TEM136: Deanna Swoboda Quotes

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TEM136: Deanna Swoboda Quotes

This episode features thoughts on my favorite quotes from the conversation I had with Deanna Swoboda in TEM135.

Quotes:

  • "I had designed a program, an assembly program, that could be turned into something that people would be interested in having at their schools. It was a program that music stores and music dealers were interested in collaborating with in terms of recruitment. Sam Pilafian really pushed me to organize that program into a business."

  • "Working in a nonprofit organization gave me skills, business skills…how to organize my thoughts of forming a business, and how to market, and how to plan, and how to organize."

  • "I think as musicians, sometimes we think about success, what success means to us individually. We really think it should be from point A to point B, and it should be very clean. In reality, it's the zig and the zag…the roads less traveled that you decide to take that have a direct influence upon your career."

  • "Really, at the heart of entrepreneurship is opportunity recognition. I think a lot of people may attribute their career to fate or destiny, being in the right place at the right time, et cetera, getting discovered or something, getting lucky. There is something to this. But I think that's a little bit of a passive approach. I really believe that it is that combination of talent, hard work, your work ethic, your attitude, and your determination and perseverance, and recognizing opportunities when they come your way."

  • "It's so important to be honest with yourself about what is truly going to make you happy. I think that it can change throughout life."

  • "Speaking of failures, I've had so many failures during my career. Without failures, there wouldn't have been self-improvement and moving into what's next. How do I do this slightly different so that it works, and it's a success."

  • "Everything leads to something else. Every person that you meet knows somebody else who might have an idea for you or be interested in what it is that you have to offer. Everyone and every one of their friends is a potential customer."

  • "You also have to communicate what makes you distinctive, and what makes your thing distinctive, and how you set yourself apart."

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon (only $8 to go!) by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I am ONE REVIEW SHY of my next goal of 75 ratings on iTunes. Who is going to help me out by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes and then emailing me to tell me they were the 75th person?

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM135: Developing an idea into a product you can build a business around - A Conversation with Deanna Swoboda

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TEM135: Developing an idea into a product you can build a business around - A Conversation with Deanna Swoboda

Deanna Swoboda is the creator of Brass Rap, a school assembly program so successful she had no place to live for two full years because she was on the road so much! She is also the Assistant Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Arizona State University where she also teaches music business and product development classes.

What You'll Learn:

  • How a mentor pushed her to turn a school assembly program into a business

  • What she learned from working for a nonprofit arts organization and how she applied that to working for herself in the music business

  • How success is almost never the straight line from Point A to Point B that we expect

  • Why you aren’t a failure if you are doing multiple things in order to make money

  • Why what a lot of people attribute to luck is actually opportunity recognition

  • The questions you need to ask yourself to help define success for you

  • The importance of quantifying exactly what it is that will make you happy (and why that is a moving target)

  • Why failing is integral to moving you into whatever’s next

  • How the school assembly show she booked up to 250 days a year for 10 straight years was made into a refined product through very intentional research and development

  • Why sometimes “opportunity recognition” is being prepared to rap for a company president on the spot

  • The importance of cultivating a good attitude

Links:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed and links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon (only $8 to go!) by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I need only TWO PEOPLE to go leave a rating and review on iTunes to make my next goal. Will you be one of the two to help me out?

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM133: Alarm Will Sound Quotes (TEM Short)

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TEM133: Alarm Will Sound Quotes (TEM Short)

This TEM Short features thoughts on my favorite quotes from Michael Clayville and Gavin Chuck of Alarm Will Sound in TEM132.

Quotes:

  • "We basically made a commitment to each other to continue to grow with each other. And what that means I think is that, the sustainability of the group is very much about giving everybody in the group a stake.”

  • "Why is it that we stuck together and what's different between us and those trios and those, you know billions of other small ensembles that exist in colleges around the country? I think a lot of it comes back to communication and feeling that your voice is heard, and feeling respected and appreciated by the people around you, even if you don't always get your way.”

  • "The skills and talents that you've built up as a musician, working collaboratively, having disagreements that are productive you know, learning to actually harmonize music together, all those things and many more, are skills that translate into organizational culture. If you can take that kind of thinking, then you're essentially repurposing a set of skills that you already have, and refining them towards I think a goal that becomes a sustainable career model.”

