My Travels

9 Week challenge blog has moved!

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 23:49:59 -0400

The continuation of the 9-Week Blogging Challenge has moved to a new address. It’s now on WordPress so people can leave comments.

Here’s the new address: http://beaudrybassjazz.wordpress.com/

See you there! :)

-PB

Birth Of The Cool, Rebirth Of The Cool, Or Constant Update Of The Cool?

Sun, 5 Sep 2010 21:08:37 -0400

Every now and then an invention comes up that makes your life so much easier. I think for me the #1 invention in that category is still the cell phone. Wow do I not want to go back to the days before everyone had a cell phone. I had gone through a phase or two of having a pager and not having one. Although it was great to know when someone was calling because they had an urgent work-related message and I did make more money because I could get back to people faster, I don’t miss the panic of trying to find a public phone after that to call them back with. It wasn’t just praying that I had enough change or finding places that can break a dollar if you didn’t have enough coins, it was also picking up a dirty handset that you know had been used by a million people already that had never been cleaned and putting it up your mouth. By the time you went through the ritual and were about to call somebody back you were already thinking, “This had better be good.” On top of that half the time you still got their answering machine anyway. I was MORE than happy to buy a cell phone when they become reasonably priced.

Still happy with the freedom of cell phones (and begone are the days of spending 15 minutes trying to find someone in a crowd that’s only 100 or so feet away) I remember when I got my first text. Pretty cool! I was fumbling around the keypad and asking other musician-friends nearby how to respond. I was at a gig in a loud environment and a voice phone call was completely pointless. I responded to the text and got the gig (thanks Nick Russo)! It didn’t take long before I got a lot faster at the keypad and switched to unlimited texting. In the meantime MySpace came out, YouTube started becoming more popular, then Facebook, but you could only get it on your desktop or laptop. I’m still discovering Twitter as I did my first ‘tweet’ two months ago and I’m still trying to figure out the vastness of that world and information sharing on that platform. I’m about to jump into the next level of cell phone “it can do what?”-ness as I’m buying an iPhone 4 this month. Here’s what Ariel Hyatt recommends that all musicians do with social media 2010.

I was recently listening to a teleconference between Carla Lynn Hall and Kavit Haria about refining a music gameplan for the rest of 2010. Having taken about 3 pages of notes and looking back at them the basic message was about growing a fan base and maintaining steady contact with fans. Of course the quality of the musical performance and the artist’s musical content is still the big #1 of what we do, but it’s what happens after that that gets interesting. From their perspective aside from giving away free stuff, having contests, and making it fun for followers to be involved a regular stream of content whether it be YouTube videos, articles, newsletters, blogs, a teleclass, tweets, whatever will keep people interested. I remember when I first found out about motivational speaker, Mike Litman, I used to love going to his site to see what was new - as with Raymond Aaron, John Assaraf, Jack Canfield, and currently I’m a Brian Tracy nut. I’ve learned several useful things just browsing free content on Anthony Robbins’ website. I remember having a bass student who was constantly asking me to put up some videos of the shows I was playing or a short lesson and I would always tell him I’d get to it at some point. The key is to have a system of handling all this stuff as Father Time is not about to give you 25 or 26 hours a day just because you could use it.

Ariel’s plan is brilliant. Here’s a real surface-level view of the plan. Step one is to use widgets (especially ReverbNation or ArtistData) so updating content on one site can update it all over the internet by linking the information. Join Twitter and link it to your phone along with Facebook and Twitpic so right from your phone you can tweet, update Facebook status, and share pics in the phone. Set up a Facebook page for personal and a fan page for the band. Link Facebook to ReverbNation to share music, bios, photos, etc. so when updating ReverbNation Facebook gets updated as well. Link Flickr to Facebook to allow sharing of uploaded pics then use the same app to link YouTube videos to the Facebook page as well. Join the Flickr community - start a profile and use it as a social Web 2.0 site just like MySpace or Facebook. Set up different photo sets so only certain people see certain photos to make a distinction between different groups (i.e. fans don’t need to see ALL the family reunion pics or the last wedding, etc.). Create some very cool digital postcards or business cards off the pics you have in your Flickr account. Lastly, join the podcasting community (particularly on Music Alley) and record your own custom station IDs for particular podcasters.

