What is a Mastermind? A Mastermind is a group of peers that encourage, support, and share ideas to help each other achieve success. In an age where traditional arts institutions are struggling to find relevance, the future belongs to businesses who touch the heart and artists who address the needs of their audiences. My goal for this[…]
One of the Mastermind members asked the following question: I’m trying to help a friend find some ways to use YouTube for his youth orchestra auditions He is hoping all the kids in his youth orchestra can record their audition over break and upload it to YouTube privately so he can watch I told him[…]
What does it take to win an audition? What are the secrets behind those musicians who have won orchestra jobs and prominent teaching positions? Jason Heath, host of the popular “Contrabass Conversations” podcast, has just written new book, “Winning the Audition”, where he sits down with 27 successful audition winners and finds out what they[…]
A lot of musicians struggle to find their artistic core, and communicate it to others. Mark Samples has developed a process for identifying and naming your core brand values so that you can tell a better story, reach more people, and get back to doing what you love: making music. Branding is not just about colors,[…]
Are you a musician struggling to find work? Wondering how to find and meet the right people to get the gigs you really want to play? This Thursday, Oct. 13 9 pm EST I’ll be co-hosting a special webinar with Seth Hanes, author of, “Break Into The Scene”, a new book that gives you all the[…]
Several years ago, I attended my very first rock concert show featuring Coldplay. As a classical pianist, I’m used to certain audience conventions that have been standard practice at classical recitals: At the entrance to the recital hall, you’re given a paper program listing the names of the songs being performed, their performance order, and[…]
When I was just getting started as a professional pianist, there was no such thing as “career counseling” for musicians or publicity pointers for pianists. Unless you were picked up by some major management, you were pretty much left on your own to figure out how to get your name out there. From what I[…]
As promised, here’s a demo video of me using RecoLive with 3 iPads, an old iPhone 4S, and a MacBook Air running RecoLive Capture (Mac OS 10.8 and up only – no Windows PC version yet): A few notes: The AirTurn Manos Mount fits onto any standard microphone stand, and is a nifty way to[…]
After posting my article on creating multi-cam music lesson videos using Wirecast Studio, one of the Mastermind members alerted me to a cool iPad/iPhone app that looks to do something very similar called RecoLive. RecoLive lets you connect up to 4 iPad and/or iPhone cameras and switch between them live with a master tablet or[…]
Several years ago, I created a YouTube video series called “Clair de lune From Scratch” where I set out to teach anyone how to play the piano using this masterpiece by Debussy. It was enormously successful, but a tremendous amount of work to put together. The basic equipment setup looked something like this: What killed[…]
You’re at a social event – a trade show, convention, cocktail party, or even milling around with folks at a concert. Who do you approach? How do you break the ice? What do you say? We all know in principle how important it is to network and connect with other people to grow an audience[…]