  • "So it's an experience that we can share with people who may not have heard things like this before. They may come into our concert and not know what to expect, and come out maybe, you know, completely blown away by, you know, the fact that they never heard anything like that. Or, they come out scratching their heads but they still had an experience. They had something that they can say was not run of the mill, and I think that's generally what you get out of an Alarm Will Sound show.”

  • "I have a feeling I don't know if this is true that people ... musicians that go through conservatory music schools, tend to need to think about the experience of a concert much more than say somebody who studied theater or dance. I know that dancers and theater people are trained from the beginning that they are performing from the moment they are in the wing. Everything about that is a performance, and that takes into account what the audience is experiencing. By contrast, when you look at say a symphony orchestra, before the concert quote unquote begins, there's a bunch of people that are sitting there disengaged or when they stop playing, they disengage and it seems that they are not thinking about the fact that actually the experience is continuous over those two hours or whatever it is. And maybe that partly comes from the culture where we focus so much on the notes and the technique that we think are our art and our performance lies in just between the double bars. And one thing that I want to always stress when I talk to people just starting out in their careers as performers is to learn something from our colleagues in theater and dance and to think about the concert as an experience. And one that has to be shaped just as much as you're shaping phrases within a piece, you have to think about what happens between the pieces. What happens in the two minutes before the concert and the 30 minutes after the concert. Those are all important parts of the experiences. When you think that way, it's going to lead you to more innovative and more rewarding involvement with your audience."

  • "So it's a constant thing you know, I'm on it every day. Marketing is not going to do itself, there's nobody sitting at home at any given second thinking that they want to hear us play, but hopefully we're trying to build that. And so, they are thinking that more and more frequently. It's like ‘Oh, hey, I remember that tune, I want to listen to that again.' So I'm just trying to get some mental space, some brain space and say hey we're there, and take a listen and if you make it to a show that'd be great, come on out to a show, too.”

  • "I think there are so many interesting things happening in new music today, and really in performing arts across the board. It's a really great time to start something new and to come up with a new idea. I mean we have the incredible power of social media that can make the barriers to entry lower than they were maybe 30 years ago. At the same time, the digitally driven world, where everybody has something in their hands, I think makes live performance more valuable. Having an experience that you share with an audience is becoming more valuable. And I think that's the really interesting moment that we're living in right now, for young musicians to be really thoughtful and intentional.”

Links:

  • TEM132: Gavin Chuck and Michael Clayville of Alarm Will Sound on Having Conversations With Your Fans, Creative Collaborations and Sharing Meaningful Experiences With Your Audience (TEM Rewind)

  • Alarm Will Sound

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon (only $8 to go!) by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 69 ratings and 46 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my goals of 75 ratings and 50 reviews (so close!) by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM132: Gavin Chuck and Michael Clayville of Alarm Will Sound on having conversations with your fans, creative collaborations and sharing meaningful experiences with your audience (TEM Rewind)

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TEM132: Gavin Chuck and Michael Clayville of Alarm Will Sound on having conversations with your fans, creative collaborations and sharing meaningful experiences with your audience (TEM Rewind)

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-piece chamber ensemble that challenges and reshapes musical conventions through performances of music by today's composers.

What You'll Learn:

  • How Alarm Will Sound began as a group at Eastman and what has enabled them to survive for so long when most student groups dissolve after college

  • The importance of communication and transparency in any group

  • Why they rely on a Strong Executive Model rather than a straight up democratic process

  • How working as a team in any healthy organization is a moving target as the amount of effort individuals are able to put forth shirts over time

  • Why groups like Alarm Will Sound are not only competing for gigs with other ensembles with similar missions but with any artists offering an experience which is literally everyone

  • How musicians can learn from dancers and actors who are taught to perform from the moment they are even on the wings of the stage

  • The details behind an initiative called Alarm System, where Alarm Will Sound does unconventional collaborates with a variety of musicians

  • Their collaboration with one of my favorite groups in the world, Medeski, Martin & Wood

  • The group’s overall approach to marketing and branding and how Michael goes about executing it

  • Why sharing an experience with your audience at concerts is more important than it’s ever been

Links:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon (I'm getting close!) by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 67 ratings and 45 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my next goal of 75 ratings and 50 reviews by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM131: Jeff Nytch Quotes (TEM Short)

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TEM131: Jeff Nytch Quotes (TEM Short)

This TEM Short features thoughts on my favorite quotes from Jeff Nytch in TEM130.

