Thanks to Nicola Briggs at Sound it Out for forwarding an exciting opportunity for musicians!

New Horizons Birmingham - Professional Development Training.

It’s for musicians who:

* Have a high level of skills in at least one specialist area of music, which could be anything from sitar or rock guitar to voice or woodwind.
* Have the potential to inspire and motivate children and young people to make music.
* Already have some experience of running workshops or helping others make music.
* Want to develop the skills and knowledge needed to work more formally in the education sector, including working for Music Services
* Want to build skills in individual and small group teaching
* Sound It Out strives to promote equal opportunities and encourages applications from Black and Ethnic Minority musicians.

For more information:

email: enquiries@sounditout.co.uk

Tel: 0121 772 8655

I have always struggled with the contradictory hippy side of my personality, where I want to save the earth, not eat Nestle products, scorn upon junk from big powerful companies etc., yet I still wear leather boots, scoff mutant meat when desperate, eat Kit Kats when offered, shop at big brands every now and then - what a walking paradox!?! Oh the Bobbie student of yesteryear would be so disappointed!

Cue real world kick up the arse!

The reason why I babble about my lack of eco-warrior hood is because I stumbled upon this website today - and it is something I would love to eventually do, if I ever had the money and community behind me.

Their purpose: “The house was built with maximum regard for the environment and by reciprocation gives us a unique opportunity to live close to nature. ”

How kool is that!! How enchanting to live like a hobbit? How creative and inspired you would be! Or am I day dreaming again?
I liked how it cost a mere £3000 to build and is a low impact eco-friendly nest taking 4 months to build!! WOOT! Amazing! All you’d need would be a community of hobbits and elves to keep you company.

Have a Happy New Year!

We folks at MediaSnackers be crazy! Here is our Crimbo video. I am soooo not feeling Chrismassy this year. Then again, whenever have I?

Have a good Christmas folks! Hope you get to share it with your loved ones!

Mmmm sprouts!

Well, Bobablog readers, since the last post a few things have happened to lil me. Drum roll…

1. Moved to London - but still working loads in Brum - so it’s not like I am giving Birmingham the finger - it has a pride of place in my heart; I also get free bed and board, nice food and called ‘Roberta’ by my folks back in South Brummage! But new challenges, new places; we’ll see how it goes.

One of my housemates is an Italian artist and educator. I enjoy our chats and am really inspired by his sketches - I think I am going to write some music for some of his exhibitions next year! Whoop! Whoop! I love deadlines me! This is his latest exhibition.

2. I am composing loads more - which is turning out to be loads of fun. When my pieces are ready for air play will post ‘em up so you can slate ‘em

3. I am a Sound Sense board member - for those of you who don’t know, Sound Sense is the UK development agency for community music. I know! WTF!?! I applied and I think no-one else did, so I will be going along to these board meetings where I shall help in overseeing Sound Sense’s activities. I am imagining lots of danish pastries and over-dosing on coffee. I always thought board meetings were for older, wiser, bearded people, but I haven’t grown one yet. Never say never!

4. I have been encouraging more people to blog. This time the band Gurdan Thomas - that I have been rehearsing/gigging with, has jumped on the wordpress wagon. Say ‘Hi!’ if you like. I wish more musicians I knew and liked blogged. I am really impressed by how Ms. Lulu - Pilates instructor extraordinare has taken to blogging and uses it as a tool to communicate with her students!

5. I had a great time at the MediaSnackers Development Day where we shared new social media applications. We have jazzed up the website - well when I say me, I mean Mark and DK. Well done lads - looks slick!

We were set the task of presenting new social media applications, I revealed a 3D animation site - and it proved to be quite a hit with the team. Can I say what it is DK?

I played clarinet and piano with the Gurdan Thomas collective. I had loads of fun performing and was surprisingly not too nervous. The music we played is best described as an amalgam of folk, alternative and is occasionally genre borrowing. We went down quite well, I reckon we had the largest applause - but we did have to wait ages for the sounds guys to fix things, it might have been a reaction to that.

