Though I may have stopped playing music full time, many years ago, I never lost my desire to devote myself fully to music. With the advent of MP3 COM, in October of 1999 I went ahead full steam with music. I hit it lucky and made some money, and my music was heard on MP3 COM. Many people who listened to my music on MP3 COM told me I should be performing locally, and so I finally was able to book my own jobs in the retirement homes, and I have had two Gigs in the Peaberry Coffee Shops. Let me tell you Bob I had to get on the phone and make many calls to get the jobs I have played. I also used the internet to find many music jobs. The internet is a great data base that musicians can use to find work locally. Email is a viable means of communication in getting music playing jobs.

Phone Calls are the fastest way to get Music Playing Jobs. But you have to have the phone numbers of those who would hire you for live performance. The internet can supply you with the phone numbers you need to solicit live performance jobs. You have to be as creative in using the internet as you are on the Guitar if you are going to book your own live performance jobs.

Believe me I would gladly pay a booking agent their 10 or 15 percent if they would provide me with Gigs. However, I discovered the booking agents could not supply me with enough live performance jobs to matter. I would have starved to death if I had depended on booking agents for music jobs.

I contacted several booking agents a year or so ago. I sent the Booking Agents CDs. After they listened to my CD, they all told me they could find Gigs for me. I asked one booking agent if he started getting me jobs how many gigs he would get for me each month. I asked if he could book me for at least 10 jobs a month. The agent replied, "Oh no., the most jobs I can get my artists are two jobs a month, and that is tops." Well two jobs a month is not enough to matter, when you are looking for substantial income. So after hoping to be booked by others, including the agents and the people who do catering and business meetings, I started booking myself. And I have had at least 10 jobs every month.

So what's happening in your life Bob, music wise and other wise. Do you play music around the house. I’d sure love to have a CD with you and Bonnie doing a Duo. I’d expect to hear some good harmony singing, and some great Guitar work. It would be great to hear some original songs and some cover songs of the music that you both love. I’d want to hear some of your Flute Playing. And I’d expect to hear some really great drums in the recordings.

I once talked to some people who install high priced audio gear in rich people’s homes. They told me that they sometimes contract Specialized Audio Design Engineers to design a room with perfect acoustics to put their really high level audio equipment in for their customers. We are talking $10,000.00 Audio Pre Amps, and $10,000.00 Audio Power Amps. And speakers that are not below $10,000.00 in cost. They told me the listening room they put their systems in often cost $35,000.00 to build. Now let me tell you, if I were rich, I’d have one of those rooms to listen to music in, and to record in. How I’d love to be able to afford such a wonderful audio listening and recording room.

You and your dad ought to work together to build you and Bonnie an Audio room with near perfect acoustics. Since you don’t like to use the computer to record, you can get one of the digital recording machines for you and Bonnie. I want to tell you Bob that you can now purchase Cool Edit Pro for $249.00 and get a remote, Red Rover, for $129.00. To me that is the way to go. Cool Edit Pro has 128 multi tracks to use. You could use 20 tracks for just your drums. Cool Edit Pro has some great effects to use also. And once you get some experience on Cool Edit Pro, the recording you could get with Cool Edit Pro would make your digital recording machine tracks sound very primitive. Of course you would want a 24 bit sound card for Cool Edit, but the program gets good recordings with a 16 bit sound card also.

Just thought I’d mention that Bob.

I wonder what our old Boss Dale, from CPT, is doing these days. Those were great days at CPT. Repairing the computers was an adventure. It seems like yesterday we worked together, and played music together, but that was 25 years ago. Time sure does fly.

When we worked together at CPT I enjoyed Jamming with you and Carl and the other guys over at Carl’s House. I was influenced in a good way by the music that all you younger and very talented musicians played in those Jams. I was especially influenced by the way you played as a solo artist, putting many of your drum parts as percussion licks on the Guitar. I use percussion licks in my solo Guitar Work all the time now. The percussion licks makes my Solo Guitar sound so much fuller.

Tell Bonnie I said hello.

Lee

P. S.
Bob as you well know I took my songs down from MP3 COM. However, I had many musicians from the web site tell me by email that they missed having my songs to listen to and ask me to post my songs to a MP3 COM web page. Well that is hard to not respond to. And I had some people I called on for live performance jobs ask me if I had music on the internet they could listen to before they hired me for Gigs. So, I have posted about 30 songs on MP3 COM. I posted my new songs, which include some vocals. On my old MP3 COM Guitar Man web page I had just Guitar Instrumentals. But after I started the live performance solo Gigs, and was singing a lot, I decided to record some public domain songs that are for the most part folk songs. However, since I believe in being original, my versions of the folk songs are originals, and they sound more like modern Country than Folk Songs. Since I’m "The Guitar Man," I lace all my Vocal Recordings with heavy duty Guitar Breaks.

I used my old "The Guitar Man" nick for the web site. I didn’t take the premium MP3 COM service since it costs $19.95 a month. No need to pay $19.95 a month when MP3 COM now pays royalties of only one half cent for each listen/download. You can’t make any money from royalties that low. In fact you most likely could not even make the $19.95 you pay for the premium MP3 COM service. Since I didn’t take the Premium MP3 COM service, MP3 COM will take quite a few days to make my songs active. My page might be active by Monday June 24, or Tuesday June 25. However, it might be as late as Friday June 28, before you will be able to listen to my songs on MP3 COM.

The web address of my MP3 COM page is: http://www.mp3.com/theguitarman

Hopefully MP3 COM will have this page active no later than Friday June 28.