Quotes:

  • “The lesson that I try to share with my students about that is that no educational experience, no thing that you throw yourself into, is ever wasted. Even if it might seem at the time like it's a dead end, or you pursue something for a while, and you say, "Well, I guess that's not what I want to do." It still has intrinsic value, and you'll be amazed at how sometimes things can come back to serve your career in new ways, in ways you never would have guessed at the time."

  • "I would look at them and say, 'There's no way that I could ever be as good as they are as teachers' not realizing, of course, that they'd been doing it for 30 years.”

  • "I spent a lot of the book talking about things that musicians do already that are, in fact, entrepreneurial, to help dissolve this idea that these two things are mutually exclusive. So, I talk about customer focus, for instance. Well, that just means that we are trying to reach our audiences. Isn't that what we all say we want to do? Entrepreneurship gives us a vehicle for doing that.”

  • "One of the most important things that any entrepreneurial venture has to have is that there's something distinctive about it, something defines itself as being different from or better than whatever else is out there. And if that's at the core of thinking entrepreneurially, then for us as artists, that means our artistic voice, our whatever it is that I personally bring to the world that is uniquely mine, that's my most valuable asset. I don't want to compromise that. If I compromise that, that's not only quote-unquote 'selling out' or 'hurting myself artistically.' That's just not good business.”

  • "Entrepreneurs are constantly asking questions. Both, 'How can I do what I'm doing right now better or differently' But I think even before they get to that point, young musicians need to answer the question, what is it that they're really passionate about? And not just the music. What else are you passionate about?"

  • "Yeah, and that's entrepreneurship, really, at its core, because it's about identifying that opportunity that solves somebody else's problem."

Links:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon (I'm getting close!) by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 62 ratings and 42 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my goals of 75 ratings and 50 reviews by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM130: Dr. Jeff Nytch on art and entrepreneurship co-existing, your single most important asset as an artist and his brand new book, The Entrepreneurial Muse

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TEM130: Dr. Jeff Nytch on art and entrepreneurship co-existing, your single most important asset as an artist and his brand new book, The Entrepreneurial Muse

Dr. Jeff Nytch is the Director of the Entrepreneurship Center for Music at the University of Colorado Boulder and the author of the brand new book, "The Entrepreneurial Muse: Inspiring Your Career in Classical Music".

What You'll Learn:

  • How Jeff had a curiosity about entrepreneurship from a very early age (including opening a “bank” to loan money to his siblings!)

  • Why no educational endeavor is every wasted and how sometimes two seemingly disparate interests can intersect later in life

  • What he learned from his six years as the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble

  • How he was drawn to higher ed when he developed a burning desire to teach college students everything he learned only through experience after leaving school

  • About Jeff’s brand new book, The Entrepreneurial Muse: Inspiring Your Career in Classical Music

  • How he addresses people who claim that entrepreneurship and true art can’t coexist by giving examples of successful artists who are doing both

  • Why your unique artistic voice is your single most valuable asset as an artist

  • Why the question “what else are you passionate about” is so important to being a successful entrepreneur

  • How Jeff coming to a major arts organization with a complete solution in hand to a problem led to a wonderful collaboration (and getting paid!)

Links:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Thanks to everyone who helped me get to my goal of 50 ratings on iTunes! I appreciate it very much!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM129: Spotted Online featuring Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and David Cutler

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TEM129: Spotted Online featuring Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and David Cutler

Spotted Online features thought-provoking articles, podcast episodes and YouTube clips pertaining to all aspects of being a successful musical entrepreneur.

Today's Featured Content:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

Want to help the show? Here's a few ways you can do that!

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 61 ratings and 42 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my goals of 75 ratings and 50 reviews by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

3. Check out TEM on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM128: The one thing you should NEVER outsource

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TEM128: The one thing you should NEVER outsource

Never, ever let anyone else define what success "should" mean for you.

What You'll Learn:

  • Why it is so imperative that we always define success for ourselves

  • How our parents can have a huge impact (not always in a good way!) on what we view as success

  • The pressure, both real and perceived, that colleagues and co-workers put on our views of success and how that can lead to conforming rather than proactively defining it for ourselves

  • Why comparing the online presence of others to our real selves can have a very negative impact on our perception or reality

  • How our egos shape what we pursue and what we don't pursue which prevents us from doing the work we were meant to do

  • Why it's important to regularly (at least every quarter) define in writing what success means to you and how that helps us to identify and to take the best next step, whatever that is

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 60 ratings and 41 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my goals of 75 ratings and 50 reviews by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM127: Cathy Heller Quotes (TEM Short)

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TEM127: Cathy Heller Quotes (TEM Short)

This TEM Short features thoughts on my favorite quotes from Cathy Heller in TEM126.

