Soul Band for a Party. My Rich Mum's Ebook Secrets.
Was the request six months ago, a sixtieth birthday party, the client said. It got me thinking. There is a whole untapped market out there for people who lived as teenagers and twenty somethings through the sixties and seventies. They are all coming up to this big sixtieth birthday date and they all love the kind of music I love to play and earn my living out of! More than that, their kids are off their hands, their mortgage is paid up and they can afford to splash out on a big celebration.
That isn't the real reason for writing this article, in fact it has very little to do with the subject which is about the day in the life of a working professional London musician. It did get me thinking, however, how things have changed from my own youth. When I was young, sixty-year-old men smoked untipped fags, wore flat caps and suits and listened to Max Bygraves. Now the average sixty year old will be a fan of Wilson Pickett, Otis Reading, James Brown and The Stones and be dressing in Gap. He or she will definitely not be a smoker!!
The engagement was in West Sussex, a lovely part of the world, in late June. The weather was perfect as I loaded up the car. For a soul band music gig you need amplification and some lighting as well as a cd player for keeping the music and atmosphere going for when the band takes a break. I picked up my bass player Andy mid afternoon, and we drove down together to the sixtieth birthday party. Andy is no stranger to soul band work. He was musical director a few years ago to the Flirtations, a sixties Motown soul music band who had three or four hits back in the nineteen sixties. A very experienced and talented musician Andy has also worked with Van Morrison, Phil Collins and Eddie Reader as well as 1980`s swing band Wall Street Crash. Being a close friend for twenty-five years the trip down to the party was a pleasure. Good company, good conversation, lovely weather and countryside and the anticipation of a very rocking gig with some great players!
As usual we arrived early. The party we were playing soul music for were still having dinner and would be at least another hour. That was fine with us as the venue of the party was delightful. The person who's sixtieth birthday it was had arranged drinks for us and so while we brought the musical gear in to the venue a pot of tea was rustled up for us. Over a brew and the gear sitting outside the function room, we decided on what order the soul music for the party should take. There is no point playing the real lively soul music tunes too early on. A group of sixty year olds with full stomachs are not going to appreciate being coerced into getting down to Mustang Sally by a full on soul band after a big rich pud! The party is always best started with some more laid back soul music by people like Al Green and Ben E King.
The other musicians from the band start to arrive and bring their gear in. There is still time for a cup of tea and we order it for them whilst guitars and drums are brought into the hotel. Shortly the room begins to clear. The sixty-year-old birthday boy is obviously keen to party and doesn't want to waste time on speeches! As the guests make their way to the bar, go out for a smoke (the young ones...they'll learn) or take the lovely Sussex evening air, the band dives in and sets up the gear for the party. We meet the host who insists on describing, in detail, a gig he went to in the sixties featuring Stax star Otis Reading who was a master of the soul music genre and a legend in soul music. We are torn between setting up on time and listening to some one recount their memories of a legend! Being a big fan myself I am able to recount a few memories of my own of seeing the Blues Brothers soul and blues band with legendary players Booker T, Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. These guys are soul music legends too, having played and written the hit "Green Onions" and having backed Otis Reading and Sam and Dave on many of their live gigs both in London and America. Steve Cropper was also the writer of "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay", "Knock on Wood" and "In the Midnight Hour", all soul music tunes we play in our soul band as part of our set and tunes we intended playing for the sixtieth birthday party that very night.
The band is set, the lights are on and we have started our evening's entertainment. There are already a few people on the floor dancing to that great Bill Withers tune "Lovely Day" and it makes me realize that people who were growing up in the sixties are much more in tune with live music and are used to dancing to a live band than the current generation. What also hits home is how the generation of today, when they get the opportunity to listen to a great soul band playing great soul music, get caught up by the music we play and respond so well to it. It makes me realize that bands such as mine will be playing soul music for a party like this and like we do for younger persons weddings, long after current musical trends die.
The evening progresses, the soul band picks up in tempo, the horns are riffing those familiar riffs from such favourites as "Hold on I`m Coming," "Dancing in the Street" and "I Feel Good". I always kid Mark our main singer and master guitarist when he sings "I Feel Good" by James Brown. James Brown is in his mid seventies, American and black. Mark is white, in his forties and from Scunthorpe! At the end of the tune I say what I always say....it always gets a laugh..."Its like James Brown was in the room!"
The audience is hanging in there with us. Drenched in sweat and transported in time, they are back in the Flamingo in Soho or some other sweaty dive of their youth. I look round and the boys in the band are having a ball. We are working real hard; we are sweating more than the audience. To make a band like ours rock as hard as it does requires a great deal of energy. Soul music isn't music played off the back foot; it is high-energy music that drives. As such, whether it is loud or quiet, it requires total commitment and all ones physical resources. An amateur band just doesn't cut it. They are unable to give the energy coupled with the sense of groove that good soul music requires. It needs relentless practice of ones instrument, high energy all evening that cannot drop...in fact it must increase as the evening progresses and a lot of stamina that only constant work on your instrument gives you.
