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I’ve had the giggles this week, especially while teaching.
It all started with the electrifying performances at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (www.cliburn.tv). The poise of these young performers is almost unbelievable, and their death-defying acts of pianism are inspiring, amazing, exciting, and rejuvenating.
I can’t tell you how many times in the last few days I’ve heard a performance of a piece of music I used to play. Often, I’ve been moved to rifle through my music cabinets, then go back to the piano to play something I haven’t looked at since high school. Lots of train wrecks have been happening on my old Steinway, but I’ve had lots of fun, too, as well as the occasional moment of something that sounds pretty darn good.
Inspired by 20-year old phenom Tsujii Naboyuki, the blind Japenese pianist who was one of the tying gold medalists, I even attempted to play Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu, a piece that’s been in my repertoire since age 11, with a blindfold on. The result wasn’t pretty, but it was enlightening, and I’d encourage anyone who has an old warhorse sitting around to try the experiment for themselves.
While surfing around the Cliburn website, I came upon the information and application for the amateur arm of the Van Cliburn competition. Now, make no mistake, this may be an amateur competition, as in “not a concert pianist,” but the playing here is at a very high level, mostly by people who could have gotten (or did get into) fine conservatories as students, but ultimately elected to pursue a saner way of making a living.
The requirements for the competition include that you be over 35 (in other words, it’s not a back door to a debut concert career). That’s fair. No ringers allowed.
You can’t make your living (or most of your living) as a concert pianist (in other words, it’s not a career bumper) Okay, that’s fair, too.
And you can’t make your living (or most of your living) teaching music. Which seems reasonable, right? Unfair advantage and all that?
Or does it?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of EVER entering this, or any other piano competition, so I’ve got no dog in this fight. However, as I’ve spent my week going about my teaching, this “no teachers” restriction has had me bursting out in uncontrolled giggles, usually in the middle of a lesson.
I guess it gives me an unfair advantage when I spend my workdays :
Reminding Student A that the finger in his mouth is the same finger that is supposed to go on middle C.
Telling Student B that no matter how many time he plays that “B” it is always going to sound wrong, and it will continue to sound wrong until he looks at the music and figures out that he is supposed to be playing a different note.
Trying to figure out how to get Little Student C to stretch her tiny hands so that she can get to that top A in “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Explaining to Student D’s parents that coming to a piano lesson once a week does not constitute “practice” and that unless the child actually touches the piano a few times a week, he has a better chance of flying into space than he does of getting through Book I of the “How to Play Piano” series.
Don’t get me wrong: I like my students. Right now, I’ve got a great studio of kids, and I happen to be truly fond of every one of them: They are cute and funny, and fun to teach, and most of them actually practice once in a while. And while it’s true that I AM teaching a few more advanced students some Chopin nocturnes and some of the easier Beethoven and Mozart sonatas and such, the vast majority of my time is spent on finger number one, finger number two, and pleas to COUNT COUNT COUNT, and TRY TRY TRY to remember what “every good boy deserves.”
So it tickles my funny bone to think that this job disqualifies me from standing on a stage, just me and the black beast, to wrestle in public with my Chopin G minor Ballade or my Beethoven “Les Adieux.”
Student E wiggles her tooth for me and announces that it might come out during this very lesson, and I tell her my cardinal rule: “No blood on the piano.”
And the giggling starts again.
Posted in Music, Performing, Teaching | Tagged linkedin, van cliburn competition | 5 Comments »
Sometimes it’s really important to see just what the tippy-top highest standard in your field of endeavor is: Pianists can see the tip of the mountaintop at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. It’s one of the most exciting events in classical music, and those of you who think that that’s equivalent to “one of the most exciting days watching paint dry” should look it up. The performance of Chopin’s Conceerto #1 tonight (9:45 Eastern Time) by a blind pianist might rock your world. www.cliburn.tv.
Just making it to the competition is a lifetime achievement. The range of repertoire runs through four hundred years of classical music, including the bedrock pieces of the classical repertoire, along with chamber music, and the huge knuckle-pounding concerti.
29 pianists started in the competition, which runs from May 22 to June 7 (2009), every one of them a phenomenal artist. It’s now down to 6 finalists, and those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be there in person can watch performances AND rehearsals, streamed live, on Webcam.