Quotes:

  • "I realized this whole getting a record deal thing, it's like meeting the Wizard of Oz. It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get what you need. At that point, I was able to see the way deals were structured and how, even if the deal would've gone all the way and the record would've gotten made, the odds of me making any money or the odds of me even having any say in the material or any ... It's like it's so once-in-a-lifetime that that actually works out that way.”

  • "It was like two years of that, and I remember one day driving down the street, and I started to cry. I was crying so hard, and the sunblock was mixed with the tears. I started laughing because I couldn't see. The sunblock was in my eyes. I was like, 'I have to pull over. I can't see.' I decided then and there this cannot work. If I'm going to try to be something that I'm not, and I'm not aligned with what I really feel, I'm going to be depressed. If I'm depressed, then even if people are telling me it's the most practical thing in the world to get a job job, it's totally impractical because I'm miserable.”

  • "If you try one approach, and it doesn't work, then you must try another approach. People will say all the time ... I meet artists all the time, all kinds of artists in Los Angeles. I meet screen writers, I meet actors, I meet voiceover artists, I meet songwriters, and they're all saying things like, 'Well, I think I tried everything.' But you didn't. You tried one way, and it didn't work. What about the 14 other ways that you can try, and then the other 14 ways you can try if that doesn't work?"

  • "I'm sort of on a mission now to help every person I possibly can meet to get clear about what they really want to do in this world, and then hopefully give them some inspiration with some real strategies of how to be a better problem-solver and get to do their life's work. I think that the opposite of depression is purpose, and I think that people, if they're doing what makes them happy and they get to make a living doing it, which means they then get to do it all the time, I think people feel they're happier and they're contributing. I think that might be the best way to change the world, because we've no control over all these other crazy factors and things that are going on right now.”

  • "I have so many artists who come to me, and they're like, 'I can't, because I don't know anybody in the music business.' Then they just let that thought stop them from taking any action, or they'll say, 'I can't because I'm not a producer, and I can't produce my own music. I can't afford a producer.' Okay, did you try going onto Facebook and looking at all of the groups of all of the recent alumni from Belmont and Berkelee and just reach out to any one of those people with enthusiasm and say, 'I would love to create this. Do you want to work with me? Might you find one human being who's willing to do it and get some money on the backend? Be resourceful.”

  • "I want people to get that if you want to make a living, you have to make something that somebody else needs, that somebody else wants. You'll never get to page three, you'll never get to episode four, you'll never get through the first verse, if you're constantly criticizing yourself. You'll never get to page three, you'll never get to episode four, you'll never get through the first verse if you're constantly criticizing yourself.”

  • “What I tell artists, this is like a cool trick for songwriters, I tell songwriters to open up a Google Doc, and, when they come up with an idea for a song, I tell them to just spend an hour and don't edit. Just spend a full hour. Put everything in that Google Doc that you could possibly think of that might go into the song. Did you come up with a word? Is there a phrase? Is there a lyric idea? Do you have story that happened when you were three that you might want to call upon and reference somehow in the song? Just put it all in there like you're throwing everything into a big pot, and don't edit yourself. Give yourself a whole fricking hour to just be a free person just playing and flexing the muscle because when you let yourself play, this magic happens where new things come in because you're not constantly trying to filter.”

  • "I heard Ed Sheeran say it really well. He said, 'If you walk into your vacation cabin up in Maine. You haven't been there for a few months. You turn on the water. It might run brown for a little bit, right? Then you leave the water on, and it starts to run clearer and clearer, and then it's fine. It's totally drinkable, and you have good water. You have to let that water run.' He said, 'When you're songwriting, when you're making anything that you're making, you have to let the water run through.' We talked about this in the beginning of the show. You have to be willing to tolerate the fact that it might be uncomfortable. It might not be perfect. It might not be right away the most beautiful thing you've ever created.”

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 60 ratings and 41 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my goals of 75 ratings and 50 reviews by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM126: Cathy Heller on getting a major record deal yet still failing, being analytical about your approach to the music business and persevering until you close the gap

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TEM126: Cathy Heller on getting a major record deal yet still failing, being analytical about your approach to the music business and persevering until you close the gap

Cathy Heller is a hugely successful singer-songwriter, the owner of Catch the Moon Music and the mother of three children under the age of six (!) living in LA.

