This week has felt very empty. Just a couple of gigs here and there. I'm keeping busy working on the usual stuff. Emanuale came out from Hangzhou last Monday. We had a jam at JZ school with Coco, Souselle, Pin and Sam. As well as some other singers. We we're all at the Lincoln Center and Wooden Box jam the night before. It was nice to play with him again. I played an upright acoustically which was challenging. Had to really dig in! Then we had Dongbei food nearby and I showed him the Chair Club jam later in the evening.
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I'm looking to take advantage of this recording studio's offer. They want to promote their studio a bit more. It's kinda far away in Minhang district. But it is pretty amazing. They have pro equipment, a number of rooms. Next door is a restaurant, bar, a music school etc. The owner is meant to have a whole bunch of classic guitar and basses in a temperature secured room too.
Anyway, the deal is that they want to make pro video's for original projects so we will have something to show on social media, bring brand awareness to the studio. Not only that, but they offer 2x 8 hour days to record there for free! So I just need to cover the cost of the sound engineer and the musicians.
Just waiting on the go ahead, and for them to choose which song they would like to do. In the meantime, I think I should review the songs I'd like to record, and also get stuck into more and more writing. I see a lot of holes in my game, and it would be wise to keep plugging away at it while it's quiet.
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I did a photoshoot on Thursday. It's not really my kind of thing, but it is a necessary evil. I don't really like how everyone is on instagram trying to show how amazing and beautiful they are. This is a little different though.... The way I see it, as an artist, people like to see at least what you look like. I also like the idea of presenting a more artistic or weird look. Like highlighting your ugly side. Why? Well the odds are higher. You are more defined, you have more character, you stand out more for better or worse. Music is the same. There are 100's of thousands of musicians in the world. You need to take the risk to stand out a bit. It's worth it.
The photographer Mike liked different shots than I did... I haven't got them yet, but I'll think about whether I should trust his judgment of just go with my own anyway.
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Getting a bit sucked in to using too much social media though. It just kinda happens, as I guess I don't fully see how addictive and time consuming it is. When I'm busy it's not so much of a problem, it's just when I have too much time on my hands that I get drawn into random stuff. I made a post on instagram, I think the first time in at least a couple of years. I think I need it to make connections with other musicians that don't live in China. Better to start now and build some music history up a bit for when we move back to Australia.
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I did win $50 worth of BTC from Nuggets News on youtube (@nuggetsnews) which was surprising! I have been doing a bit more research into the lightning network. I don't think I'm ready to set up my own channel yet though. I'm not so computer literate and would end up spending too much time. So for now I'm just going to use walletofsatoshi which is a custodial lightning app. Just to try it out with $100 or so, give some to friends etc.
I also looked into setting up and running a full BTC node. Same kind of thing, I might end up spending a bit too much time trying to get it up and running. There are some options where I can just buy the whole thing pretty much set up, but I'd prefer to put that money in BTC itself or for those funds to go towards recording these songs. Also living in China... I don't know... It's a grey area, but the government here are proper gangsta. If they came to my home and saw me running a node.... it could be trouble. That might need to wait till I get out of here.
And the other thing I registered for was Etoro. There's a deal with nuggets news if you trade $20 worth of crypto they will send you $100 worth of BTC. But my paypal is stuck with an Aussie phone number so there's not really anyway to get funds into it. Also you need to fill out a multiple choice questionnaire about trading which I failed, and am not particularly interested in.
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December is looking pretty quiet at the moment. Last year it was my best month. But anyway, usually something comes up, and if it doesn't I hope I'll make use of the time productively learning more jazz standards, and writing and arranging more tunes.