Blog Challenge - Week 3

Week 3 of the blog challenge is about optimizing your website. There are six main points in the chapter.
1. Add the pitch to your website
2. Your site must load in less that 3.5 seconds
3. NO flash intros
4. Have a consistent look, name and feel all across the net
5. Give away an exclusive thing to satisfy the WIIFM (What's in it for me?)
6. Make it clear and set them at ease

So, I've been able to implement most of these things on my site, www.ernestocervini.com. I haven't added a pitch yet, as I'm still working on one. On a side note, I thought I'd be able to stay on top of all of this while I was on tour with my quartet. ha ha ha....not so!

My site does load quick, and there's no flash. I have a consistent look, and if you sign up for my mailing list, you get a free download of a live recording by my quartet.

Hooray! Week 4, here I come!

Blog Challenge - Week 2

So this week's chapter in the book "Music Success in 9 weeks" is about creating the perfect pitch. In my case, I think it would be a good idea to establish a pitch for both my quartet, and also my own playing.

Funny thing happened this morning. As you may or may not know, I'm currently on tour with my quartet, traveling across Canada. I was doing an interview this morning with a journalist in Kamloops in advance of our gig there this upcoming Saturday. The interview was going great, and towards the end, she asked me to describe my band and our music. This would have been a perfect time to unleash my "pitch." Unfortunately, as I've been on tour I've had a difficult time working on my pitch. SO, when she asked me for my description I was pretty stumped. I fell back on the..."well...we play modern jazz, mostly originals...it's a quartet." Finally I said "we are along the tradition of the Miles Davis quintet of the 60's." Suddenly, she knew exactly what I was talking about.

Now, I'm not really sure my quartet is exactly like the Miles quintet from the 60's...but it gave her (the journalist) an comparison, and she felt she had a much clearer idea of what we're about. Now, I just need to work on my pitch to make it fit the quartet a little more. Maybe something about how we swing like Miles' quintet playing original jazz compositions in the style of Dave Douglas and Kurt Rosenwinkel's bands.

Anyways, I've learned firsthand already that a pitch is a very useful tool. I'll let you know when I come up with something....I gots some work to do!

Blog Challenge - Week 1

So, I've been reading this book entitled "Music Success in Nine Weeks" by Ariel Hyatt. The book is a "Step-By-Step Guide On How to Use Social Media & Online Tactics to Supercharge Your PR, Build Your Fan Base and Earn More Money."

So, far I'm really into it. When I bought it, it came with a downloadable file which serves as a precursor to the book entitled "A Musicians Guide to Social Media Success." I dove into this right away and have been implementing many suggestions that were in the guide. First off, I stream-lined all my social media outlets (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook) so that I had the same username. I also implemented a free download on my website for anybody that signs up to be on my mailing list. I've opened a Flickr account (although I've yet to really start using that) and I've become much more active on Twitter.

Week 1 of the book focuses on setting goals. I bought myself a nice notebook and wrote down some solid music, financial, business, and personal goals for the next year. I'm happy to say I've already achieved one! I had 30 fans on my Quartet's Facebook page and I set a goal of getting 75 fans. I now have 160 fans and counting! I'm pretty sure that has no tangible meaning, but I set a goal and I achieved it. I've realized a more useful goal (rather than FB fans) is names on my mailing list because I can reach out and contact these people on a more real and direct level. My goal is 500 names on my mailing list. That'll be a pretty tall order, but I'm going on tour this Friday for 2 weeks with the quartet, so I'll be hoping to get some names and e-mail addresses from each stop along the way.

The next post will be from Edmonton. You can keep up with the quartet on my travel blog!

Inspirations

I have been inspired the past week, and it's felt great! A number of different things have inspired me; Seeing Brian Blade perform live (with Chick Corea), Listening to the Avishai Cohen album "Gently Disturbed", Watching Roy Halladay pitch a no-hitter in the playoffs, reading Music Success in 9 Weeks (by Ariel Hyatt.)

Brian Blade
Wow, he is such an explosive drummer. I realized that one of the main things I found so captivating about his playing was his dynamic contrasts. He sizzles along and cooks and then, BAM! he drops a bomb out of nowhere. When he hits his cymbals, he HITS his cymbals. He played his butt off with Chick Corea and Christian McBride the other night.

Avishai Cohen Trio - Gently Disturbed
I was introduced to this album the other week by my good friend, Tom Richards. I haven't stopped listening to it, nor have a listened to anything else since (literally.) The writing and playing on the album are both fantastic, and it's super-rhythmically complex. I'm really digging it, and I've already started writing a tune that it inspired.

Roy Halladay
A couple of months ago, Roy Halladay pitched a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies. I read about how he's one of the hardest working guys in the majors, and how the day after he threw the perfect game, he was the first person to the park to work out. That's how you succeed. Hard work...EVERY DAY. When he was a rookie with the Jays, things weren't working out for him, so they sent him back to Single-A ball (which is a huge demotion) to rework his game. And now, he's one of the best in the game. Hard work = success...Inspirational

Music Success in 9 Weeks
This book deals with getting your social media act in gear. When I ordered it, it came with a side book discussing different social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr) and how you can use these to your advantage. I've taken that to heart, and am spending some time focusing on cleaning up my social media....stuff. In terms of the book, I will be blogging a lot more about it over the next 2-3 months....

Being inspired is a wonderful feeling. The challenge is to keep this going....

A new challenge

I recently purchase a book called "Music Success in Nine Weeks." Contrary to the title, I don't believe this will make me a successful musician in 9 weeks. I'm pretty sure years of musical training, inspiration and experience play a pretty large role in that!

The book is about embracing the Social Networking available online, and maximizing an artist's online presence. One part of this is a 9-week blog challenge, which I will be taking part in.

So, over the next 9 weeks I will be reading through the book and blogging about it. This may prove tricky right from the start, as I'm leaving on a Cross-Canada tour from Oct 15-30th. I'll be video blogging and taking tons of pictures that you can check it (if interested) at http://ernestotravelblog.blogspot.com/

Don't look now, but in 9 weeks I'm gonna be a Music Success!