This is more than a mouthful and I’m trying to catch up. I just set up my ArtistData and ReverbNation accounts last week and set up my YouTube channel, Facebook fan page, and Flickr account this weekend. Lots of profile filling in the blanks to do!! I’ve been thinking about doing all these things for years as my friend, Adam Rafferty, has already done most of this stuff. It’s high time for me to catch up but just setting up the accounts for me was a big move so my new website can link right in. Web design is moving along and I do hope to have the new site up in a couple of weeks.

Getting the new iPhone is the next step and by then maybe I’ll be into 2010 in terms of gadgetry. I used to pride myself as being the last one on the block to get the latest stuff when I was a kid. I think I bought my first CD player in 1992 about 12 years after they came out. Times have changed for me in that department as I’d love to post some videos and other media hot of the press. That’s all for now, until next week. Almost half way there on the 9 Week Blogging Challenge!

-PB

The website!

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 06:51:03 -0400

You caught me. Red-handed. I almost forgot to write a blog or I should say trying to hoping to forget. But not so fast, this is actually important to me. I'm in Ischia, Italy right now (an island off the coast of Naples) finishing the 2010 Piano & Jazz Festival featuring Chick Corea (http://www.pianoejazz.it/programma.htm).

The first night we got here Roy Hargrove's band was playing at a local club (sponsored by the festival of course) and played some burning music with a capital 'M' - jazz, latin, funk, R&B, and ballads with some incredible solos including Roy singing on 'Never Let Me Go'! I played with the Allan Harris Quintet the following night at an outside gala next to a beautiful swimming pool, a sold-out crowd, and the beach going out to the ocean about 200 feet away. Jonathan Batiste, pianist extraordinaire from Hargrove's band, sat in with us for two songs. Every night afterwards we followed Chick Corea's concerts with a 90-minute to 2-hour set at the Regina Isabella Hotel (http://www.reginaisabella.it/) where we are staying. Last night the band had the honor of having dinner with Chick Corea and Roy Haynes, who was playing with him that night, just before they headed to the main venue for their concert. I was asking Chick how he manages to focus on music through all the changes he's been through and seen over his multi-decade (almost half-century now) successful career. What a great response he had - remind me to write a whole blog on that!! Tonight we do our last show in Ischia at the same club we saw Roy Hargrove playing in when we first arrived. It's been a nice run.

In between this and the perfect weather, beautiful beach, awesome food, beautiful people, and some practicing (yes, I still do that), I'm working on the website. People say I'm nuts, I say this is laying the groundwork for my future. I just got a call that my band, Paul Beaudry & Pathways, will be doing a show for 3000 to 4000 people at Bryant Park in New York City on Sept 16 at 6pm. We leave for a 3.5-week tour to Central America on Sept 29th. I need to be ready. We need to be ready. Trust me we will be.

Week 3 of Ariel Hyatt's book 'Music Success in Nine Weeks' talks about optimizing the website. It's amazing how obvious things get overlooked if you don't take the time to think about them. For musicians, doing anything that's not music is a mental accomplishment. "Oh look, I did something for 3 hours that wasn't music-related. Great, how did I pull that off? I don't care - it's done." That's usually the mental chatter. So simple things like adding your pitch your homepage, your site loading in less than 3.5 seconds, avoiding the flash intros, etc. These are things I think about all the time when I'm looking at other's websites, but applying that to my own - eek! I'm going to do it right the lazy way. Ariel's team is building my new website starting next week. I still need to provide the content which is why I'm still working on the pitch from last week among other things - a work in progress.

She also points out how important it is to have a consistent look and feel on the MySpace, Twitter, and other related internet media pages (OK, that I will have to do myself) so people don't feel like they've skipped to a different artist each time they reference a related page. I thought I was smart by using the same picture icon on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, but her concept takes that to a whole new level. And it makes complete sense so God bless her for pointing that out because I'm too busy practicing, scheduling, and performing to think about these sort of things otherwise.

