Sunday Evening To-Do Update

Alright, how did we do on the To-Do list today?

1. Log overall to-do list into my By Ear blog. COMPLETED!

2. Email Japan about Singapore business. Turn down the Japan offer. COMPLETED!

3. Prepare preliminary all-hands-meeting agenda. Just get a rough idea of all the potential topics. NOPE! :(

4. Get Map to Sherman. Make sure it captures all elements from the past week. COMPLETED!

5. BMS meeting prep READY!

6. Lay down Kat's scratch vocals on my newest song. NOPE! Schedules didn't line up, but here's a link to the new song: If You Change Your Mind! (without any vocals)

7. Run! I need to get outside and run! YES! I ran outside for 6.8 miles. Took me 1 hour 5 minutes and 59.2 seconds. Had a side stitch 2 1/2 minutes into the run...but I got better. Felt good to get outside in the sun. Wow, this wasn't easy, but it felt really good.
   

8. Update Quicken. I'm about 6-weeks behind... maybe 8 weeksDONE!

9. Buy file trays for my office. All the stores were close for Easter. I made the trip.

10. Email people about Milan business. Action items for Monday. DONE!

11. Goto Home Depot and look at railings for deck/porch. Found one open and bought some samples!

12. Provide some website assistance. I didn't get it schedule.

13. Read thread on board meeting issues and what conflicts are there?IN PROGRESS

14. My old studio still has equipment there. Place is being sold. Snooze or lose. Ebay here I come! But, I've got to take inventory and see what I have to sell or keep. I really didn't plan to do this today, I just wanted to get it on a list. Needs to be completed in the next 2 months.

15. Read the Sunday paper.

16. Watch the Badgers! :(
    

Snooze or Do It!

Easter Sunday will not be a day of rest, but a day of organizing and accomplishing.

1. Log overall to-do list into my By Ear blog. (can I check this off already?)

2. Email Japan about Singapore business. Turn down the Japan offer.

3. Prepare preliminary all-hands-meeting agenda. Just get a rough idea of all the potential topics.

4. Get Map to Sherman. Make sure it captures all elements from the past week.

5. BMS meeting prep

6. Lay down Kat's scratch vocals on my newest song. HEY, I found one that actually fits the charter of this website!! I'll drop a link to a bit of this effort later today or tomorrow. BTW, it's a rock song. Ha!

7. Run. I need to get outside and run! I'm doing my first marathon in 10 months.

8. Update Quicken. I'm about 6-weeks behind... maybe 8 weeks

9. Buy file trays for my office. Need 5+ in+out+next week = 8 trays

10. Email people about Milan business. Action items for Monday.

11. Goto Home Depot and look at railings for deck/porch

12. Provide some website assistance

13. Read thread on board meeting issues – what conflict are there?

14. My old studio still has equipment there. Place is being sold. Snooze or lose. Ebay here I come! But, I've got to take inventory and see what I have to sell or keep.

15. Read the Sunday paper.

Music website Links

I need to catch up with some messages I've been sent on music related web links:

The first one comes from David Hooper. He's got an interesting blog site indiemusician.com going for music industry info. He's got some good thoughts he's sharing about the music industry and such.

The next site is Bob Baker's Indie Music Promotion Blog. He's got news and ideas on music marketing and self-promotion.

Spinme.com is a blog site with info on things happening in the world of being a musician and anything that Joe Taylor Jr. wants to mention.

Vikki Flawith blog is being update on a regular bases. This is a real songwriters blog. Fun to read and see/hear what she's up to. Vikki's a taxi.com member and regular poster on the boards there. Check it out! Almost forgot, you can listen to her tunes here.

What with Jetlag?

Wow, the week zipped by after getting back from Europe. I didn't even have time to remember the jetlag from just returning from Europe. I had some intense coolness happening, but it requirement all my time this past week and my mind...the rest of the time got used up sleeping.

Time zones and jetlag. What is up with that? The first time I went to Europe was about 8 years ago. I flew into Brussels, rented a car and drove in circles around the city because I couldn't read the road signs. I wasn't even sure which signs were signs. Stopped at least 3 times to ask directions to the hotel which was in the center of the city. Final got to the center of Brussels, but STILL couldn't figure out where the hotel was. Drove past it 1/2 dozen times THEN couldn't figure out were the parking lot (car park) was. Ran inside and the guy behind the hotel counter said..."P!" I didn't know what the heck we was talking about. I asked more slowly and louder, "WHERE do I PARK my CAR? AUTO?" He said "P! P!" After this charade a lady standing next to me waiting to check in said, "look for the sign right outside with a P. Follow the arrow. The parking is underground." It was early afternoon by the time I hit my bed, I slept for 3 hours then went for dinner in a daze and accidently bought a $200 bottle of wine when I thought I was ordering pasta and a beer. The next 2 days I was falling asleep in taxis (left the car in the P lot so I wouldn't get lost going to see customers) and not being able to sleep at night. Ah yes, I remember it well...or not.

A million flight miles later, I always sleep on the flights. Usually for some hours. I arrive ready to get going with whatever I'm there for. I sleep whenever possible and don't worry about getting the recommended daily allowance. Last night after being home for 6-days, I finally had time to really sleep. Did it up big for 10 hours straight. Blah blah...what's the deal with this jetlag stuff!

Next trip is Nashville, but that's not for a few weeks.

