative thinking, and then its outward expression.

In a way it is possible for anything one does to do that but I believe that music, because of its potentially abstract nature, can get to the depths of what makes us tick as humans and in contrast by its structural nature we can see how we operate as ‘organised’ beings.

My interest in music started as a young teenager picking up the guitar for the first time and playing my first chords and then learning how to play a blues, that was it, I was hooked! Is that what we need to achieve as a response from customers, to get them hooked?  Is that not what we need for ourselves to really become masters of any skill, to be hooked? Music can teach us how this can happen.

Over the years I have taught many people to play guitar and to sing and many have carried on playing years after, some becoming professional players and some working with very famous musicians. In that time I have watched and learnt as I taught and with my interest in psychology I have unpicked the way the mind sorts, files and then uploads skills. Some of these elements are conscious but many are unconscious.

It has often been said that the greatest fear for people is the fear of public speaking, even ranking higher than the fear of death in some polls. The idea of standing up in public and giving a performance will fill many with panic but as a musician it is your ‘stock in trade’ to perform especially as a front man for a band;  not only do you have to sing but also to talk to the audience and get them to clap and sing along. The art of fronting a band and dealing with performance nerves is one lesson that anyone in business would find useful and the skills are simple to learn, just play in a band. 

So there we are, play an instrument and learn about yourself and the world around you.

Vic
 
www.bluescampuk.co.uk

  

 

 

A cautionary tale for the discourteous

A cautionary tale for the discourteous
As a DIY artist, you have to make and maintain contact with lots of folks: bookers, agents, recording engineers, managers, bands, DJs, program directors, journalists, bloggers, designers, producers, fans, and many more.
And even when you don’t get the desired result, it’s important to remember something you probably learned when you were two years old: BE POLITE!
What happens if you’re rude? You don’t get hired back, or worse — your band gets black-listed from clubs in LA, and is written about in SPIN Magazine for all the wrong reasons........
go to ...
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2013/03/be-polite/

Chris Robley

The Way of music


Concerning the Way - Confucianists, Buddhists, tea masters, masters of ceremonial practices, Noh dramatists and such – none of these are within the Way of the Warrior. Even though their Ways are not ours, if you know the Way broadly, not one of them will be misunderstood. It is essential that each person polish his own Way well – Miyamoto Musashi

 

One thing about music that I love is that by learning its Way you learn so much about yourself and the world around you. I teach this dealing directly with the functioning of our mind and that to learn efficiently you will need to know how the brain works, and then you will become able to learn the technique of playing with great ease.

Due to my interest and maybe my addiction to music I have begun to understand how music changes the state of consciousness of the listener and the player and how our ancient forebears used it for ceremonial use. This really came home to me when I was in South America listening to the icaros of the shaman and how it ramped up their work; this introduced me to the notion that great musicians particularly from roots styles of music have that ability to change states of mind.

I was playing through some old blues numbers by Muddy Waters and you can see that this man who Eric Clapton called ‘Buddha’ could play one riff for several minutes and sing a song that would drive an audience into a frenzy (Mannish Boy) or sing a song about the magical charms that he had and how he was destined to be a great man (Hoochie Coochie Man). This is easily found in all other musical forms, Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer in Reggae, Jimi Hendrix in rock music, Elvis Presley in Rock and Roll and John Lennon in Pop music, where the musician would take you on a journey to a different place which you could say was ‘spiritual’.

What is interesting for me is that when you see what really works on a deep level in one sort of music you will recognise it in other forms of music and then in other places, such as sport, business human relationships because music is a reflection of human consciousness.

As Musashi says if you polish your Way, you will understand all others; not one of them will be misunderstood.

 

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Good Time to Plan


It is nice to see the sun back this week and although we need the rain, snow and the icy wind it is still lovely to see the beginnings of spring.

It has been rather a long winter and I think the birds have found it difficult as well with a limited supply of berries from last year due to the weather.

When the weather gets better I tend to forget how bad the travelling is and I settle back into the groove of work whereas I was planning on lots of things when I was struggling with the early starts.

A couple of my friends who teach at schools as classroom teachers are leaving the profession because of the ridiculous pressure that they feel and coupled with that the ‘tick box’ mentality that has now resulted from an overbearing ofsted.

In their cases the weather does not play a part in the decisions because the pressure is on all of the time. Thankfully I really enjoy what I do but the continuous travelling is getting to me.

