Friday April 3rd
How's everybody doing? Safe and well I hope.
Personally the downtime is very pleasant. I'm fortunate to have that kind of a life and particularly appreciate it at this most strange of times.
Currently I'm spending my days playing the instrument, listening to more music than I have in years, working on writing another couple of books (one a drum book, the other dealing with the industry in a broader sense), reading a lot, and dabbling in studying composition.
Then of course there's the elephant in the room. A near total lack of income.
Last August when I really began working on my recently published book, at no time did I say to myself,
"This will come in handy when a global pandemic brings the music industry to a grinding halt". Similarly when I released my DVD in 2018 I didn't think that then either. Luckily between those publications and a little bit of online teaching, which I am hoping to build upon, it's not a total wipe out, although probably 75 per cent below a normal level.
Not everyone is quite so fortunate, they don't necessarily have skills that can be monetised beyond playing. Crisis funds to support struggling musicians have been overwhelmed. I don't think the powers that be had any genuine idea of many of us there are out there.
However, where resources permit we can help one another at grass roots level. It doesn't have to be some grandiose, virtue-signalling, self-publicising PR stunt. It's very simple and I have already started.
I'm setting aside a small percentage of my admittedly depleted turnover and investing it in friends and colleagues. I've ordered a couple of albums one fellow musician has released. I know they're going to be great. In a week or two, depending on how things go, I'll buy something else from somebody else, and so it goes on. I'm only spending what I can afford but if enough of us do this we can introduce a greater level of self-sufficiency into our community, as well as trying a bit harder to attend one another's gigs (as distinct from global big names) as and when normality makes its welcome return.
You can book an online lesson using the Meethook app find out more about my book, DVD and CDs here or send me an email