The performances will also be archived.
Posted in Music, Performing | Tagged van cliburn piano competition | Leave a Comment »
It’s the goal of every writer: A place on the New York Times Best Seller List.
A few months ago, I was at a writer’s conference, where one of my fellow writers had achieved that golden status: She was a coauthor of a book that had been solidly stuck on the list for months. There was talk of a movie. I’d been wondering for years about how this watershed achievement changes lives, and the answer turns out to be: Not so much.
My colleague had, like me, paid a few hundred bucks to attend this particularly selective conference, in order to pitch ideas to magazine editors whose interest in the assembled writers ranged from avid to tepid. Many of them, after the conference, would not even bother to reply to e-mailed pitched they had personally solicited.
Believe me, I was incredibly impressed with my colleague’s accomplishment: I figured the editors would be lining up to talk to her. If I were an editor (and I actually HAVE been one), I’d go looking for a story to assign this writer to do. You make it to the NY Times, list, I figure, you get a free pass into the fast lane. But, according to her, that’s not the way the world works. New York Times bestseller? Yawn. She still had to write queries; she still got ignored by 24-year old assistants. I found that about the most depressing thing I’d heard all year (and in the world of publishing this year, THAT is saying something).
So that was reality check number one.
Here comes number two: The money isn’t even all that good. A few months ago, author Lynn Viehl promoised to reveal all if she ever made “The list.” Twilight Fall debuted at Number 19; Lynn kept her promise, and here’s her tale.
I don’t know what the moral of this story is; I don’t even know IF there is a moral to this story. Keep your day job? Do it for the dream, but not for the reality?
I suppose we’re writers, so we write. Reality be damned.
Posted in Freelancing, Writing | Tagged New York Times Best Seller List | 1 Comment »
I am a piano player, that’s what I do.
Workwise, I’m some other things as well: A writer, a teacher, and an occasional photographer and a once-in-a-while public speaker. Related to work, because they are the things I write about and teach and speak about and photograph and love doing: I’m also a long distance backpacker, a scuba diver, and a traveler.
You undoubtedly have the same-but-different weird mix of things you do that is part of what makes you YOU. And it’s part of makes your work uniquely YOURS.
The balance changes over the years: In my case, I’m doing more diving now than hiking. Some years, I do a ton of public speaking, some years not so much. Some years I do more writing, some years more teaching. There’s an ebb and flow with no real plan to it. Things change, and then they change back. But over the course of my work life, the things I listed are the things that are constant. In a very real way, they are a big part of how I define who I am.
What all of this boils down to: These are the things I do, and I do them whether someone is paying me or not.
Which is how I found myself sitting at the piano, playing blues and Chopin, at what used to be called the Troutbeck Travel Writer’s Conference (It’s now called Travel Classics Conference). I was at the conference to convince editors to buy my stuff; I was at the piano because I play the piano.
A couple of years later, one of my fellow writers got a lead from an agent who was looking for a piano-player/piano teacher/writer to write a book for the Idiots Guide’s series on playing piano chords. She thought of me because of that night at Troutbeck, and just like that, the Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Piano Chords fell into my lap. At the same time, the same agent was looking for a bass-playing writer to write a bass guitar book, so the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar fell into David’s lap. And now, they’ve come back to us with the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Music Teaching, and the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Rock Guitar.
There’s a nugget of a lesson here: We writers and artists spend a lot of time alone. We day dream, we create, we turn over ideas, and some days we don’t get out of our bathrobes (Okay, I don’t work in my bathrobe, but I KNOW some of y’all do…. I will however cop to not getting out of the house).
And we need to: We need to put what we do in front of people, even if our only motivation is “Hey! There’s a piano piano! And I’m a piano player: Maybe I should play it.”
Good things happen when we put ourselves and our work into the world — when we share what we create – by design, on a whim, in any way we can.
And now, I’ve got a book outline to complete….
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
One of the predictable and seemingly unavoidable side-effects of being a freelancer is that work comes in waves and spurts, priorities get hijacked, new enthusiasms take over, and balance can be hard to find. This blog has been a casualty of that lately.
In this economy, certainly, no freelancer/self employed creative can complain about having too much work. Or about having too many different kinds of work, which is as important. But sometimes, managing them all, and keeping all the balls you’re juggling up in the air can be a bit tricky.
