The Summerglen Files

This is the second post in this week’s series celebrating the one year anniversary of Summerglen Music. Today I’ll talk about my wonderful clients, and how I found them easily.

Before I started Summerglen, I thought that the best way to find music students, brides who wanted cool ceremony music, and people to host Summerglen Duo concerts was to let the WHOLE WORLD know about us, and try to convince everyone who would listen that they needed more trombones in their lives. I was so worried that if I didn’t “get” these people, the “competition” would. Sound desperate? You bet! Sound like an approach that works? In a word, NO!

As I started learning about working solo, I discovered that the most successful entrepreneurs take a more relaxed, but detailed approach to finding the right people to work with. These people believe that there’s plenty of business to go around, so there is no need to sweat the competition. And instead of changing their businesses to fit everyone’s needs, they do research to find which people might benefit best from what they’re already doing. This way sounded workable, positive, and even fun; this mindset could allow me to relax, be myself, AND find the perfect clients.

And it worked!

There are plenty of people offering music lessons in Raleigh–but Summerglen is the place to go if you’re excited about low brass or percussion. There are a number of groups that perform at special events around here, but only one that comes downtown and entertains you as you leave your office for lunch. Simply by being ourselves, getting to know our ideal clients, and trusting that all will be well, we’ve attracted wonderful clients who are a pleasure to have in our lives!

This is the first post in this week’s series celebrating the one year anniversary of Summerglen Music, Raleigh’s home for beautiful performances and empowering musical learning experiences. In the series, I’ll share things that helped me make the leap from working for someone else to living my dream of being a full-time trombonist. Today, books!

Making the transition away from being an employee can be confusing and a little scary–after all, you’re stepping out and taking a risk. But I knew from years of taking auditions that preparation is one of the best ways to minimize risk and be successful. So, the first action I took was to get prepared, by reading tons of business books. I wanted to see if I had the right stuff to go solo, and to figure out what I needed to do to be successful. Here are 3 books that helped me do just that:

Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton - This book showed me that some of my habits I thought were annoying were actually unique strengths that I could use to be successful. After reading the book and doing the online quiz, I was able to use my newfound strengths to create the foundation of Summerglen Music.

Before You Quit Your Job by Robert Kiyosaki - Describes how to think like an
entrepreneur, gives many details on how to build a business from the ground up, and empowers you to learn from your mistakes. Priceless.

Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port - This book makes you sit down and figure out who might want your services, where they might be, and how you can best reach them. It also teaches you how to promote yourself in a credible, trustworthy way.

I also subscribed to lots of e-zines and read a number of blogs about business, and then tried out the things I learned. All this research helped me understand how to promote musical services in a businesslike way. And once I understood that, I could balance business with artistry, making ends meet while making music!

Until next time, enjoy!

Summerglen Music is officially one year old today! Yay!

I started Summerglen last year after I had had absolutely enough of teaching music in the public schools. Society really mistreats and mistrusts teachers, and I was no exception. After five years of working in a fairly large elementary school, I was completely and utterly spent, beyond fatigued, and dangerously close to being burnt out on music entirely. I felt, well, chewed up and spit out. Icky.

So I took a leap of faith and became an independent trombonist and teacher. I built Summerglen Music as a vessel, a boat to carry my musical services on. It’s a small boat, but it’s very good at what it does, namely, helping young trombonists and bringing beautiful music to our corner of North Carolina.

I’m very grateful today, because all has been well this year. Newspapers have some awful headlines lately, and the economy isn’t doing so great. Some people actually told me I was crazy to quit a nice secure job with the school system to blow through a metal tube for a living. But it felt like what I was supposed to do, so I did it, and everything’s been very, very good.

So, I’ll celebrate this special occasion with some teaching, which will be super fun! This week, I’ll share some of the things I did this year to start Summerglen Music and make it successful. And I must thank you, the reader, for sharing our first year in business with us. All the best!

This week has been pretty hectic, one of those weeks where you have an endless list of things to get done, and the more you do, the more you still need to finish. Each day I played music all day, and arranged, and went to networking meetings, and researched for workshops, and came home absolutely spent, ready to fall asleep on my dinner. But no sleep came, just worry, for 3 nights in a row. Halfway through, my playing started to suffer. And then, my peace of mind went out the window as well.