When continuous pressure is part of the scene we know that it creates extreme stress in people because they feel that they have no control. So I would suggest that ofsted will eventual destroy the fabric of teaching because simply the best teachers would have left the profession because the pressure for accountability has become more important than teaching.

Let me suggest an idea; think of something that you learnt at school that was for you a life changing lesson and I would guess that it was in a moment, something that really impacted you and more importantly something that was not scripted, planned or dare I say it evaluated, it was inspired in the moment, and for you it was life changing.

My point here is that lots of what we put up with in modern education is bullshit and is only something put together to satisfy the mentality of accountability. 

Now is now a good time to plan whist enjoying the better weather, we are here to live not to be a statistic of GDP.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

Wouldn't it be great to be gifted?

Wouldn't it be great to be gifted? In fact...

It turns out that choices lead to habits.

Habits become talents.

Talents are labelled gifts.

You're not born this way, you get this way. – Seth Godin

 

As musicians we know this already although sometimes we act as if we have forgotten but the simple fact is the time you put in builds into habits and then we see these habits become ‘natural talent’.

I have always thought of the phrase ‘they are talented’ as a sort of get out, which overlooks the amount of sweat and commitment that someone has put in; when I see someone play I see the number of hours displayed in the performance.

For those who are outside of anything that requires continued practice and dedication the achievers are often thought of as ‘naturally gifted’ but as cellist Mstislav Rostropovich put it when asked about his genius he said it was one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration.

The by-product of the layperson’s attitude is the number of new pupils who turn up who do not realise the amount of practice time required to achieve the level that they aspire and for some it comes as a shock!

 

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Gigs


Gigging experience is invaluable, and the more you play live, the more confident your playing will become and the better your performances will be.

While you can hold rehearsals in gig-like conditions - not stopping playing if someone messes up for instance – it still can’t fully prepare you for looking up from your instrument and seeing a roomful of people staring back at you, wanting to be entertained.

Aside from bringing in money and increasing your fanbase, playing gigs gives you a chance to see which of your songs work best in a live setting. You may have a song that's a personal favourite, but if the bar suddenly becomes very busy whenever you play it live it might be time to take another look at it. Similarly, when preparing for a gig, it’s not uncommon for band members to squabble over what gets included in the setlist. You may be happy to play certain songs in practice, but if you don’t want to play them live there’s probably a very good reason. Even established bands banish songs from their setlist because they don’t work in a live environment.

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and lose drive when you’re making music, so booking a gig can breathe new life into the band – forcing you to polish off any rough edges in your material before you unleash your tracks in a live setting. It can be just the thing to make you nail that hard to play riff or key change - nothing gets a band playing tightly like the fear of performing in front of a room of people they don't know.

Originally from the BBC website

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/introducing/advice/playinglive/gettinggigs/

 

 

If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land- Mencius


How much is music valued in your land? Is it looked upon as an extra expensive something that little Jonny does as a hobby or is it looked upon as the life affirming healer that creates bonds through sound?

Music expands the right side of the brain that the formal education system seems to miss and in this age of the religion of science it also gives us a doorway into the creative world of the unconscious and the dreamtime which is the territory of the genius.

I value music highly because I do not think there is much to be gained by being boring and limited by the belief systems of the rational. The rational do not stretch themselves to create a better world that is done by the dreamers, the rational edit those dreams and then hopefully find a way of these things happening.

At the moment there seems to be resurgence in the arts but not through government funding but through people trying to enrich their lives.

Make sure that you ride that wave and make your teaching and playing relevant. We are moving in ‘interesting times’ and that as in the Chinese curse can mean all sorts of things both good and bad. We all need music to raise our spirits and even in this day and age of the religion of science and rationality we still need to realise that the unconscious works in a non rational way and it is the powerhouse of our mind.

Vic
www.bluescampuk.co.uk for three days of creating and playing music in a band


 

  

 

That Special Ingredient for Success

I am sure that it takes a special ingredient to make someone successful; that ingredient is naivety.

To achieve you have to believe that you can, against all the odds, beating off the competition to make it to the top. As you get older however the more you see the truth that statistically you do not stand a hope in Hell of achieving anything and therefore you need to be either young or naïve to succeed.

So this may go a way to the understanding of how we get young people achieving their dreams, just because they believe, however that naivety can also mean they believe they are indestructible and not prone to failure, leading some to join the 27 club.

