Here we go.  Blogging for me is like a kid learning how to ride a bike.  I’m on, I’m off.  There’s still an amount of fear involved as I think about how promoting what I do whether it’s teaching, my band, upcoming gigs with others, or just sharing awesome information that I think is helpful is for me is sort of a change of lifestyle.  I suppose it’s like when email first came out.  I hated it.

Those who’ve known me only in the last several years probably find that funny because I graduated with a degree in computer science from top-notch Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in ’96.  After I graduated I turned down interviews and job offers from IBM, Microsoft and others because I really wanted to pursue music.  From ’90 to ’96 I had spent the majority of my time debugging programs on mainframe computers or doing software testing for Apple Computer and I was bored to tears.  I spent all my spare time practicing, writing, and performing mostly jazz at that point.  While I was working at Apple doing software testing, a friend of mine and great drummer, Willie Jones III, got the gig with Roy Hargrove in the summer of ’95.  I said, “That’s it!” and started thinking about moving to the East Coast and playing music full-time.  What my friends and colleagues probably don’t know is by the time ’97 came around I didn’t even want to see a computer for over a year and aggressively avoiding using one.  It took me until ’99 to come around and use email regularly.  I remember sometime in the mid-late ‘90s buying a book called ‘How To Do A Web Search’.  That was a big deal at the time.  :)

Wow, things have changed.  By ’00-’01 you couldn’t get me off the computer.  Especially when I found out about MapQuest.com - what, you can get directions to the gig on the internet?  What - I don’t have to listen to guys in Rhode Island who give directions saying, “Go down to where the old fire house used to be and take a left, then take a right at the burnt out school house that they tore down a few years ago then after a mile or so [ed. note: or two or three or four] it’s on your left - you can’t miss it”?  And then Half.com - CDS THAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR FOR 10 YEARS AVAILABLE FOR $5?  It was a match made in heaven.  Now my biggest challenge is staying off the computer long enough to practice and keep creating and refining new music.  Also I hope to finish the book I’ve been talking about ‘The Bass System, Vol. 1’ sometime in the next 12 months.  OK, so I’ll have to edit the thing on the computer but maybe I can manage to stay off the internet long enough to get it done.  ;)

I have a library of self-help books, audiobooks, and multi-tape and CD programs (yes, I still have the cassettes!) and they are always talking about focus.  I’ve had a tendency to avoid FaceBook, Twitter and MySpace after discovering that without caution you can get addicted to it.  However I’ll turn around and spend an hour answering an email to friend because I want to give exactly the right information on a subject that means a lot to me where I think my advice can be of great benefit to them.  OK, so the conflict is there and plain to see.  I have a pile of information I’d love to share - instead of writing to one person, I can write a blog entry.  This transition may not be as bad as I thought but this leads to the subject of this entry here - the Ariel Hyatt Blog Challenge.

The contestant’s goal is to get used to blogging by writing one blog entry a week as we go through her book, which I think is incredible.  I had seen Ariel’s book ‘Music Success in Nine Weeks’, and thought, “Oh brother, another one of those.”  However her name kept popping up on a number of different things and then again on on the the sales order pages for DiscMakers where I printed the ‘Paul Beaudry & Pathways’ CDs.  It was right next to the ‘Indie Bible’ and a couple of other products but for some reason this time it really stood out as something I can use.  After looking at my credit card account balance I decided it was unnecessary and let it go.

Then I went to the New Music Seminar in NYC July 20-21 which started exactly when I got off a 3-week European tour with Allan Harris.  In terms of independent promotion Ariel made more sense than anyone there.  I looked at her book at the seminar store to take a look and I was floored.  I bought one immediately.  It’s exactly what I was looking for as the Pathways CD is my debut recording as a bandleader and I had only a vague idea of what to do next.  She has a nine-week program that is very clear and more like a workbook.  Even those with social media network phobias can do it.  I found her and congratulated her on her work in the book and being an indie promotion genius.  I know how important internet media is as this is normally the #1 topic of discussion when Adam Rafferty and I get together to do our MasterMind sessions.  We’re into the third year of doing our MasterMinds and Adam has in that time become one of the #1 solo fingerstyle guitar players in the world.  To give him an extra plug he just released a great new guitar instructional DVD yesterday on how to play his arrangements of four Jackson 5 tunes.  Here’s a link: http://www.adamrafferty.com/home/.  Adam is a monster musician, check out his YouTube videos if you have a minute or more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvfFtb3Y9s

Ariel told me about the Blogging Challenge and I thought this is exactly what I need to be doing.  So here I am!  Thanks, Ariel!  Pathways goes to Central America (Trinidad, Suriname, Honduras, and Nicaragua) on a U.S. State Department Tour from September 29 to October 23 and I want to be ready to blog the whole thing.  I do look forward to, in addition to sharing some of my thoughts and experiences, sharing with you some AWESOME information that I have found to make my life happier, easier, healthier or more focused to make my dreams a reality a lot faster than before.  More information on that to come but in the meantime if you need internet promotion of any kind especially in music but her ideas really work for other industries too visit http://arielpublicity.com/ or buy her book http://musicsuccessinnineweeks.com/ or do both.  Until next time, happy trails! 

(...to you, until we meet again...)  ;)

-PB