Also she says have some free give-aways. Some EXCLUSIVE mp3s, videos, or other media that are ONLY available on the artist's homepage. Hmmmm. I have some ideas. Some ideas that will work that people will really enjoy - that you will enjoy. I'm interested in hearing your ideas. I know what I'm thinking, I want to hear what you are thinking. Email me your ideas at: week3ideas@paulbeaudry.com. And keep a lookout for some new free stuff on my website soon - one of the ideas could be yours!!

Looking forward,
PB

WEEK 2: The Pitch - balls, strikes, and umpires

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:21:23 -0400

Following Ariel Hyatt's blog challenge our main goal this week is to design our elevator pitch. For most fields of business the 'elevator pitch' is what you would say to the person in the elevator who asks you what you do. Your challenge is to answer in an accurate and compelling short description that is memorable and leaves an impression. This is handy not only if someone asks you on the street what you do and you have a canned 15-second or less response, but is extremely powerful in a small conference/networking situation where everyone in a group of people has a chance to introduce themselves as they go around the room. There you have a golden opportunity to promote yourself in your best light. Inevitably one person has a fabulous elevator pitch and at the next break in the event a good percentage of the room walks towards that person to shake their hand and ask for more information. The person with the ‘wow’ pitch walks away with more meaningful contacts and possible new business relationships than anyone else present.

I had no idea before reading Ariel's book how important the elevator pitch is in music. I'm so used to music being so different than any other business I often keep the rules separate between the two different worlds. Particularly in the jazz world people don't care what you say, they only care about how you play then how professional you are after that. Often if someone talks too much or is too slick no one takes them seriously. I've never in my 20 years of playing jazz heard of any musician or bandleader work on their elevator pitch. Fast forward to finishing my first CD a couple months ago. Many people (non-musicians) since have asked me to describe what my band sounds like and then it hit me. These potential fans wanted to know if my music is something they want. As I fumbled the first several times to come up with something I realized it's time to work on the ol' elevator pitch.

In putting my new music website together I came up with a few ideas. The new CD is the debut recording of Pathways and the next CD (out in 2011) is a duo recording with Adam Rafferty ('New Tomorrows'). However I also teach and will be finishing a bass instructional book and DVD as well real soon. Hmmm. I really like what Adam Rafferty did on his 'Gratitude' CD - "Funky fingerstyle guitar, simultaneous melodies and basslines, and sprinkles of human beat box - straight from the streets of New York City. Watch out - This CD is seriously fun!" He printed that right on the back cover of his CD and still uses "funky fingerstyle guitar" as a tagline today.

For Pathways I came up with "an exciting, soul-stirring, jazzy good time a la Christian McBride and Ray Brown meets Herbie Hancock." Then I realized the Pathways band is primarily influenced by Herbie, Tony Williams, and Dizzy Gillespie. I don't really know how many people outside the jazz world are familiar with those musicians so I tried again with no name references. "Engaging fun, beautiful, and powerful Soul Jazz" with a tagline, "engaging Soul Jazz." Adam Rafferty chimed in with "21st Century Soul Jazz" which I love. The challenge is should I sum up in one pitch everything I do or have different pitches for different things? I'm inclined to go with with different pitches for different things. One musician who has done this brilliantly is someone Ariel Hyatt has turned me on to - Rachel Barton Pine. She's a violinist who does classical, baroque, bluegrass, and death metal!! No joke, try to string that one together. Check out www.rachelbartonpine.com and see how she did it - what a genius!

I'm a student. I'm going to be studying Rachel Barton Pine and how she pulled this off. I'll be studying others. So far I've thrown a few balls, a few strikes, and you can be the umpire. One of these days real soon I'm going to come up with some pitches and taglines that will be home runs and they'll be no disputing that I nailed it. Still working. Any more coffee anyone?

-Paul

Blogging challenge week 1

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 14:06:29 -0400

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