Here are some pics - sos if they are a bit grainy…

I had a wonderful session working with year 5 students and OAPs from Chivenor House. Our sound bites moved from melodic fragments to a chorus. We just need to tweak the lyrics now. The boys were really into singing - apparently they are not meant to be! Dave - Artistic director of the project has blogged about it too! Glad that this community music project followed my blogging advice

This afternoon I had arranged to have my keyboard repaired by a Mr.Crump and he asked me to meet him at his previous client’s house - round the corner from where I was working, where I got talking to a chap called Wally. He was really warm, welcoming, friendly, and appeared very excited to have a new guest. Wally shared his life story, pictures, a newspaper cutting of how he fell off a truck into the arms of his wife to be - Rose. I like how open Wally is - his honesty about life and growing old. Wally jokingly said he was on the look out for a wife, and that I’d better be careful… Wife number 4 anyone?

I went along to Microsoft’s offices in Reading for an e-skills event called Big Ambition. It aimed to promote careers in IT to young women aged between 13 and 15.

I had a blast, I really enjoyed working with some really inspiring, creative, divergent thinkers from Chiltern Edge Community School. I facilitated a workshop where we had to come up with a new technology device/tool. We came up with PeMe - Personalise Me. A shopping experience like no other, where you create a completely realistic avatar, with your body dimensions, fashion tastes, celebrity personal advisers, all fused with social networking and links to other retail outlets.

I was impressed by the speakers but not so much by the (not as infrequent as I would have preferred) mention of consumerism/materialism; less of the ‘You can make loads of money in this sector and have flash things’ - please. Well money is important, but selling the the creativity behind it and the job satisfaction one can experience in IT is far more important I think.

Anyway, that was the only slight unfavourable thing I can mention, because everything else was great! It was well organised and splendid fun! Yay!

Here are some pics from last Saturday’s session. We had some Global Xchange volunteers from Morocco participate and it was quite contrasting to the smaller numbers we’ve had in the past. Chris led the session, and recorded sound bites about childhood memories - short phrases were the stimuli for music making and composition. We wrote pieces exploring the feeling of completing a long day at school  - joy, excitement, need I say more!?!

There was lots of translating and merriment had!!

Today I went along to the first of two MusicLeader London training sessions “Taking the lead – working with and directing ensembles”. It was lead by internationally renown community musician Phil Mullen. I had a really good time meeting new people and learning how to better focus my delivery skills in this area.

Phil’s delivery style is every now and again like being taken on a fun, magical mystery tour – a structured whirlwind where you are thrown around his stream of consciousness, picking up loads of food for thought and useful ‘good practice’ models.

We started with ensemble theory/philosophy via an organic approach; we discussed and reported back one of our most memorable bands, what it was that made them so appealing. Drawing from our feedback we were left to discuss 4 main themes that emerged, glue – the special, tangible ingredient that makes a group seem to play with what seems to be total oneness. Second was passion and energy, followed by balance and then diversity of ideas.

After a morning full of theory, soul searching and much laughter we spent most of the afternoon music making – exploring pulse and time keeping through various fun activities. Clapping games, a kind of pulse tennis and I think it’s called ‘hocketing’ but I am probably wrong. Basically it’s where you dissect a song up and each individual in the group sings a word/syllable in time. Imagine singing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ with your mates, individually taking it in turns to sing a note of the song, but adhering to the correct timing of the piece. Kind of like this:
A: Twin
B:-kle
C:Twin
D:kle
E:lil
F:-tle
G:Star

We also took it in turns to give instructions to the group in a foreign or nonsensical language. The aim was to work on body language and other means of expression to best communicate our set instructions. We also conducted the group relying on riffs and memory. I was able to work on giving clear hand instructions.

I had a great time – but am seriously shattered!! Time to end here and pass out. More next week!