So yesterday, I did one of the healthiest things a musician (or anyone) can do: nothing. I turned off my phone, closed the door to the computer room, and hung my trombone on its stand. I dropped every responsibility and floated in Falls Lake all afternoon. When the lake made my fingers pruny, I laid out in the hot North Carolina sun. I enjoyed the sounds of nature and of other people having fun in the lake. And everything was OK.

Now I’m back in the computer room, looking at my pile of things to do. And I’m refreshed and ready to tackle it! This may be one of the most productive Fridays known to humankind, all because I let myself relax.

Not many adults come to me for trombone lessons, and many promising ones quit, often before they play a single note. But kids come here and excel, and quickly! I’ve wondered what the difference is, why kids come in and show the trombone who’s boss, while adults (who may very well be the boss at work) shy away. And my bet is on creativity.

Creativity is something we’re really good at as kids, ’cause every day we get to draw pictures and sing songs and everyone expects us to be silly because we’re kids. But as we grow, other people make us nervous about fitting into the “real world”, and getting a good job, and saying the right things, and paying the bills. And creativity gets pushed aside as fluff.

As a musician I have to be creative, like a kid, and nurture that creativity so it won’t slip away. But as I’ve learned about creativity, it looks less and less like something for artists or young people, and more like something for EVERYONE. Creativity empowers us to take risks and solve problems. It’s the little voice that says, “Look at it this way,” giving us new perspective. It doesn’t care what the neighbors will think. Creativity says yes you can.

I’ve had creativity on the brain lately, because I’m getting ready to teach a creativity workshop for adults this Saturday. I hope to empower some people by helping them tap into their own creative reserves. Maybe someone will even discover their signature sound ….if so, I can’t wait for Saturday!

If it’s too hot to go outside this afternoon, why not fill your day with some good reading? Here are some interesting blogs about business, passion, and spirituality that you might enjoy:

Startup Spark - These folks just wrapped up The Great Blog Off, during which they posted 24 blog posts in 24 hours. If you’re interested in working for yourself, all these posts are relevant and VERY helpful! My favorite post thus far is Recession or Redefinition; it encourages taking positive action in the face of troubling times.

Passions That Pay - If you have some time to sit and listen, blogger Katherine Reschke has posted a cool interview with Judy Davids, the Rock Star Mommy. Davids, a mother of two, picked up a guitar and started an all-mom rock band at the age of 42!

And if you’re in the mood for some beautiful, emotion-filled writing, check out My Life as it Was, Is, and Will Be. The author is a creative, expressive writer, and her posts bring out the spirituality in everyday life.

Wow! Several new registrations came through today, so another trombone choir is popping up here at Summerglen! This trombone choir looks like a mix of guys and girls, with everyone being a few years older than most of the kids in the other choir.

These choirs are going to be such fun! I’d better get cracking on some arrangements over the weekend.

Something very, very, very cool has happened this week, something that truly moves me and sparks a jolt of excitement at the same time:

My first student trombone choir is all girls!

Now, many people may wonder why an all-girl trombone choir is such a terrific phenomenon, so here is some background story.

I began playing trombone in the late summer of 1992. Not exactly the Dark Ages for womankind, right? As a child, I was told that girls could do anything boys could do, that girls could be smart and successful, that as a girl I had equal rights and could grow up and do anything I wanted. Then, I came home from band information night with a trombone.

At that moment, for some reason the above statements no longer applied, and the Dark Ages suddenly weren’t a thing of the past. For months, my trombone was the hot topic with most of the people I knew–how weird it was that a girl would pick a “boy” instrument, how it must feel to be the only girl in the trombone section, and why don’t I just change to a “nice” instrument like the flute. Grr, annoying. Some of the guys in the trombone section didn’t like having a female presence in their row, either, so they’d rib me before, during, and after class day after day. (Until I got the idea to use the end of the slide on one of them. After that, we were OK!)

I picked the trombone because I loved its wide range of sounds–from beautiful, singing Tommy Dorsey lines to Duke’s bones sounding like a freight train. But at that time and in that place, a young girl choosing to play the trombone was seen as a radical act. And some people try to punish radical acts–like the dirty old men in a D.C.-based trombone group who asked me to their HOTEL ROOM in the middle of a masterclass!