Since January, for instance: I went to Egypt for the SATW Freelance Council meeting. (An index of the articles I wrote on Egypt — from the new library in Alexandria to hot air ballooning over Luxor — is at http://www.suite101.com/blog/karenberger/resources_about_egypt)
Speaking of Suite 101, I remain as enthusiastic, if not more so.
Here’s the update on THAT: It’s a tough economy right now, and advertising revenues are a bit down, but I have a lot of faith in the financial model for freelancers, and I’ve also got a lot of faith in the Suite101 people. The feeling reminds me of when I was working for GORP.com, back in the first Internet boom and bust cycle — the folks there were absolutely terrific, and created a working environment that was a true partnership. I feel the same way about the folks at Suite 101: My editor is accessible, the technical team is responsive when glitches arise, my fellow writers are professional and supportive on the forums, with none of that “I’m smarter than you” one-upsmanship that I’ve seen on other boards. It’s nice to feel positive about the people you work with. . .
I got promoted to Feature Writer in the ecotourismvolunteer vacations/adventure travel area. http://volunteerecotravel.suite101.com/ So I’ve been trying to write an article a day for Suite101, which is harder than it sounds; I got behind in Egypt, of course, and haven’t quite caught up yet, but my goal is to have 91 articles up by the end of March. I’m at about 66 or 67 right now, so that looks do-able. in April, I’m off to Hawaii, then down to Florida for a diving press trip.
Added to all that: I was just offered a contract to write The Complete Idiots Guide to Teaching Music (due in August), and of course, there are those 30 students I see every week, keeping me on my toes (or fingers) working on everything from Mozart sonatas to Chopin preludes to Beatles tunes to jazz improv to finding their fingers number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 for the very first time.
Not to mention spring cleaning, which I’m taking a break from as I write this, and the necessity of doing SOMETHING about the winter weight gain (which to be honest, has been going on for longer than just this winter)…and David is working on a book, too (Complete Idiots Guide to Rock Guitar) and he has HIS gazillions of students, plus gigs……
Life is good, and full, but it would be an understatement to say that it’s in any way under control. I’ll be trying to post more often here, because I think we all have to deal with these issues, and maybe we can help each other. In the meantime: If YOU have any suggestions on finding balance, please leave a comment: We all need all the help we can get!
Posted in Freelancing | Tagged linkedin | 2 Comments »
Blech.
It’s THAT time of year again. Well, maybe you’ve already dealt with it, but for me, pulling my tax information together is one of those uber-procrastination issues.
Some of my colleagues use Turbo Tax, and I have a few friends who have recommended it highly, but to tell you the truth, I’d rather clean out a slaughterhouse than try to put my own taxes together. It’s as much an emotional issue as anything — I’d probably need therapy if I had to figure out both a new computer program AND which column what number goes in at the same time. Considering the cost of therapy, an accountant is cheaper in the long run. I have a very nice competent person who is willing to look at all my various lists and sort them into categories and add everything up and tell me what I owe. Only downside: He wants my stuff, er — soon.
In nearly 20 years of self-employment, I have figured out a few things to help smooth over a proccess I’m not very good at.
1) Keep good records. Some people use spreadsheet programs like Quicken. I’ve actually drawn up my own Excel program to keep track of income from various income streams. Whatever you do, keep it up to date. I log all checks before depositing them. Cash and barter income has to be accounted for as well, if you have any. (I don’t; I prefer checks because they are traceable, but if you’ve got any retail products, you probably have some cash to account for. Keep up with that, because you’ll never remember.)
2) A business checking account and a business credit card separate out business expenses from personal ones.
3) I try to pay for everything with debit card so that I have a receipt record AND a record on my bank account of where all my business expense money went. It’s a back-up system that means I won’t forget any expenses.
4) Keep a log of expenses: What they were, what they were for; how they relate to your business. Ideally, your annual log should have all business related travel expenses, home expenses that have a business application, office and business equipment, repairs, advertising, etc. If you get audited down the road, such a log makes it clear what you were doing, what its purpose was, and how it pertained to your business.