This is what I wrote for the Gigbeth conference blog (it will be up soon):

On Thursday Gigbeth kicked off with its conference; a meeting place for music industry bods, musicians and music educators to discuss and reflect on the sector, I quote: “bringing education and industry specialists together, the conference is designed for those who work in the music industry and education to offer fresh approaches that can bring closer working relationships between education and industry”.

The conference started with a warm greeting from Clare Edwards – the pioneering force behind the annual event. The keynote was followed by an interview with Fyfe Dangerfield (from the Guillemots) and Janice Long (BBC radio presenter). They had an informal chat about Fyfe’s experiences of the music industry and music education, Fyfe shared a few anecdotes about working as a music teacher, describing his difficulty in classroom management and engaging students with wordless rapping tasks.

Personally, the panel discussions, workshops and space in between for informal chats and networking proved the most useful. I went along to all things music education starting with a panel debate titled ‘Music Education and Industry’ which explored their relationship. It discussed how a new approach to education could inspire, engage and give a pragmatic representation of the different career paths in the music industry. Eugene Martin who is regional coordinator for New Deal West Midlands (Musicians) notified us how most of his clients were solely interested in the career of ‘artist’ and unaware of the other careers within the sector. There was much discussion about the ‘tough love’ needed for young people to hear the truth about the gritty realism in the Creative Industries, and that X-Factor style careers were competitive and minimal.

Marc Jaffrey gave some interesting insights into the music education system often leaving young people feeling ‘uninspired’, how those in the education system itself weren’t quite sure what they were educating young people for, and the large disparity in the way we are taught to think about creativity and intelligence. He spoke about the necessity for young people to be taught hard skills to survive a challenging workforce, such as divergent thinking, innovation and creativity and their relationship with music education.

I attended an excellent workshop regarding Creative Apprentices where Liz Appleby gave insights into this recently launched initiative, working in groups we spoke about the challenges of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises to ensure that there were incentives for them to sign up to the scheme, and discussion of logistical issues and inclusion; such as with young people who are classified as NEET, to just name a few.

*The Creative Apprentice Scheme was launched in September 2008 and boasts ‘a new and alternative route into the Creative Industries’. Creative Apprentices are granted the chance to ‘learn valuable skills and earn a qualification, GCSE or A-level equivalent, designed and approved by industry’.

Last year the Gigbeth Conference gifted its attendees iPod shuffles but this year we were treated to a champagne fueled VIP party, with music from local artists Jo Hamilton, Scott Matthews; I loved his voice and melodic writing, in particular the arpeggio-esque ideas he used for voice; lovely! The party ended with Nigel Clark of Dodgy with some more upbeat, acoustic renditions as well as a few chart successes.

Enjoy the rest of the festival!

I had a lovely time, apart from a rather messy VIP party – gulp! It was great that music educators, musicians and industry peeps in the region could come together to celebrate and discuss wider issues of the music sector!!

Apologies for the rather poor photography, champagne curbed my amateur skills…

MM!

My lovely friend. He is in year 10, mad into politics, public speaking and drama. Say hello and leave a comment if you please! He basically picked up the whole shebang in 30 mins. He is a super brain and knows more about US politics than a lot of my adult friends!!

Tomorrow I shall be attending the Gigbeth conference held at quite a posh hotel. I am really looking forward to the music education part, speakers include:

Fyfe Dangerfield (Guillemots),

Janice Long (BBC Radio),

Sheryl Garratt (Elle and Red),

Rich Castillo (Shalit Global),

Marc Jaffery (Music Manifesto), - never heard this chap speak before, (I heard that he has recently left the Music Manifesto) but hopefully he will be an inspirational speaker.

Ian Chamings (Mixalbum),

Andrew Dubber (New Music Stratgies),

Maggie Crowe (BPI and BRIT School),

Mark Meharry (Music Glue),

Alexis Grower (Magrath LLP),

Clive Gardiner (We7),

Andrew Senior (British Council) and more.