Before we know it the night is over. We manage to persuade the birthday boy, after two encores, that it is time to finish. He is delighted with the band and the soul music we have played for his party. A few of his guests have come up for business cards. They too have sixtieth birthday parties coming up and they too love their soul music!!
We have been paid and the gear has been packed away. We are debating whether to employ a roadie at the moment. Everyone in the band loves playing soul music for a party but no one likes to cart gear! The funny thing is this. Every year technology makes musical gear lighter but somehow every year the gear feels slightly heavier!! As you, me, everybody, gets nearer to his or her sixtieth birthday party I suppose everything gets just that little bit heavier!
We say our goodbyes. Hugs and handshakes. You wouldn't believe that we see each other on average two or three times a week! On the way home we leave the radio off. It is time for quiet reflection. We discuss the gig. What went well. How we could improve the set order. We decide we can`t. What new tunes we want to incorporate into our soul music band party repertoire. This isn't easy. The most important criteria is to get people up dancing. There is sometimes a conflict between favourites and the sort of tunes, which will fill the floor for the party. This is always our main priority. It is what we get paid for. Paid well for. We have a reputation to maintain.
Andy has been dropped off. It is two o'clock. I am home fifteen minutes later. The gear is brought into the house. Must look into getting that roadie!
On goes the computer. Must check my emails. June and July are a busy time. Just as I thought. Three pressing messages that require an answer. Get to bed at three thirty. Please God don't let the kids wake me up before ten on Sunday morning. I'll need to be up then as the band are in Birmingham in the evening doing another soul music party and the M6 can be murder at this time of the year.
The kids come jumping into our room at eight thirty! It doesn't matter. Monday I am totally free. I can get them off to school and come home and sleep. Someone once said " If you can earn your living doing what you love you will never do a days work in your life" How true.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Williams is a London based trombonist and vocalist who has worked all over the world in most areas of the business. He also runs a successful, specialist, live music agency using the best of London musicians, servicing both private and corporate clients playing all over the country. He would be happy to advise you with your own event or party and offers bespoke solutions for the perfect occasion.
Contact him on 020 8761 8932 or 07747 801471
Email him on bonejeff@aol.com
Visit the website www.jazznotjazz.co.uk
Copyright (c) Jeff Williams, JazzNotJazz.co.uk
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
As usual, I walked into the Starbucks for my morning coffee.
Enjoying my morning coffee in Starbucks has been a routine since a year back. Now, everything in that particular Starbucks seems so familiar. Even the customers looked similar.
Just as I was walking to my favorite table with my warm coffee, I notice a lady meddling with her personal computer while sipping her drink. I took a glance and swore that face looked familiar. Anyway I thought my memory might not have fully awakened and so continued my walk towards my table. Now, I sat facing straight to this demure lady and suddenly it struck me, she was a well-known internet marketer, let's call her My Rich Mum. I was planning to start my own e-book business and have been surfing for more information and her picture always seems to pop up in e-book sites.
I knew I needed a mentor like Rich Mum if I wanted to start a successful e-book business. I was usually a shy person but at that moment, some part of me told me to get my back off the seat and walk towards her. Well, I did just that. I approached Rich Mum and started a conversation. I introduced myself and told her
I was planning to start an e-book business and asked if she had any tips or advice. All she did was to pull a card out of her purse and told me to only open the card when I reached home. The "namecard size" card was wrapped in a light blue wrapper. Rich Mum then wrote her personal contact number on the back of the card and told me to read, adsorb and understand the contents of the card. Her instructions were for me to understand the contents and to call her the day after.Not knowing what else to do, I thanked her and went back to my now cold coffee.
That day after work, I went home all excited, ready to unveil the contents of the card. As I carefully removed the beautiful blue wrapper, I saw the contents of the card:
My Personal Guide to an E-Book Business
1. Choose my topic
2. Write my E-book
3. Create my website
4. Accept payments
5. Promote my website
That was all the contents on the card, simple and logical and yet so divine. I started to break down the contents one by one and tried surfing the internet for more information and voila, that was it. The 5 steps are all I need for my e-book business.
I couldn't wait until the day after; I had to call Rich Mum the following day for a meet up. I wanted to know what the contents meant to her. Rich Mum, being the kind lady she was, agreed to meeting me for lunch. This time, I armed myself with a new pen and notepad.
Finally at 1.30pm, I got to meet Rich Mum again. This time, she started her speech with a serious tone: "Jay, if you wish to understand more about the contents on the card I gave you, you will have to pay me $1000." I wrote Rich Mum a cheque on the spot. Hey, she was a famous internet guru and people would pay up to the thousands for by the hour consultation.
Soon we were discussing about e-books and I was busy trying to jot down everything she said, word for word, sentence for sentence.
The moment came when she started to explain the contents on the card she had gave to me earlier the day before. This was it, I specifically told Rich Mum to speak slower. (My hands were tired by now!) The following was what Rich Mum said exactly:
"Choose my topic
This is where most people would take tons of time during their creation of their e-book business. Trust me, people climb onto the e-book wagon with only one objective in mind, making as much money as possible. Your first priority should be adding as much value as possible, when you do that, people will automatically part their money with you. Before you plunge into choosing any topic, always ask yourself the following questions:
"What do I do for a living?"