5) Your accountant is probably pretty busy right now, but after April 15, while things are still fresh, set up a time to talk with him or her, especially if your business has undergone any major changes (such as a new income stream, a new category of expenses, or you’ve found yourself making significantly more or less than usual). There may be some things you should be thinking about to get ready for NEXT year.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bushel-load of papers to go through….
Posted in Business Issues, Freelancing | Tagged taxes for freelancers | Leave a Comment »
I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying this new Internet writing project. It’s nice to know that after all these years of writing for a living I still — love to write.
The formats are tight and inflexible: 400-600 words, no first person, or even second person (although the imperative is okay). But I love having an hour or so free, and sitting down and thinking, Okay, I’ll write about this. I LOVE the autonomy. Love Love Love it. And as soon as the article is up, it starts getting clicks, and clicks lead to revenue.
Although right now, I think I’ve made about 57 cents.
Okay, so the jury is still out on revenue. I’ve done the math every way I can figure, and it still seems a crap shoot to me. I can see where it could work out very nicely long term, but I also don’t think anyone in their right mind would want to wager a whole lot on how Internet revenue models are going to work for writers a few years down the road. But if, a year or so from now, I decide it’s a bust — I’ll still have rights to my work, and can repurpose and repackage it. I’m feeling optimistic, and I have to say that that hasn’t been true in the writing biz for a long time.
Here’s my bio page: http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/karenberger
And here’s a list of articles: http://www.suite101.com/writer_articles.cfm/karenberger
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
A few weeks ago I blogged about some of the challenges of freelancing in the current economic conditions, and some of the steps I’m taking to not only survive in this difficult economy, but make the best of it.
http://createworklive.com/2008/11/22/silver-linings-in-stormy-clouds/
http://createworklive.com/2008/11/20/surviving-the-recession/
Here’s another site, called The Writer’s Place, that’s giving some great advice to freelance writers this week: http://nancychristie.blogspot.com/
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Is it a new business model to empower writers or a new way of making money off of writers?
After 28 years in the business (my first bylined article was published while I was still in college) I’m ASSUMING the latter. I’m just cynical enough to look through jaundiced yellow glasses at anything that promises writers a way of doing business that actually works for writers.
God knows it’s not happening in our traditional markets. The facts of the matter are that newspapers and magazines are folding, rates for freelance writers have not budged for the ENTIRE time I’ve been working in this industry, and in some cases, they’ve actually gone down. Ad pages are down, which means editorial pages are down, which means work available to freelancers is down. Contracts have gotten more and more restrictive and editor-writer relations are, across the industry, at an all-time low.
I’m lucky — I have some regular markets and some editors who like me. As long as they stay employed, all is well and good. In the last year, I’ve done stories about hiking in South Africa, England, New Zealand, Colorado, and British Columbia, helicopter adventure travels in 10 different countries, iconic music cities, helicopter hiking, beaches in Massachusetts, beach hiking in the Hamptons, winter hiking in five locations nationwide, and a host of other topics I can’t even remember.
But I’ve been looking at the future, and from where I sit, it seems uncertain, especially in the current economic situation. So I’ve been researching websites that act as a sort of online repository: They get writers to submit articles, then pay them a royalty based on how many people view the articles and click on the ads. In a sense, it’s not that different from a traditional book publishing arrangement, except there isn’t an advance up front. Then again, with the speed of the Internet, articles earn money the minute they hit the ether. Or, at least, that’s the point.
So I’ve signed on for one, called www.Suite101.com.
Here’s the deal: You have to apply by sending writing samples and a resume. Suite101 claims 12 million readers (whatever that means) a month, and they ask writers to submit about one 400 – 600 word article a week. You give them a year’s Internet exclusive (you can still sell print rights). After a year, the stories stay on Suite101, but you can republish them on other Internet sites. You get paid monthly, based on clicks.
It seems like there are upsides and downsides, and sometimes the mirror has two faces.
Upside: If you adhere to the basic template, the editors basically leave you alone.
Downside: If you adhere to the basic template the editors basically leave you alone. As someone who has to edit and re-edit blog posts for typos 20 times even AFTER spell check, I really DO appreciate good editing. Or any editing. Suite101 expects you to come in clean.
Upside: You can write anything you want, and as long as it fits the template, everything is fine.
