Obscure Magazine
Promoting Maine's Original Musicians & Songwriters
Vol. 1 ISSUE 07
FEB. 1994 FREE
Page 2
A NEW JOB:
by Douglas Papa
A $10 - $20 an hour job
sounds great doesn't it? How often do people like how you sound at
gigs and asks to take music lessons from you? This is one way original
musicians can make money from the clubs isn't it?
Taking music lessons
is more than acquiring new material. It's learning how to present the
lesson, how to be patient, how to motivate younger students with busy
schedules, how much homework to give out, how fast or slow to instruct
individuals, how to stress the importance of counting or reading music,
how to teach hardcore beginners or successful professionals, how
different styles of music is important to study separately without
mixing definite sounds together and confusing people, and what to do
about those who don't practice their homework. Students are easy to
meet but hard to keep without knowing the details of the above.
News travels fast and
bad news travels faster. Word of mouth is the deciding factor of
having 15 students per day or per week. There is an untapped market of
musicians in Maine who only study sheet music and cover cassette tapes.
A lesson recorded on a blank cassette tape is an alternative when the
covers rack the brain to burn out. You find yourself in a C.O.V.E.R.S.
band. inside your practice time you study your own original material.
the band practices the cover tunes. You take the time to learn cover
songs by taking lessons from another musician who has their own cover
band. The next day you use the phone to call instructors. One has no
attitude whatsoever. The next week, the music instructor teaches you 2
or 3 songs down tight. The week after you take a lesson from the same
instructor and another third party music instructor. The lesson with
the first music instructor goes the same. The lesson with the second
music instructor goes half way and you start to end the lesson teaching
him new material to learn. The aftermath is doubling the time of your
first music instructor.
Music lessons are
another form of learning off of a blank or cover cassette tape.
Practice prevents burnout. Individual practice makes the most of your
band practices which will also be recorded onto a blank tape. This is
one form of copywriting a song that will provide no contest. This is
why being an original musician rules! No more commercial radio
ever! The other great thing, original music lessons. You don't have to
read music to instruct professional musicians. At $10 - $40 an hour
this sounds like an ultimate new job for any musician. You have to
compete with all the copywritten music, you need a little
original individual light and music.