"What are the types of knowledge I have?"
"What am I interested in?"
"Are there secrets I have that people might be very interested in?"
The above questions should lead you to adding value to a certain group of people and earning money at the same time.
Write my e-book
Once you have the above step covered, once you already have your topic, writing your e-book should be a breeze. You do not need distinctions in English to write an e-book. People love e-books which are written in a more casual tone and not a stern go by the book tone. I always create my table of contents first, and then simply proceed to elaborate on the points I wish to bring forth. It's really that simple. After completing that e-book, I almost always convert my e-book into a PDF file, so that more eyeballs will be able to read it. The PDF format is friendly with most desktop platforms.
Please always format sentences to be of 1.5 spacing and try to use larger fonts. This is because of the fact that it is always harder to read on the computer screen as compared to a hard copy.
Create my website
Your e-book website is not going to be a complicated website full of programming jargon. All you really need is two important pages, namely the Sales Page and the Thank You Page. The sales page will be where you show visitors your sales letter; it is the showcase of your e-book business. The thank you page is where you will have a link for the download of your product; in this case your product is your e-book.
You can be a total computer idiot and yet own e-book businesses. A great tip to creating that website is to reply on friends who are well-versed in web designing. There is absolute no need to hire expensive web designers to do the same job a student web designer would do for a lunch treat. That was how I started my first e-book business back in 1997.
Accepting payments
A lot of people start their e-book businesses to make money, you need to start your e-book business to add value and then to make money.
An E-book business always accepts credit card payments due to the fact that the credit card is the number one paying tool over the internet. To accept credit card payments, you will need a merchant account that will process your customer's cards and make sure payment is made. There are a few third party merchant accounts that will handle all credit card payments for your e-book businesses. The best part is you do not pay until you make a sale.
Promote your site
This is going to be the most difficult part of your e-book business. The hard fact is that Sales is directly proportional to Traffic. The most traffic you can get to your site, the more sales you will make.
There are a couple of great ways to generate traffic to your site. One of these ways is to create a free e-book, report or course.
All you do next is to send out the free e-books, reports or courses in anywhere possible and see the traffic pouring into your site. Remember, people are always looking for free information over the internet, so if you are able to provide great free information to people, they will spend on your website."
There you have it, the 5 steps to an e-book business unveiled. My hands were trembling by now. After an hour of hardcore e-book coaching, Rich Mum was ready to leave for her game of tennis, leaving me to adsorb the notes I have just taken.* For your information, Rich Mum tore the cheque and before leaving, she whispered: "People will always be more committed after parting with their money."
(C) 2003,2004 SS.Jay
Do you wish to know how Rich Mum starts her e-book business? See how SS.Jay uses Rich Mum Techniques to start e-book businesses that generate value and money. Get two free powerful e-books at http://www.CreateEbookProfits.com NOW!! Or mailto:ssjay@getresponse.com
About The Author
SS.Jay is the author of two Powerful How-To ebooks - The CreateEbookProfits and the eBOOKPLANNING.
A must have ebook package if you want to start your OWN ebook business! Visit http://www.createebookprofits.com for your free gifts today
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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Performance Computer Chips For Cars And Trucks
Hey, look under the hood!
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's SUPERCHIP!
With apologies to Superman, performance computer chips or superchips are quickly becoming a popular way for auto enthusiasts to squeeze out more power from their cars. Basically what a superchip mod does is to store a new engine management program in your car's computer. Noticeable increases in horsepower and torque as well as improvements in driveability are the chief benefits of this type of chip. Installation is easy and the price is right...we'll examine just how easy and cost effective a superchip is below.
Depending on the make/model of your car or truck, a superchip can help your vehicle crank out from 9 to 60 more horsepower. Not too shabby when you consider some compact cars barely make it to 115 horses. Yeah, you could have elected for the more powerful engine with some cars but the $1000 or better mark up in price dwarfs the price of a superchip. Better to go with the superchip and pocket the savings.
So, how hard is it to install a superchip? Actually, it is really a simple procedure:
1. Locate your car's computer chip [usually found in your dashboard].
2. Remove the factory installed chip and replace it with the superchip...one chip slides out and the other slides in.
3. Place a cover over the chip to keep it in place and to keep dirt and dust out.
That's it! The hardest part will be to remove the dash, but even that job isn't all that difficult.
As I said previously, the price of installing a superchip can be done for a lot less than an engine upgrade. Prices start below $300, so it ends up being one the cheaper performance enhancing mods out there.
You can also find other types of performance computer chips that will work well including Jet Chips and the Hypertech performance chip. With either chip you stand to wring out additional performance from your car for a reasonably priced mod. Hey, if it is increased performance you want then one of these chips is for you!
Matt Keegan is a contributing writer for Car Parts Stuff, an online supplier of high quality and well priced automobile parts.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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