As we get older it does seem that we become more risk averse and because of this one has a tendency to play it safe. This may be partly due to responsibilities that begin to pile up as we stumble through life. I know that I have turned down exciting projects because of mortgages and children have got in the way.

What I am proposing is that we use moments in life where we turn on the naivety programme in NLP fashion by just thinking back to events earlier in life and then immerse ourselves in that, seeing , hearing and feeling as we did, then make your decisions through the prism of that mind-set.   

This could give us a valuable tool to take on new challenges but with the added advantage of the experience of life which can militate against the downside risk of youth.

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Make Money Teaching Music Lessons

One of the most common questions that people will ask is, “How much can you actually make teaching music lessons?”. According to the article, How to Make Money at Home – Teach Music Lessons, private music teachers charge between $50 and $100 per lesson. If you do the math (which we’ll do in a moment), it quickly adds up.

In my experience, I’ve met people who have made hardly any money teaching lessons. I’ve also met quite a few that are making more than school music teachers. New York City drum teacher John Riley, is in the low six figures. The private music teachers with the higher incomes all have one thing in common: they are entrepreneurs. By working on their businesses, in addition to teaching and growing their own music skills, they were able to leverage their talents.

Here’s a formula to figure it out how you make money teaching music.

1. What’s Your Current Rate?

Let’s say my current rate is $80 an hour.

2. Can I Raise My Rate?

I think so…maybe in a few months I’ll raise it to $100 an hour.

3. How Many Lessons Per Week?

The key here is to figure out the average number of lessons you teach per week. Factor in potential cancellations, sick days, and holidays. Your percentage of cancellations will vary. To be conservative, I would estimate a general cancellation rate to be 25 percent.

I have 20 students, so my average is 15 lessons per week.

15 Lessons Per Week x $100 = $1,500 Per Week

4. How Many Weeks to Do You Take Off?

I take off about 4 weeks a year.

48 Weeks x $1,500 = $72,000 Per Year

It’s important to keep in mind that this is a conservative estimate. Also remember that I’m figuring 15 hours of actual lesson time per week as an example. So if I add a few more students to my schedule each week, I could be making over $100,000 a year teaching private lessons and not working 40 hours a week.

This sounds like an awesome part-time job for me!

Originally article

http://www.musiclessonbusiness.com/make-money-teaching-music-lessons.html

 

 

 

 

First give the people what they want in the hope that eventually they will want what they need- B.K. Frantzis

 

A new year and more of the same economically I guess, however it is ‘the people’ who decide whether we get moving financially or not. Remember that if you put all the economists in the world end to end they would not reach a consensus so your guess is as good as any and I think that maybe our attitude to the way things will develop is down to us. I am sure that your customers want to do something to make a change in their mundane life and as for the children most parents want to do the best for their offspring, so hang on in there.

What people want and what they need are VERY different so aim for what they want first and then see where it goes from there.

Vic
 
www.vichyland.com
www.bluescampuk.co.uk
 

 

Brighton the place of creative thinkers?


A friend of mine visited Brighton the other Sunday and while his wife was attending a course he spent some time sitting on the beach and then wondering the lanes.

In the park near the Dome he found some buskers one of which was a young guy playing saxophone. My friend sat and listened for a while and then struck up a conversation with the guy, what interested him was this young musician apart from being a proficient player was from the ranks of what we might loosely term 'the counter culture' of which there are many members in the Brighton area.

I find that element makes this part of Sussex an interesting place to live because in the past few years I have moved a number of times and I have been very surprised that the social zeitgeist can be so different.

One of these places was Canterbury which I thought would be arty and open to lots of interesting types of thinking but it was actually still smothered with the stuffy Anglican high church thinking, a sort of middle class, middle of the road type of people and rather dull from an artistic point of view. There seemed to be no element of danger, they had a number of old rockers down there still doing their thing; I won’t mention names but if you live in the area you would know of whom I speak but Brighton is rather different with lots of creative types bending styles and doing new things.

The is an element of subversion here, if you wonder out from the lanes you will find yourself in the seedier parts beloved of Graham Greene. Even surrounding towns like the genteel looking Lewes can be deceiving. Lewes whose karma seems to be of social reform and upheaval (Simon de Montfort, Tom Payne et al) has one of the most wild bonfire ceremonies I have ever seen. Health and safety is kicked into touch for the night with people rolling and carrying flaming tar barrels around the street. The area of Brighton makes a great place for new bands, writers comedians, film makers and home to many alternative thinkers, gay activists, and political thinkers there is obviously something in the water.          

