2011
– Last 100 Days
Prodigal
Altar Boy Countdown
T-15
Days to Go
16
December 2011
Goal:
1 hour per day working on the film
Details:
Watched
Karen Everett Story Doctor Kit Module
“Musical and Cinematic Solutions”
Period and Native music
Parallel, Contrary and Oblique music
Designing Soundscape wiht Sound FX
Visual Metaphors
Pick up Shooting
Hire a Graphic Artist
Reenactments
Use Animaton
Photo montage
Go against characterReveal inner life with still moments
Total time: 1 hour
Goal:
30 minutes per day music practice
Details:
Warm
up on the Fender Roland-Ready Strat
Pat
Metheny etudes exercise #1 bars 1-4 25X
Total time: 30 minutes
Goal:
15 minutes exercise per day
Kettlebell - "Round Up From the Ground Up
Kettlebell Swings - 4 sets of 8/side - 50lb kettlebell
Kettlebell Squars 4 sets of 8 - 50lb kettlebell
Kettlebell Cleans - 4 sets of 8.side - 50lb kelltlebell
Kettlebell Presses - 4 sets of 8/side - 50lb kettlebell
Kettlebell Snatches - 4 sets of 8/side - 50lb kettlebell
Kettlebell Ros - 4 sets of 8/side - 50lb kettlebell
Total time: 19:12
Goal:
15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie
Gospel
Skillz R&B shord progression work
E –
B/D# - C#m – A chord rogression work
“Granby
Street” Roland-ready Strat - focus:
Lyric work, vocals
“Dies
Irae” – 20X run-throughs of the entire piece on the Roland Ready Strat
Focus
work on dyads and octave runs.
Total Time: 30 minutes
Notes: Fifteen days and counting.
Phrases to Ban
on eBay and Craigslist
With the media focus on online retailing this
Christmas season, I want to vent about my pet peeves concerning non-retail
outlets, particularly eBay and Craigslist.
I will start by saying eBay and Craigslist are great resources and show
how Internet commerce can evolve through self-governance.
My rant is less of a rant about eBay or Craigslist,
and more an open letter to the sellers on those sites. Just like the late George Carlin’s routine on
the “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television,” I would propose, “The Four
Words/Phrases You Can’t Use on eBay/Craigslist,” (and expect people to buy):
1.
“Cheap
fix” – I put this one at the top of the list because it is never true. One of the basic laws of reselling is that by
the time a used item comes to market (auction or classified listing); all of
the cheap fixes are done. If it were
that cheap a fix, the seller would have done it and raised the price
accordingly. It’s funny how “cheap”
things can be when you are expecting someone else to pay. Just looking at guitars alone, the going shop
rate for guitar repairs is anywhere from $55 - $85 per hour. Some shops will quote you a price for a job,
but still expect to pay at least $25-$40 for minor repairs at a good shop.
That’s not expensive, but it is not cheap and needs to be factored into the
price. A variation on this one is the
“…it’s probably an easy fix if you’re handy with a soldering iron.” I know there are buyers out there who probably
are handy with a soldering iron, but what if the job is more involved than
soldering a few connections? Again,
something that needs to be figured in the price.
2.
Right
behind “Cheap fix” is the “powers up/seems to work” gambit. This is usually accompanied with the “I don’t
have the equipment to check it” disclaimer.
My beef with this is laziness.
Hey, if the most you can do to determine it works is plug it in, you
should be paid the going “sold as is rate.”
Even though I see this with a lot of 80’s MIDI equipment, it’s not as
though it takes a lot of work to determine if a piece of equipment works. There are myriad online sites that give you
the button-push codes to run the diagnostics for many machines, and even if you
can’t find that, I’m sure you have one keyboard gearhead friend more than happy
to run the MIDI out from his keyboard into your machine to see if it
works. Yes, this takes a little more
time, but payoff is you have verified the piece works and that justifies your
price. If you want the higher price,
then KNOW YOUR PRODUCT!
3.
“Vintage”
– Okay, I went right to the dictionary for this one. Once you get past all the winemaking
definitions, “vintage” means:
“…representing the high quality of a past time.” Tuck that away for later reference. Looking at eBay and Craigslist ads over the
years, I see sellers have changed the definition of “vintage” to mean, “…added
to the description of an item for sale to jack up the price.” Pull out the definition again; focus on the
key words, “high quality.” Just because
something is old does not make it high quality.
Everything from a given era can be high quality. If that were so, then pet rocks from the 70’s
would be worth the price of gold. To
repeat, “JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS OLD DOES NOT MAKE IT “VINTAGE.”
4.
“Rare”
– Again, I went to the dictionary to find the following definitions: coming or occurring far apart in time; thinly
distributed over an area; unusually great; unusually excellent; admirable;
fine. While sellers on Craigslist and
eBay could make a case for “thinly distributed over an area,” e.g., “This is
the only ______ listed on this site, today,” more often than not they use it as
a “descriptor to jack up the price.”
Rare can mean there aren’t many of them in existence, but believe it or
not, there are situations where scarcity does not add value. Further, when discussing mass-produced goods
(such as guitars, electronic equipment, etc.), rarity is relative. A recent gambit is to describe 70’s Japanese
copies of Fender and Gibson guitars as “lawsuit: guitars, implying that once
the American manufacturers sued the Japanese companies, production stopped and
the guitars became collector’s items.
That’s a nice story, but if you tally the total Japanese companies sued
by American instrument makers during that time and compare that with the number
of guitars touted on eBay and Craigslist as being “lawsuit” guitars, the
numbers do not match. Do your homework.
5.
Finally,
KNOW YOUR PRODUCT. Everybody wants to
make a killing, but not everyone is willing to put in the work. If you take the time to learn about the piece
of equipment, not only do you increase your potential to get the higher price,
you also reduce potential hassles with the transaction. If you know the capabilities of the unit, you
can educate the buyer and prevent future disappointment. I’m looking at an Adrenalinn III on
eBay. The price is right (I need a
backup), but when I asked the seller what version of software the unit was
running, he came back to me with an attitude.
He explained that this was “hardware,” not software and he did not
understand what I meant by software version.
Then he went on to say he had used the unit and never had any
trouble. Just so you know, for the
Adrenalinn III, the initial version of the software (v 3.0.0) has some known
issues with the tuner as well as control issues. If this unit has that early version, buying
the upgrade chipset ($30.00) has to be factored into the price. Later in the day, the seller emailed me to
say he “thinks: he knows what I’m talking about and will check the version
number (hold down the “UP” arrow while powering up will cause the version
number to show in the display) when he gets back to the studio. For me, the sale is over. Yes, a new one from Roger Linn will be more
expensive, but I’m guaranteed the latest version, shipping is free, and I get a
free copy of the Adrenalinn III plug in. KNOW YOUR PRODUCT!
Okay, rant over.
To quote the Mortimer Duke at the end of “Trading Places,” “Get out
there and sell, sell, sell!”
 |
| Vintage Rare '79 Fender "lawsuit Strat" |