Setting the digital cam on a chuch pew in Milan! A HUGE church in the city center in Milan. This was March 13, believe. My running jacket even has glowing stripes. 

Set the cam on timer and hold it as far away as possible. Repeat 3x to get myself actually in the picture! This is right across the street from the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Rd in London. This was right before I went in to see We Will Rock You! 

Heathrow

My European tour is wrapping up. I haven't been online much other than to grab email. I'm now sitting at Heathrow paying 5 pounds for 1 hour of wireless time.

This place is a zoo. (just thought I'd mention that)

Glasgow was rainy and cold (imagine that)

I saw We Will Rock You

	Dominion Theatre
	Tottenham Court Road London W1T 7AQ
	(0870) 169 0116
	Take the Tube to Tottenham Court Road

Ah, my flight is boarding for Chicago. Time is up. I'll be back to more post later this weekend. Lots to cover and uncover!

-Cheers-

Priorities

I'm packing for Europe...well, I'm suppose to be packing for Europe tonight. It's #3 on the priority list. It was #4, but I completed #1 so packing is moving up.

#1 on the list was get my 4 songs of scratch vocals recorded, exported from Sonar 4 and burned onto a CD. I'm going to snail mail the CD and lyrics sheets out to LA. I've finally surrendered to the fact that I need to get another perceptive on how to perform these vocal tracks. I'm just not satisfied. So, my pro drummer buddy, Ron Wikso, is hooking me up with a singer he trusts can lay down guide vocal tracks to help me learn how to perform my own songs. Now this is a little odd for me 'cause I wrote the songs, the melody and the lyrics. But, I'm not rockin' my own world so I need another approach. In a few weeks, I'll know how well this will help me. I'll be posting some samples and results. I can't wait!

Ron is also going to lay down some percussion tracks. Wow, I was stupid when it can to percussion on rock songs. Ron is doing a fantastic job of filling out the feel of my tunes with some great percussion. Subtle, but it really polishes the songs. Ron is playing drums on all 12 of the songs for my CD.

I was reading over at MelodicRock.com that Ron and Kelly Keagy (Night Ranger) are the two drummers on the upcoming Frederiksen-Denander Album.

With this post done, packing is moving to #2 on my priority list. Sleep is #1.

Next post will be from Europe! Grazie i miei amici

Podcast Technical Improvements

I made some technical changes to the first Podcast By Ear with Arthur Vance. PodCast feed is still at feeds.feedburner.com/ArthurVance. But, I was hosting the podcast mp3 files over at broadjam.com because I have an account there already. Ran into a problem. Broadjam converts all mp3 uploads. This strips out all my header description stuff. I don't like that because if you use podcast receiver software, well, you're not going to know who the heck the file is from as you browse your iTune files or browse your iPod. So I am feeding the file from my new hosting site at arthurvance.com which as of right now, I'm only using to host my mp3 files.

I'm going to now see if it works!

My First PODCAST!

The first By Ear with Arthur Vance PodCast is here! You can click that link to just stream it to you over the internet or point your podcast receiver software, iPodder, iPodderX (or search for PodCast software) to my PodCast feed at feeds.feedburner.com/ArthurVance.

Let's see if this works. I'm hosting the file at broadjam.com, but they don't know I'm podcast it!

Buzzin' Virtually

I'm having fun with myvirtualband. Rick "Buzz" Ellis is making a lot of contributions as a virtual musician. He also has a blog at HomegrownMP3 which you should check out. He's got some well done groovin' orginal tunes he's written and record that are posted on this site. You really need to check out his tune, Overrated. It just makes me tap my foot and grin. :)

Putting The Band Back Together.

- 8 o'clock report -

Pubsub turned up a myvirtualband posting on another site called Slaw Blog. You can check out this write up. I really think the myvirtualband concept is awesome.

I've been working with some fantastic pro musicians over the past year. We've done 95% of the work remotely. It's all coming together sounding great too. I would have NEVER ever come in contact with them without the internet. I did some searching in google. Sent some emails. Bam! I'm working with guys I've heard on albums and see touring through my town. Ok ok, I can't resist. I'm working on a song called "Swing!" and amazingly I have a couple of the guys from Phil Collin's horn section playing on it. I mean actually them playing for my song. They sat in the studio to play my song. Not a loop sample. They played for me. Only with the internet!

I guess we have the topic of the 1st By Ear with Arthur Vance - PodCast!

...coming soon!

PodCasting

- 9 o'clock report -

You know that I've been excited about Podcasting for the past couple of weeks. I have a lot of ideas. My behind-the-scenes work on getting a podcast technically working is a success! A feedster RSS feed with smartcasting turned on and pointed to this blogspot.com blog does the trick. Turning this option on from feedburner will convers my source blog feed into RSS 2.0 format with appropriate elements of the audio links as long as the the audio links at the beginning of the posting.

I can post more details if you'd like.

Ok, to get my PodCasts, you point your podding software to my feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ArthurVance

I tested this in iPodder tonight. It worked great!

Right now the only podcast download is of a song I'm writing at the myvirtualband.com website. The podcast is me playing some guitars and the songs structure that I wrote. No vocals yet.

Future podcast from this site will be more interesting with me chatting up a storm about my songs. I'm also going to line up some interviews this year so stay turn and subscribe to my RSS podcast feed!

That's what I'm talkin' about!