I shall keep you updated and might take along mi camera.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been networking and pondering the community music world. I have also been in receipt of some excellent advice and guidance from some very generous people including Sara from Music in Prisons and Catherine Pestano from CRISP.

Although I had a fair idea of what community music was all about - I was not quite sure about the matrix of it all; its position and how to move around once inside. Dave Howard from Pure and Applied assisted in the breakdown - and drew a diagram not dissimilar to the one attached. I went away feeling better informed and clued up - I had gobbled the yellow pill.

Firstly, I became very much aware that although I am at the bottom of the food chain - I am still very much important - grassroots peeps always are. I can also decide whether I want to move upwards and be more of a tactician/have more command over the projects I sell/devise, but that means becoming more conversant with strategy.

I realised that this was the first time the sector had been broken down to me in this way before. I love CPD, I have been on a few training courses but none had included this information - or had helped piece together the jigsaw; or maybe, I need to use my brain more!!

I also went to London for a Music Leader London Cultural Olympiad meeting. Guest speakers were Steve Mannix the Culture Programme Advisor and Sarah Barnwell - Creative Programme. During the course of the morning I learned loads about the aims of the Olympics - how it strives to be an Olympics like no other; inspiring change and capturing the imagination of young people worldwide.

So where does community music fit in? Well some of the major projects involved are music based - ‘Sounds’ led by the BBC is a bigee. Community music projects can also qualify/apply for an ‘Inspire Mark‘ seal of Olympic approval for innovative, creative music projects. There was one heavily stressed bit of small print: to get the Inspire Mark projects must NOT be in receipt of commercial funding.

I enjoyed my half-term of discovery!

(Photos taken by Dave Howard - Artistic Director & Lucy - participant aged 5)

Yesterday’s Open Access session - (basically a music workshop for members of the Castle Vale public to drop in and use sound bites to make music), was loads better. It helped restore my confidence after Thursday’s stompathon!

It went well - we did some names games as there were a few new faces, and then recorded some sounds bites about food we liked to eat in Castle Vale. Then we wrote a song about vegetables - no really! We wrote original lyrics about why they were good for you and described our favourite ones. All directed by the group.

Top veggies were:

1. Broccoli

2. Cauliflower

3. Sprouts

4. Sweet potato

5. Carrots

6. Cucumber

When I asked for feedback at the end - one participant said they liked being able to submit ideas and have them incorporated into the song. It made me smile loads!

I tried to be as laidback and open to suggestion as much as I could in this session, and it proved successful. This was also achievable because the group size was small - 7 and we had gelled quite nicely, I felt that there was a growing sense of trust and confidence. I’ve just been re-reading “Community Music: A Handbook” by Pete Moser and George McKay and I found myself pondering over their mention of the group as a complex animal - possessing a “character that is more than the sum of the individuals in it.”

What’s your (working) group like? If your group were an animal what would it be? I think we were an excitable puppy that was getting used to obeying instructions. Thursday’s music session was the Incredible Hulk - definitely!!

I am having loads of fun working on a Sound It Out (Heritage) project based in Castle Vale. I am working with a year 5 class at Chivenor School and local OAPs.

The beauty and potential scariness of community music is not knowing what is going to happen in your session - like a lot of other professions I suppose. The most important thing is to make sure the content of your session is relevant to your participants and to have tricks up your sleeve to keep things on track. Well this Thursday, I (totally) didn’t foresee the potential chaos of an activity I recently learned on the Spitalfields Music Animateur scheme.

The exercise is called 3,4,5. Basically, 3 groups work and keep time together in 3 different metres. The groups all start together on beat one - and then work independently until all three groups come together on the first beat of the bar for the second time.

Well, (sigh) I was working with a large class of year 5s, and there were lots of boys in the class with bundles of energy. I naively (stupidly) used the word ’stomp’ and from that moment onwards - things went down hill.