Vic
 
pass your RGT grade grade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn4pI_fsHMs
 
 

 

 

Don’t die with the music in you


Don’t die with the music in you

 

I came across this quote by Wayne Dyer and it got me thinking.

I was pondering the reasons why some people make a success of music and others do not and I thought the quote the about quote somehow suggested an answer to this.

The point which was raised was that Hendrix was the greatest guitarist of his time now I am a fan if the man and I am quite happy to state that he was a genius of the highest order, however what I do not subscribe to is that technically he was the best of his day because he was not.

The jazz guitarists and classical players around at the time were technically far better than Hendrix. The likes of Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel and Kenny Burrell to name just three could run rings around him.

The thing that Hendrix did have was an extraordinary ability to internalise music and then re frame it and then reproduce what he was hearing with the emotional charge that comes with great art; that was his great genius.

The idea of the internalised music is a common factor amongst the great artists for instance Louis Armstrong stated that he would listen to the rhythm section in his head UNLESS the guys outside were better, this gave him a consistency of performance almost unparalleled amongst musicians.

So the other point here is the interpretation of the music into something fresh. For those of you who listen to Jimi you will know that he was able to play a riff that he had stolen from say John Lee Hooker or Muddy Waters and make it sound like himself the classic example of this is Voodoo Chile which is a series of riffs by the above that sounds like Hendrix not Waters or Hooker.

Often you will meet people who seem to have something special about there playing, not in the speed or the knowledge but their ability to transfer a feeling through what they do; these are the movers and shakers the people who can make changes. Then by giving these people the knowledge so that can short circuit and understand what they do, they can create more. That I believe is the real and possible only use of the theory and the technique in that it can create a vehicle for the emotion and message of the music and without that emotion and message there is no music just sound and maybe just noise.

So get the music in you out and then help others to do the same.

 

Vic 

  
www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Occasionally you meet people who become very significant in your life

Occasionally you meet people who become very significant in your life changing the way that one thinks, when this happens to me I am almost immediately aware of their significance, one such person died recently and I attended his funeral. He was my father in law as it happened, the father to my late wife and I must say someone who made life an interesting place.

One thing I learnt from him was life was made interesting by the energy that you put into your hobbies and into listening and being interested in other people; he was loved because he was so interested in others. He was musical and made friends with many including Oscar Peterson the great of jazz piano he was extraordinary because he seemed to know so many people including actors, top QC's, Knights of the realm and although he had been to Oxford he had not come from a particularly privileged background but seemed almost by accident to move in exalted circles. He was also important in the success of an international renowned DJ and a deva from the world of Punk that he heard perform in a London pub after which he contacted a friend who was an A and R man and she was signed up.

What he had was passion and when he loved something he became an expert, literally, he was great at languages but I was astounded that within two years of becoming interested in a little Spanish island he and his wife were totally fluent in Spanish and set up a course for doctors there to learn English.

When someone like this (who had incidentally a photographic memory, being able to not only recite poetry but could tell you on which page and where on the page it was), enters your life you have to reassess all that you thought you knew and subsequently when they leave I now realise that process happens again.

Going out for a walk on my own I started to think about how happiness is dependent on having that attitude of mind that makes events resonant, adding meaning however naïve those meanings may seem to others and what I learnt was that music does exactly that. John was the first man that I knew who could totally dissolve into tears when listening to music, any music, any music that is that had an emotional element. I suppose we are talking about someone who would have in the past been referred to as a renaissance man, a polymath, he was certainly brilliant and I learnt through him that great minds NEVER try to impress you with how clever they are and let me tell you that I have met many who want to show exactly how much Plato, Virgil and Shakespeare they can quote and they are often Public School headmasters in my experience.

You will be missed here but I am sure that where ever you have gone it will be all the better for your arrival.

Vic

 www.teachmusic.co.uk
www.bluescampuk.co.uk
 

 

Government reforms in Education and in the NHS


Government reforms in Education and in the NHS

A few weeks ago I was playing a charity function for a local Hospice and the band were just killing time as the show was running late; it gave us a chance to have a chat which we don’t really do very often.

The band is made up of professional people and they are the group that feature in my book ‘Notes on Business’. The conversation had wondered onto the subject of the education system interestingly not because of me but the vocalist started complaining about the problems with the latest raft of meddling from the government.