What You'll Learn:

  • How getting two different major record deals in LA still didn’t lead to any commercial success for Cathy

  • How cycling through “real” jobs for two years helped her realize that she had to be true to herself and make music for a living

  • The very thorough research method she used to get her songs successfully placed on television and film

  • The various things she offers today including her own agency, an online course and a podcast “Don’t Keep Your Day Job” which is all about reverse-engineering your dream job (which led to a book deal with a major publisher)

  • Why intentionally writing for commercial success is not selling out

  • How the key to commercial success in business is making something that someone else wants

  • Why self-perception is such a powerful thing and can easily derail even the most successful person

  • How ever though a stadium full of people listen to each episode of her podcast, she really is only talking to one person at a time

  • A songwriting exercise she does to help get ideas out (which is applicable to anyone doing anything)

  • The importance of sticking with something until you can close “the gap”

Links:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Thanks to everyone who helped me get to my goal of 50 ratings on iTunes! I appreciate it very much!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM125: Time for Three's Ranaan Meyer Quotes (TEM Short)

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TEM125: Time for Three's Ranaan Meyer Quotes (TEM Short)

This TEM Short features thoughts on my favorite quotes from Ranaan Meyer in TEM124.

Quotes:

  • "Yeah, so I decided, based on what I had heard and sort of my professional evaluation of what we had done ... Of course I'm being sarcastic because I had no idea what I was doing, but I had the audacity to say, ‘Well, we're never going to play background music, and we're going to have a flat fee of $1,500.' And this was back 15 years ago right when we started, and like I said, we're college kids slash just out of college. $1,500 for a trio, that seemed like all the money in the world, and Nick and Zach were kind of uncomfortable, but they said, "You know what, Ranaan, if you really feel like you can go get that, go get it.”

  • "I always encourage people ... I mean, obviously not everybody goes to Curtis, but there are opportunities wherever you are in school, out in the professional world, to look for communities where you can be surrounding yourself with a place to fish. That's crucial. You want to fish in the right pond. So look for those places and then gun for them.”

  • "There's definitely this thing that happens constantly in our career which is, we were just playing at a show recently for a presenter, and I made the mistake of saying, 'Yeah, so-and-so recommended us for this, right?' and then one of the people that worked said, ‘No, who are they? I don't even know who they are.' I knew for a fact that the person that I mentioned definitely was the first introduction from them to us, but by the time we had arrived there, so many other people had taken credit for us being there. And that's good for us. I mean, that only makes us feel good, and loved, and all that stuff. But the point was is that, people want to take ownership of you, of what you're trying to sell. They want to believe in it, and when you get people to believe in it, that's when you've really succeed to the point of not having to sell yourself. And ultimately, selling yourself is getting them to believe it."

  • "I'm a big believer in stepping stones. It's very rare in life that all of a sudden at the snap of a finger or the drop of a hat you are on top of the world with everything you possibly could ever imagine for your career. It's a process, and I think it's really good for young artists, or just up and coming artists, to realize that. So, as long as you're going on the trajectory that you want to see for yourself, you should consider yourself a success at all times.”

  • "If you're interested in more than just picking up your instrument and playing it in tune and in time with a musical feeling behind it, then this is an amazing world that will open up so many doors."

  • "As a more mature young man, I now have at the top of my notes, whenever I write down the things that I need to do on my daily schedule, et cetera, in big, old, capital, bold font, DELEGATE WHEN POSSIBLE. And I think this is a really important thing to discuss because ultimately that takes a lot of maturity."

  • "I think it's important to work really hard, to work really smart, and then dream, Man of La Mancha, dream the impossible dream. You know, really, really think about it and imagine it happening because if you can really see it happening, there may just be that opportunity.”

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. I'm up to 60 ratings and 41 reviews on iTunes. Help me reach my goals of 75 ratings and 50 reviews by taking just a couple of minutes on iTunes!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM124: Ranaan Meyer of Time For Three on advice for young musicians, seizing opportunities and why you have to dream big (TEM Rewind)

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TEM124: Ranaan Meyer of Time For Three on advice for young musicians, seizing opportunities and why you have to dream big (TEM Rewind)

Ranaan Meyer is a bass player and founding member of Time for Three, one of the busiest chamber ensembles in the world.

