Thank you for reading my weekly newsletter. Today’s will be short.
In today’s newsletter, I am sharing a sneak peak of forthcoming content from Grace Notes.
Newsletters in the pipeline.
1. A gig tracker for freelance string players
I am disorganized by nature.
My discombobulation is inevitable.
I am a whirlwind of pure energy, enthusiasm, and can-do-it-ness—I am my worst enemy.
I try to do everything.
I don’t know about you, but when I try to do everything, I cannot remember anything. Let alone track it.
I will be in bumper to bumper traffic on the 5 like:
“Who do I need to email for that gig I did last Thursday? Did I need to send them a w9…wait, did they even ask for my payment information? Who called me for that gig?”
There is too much information for any one person to keep track of. I’m still a one-man operation. I would find myself losing my mind with anxiety trying to find all of my different Notes with different information on them.
When Albert Chang introduced me to Notion, my life changed forever. It’s the most versatile, powerful tool I have ever used.
I’ve been developing a Gig Tracking database in Notion over the past 4 years and it has truly changed my life.
I can’t wait to tell you more about it.
2. A Huge Mistake I Made
I’m not proud of this one. I literally saw it coming, and I let it happen to myself anyway.
I didn’t get paid for work that I produced.
Even though I saw it coming, I just didn’t have the right playbook. And because I didn’t have the right playbook, I didn’t have the confidence to assert myself.
I called a dear friend of mine for advice. What she told me, blew my mind.
I will explain everything. I’ll show you where I went wrong so you don’t have to make the same mistakes that I made.
3. How Music School Let You Down
Look, I know music school cannot teach you everything.
But why aren’t they teaching marketing? Marketing is storytelling. Art is storytelling.
Marketing = Art ?
It can be. And it is your secret weapon to building an audience.
I will share some of my favorite insights from some of my favorite books on the subject.
That’s all for this week.
That last Bitcoin post was eerily on point, right?
It just hit an all-time-high this morning.
$69,500+ (nice)
I did my best to relax a bit this week:
Did a couple of living room recording sessions. I love these.
Worked on some new music with Danger.
Played on the Series Finale of Umbrella Academy. It was a vibeee.
Alyssa Park is a player that I admire endlessly.
Called the Local 802 in NYC cuz they had some money for me (LFG)
Had some pretty important meetings with and for wholesoul
My homie Ezinma asked us to play in JLo’s “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story”
We had some friends offer to help us with the business. We’re drawing out plans now!
I made a few Standard Operating Procedures around Contracting and Invoicing.
Okay, talk to you Next Friday. I have to warm up…
I have a session with Kamasi Washington tonight 👀