The bass player who is a pediatric specialist started talking about the NHS and he quoted a figure that in his words the government had ‘wasted’ on NHS reforms; the figure was a jaw dropping with the current reorganisation costing somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 billion pounds.

In the last thirty years there have been at least fifteen major structural changes in the NHS. Even if we take the lowest of the estimates for the cost of the latest reorganisation, and assume the previous were less far reaching, so each cost on average say, £500 million, that's still at least £10 billion in thirty years, with no evidence of any long term gain for the patients.

I suppose it is good to know that it is not only education that the government waste money reorganising.

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Political medling in Education and Health


On listening to the various reports from the party political conferences over the past few weeks what struck me was the amount of ideas that seemed to be there for the sake of it.

The problem with politicians is they want to make their mark by changing things even if something is working on some level. There is a fixation that there is a perfect solution, well maybe there is not; maybe something that empowers people would be better.

The amount of money that has been wasted in reorganising the NHS and the education system in this country is truly staggering and probably would have been better spent in other ways but somehow this wastage of tax payers’ money is covered by a veneer of statistics that hide the waste.

We are getting to a point where people are disillusioned with politics, as shown in voter numbers, we need another way. I am not sure what, but maybe start with government getting out of like education and health. This is a tall order because on the face of it they should be involved however where do you draw the line between the national interest and the prestige of politics which is all too evident in the ‘ let us make some policy changes’ fiasco.

The cuts in funding the arts is causing very serious problems for musicians incomes around the world and although this may create innovation because necessity is the Mother of Invention you still need to pay the bills will you are inventing.

In the world of teaching is there is an opportunity in the alternative view that education is about opening the mind and not just ticking boxes and that music maybe one of the few ways of achieving that. Let’s face it there are many that want to do music and it is not being fully satisfied at school.

I also see an opportunity to ride that wave of discontent in the music that is written and performed which takes us back to elements of the 60’s and 70’s a useful back-lash to X factor and politics I think

 

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Make Money in Music Publishing

How to Make Money in Music Publishing

Original from http://www.ehow.com/how_5783307_make-money-music-publishing.html
X
Ralph Heibutzki
Specializing in cultural and musical articles, Heibutzki has written for over 17 years. He has appeared in the "All Music Guide," "Goldmine," "Guitar Player" and "Vintage Guitar." He is also the author of "Unfinished Business: The Life & Times Of Danny Gatton" and holds a journalism degree from Michigan State University.
By Ralph Heibutzki, eHow Contributor
Live concerts remain the glamorous face of today's music scene. However, the real money lies in the ownership and licensing of the songs themselves. Whether you sign with an established publisher, or opt to handle the job yourself, some basic business knowledge and administrative skills are needed to succeed.
 

Things You'll Need

  • Business license
  • Checking account in publishing company's name
  • Computer
Show (5) More

Instructions

  1. Learn How Publishing Works

    • 1
      Learn the basics of music publishing. As taxi.com explains, the writer of a song automatically owns all the copyright and publishing rights. Music publishing income, in turn, is divided into writer's and publisher's shares. If you keep your copyright and publishing rights, the songwriting money is all yours--meaning, if the royalties are $100,000, you collect $100,000.
    • 2
      Sign with an established music publishing firm if you don't feel you have the knowledge or networking contacts to market your material. Use music industry reference guides like "The Songwriter's Market" to get contact information, and whether or not a company accepts unsolicited material. Unsolicited material is material that has not been requested by the publisher either through an agent or as the result of a query letter sent to them. Unsolicited material cannot be submitted without permission from the publisher.
    • 3
      Study how co-publishing agreements work, taxi.com advises. If a publisher accepts your song, you own 75 percent of the writer's share, plus 25 percent of the publisher's share. If your royalties are $100,000, then you get $75,000. If you transfer all publishing rights, everything is split evenly, and you'll only collect $50,000. The publisher only earns their percentage to market your material--so, if they don't expect any profit, you probably won't get a deal.
    • 4
      Make it your business to understand all potential revenue sources. Although radio play, music and TV licenses are the most visible--and most common--avenues, don't overlook lesser-known sources, such as sheet music, Internet downloads and cell phone ringtones, which are rapidly becoming an alternative income stream for performers.