I should have pulled the reigns on it a lot sooner - but a mixture of being shell shocked and nerves at being observed by a music undergrad and director of Music WM made my reaction time slower than usual.

To cut a long story short, imagine 25 young people all counting their allocated metre in their own time and racing to get to beat 1 - where they can stomp on one another!! AHHHHHHH!!

Most importantly, I learned that I have to be really careful with my instructions - especially with younguns. It’s been a few months since I have worked with primary students - language needs to be adjusted and more perimeters included rather than assumed.

Mama feel good! - a night I co-run is volunteering its services for community radio station Rhubarb radio. Twice a month we shall be playing some funk goodness.

In today’s meeting I learned that we are very much still in our infancy, and there are a lot of issues to address, but I feel we will slowly get there. I think more needs to be done to bring in a truer representative of Brum’s demographic - baby steps. It was great to see a keen set of volunteers come together to try and do something positive for the second city - I am excited to see its developments.

Amy and I then played some tunes, and it was lovely to bump into the Friendly Fire Krew - playing lush reggae and dub till late. Sleepy tired now.

Please excuse the unfinished, unedited blog design, I am sooo bored of my previous one.  I have been set the challenge to start learning HTML and CSS by my fella. Gonna jazz this theme up- gulp!

On a less narcissistic level, it’s been great to witness the online developments of the MediaSnackers alumni. Luke, a kind lad I met whilst working on the Street Athletics project, has travelled to Romania to do some voluntary work. He is now blogging and documenting the journey on his group’s blog.

With a quick Skype chat, I helped the lads to work their way around Blogger and different photo sharing sites. Nice one lads!

I went along to the inaugural Birmingham Social Media Café meet-up  this morning. I had a great time! Initially, I was a little worried about it being a little cliquey, but my apprehensions were laid to rest as soon as I walked in.

Since it was the first meet there was no agenda, just the opportunity to informally chat and hobnob with whomever you bumped into.

I had a lovely chat with quite a few people, I really enjoyed catching up and sharing Japan stories with Keri Davis, who is a scriptwriter  for the Archers. I finally met Nick Booth in the flesh- and I must report he looks nothing like his avatar, friendlier I’d say. I also enjoyed talking to Tobby from Sleepy Dog- and his infectious enthusiasm for all things social web.

Nice one to Jo Geary for setting it all up and Birmingham Post for paying for the tea!
I think the intention is that the meets happen monthly, and I definitely will be going again! I’d like more lady web heads to please come along!

More wiki info can be found here.

It’s a bit late me blogging this, but I have been very snot-ridden and ArtsFest distracted me for most of  yesterday.

I was invited by the Unlit Tour HQ to attend a gig held at Dave’s house, other invitees included Chris Unitt.

Dave (a local nice guy working at the Hare and Hounds) happily offered use of his house, so that singer-songwriter Jont could put on a gig and free party. Jont’s being putting on these type of parties for around 10 years.  However, this bout of Unlit parties are sponsored by a mobile phone service provider (who I recently left)- where for a whole month Jont, Dave, Garfield and co. travel around the UK in a camper van and put on serendipitous events with a lovely community vibe.

We had performances by a folk ‘with a little hint of jazz’ band called the Old School Dance, who were really energetic, interacting well with each other and audience. Poet Tim Clare, who travelled all the way down from Norwich- we had quite a gass about Shambala, and how much he loved it, and how badly it went for me… Chris Unitt has blogged about Tim’s poetic content and has more pics and video footage too!

There was also a guitarist and singer called Bust My Flex, who played blues inspired riffs, with references to Grizzly Bear and Jeff Buckley, and wore his hat down low. He was heckled shed loads by his mates but nonchalant about them trying to upstage him.