TEM Rewind is a new format that will appear sporadically throughout 2018. Some of my favorite interviews were in the very early days of TEM, before many of you were following the show.

This conversation with Ranaan is from the very first episode way back in 2015 and is absolute gold.

What You'll Learn:

  • Why all it took was one band member who really believed in the band and was willing to bankroll it to get them on the road to success

  • How from day one they refused to play background music and never performed for anything less than $1500

  • How even as college students Time for Three was very serious and methodical about who they networked with and how

  • Why once you get people to take ownership of your product they then do the selling for you

  • Why you need to be set up correctly and know the right questions to ask before you potentially waste a lot of time and money showcasing at something like APAP

  • The difference between booking yourself through the commercial market versus the presenting arts market

  • The three words that Ranaan writes in bold at the top of every To Do list he ever makes

  • How a power outage before a Philadelphia Orchestra concert led to Ranaan wowing 5,000 audience members and the entire Philly Orchestra before Time for Three was even a thing

  • The importance of dreaming big because it just might happen if you do

  • Why it’s imperative to try get to a place in your career where you can delegate some tasks

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Thanks to everyone who helped me get to my goal of 50 ratings on iTunes! I appreciate it very much!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM123: Chrysanthe Tan Quotes (TEM Short)

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TEM123: Chrysanthe Tan Quotes (TEM Short)

This TEM Short features thoughts on my favorite quotes from Chrysanthe Tan in TEM122.

Quotes:

  • "It’s just the cost of not being yourself makes it so not worth it. I mean I can't even imagine advancing in my life and career turning 40, 50, 60, 70, and then realizing how many decades I just wasn't being myself. That's ... I can't imagine that. That sound torturous.”

  • "I grew up either you're going to be a soloist or if you're not good enough you might try to get into an orchestra, but even that's rare. Then you'll probably have a teaching studio, and otherwise just find another job or good luck or your path should end here. I never wanted to do any of those. So I thought 'Well, I guess there's no spot for me.’”

  • “Suzanne is a coach that I've had for almost two years now, just on a more regular basis. And then when I first got back from tour I signed up for sort of a bootcamp course with a coach and got additional coaching from a different person as well. That was necessary for me to ... I needed a whole mindset shift basically. I had so many hang ups and had thought to myself for so long 'Oh, I'm a composer. I'm this and that.' But I wasn't actually going out and doing the things that I wanted to do. And there was some road blocks. I was tired of the inertia. I needed someone else to...shine a spotlight on what I was doing, and make me look at myself, and kind of kick me in the ass a little bit."

  • "It's really nerve wrecking for me to rely on other people and to rely on such big structures as the pop world, as the gig world, TV world. It makes me really nervous to rely on that for my income, for those big ticket checks. I would much rather craft my own world, my own career, my own path that allows me to be me so I don't have that straight jacket feeling."

  • "Yes, don't judge someone else's highlights reel to your behind the scenes bloopers."

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Thanks to everyone who helped me get to my goal of 50 ratings on iTunes! I appreciate it very much!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM121: Spotted Online featured Jenna Kutcher, Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin

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TEM121: Spotted Online featured Jenna Kutcher, Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin

Spotted Online features thought-provoking articles, podcast episodes and YouTube clips pertaining to all aspects of being a successful musical entrepreneur.

Today's Featured Content:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

Don't miss the debut of the TEM Newsletter! Sign up to receive a free copy of 7 Lessons I Learned from the First 100 Episodes of TEM.

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Help me get to my next goal of 75 ratings at iTunes (I'm really close!) by leaving a rating and review.

Follow TEM on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz for Pedal Note Media

TEM120: Rob Knopper Quotes (TEM Short)

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TEM120: Rob Knopper Quotes (TEM Short)

Rob Knopper is a percussionist with the Metropolitan Opera and the founder of Auditionhacker and Percussionhacker.

Quotes:

  • "Going to the Yes and King Crimson concerts, it's really interesting to see the type of thing that hooks in fans. I think about that when I do my website stuff. You look around the audience and everyone's wearing a black T-shirt and they all have an album cover on the front. There's all these little inside jokes among the fans, just different little aspects of things that happen in the music that people wanna talk about. It's interesting to think about what hooks people in when they start to become a fan of something, whether it's music or business or anything. I think about that when I'm making my stuff."

  • "I just kind of gave myself permission to go explore all the various things I had put to the side for so long."