    Set Up Your Own Company

    • 5
      Evaluate your career honestly before becoming your own music publisher. Without consistent airplay or licensing income, setting up your own music publishing company makes little sense. On the other hand, if you're seeking movie or TV placements, signing up with a well-connected publisher is the way to go.
    • 6
      Join one of the three main performing rights organizations--ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC--as a songwriter and publisher, since you'll wear both hats. Otherwise, if you only join as a songwriter, you'll effectively miss out on half the income that you may have coming.
    • 7
      Request a publisher's application from ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, music-law.com advises. If your bandmates aren't members, request writer's applications for them, too. Fill in the name of your new company and information for each band member, which is required to show how your band exists as a legal entity.
    • 8
      Return the form and any required fees. Once your company is accepted, music-law.com advises to apply for a new business license and tax identification number. These will differ from the ones made out for your band, which exists as a separate legal entity. Once you have those details, submit them to the organization that reviewed your publisher's application.
    • 9
      Think carefully before deciding on an equal split with your bandmates, no matter who wrote the song. That's because copyright protection exists for an author's lifetime, plus 70 years, and can transfer to heirs. This can be a major sticking point once your band is no longer active, according to entertainment attorney Joy Butler.
Sponsored Links

Tips & Warnings

  • If you set up your own music publishing, have another company act as an administrator. This places the burden of collecting and distributing potential income on someone else's shoulders.
  • Don't forget to create a checking account in your new company's name. Royalty checks will be made out to your publishing company, not the people running it.
  • Do an online search to determine if your potential publishing company's name is taken. Have several alternatives ready to go, just in case.
  • If you have a band, work out ground rules for song ownership. If a bandmate contributes a part, you're still the copyright owner. However, if someone changes lyrics, or adds other distinct musical elements, they may have grounds for arguing co-ownership of your song copyright.
  • Never sign agreements without understanding the terms. If you're not sure about the implications of signing with a particular publisher, have an entertainment law attorney review the agreement.


Read more: How to Make Money in Music Publishing | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5783307_make-money-music-publishing.html#ixzz29N28eaJb

Keep the country happy play guitar


Keep the country happy play guitar

At the RGT conference recently I was talking to a number of teachers and the question that seemed to keep coming up was how much work everyone had and to everyone’s surprise the pupil numbers had actually gone up for most which considering the economic climate was not what you would expected.

I had written about this a while ago after having a discussion with someone high up in a teaching organisation who was of the opinion that we were going to hell in a hand cart and my point was that even in the war people were learning musical instruments and therefore there is something else happening inspiring the public to learn.

There is often a self-fulfilling prophecy at work when the economy is ‘talked down’ by the experts and, as a friend of mine calls them ‘sheeple’, follow the instructions to the letter. However some arrive at the point of thinking ‘what the hell I want to do something interesting like learn an instrument’ and therefore problem times can throw up anomalies in human behaviour some of which are very positive for music teachers.

The more we focus on the positive outcome the more chance it has to manifest because you begin to notice opportunity around you that is how the mind is wired; to see things that match and confirm your thoughts.

In NLP there is a term for people who do the opposite to the expected reaction, the term ‘polarity responder’ would apply to the character who will change direction simply to be different from the crowd. These people are good for rock guitar because ALL of the early guitar greats where polarity responders because the guitar was the instrument for the social subversive and even though there is an abundance of college courses it is still looked upon as socially different to be a working musician. 

So the best advice for you in these times if the numbers are not stable or going up look at how you can attract new customers by offering group lessons and get them involved having fun playing. Focus on the enjoyment aspect of playing an instrument and make customers feel good about themselves. As there is scant little about to make anyone full of cheer making your music happiness enhancing will create a good USP for the business whether you are teaching or playing gigs.

Vic

 

English Baccalaureate!

Well the English Baccalaureate has been unveiled and it looks like we are  going back (as the abbreviated version Bac suggests) to something similar to the old O level and this was after the discussion of abolishing the A level.

This could be just a rant on my part but I want to focus on the long term aspect of education and what they focus is for this reorganisation is attempting to create or correct.

The idea of a race to the bottom created by the examination boards maybe a good point however I see pupils working much harder in the schools than I ever remember doing whilst I was at school and maybe this is why I am so good at playing guitar because I had time to practice!  My concern in all of this is why become educated? What is it that we are striving for? If the answer to this is to get a job then I would argue that the jobs market is changing so fast with jobs disappearing or morphing into something else with new disciplines appearing in areas that two or three years ago did not exist how can you prepare? If the idea is to broaden the mind and to learn to use your brain power in a focus yet flexible way then the education system has lost its direction and the ‘new’ examinations will also fail dismally.