So when I meet young ladies who are interested in trombones, and who can PLAY their trombones, and who want to learn more about trombones, I’m elated! I want to give them the support they need to feel confident and keep growing as musicians, even if people give them grief about their instrument choice. What is wonderful to see is the support that our trombone choir girls’ parents give–they love seeing their kids excel at playing big low brass instruments!

I look forward to working with this group of young ladies; they’re excellent musicians playing some cool arrangements, so there’s a lot of potential for great music to happen. There’s also plenty of opportunity to make these girls’ musical journeys a bit nicer, by making people aware that trombones aren’t just for the guys!

In yesterday’s post, I described my somewhat clumsy journey into marketing as a musician. However awkward the journey, though, I’ve found several approaches to promoting my musical services that WORK! Here are my top five, in no particular order:

1. Go out and play - Generally, when people read a description of a musical group like ours (a trombone and marimba duet), it’s tough for them to get an idea of what we sound like. I mean, what is a marimba anyway? And aren’t trombones kinda blatty? But when people see and hear us in person, the reaction is more like, “Wow, that’s beautiful!” When we go out and play, usually we make a few dollars in tips, but more importantly, we make people happy, and we help them get to know us better. Everyone wins!

2. Post online classifieds - I’ve heard a lot of people say that posting on free online classified directories doesn’t get you good clients, but that hasn’t been the case for me. I’ve found 3 strategies that make posting online classified ads really successful: (1) post on LOTS of different directories, (2) post regularly, and (3) post meaningful ads with lots of info.

3. Get publicity - Publicity is better than advertising because it’s free, many people see it, and they tend to trust what you say more because it’s not an advertisement. When I do an interview, sponsor a musical event, or volunteer to speak for a local group, afterward there’s usually a big jump in the number of calls I get for gigs and teaching. As long as I keep the focus on sharing with other people (instead of plugging my services), everyone leaves feeling good, and Summerglen has new friends.

4. Write articles - I like to write articles about music, especially about learning to play an instrument. When I finish an article, I put it on the website for anyone to read, and ask nothing in return. These articles help people, and at the same time give them an idea of what I’m like as a teacher. Some of the students here have mentioned that they signed up for lessons because the articles made learning music seem more possible. WAY cool.

5. Always have something to invite people to - This is a lesson from Michael Port, the author of the business book Book Yourself Solid…and it works! Inviting people to events is fun for us, and checking out our events is fun for other people. Having something to invite people to can get new people close enough to hear your music, meet your students, and learn more about what you do. And soon, there are more and more people at your events, and you’ve got a healthy buzz going all over town.

As I write, many more details and ideas come to mind. And as I keep practicing, getting the word out becomes more and more fun! Let’s call it my new hobby .

The blog has been a bit of a ghost town lately, because I’ve been out in the heat of the North Carolina summer, learning.

When you get a music degree, or even when you get -two- music degrees, there’s actually not much class time devoted to daily life as a musician. In my studies, there were hours upon hours of class debate over whether birdsong qualified as music or not, discussions of why music is beautiful but not magical, and forays into the intimate details of composers’ personal lives. Fascinating topics! But in all our discussion, there was little mention of how to get these interesting ideas out into the world, how to tell people that you and your music are here, how to bring music into people’s lives in a meaningful way.

But the one thing you -do- learn in getting a music degree is how to learn. When it all comes down to it, YOU must teach yourself to play. A large part of playing an instrument is physical, understanding how your lips need to feel to move across partials flexibly, knowing how to move your diaphragm, chest, and belly to make room for your lungs to have enough air to power several measures of music. It’s amazing, because nearly every sound that a brass player makes is inextricably tied to a physical movement or feeling, and when we sit and practice, we’re slowly teaching our bodies to work in a certain way. We teach our minds, as well, to be present at practice even when we don’t want to be. To solve problems. To think in sound.

So now I’m using what I learned to learn what I didn’t. On the streets of Raleigh, I’m taking Marketing 101, finding out who I’m trying to reach and which ways are best to reach them. When I find a marketing tool that works, I write it down and try to do it consistently. It feels awkward, like juggling. But then again, playing trombone was awkward once as well. Back then I liked the idea of being a trombonist, so I worked through the clumsy feelings until playing felt natural. Now, I like the idea of being an independent trombonist–no boss, no principal, no agent, just me. So it’s time to get used to juggling again, until my new role as “Summerglen Music Marketing Department” feels easy!