  • "At the time, I was experimenting. I would do something on my site to see if it would work on my personal site. And then, if it didn't work, I would throw it away. If it did work, I would go to the orchestra committee and say, ‘Hey! Let's do this.’”

  • "I had an idea. I could (lead an individual student through his audition method), but I could literally change the lives of hundreds, or thousands of people, by offering them solutions or a resource that could help them directly improve their own life as they struggle through the process of becoming a percussionist."

  • "When you read entrepreneurial books, and blogs, and listen to podcasts and stuff, you hear people say that you have to understand your audience and you have to survey them and call them…..They say come up with an avatar or choose somebody in your audience who you're writing for."

  • "Everybody listening can think about what their specialty is. They still may feel like a student, or they still may feel like a freelancer, but you have a specialty. Everybody has an area of passion, or interest, that is a blue ocean. Until that starts getting filled in, it's wide open for most things."

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Thanks to everyone who helped me get to my goal of 50 ratings on iTunes! I appreciate it very much!

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz

TEM119: A heartfelt thank you and the TEM Thanksgiving Challenge

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TEM119: A heartfelt thank you and the TEM Thanksgiving Challenge

This episode is a heartfelt thank you to all of you for supporting TEM plus a challenge for all TEM listeners.

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

Don't miss the debut of the TEM Newsletter! Sign up to receive a free copy of 7 Lessons Learned from the First 100 Episodes of TEM.

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Help me get to my goal of 75 ratings at iTunes by leaving a rating and review.

Follow TEM on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz for Pedal Note Media

TEM118: Rob Knopper of the Metropolitan Opera and Auditionhacker

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TEM118: Rob Knopper of the Metropolitan Opera and Auditionhacker on the many remaining blue oceans in the music business, time management and how Auditionhacker developed from a personal method to a product

Rob Knopper is a percussionist with the Metropolitan Opera and is the founder of Auditionhacker.

*****Want to make more money in the music business? Contact TEM Coaching for your free consultation today to see if we are a good fit. Find out more at: http://www.andrewhitz.com/coaching*****

What You'll Learn in TEM118:

  • How observing fans at Yes and King Crimson concerts informs how he interacts with the customers on his website

  • Why he ignored everything else and focused solely on audition prep before winning the job with the Met

  • How rewarding it was after winning his gig to give himself permission to pursue the other passions in his life that he had been putting off

  • How getting involved with the Met Orchestra Musician’s website and social media channels showed him it really wasn’t that hard

  • A recording project he completed that was a textbook example of finding a blue ocean, harnessing passion and the principle of scarcity

  • The incredibly honest writings he did about his successes and failures with auditions that really resonated with his customer base

  • Why it is so important to identify exactly who you are writing or speaking to when producing content (and why it is awfully easy when that person is you)

  • The incredible number of blue oceans there still are in music since we have far fewer specialists than a profession like the medical one

  • How Auditionhacker went from a personal method to a product as the result of a demonstrated need by potential customers

  • How he came to partner with Noa Kageyama of The Bulletproof Musician on an online course

  • How Rob is able to manage his time efficiently and keep his playing at a world class level while maintaining so many entrepreneurial pursuits

Links:

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

Don't miss the debut of the TEM Newsletter! Sign up to receive a free copy of 7 Lessons Learned from the First 100 Episodes of TEM.

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Help me get to my goal of 75 ratings at iTunes by leaving a rating and review.

Follow TEM on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz for Pedal Note Media

TEM117: Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini (Book Report)

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A Book Report on the New York Times best selling book "Influence" by Dr. Robert Cialdini.

What You'll Learn:

  • The Six Principles of Persuasion, how they apply to a musical entrepreneur and six action steps to utilize each principle

    1. The Principle of Reciprocity

    2. The Principle of Scarcity

    3. The Principle of Authority

    4. The Principle of Consistency

    5. The Principle of Liking

    6. The Principle of Consensus

Show notes for all episodes of TEM including topics discussed, links to all books and websites referenced can be found at:

http://www.andrewhitz.com/shownotes

1. Help me get to my goal of $50 per episode on Patreon by pledging as little as $1 per episode to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tempodcast.

2. Help me get to my goal of 75 ratings at iTunes by leaving a rating and review.

Follow TEM on Instagram and Twitter

And finally, a huge thank you to Parker Mouthpieces for providing the hosting for TEM.

Produced by Andrew Hitz for Pedal Note Media