I arrived unfashionably early for the party, I was advised by Unlit HQ to arrive for 7.30 p.m- kewl, bed by 10.30 p.m so I thought. The party didn’t start till well after 10p.m so there was a lot of sitting around, laughing, and chatting to Jont, Dave and his film crew- who were all lovely, but really wired from being on the road for a month.

Garfield one of the film guys inquired- “Does anyone have a pill?”

“Whoa!!…. Jesus, they’re hardcore!” I thought - but in fact, he meant paracetamol- as they had been suffering from headaches from partying (boozin’) nonstop, I gathered. One of Jont’s mates- a camera guy from Landon had driven up on his motorcycle in the torrential rain- the weather was nasty- I was sure the outdoor tent was going to cave in and drench us all with rain. Anyway- to my amusement, Rich got very tipsy and was meant to be in charge of live streaming the gig- but you can see the results of lots of JD and coke here.

I’m going on to much here, so I’ll end with saying that I really enjoyed myself, met Jo Geary and FrankieW for the first time which was nice, and hope the rest of the tour is a success for the lads.

My favourite pics:

(Taken by me on Chris Unitt’s camera)

Bust My Joint:

Jont and Garfield:

Today I went to Castle Vale to start planning the ‘Down Your Way’ project with Dave (artistic director), Ian, Nicola (our coordinator) and Chris. It was really nice to be in a space where we could share and trial exercises for our workshops, this was the first time I had completed such an exercise with an arts organisation in a professional (as opposed to training) setting- it is so vital, I had so much fun and learned loads!

I hadn’t been to Castle Vale for years and was amazed at the regeneration that had transformed it from a run down, sometimes intimidating, extensive tower block estate to a friendly, positive, community oriented area. There were lots of green spaces, colourful buildings, most tower blocks knocked down! It was such an impressive transformation!

This project shall help provide a documentary of this remarkable journey, old and young shall come together- converse about the changes and turn some of the sound bites into music. I am working with a primary school and a local sheltered housing tower block for elderly residents.

I brought to the table a couple of exercises enabling Key Stage 2 (primary school students) to confidently turn there sound bites into rhythms. I received some crucial feedback!

The exercises intend to make young people aware of pulse and rhythm and then rhythm in songs and words. In the end, after a fair bout of trial and error and lots of friendly advice, this format appears to be quite suitable;

We are sat in a circle and:

• we use our feet for the pulse and instruments for rhythms
• we work in a time signature of 4/4 and 2 bar phrases
• the first bar is for a set rhythm and the second silent
• the second bar gradually becomes an improvisational space
• we use the space to make up our own rhythm
• easy peasy

Second exercise:

• we singing a catchy song as a group and then in a round
• we then dissect it into separate rhythmical phrases
• each group sings a phrase and the workshop leader orchestrates entry/exits

You can do this with any nursery rhyme. Each group can sing a short phrase-with the same pitch/melodic phrasing but the entry can be on whatever beat of the bar you choose.

Model what I want:

• use a random phrase like “Digbeth has no trees’
• get pulse going
• model how it can be turned into a rhythm and drill
• then ask group when ready to contribute other ways in which the phrase can be said rhythmically

Cognitive task:

• split group into smaller ones
• they chose their favourite phrases
• using the same technique create rhythms out of the phrases

Sharing time and lots of praise

Here are our ugly mugs:

Yup, that’s me, Linford C, Darren C, another guy who is very good at 100 metres and yes, I should know his name- I suck! I have had such a fun time working on the Street Athletics project! In particular speaking to smiling residents of deprived areas and often over-looked estates remarking on how important it is to have community events.

I have loved witnessing the digital journalists gain confidence, greater skills and creativity in the documentation of each events. Check the blog!! They have done so well! The final event we are to cover is in Manchester on the 20th September. Gonna be good!

I have been invited to work as one of 3 lead artists for a Sound it Out project called ‘Down Your Way’. We’re in the preliminary stages at the moment and will have a planning session this week. I was keen to sign up because of it being an intergenerational heritage and music project. I think it’s important for young and old to be able to interact with one another regularly, especially creatively because both parties have important skills, experiences and perspectives to share.