Teachers in schools work harder than many other professions putting in extra hours unpaid as a normal part of the regime and as for the head of Ofsted to make the comment that teachers should go the extra mile probably makes most teachers so angry that they would like to take Mr Wilshaw and shove the Ofsted reports where the sun does not shine and maybe make that go the extra foot.

I have never involved myself teaching in the classroom for one very good reason it’s a thankless task and more about box ticking than teaching but I see enough of it and I know enough teachers to know the score.

What is the answer to this question? Well children are clever enough to do well whatever the system and if they are encouraged to have an open mind and become passionate about learning they will be able to outperform their contemporaries who may be far more privileged than they. Flexibility of mind is the answer, keep learning and to paraphrase Winston Churchill “Never stop learning, never, never stop learning”.

Vic
 
www.vichyland.com
 
Play in a band for three days with the experts and detress!
www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

All you need is love


All you need is love

Over the last few weeks I have been going on about the need to be business like in the way that you approach business but this time I am going to readdress the balance and as with everything this outlook has to have its opposite.

So as the day needs the night I need to introduce to the equation of making a living from music that element of love. If you love what you do you can get anywhere because something that requires as much practise and hard work as music needs the devotion of love to get you through.

Watching the Olympics recently you could see this was the unspoken element that made these athletes great, the love of the sport and the willingness to sacrifice time and effort and to experience pain to get to the very top.

As with most things this idea is a metaphor for other aspects of life that you must love what you do to make things happen, it seems to be a given; so let us look at the element of love in this context.

I think that it is safe to say that love distorts reality making you think that the thing that you are in love with is the most beautiful and important thing in the world, in fact it is safer to say that all other objects move into the background and sometimes vanish in this state. Love is a form of hypnotic trance and in that state you can suspend the rules of reality and make things happen because you believe that you can.

An example in the case of music is the group of musicians who believe that their music is the most powerful or beautiful thing around and that they are the ONLY band worth listening to. If they looked at the statistics they would know they do not stand a cat’s chance in hell of getting anywhere but that logic fortunately slips into the mists of the trance.

Someone who believes in (and are obsessed with) an idea can develop a multi-billion dollar business with no formal training, they make a Microsoft, an Apple, a Virgin or a Google and when these things happen they confound the experts. This happened with Rock and Roll and Punk where the conceived wisdom was kicked out of the window by the passion and in the case of the former  lust for the music.

So go back and find what it is that made you fall in love with the instrument and compare this to other times of falling in love. Go into those memories and ‘double the feeling’ then bring them into your present and project them into your future visions.

Go out and spread the LUURV.  

 

Vic

Making money from music.

Making money from music.
There are so many musical people who have great skills but with no idea how to monetise them. This is simply because the tools required for making money have nothing to do with music but all to do with business.
So let's strip it down; money in, money out, the more money in than out and you have an earner the other way round you don't. Next point, why is somebody interested in you? Well the short answer is they don't UNLESS you have something they want.
The oldest profession as the saying goes is prostitution and there it is, someone has something that someone desires and is willing to pay for. So take these ideas and apply them to your business and ask yourself, ‘Are your musical skills something that someone desires?’ If not can you make it something they desire?
In the way that music education seems to be pushed today is an academic, cold, intellectual path but I think that the reason for learning a musical instrument is visceral, passionate and full of driven desire to do something, if not you will not keep people practising. Players would fall by the wayside as things get difficult or other distractions get in the way unless they have the desire, you must tune into their dreams and aspirations if you are trying to teach and make money.
Another trick that teaching musicians miss is that to achieve something pupils  need more than lessons, they need equipment, the band needs coaching, people need managing in other words there is a bigger market beckoning you to be involved with in order for people to realise their dreams.
I have made a living from music for well over thirty years and I was originally told it was not possible and a crazy idea, also I had no formal college education as there was little available at the time. I learnt my trade from experience in the ‘University of Life’ so for you anything is possible.
In a nutshell the drivers for success in music are the same as any other business; it is about desire and supply and demand. Keep it simple and think like a business person not a hobbyist and then when you want to be an artist do not think like a business person!
 
Vic
 

Vic Hyland runs Bluescampuk which offers you the chance to play in a band, jamming with the pros and learn to songwrite all within the three day course.
Vic also teaches both in Kent and Sussex and over Skype for more details contact Vic or visit www.vichyland.com



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