Downside: Anybody else can write whatever THEY want, including something on the same topic you’ve just written on. And if their work isn’t clean, or well-written, it drags down the level of the whole site.
But here’’s the beauty of it: No query letters. Someone else deals with the ad people and the money. Someone else deals with the search engine optimization. Instead of having to build a site and an audience from scratch, you hook in immediately to a market of readers. And your writing becomes an income stream that pays off as long as it keeps earning eyeballs.
Don’t we writers often whine about how all we want to do is write? Don’t we say that we don’t want editors making us tailor our copy to their advertisers or demanding answers to questions we answered in our first draft?
True, the templates are extremely limiting. I write a lot of service stories (meaning stories that offer useful take-away information to the reader), and I usually prefer to write them in first and second person. Suite101 requires all third-person writing, although a quick look shows that some editors are stricter than others. It’s a challenge for me to write in an engaging non-passive third-person style, and not resort to tired (but grammatically correct) language and lazy answers: “There is …” “There are…” “If one want to do this, one should do that…”
But I can only be what I am, which is a writer. So I carefully edit, and spend more time than perhaps I should.
And here’s the fantastic great news: I LOVE to write. That’s the not-so-secret secret these sites know about us writers. If they give us the freedom to write — we will write. And write. And write.
I feel like I’ve been let out of jail: All of these stories are springing forth; I’ve got a list of 100 topics to hit in the next year or two. I wrote seven stories this week alone — stories on diving in Belize and sailing the Grenadines and skiing in the Berkshires…
I have no idea if my enthusiasm will hold, if this will take root, or if the financial return will be worth the work. Like a book, there’s an element of risk for the creator. But I am amassing a huge amount of material I can repurpose later, I’m writing what I want to write about, and there is an income stream involved.
The Internet has been a double-edged sword to creators. It has decimated the recording industry, shaken the copyright laws to their roots, and is now taking on newspapers and magazines. It would be nice to think that it offers the creators themselves some opportunities: To reach audiences without a middlemamn, to profit from their work.
I don’t know if this is the answer, but it might be part of an answer. I’m willing to write… and see.
Check out my page at http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/karenberger
Posted in Freelancing, Internet Issues, Writing | 1 Comment »
I got inspired by a fellow writer’s blog post on her top five things from 2008 ( http://sherionwriting.blogspot.com/). So I’m going to derail from my “how starving artists can buy a house” series to reflect a bit, and post about some of the highlights of my 2008.
1) 2008 was about finding balance between my writing life and my music life. How to balance traveling while teaching piano lessons? How to deal with lots and lots of students wanting lessons – while fewer and fewer editors are buying stories? And what about practicing the piano (which is its own juggling act, as I bounce between jazz, classical, and rock music)? I won’t say I figured out the answer, but I found some new writing markets, went on some great trips, have my teaching studio at a manageable level, and enjoyed playing out. Can’t ask for more than that.
2) Trips: Scuba diving in Belize, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia reminded me (as if I needed reminding) how much I love being underwater. Diving the Lesleen M. wreck in St. Lucia was an absolute highlight: Swimming through the corridors between windows covered with brilliant coral was like floating in fairyland.
3) Learning that my DK book, Backpacking and Hiking, was translated into 12 languages. When the publisher sent me — unexpectedly, and with no forenotice — the Czech and Hungarian editions, it occrred to me to think it was pretty strange that a book would be translated into only Spanish (an edition I already knew about) and two relatively obscure eastern European languages. Some vanity-googling discovered editions in several other languages, and a request for info from the publisher revealed that there are actually 12 editions out there. I gave the Czech edition to my dad, who is Czech. He rerpots that the translator used informal “street” language — which “hurts his ears.”
4) Playing out: We had some fun gigs in 2008, especially the Riverside Jam, which took place in Fox Lake in August, the Dewey Hall Folk Series, where we headlined in October (bet you didn’t know you could get away with playing “Time Bomb ” at a “folk” series!), the Monterey General store, where we not only gave a couple of our regular shows, but were also featured as an act in the semi-annual “big big concert” in the church across the street, and of course, Fod Fest, where we celebrated the life and music of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by performing at the beautiful Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington at the tour’s kick-off concert.
5) The elections. The elections. The elections!!!!!!
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