During this project participants will collect and research the history of Castle Vale and work them into a musical performance of some sort.

One of the tasks I have been set is to create exercises that allow interview material to be turned into melodic ideas. I am pondering over ways to turn words, text and oral history into musical phrases. How can I do this in a fun, engaging manner? Well, I am not sure as of yet, still mind mapping ideas and outlining problems. I shall post my findings.

I also came across an excellent blog by an Ozzie chap lady called ‘G‘. It has some cool resources for any music education practitioners and has inspired me to share more workshop ideas.

Thanks to Derek E.Baird for the the link to this interesting video, where Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics discusses web-based technology affecting his own musicianship and the enormous opportunities it has made available for budding bedroom composers.

Music technology has definitely allowed me to work with creative and musical young people (who haven’t received traditional music/instrumental skills) to still be part of music making.

There’s 2 weeks until term starts and I am going stir crazy doing my taxes/Bobmin. Time for a quirky blog post!

My uncle is a chef and often feeds B rate celebs and sport stars.
When I was 15, I was a waitress at the hotel restaurant he manned- it taught me lessons in customer service and team work.

Both my uncle and I are freelance and had a Friday afternoon off sometime ago, so I asked for a cooking lesson. I have always been curious about making Beef Wellington, I had only ever eaten the mushroom version, but wanted to learn how to make something complicated. These pics show our culinary journey.

Summer can be a quiet period for the community musician and I am finding it particularly hard to relax. I know I should spend this time focusing on my artform, enjoying my time off, but, it just doesn’t work like that for me- guilt being the operative word I suppose.

I was counseled only slightly when I found some training notes from the Sound Sense Sharpen Up! event I went to some time ago in February- really useful. I might have blogged about them before, but here are some notes that I re-read.

What is the definition of Marketing? It was defined or quoted quite succinctly by Gemma Miller, Marketing Officer of The London Community Gospel Choir.

“Identifying the wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then going about satisfying those customers better than the competitors” .

Some other pearls of wisdom:
1. Expensive adverts do not always translate to increased sales.
2. Target customers need to hear your messages at least 7 times. (I get paranoid after 3 times).
3. The Marketing Mix – 4P’s

Product
Is product meeting customers’ needs?
How does your product look?
Improvements
How does the competition do it?

Place
Where will your product be distributed?
Geographically
Internet
Retailers
Agents

Premium pricing – promotes uniqueness
Penetration pricing – start the price low to gain interest
Optional Product Pricing – set a basic price then add extras if needed

Promotion
The way that you communicate your message – marketing
communication
Select what tools to use for your market place
Price
Is your product at the right price?
Compare to competition

I think my main problem is actually defining what I do and specialising. It seems loads easier if I can say I am a music producer and I offer music tech workshops, but I don’t just do that. Sometimes by being able to offer quite a varied set of skills, it confuses potential clients, especially when it makes it hard for them to pigeon hole me.
Price –it’s alright. I have spoken to/checked my fees with quite a few community musos and I am not asking for silly money, well you can’t in this sector.
Place – kool.
Promotion- hmmm. I don’t enjoy it. But, as time passes I find it less embarrassing telling potential clients about the sort of work I offer and how it fits in with their organisation/school/vlub etc.

And on a completely different note…

I really enjoyed reading Clare Edwards’ candid post about her blog crisis. It made me rethink my reasons for blogging and the focus of this one. My first blog post said it would document my journey as a newbie freelance community musician. I think I intended on discussing more of the issues, problems, kool findings- I need to focus on that some more methinks.

If this blog is a queasy, self-congratulatory, self-promoting pile of pooh, it wasn’t intended on being so. More like a space where I could document workshops and discuss the sector, as well as documenting random things of interest.

The main thing is to continue having fun blogging I say!