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Hard Times Come Again No More: Part I

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears,
Oh Hard times come again no more.

Stephen Foster’s haunting tune about better times coming soon seems appropriate for this environment of economic woes.  In 1855, Foster wrote this song the year both his parents and a close friend died.  With a heavy heart and mounting debt, I feel his words put into perspective what the human mind is capable of overcoming.  Here’s a gorgeous version of the song sung by James Taylor: Hard Times Come Again No More

I was doing some thinking over the past couple of years about the impact of the recession on the arts as well as the simple fact of me being a student.  I’m sure you’d be hard pressed to find someone who said that the arts came out well.  As I look at the bleak job forecast in my own field, I know and feel the weight of cut budgets and hiring freezes as I look for full time jobs.  I can’t really speak for everyone, but I hope others have shared some of my experiences in similar situations.

However, two things happened over the course of the whole situation that have had a great effect on me: I came to appreciate what I had a whole lot more, and I starting to really look into what my local area had to offer arts wise.

Over the past couple years, people stopped buying things, which, in turn, made the economy worse.  As a result, we as a nation, though, started to really take notice of our excessive lifestyle.  People started cutting back and doing more with less. Although I haven’t really bought fully into the lifestyle, I started reading things like “The 100 Thing Challenge”.  Basically, this guy made a goal of reducing the number of personal items that he keeps.  Now, anyone who’s seen our house can attest that I haven’t done this yet, but it certainly made me think about what I really needed vs. what I wanted.  But what do I need?  I have boxes and boxes of stuff that’s sole purpose is to look at…and it’s in boxes…in a closet, serving no purpose.  But of course, rationality goes right out the door when you talk about throwing/giving it away.  Each has a story and becomes a part of me (and some have said that I have become my stuff).  So I’m still struggling with this part.

I also recently spoke with Mark Dillon, a friend of mine, about his experience hiking the Appalachian Trail a few years back.  One of the things he told me was upon completion of the trail (over several months time) one of the hardest things to do was going back to so much stuff in the real world! I found myself asking myself, “If he can live for months on what he can carry around, then why do I have so much stuff I never use?” For example, pots and pans: if I just washed them after each use, the most I would ever need is four and that’s if I used every burner on the stove!  Although I have gotten rid of some things, the biggest thing to come of this was to appreciate what I’ve got.  I’ll work on reducing my stuff in due time.

So how does this relate to the arts?  Good question: A good example of this is my new found love of old time music that I talked about in my last post.  By just talking to family and friends, I have found that some unique and interesting instruments are owned by friends and family and they were willing to let me borrow them.  To my amazement, we have acquired or borrowed (or will borrow in the future) two fiddles (violins), a tenor banjo, a regular banjo, a banjo ukulele, button accordion, an old vintage drum set, random small percussion instruments, a pump organ, a Gibson guitar, and a couple mountain dulcimers.  Now I realize that I just talked about having too much stuff, but the important thing is that these instruments are getting a new life and we haven’t had to pay to use any of them.  So instead of buying any of these new, we found creative musical outlets that would otherwise be much too expensive to buy on our own.  Now I just need to learn to play them :-)

Now I realize that this may not be the case for some of you, but I challenge you to take stock of what you already own and use your already creative minds to both create art and not break the bank.  I promise that you will be rewarded with the results!

…Continued on Part II

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Manteo Bound

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

This past weekend, my wife and I got a chance for a nice little vacation to the beach for food, fun, and a whole lot of music.  We went as members of the UNC Greensboro Old Time Ensemble and performed in the coastal town of Manteo, NC as part of their concert series.  This series aims to bring various ensembles from the North Carolina school system and fund performances in Manteo’s Roanoke Island State Park.  There are choral, jazz, theatre, and opera groups from around North Carolina who are performing there this upcoming year.  The best part is that all of the concerts are free and open to the public.

Following my last post, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to highlight one of these programs more in detail.  I’ll try to post some videos here soon, but enjoy some of the pictures my wife Sara took of our trip.

Ok, maybe not

UNCG Old Time Ensemble in Concert!

Nice pic of my dulcimer

Danny singing Big Rock Candy Mountain

Ol' Zeppo

Here‘s a nice video about the story of Zeppo on our trip.  Definitely worth a look

Me and my wife Sara before the show

Although I am a percussionist by trade, one of my more recent musical endeavors has been into the realm of Old Time music.  For those of you unfamiliar, this basically refers to traditional Appalachian vocal and dance music as well as a lot of other smaller folk genres that have been grouped together over the years.   It’s also usually defined as being “pre-bluegrass” as the style had a direct influence on bluegrass.  Old Time music can be thought of more as dance music with little improvisation whereas bluegrass is meant for the stage and offers much faster tunes with a lot of improvisatory soloing.  Much of this music comes from the British Isles and early American settlers and is often considered our nation’s first unique folk music besides that of the Native Americans.  In our Old Time group, I mostly play hammered dulcimer, but have recently picked up guitar and mountain dulcimer.   One of the hardest aspects of this group is that we try to preserve the method oral transmission of the music.  That means no sheet music, which for some (including myself) is at times very difficult.  It certainly has been a great musical experience and has helped me rediscover some of my musical heritage.  Although my father grew up listening to this music, I did not take much of an interest until now.  So I’m kind of playing catch-up, but I’m having a great time doing it.

Also, as part of my doctoral dissertation, I am looking at percussion instruments in the Old Time music genre, including hammered dulcimer, bones, spoons, and washboard.  I’m sure I’ll talk more about this in the coming months as I work more on it.  As part of my research, I will be traveling around to various music festivals in North Carolina and Virginia to observe what percussion instruments I can find and how they are played.  Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to highlight each festival on the blog as well as talk about each unique festival.  These festivals have served an important role in preserving the traditional musics around the country as well as fostering a community of performers and fans.  Here’s a quick list of some of the festivals if you’re interested in attending:

Fiddler’s Grove May 28-30

Mt. Airy Fiddler’s Convention June 4-5

Leaf and String Festival June 11-12

Charlie Poole Festival June 11-13

Swannanoa Gathering August 1-7 – This is actually a week long event where I’ll be taking classes in hammered dulcimer and old time music.

Galax Old Fiddler’s Convention August 9-14

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Death and Taxes

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

As we celebrate this most loathed of holidays, I just wanted to try to spread a little cheer about where this money goes but more importantly, what we get back.  I think this is often forgotten when talking about the topic of taxes.  We tend to focus on what we pay and not so much on what we get in return.  The truth is that for many artists, the government actually does a lot for us.  Sometimes money directly goes to pay us, and sometimes the money is spent on community endeavors that promote the art we work so hard to produce.  I think it can easily be argued that many areas of music and the arts would not exist so strongly today without a little help.  So here’s a quick rundown of some things your money goes to support.  Quick story, I used to complain about the high tax North Carolina puts on gasoline.  Then I lived in a state with much lower gas prices and some of the worst roads I’ve ever seen in my life.  Now that I’m back in NC, I never once complain about the slightly higher prices.

Although college certainly is not a pre-requisite for being an artist, many of us still attend to hone our craft and study with established professionals in our fields.  Public universities do an amazing job of offering quality programs at a much lower cost than private institutions.  My entire undergraduate tuition bill at UNC Greensboro was about the same as one year at many private universities.   Not only that, but community colleges are the cornerstone of craftsmen education as well as community classes in things like pottery, creative writing, woodworking, and many more.  And of course we cannot forget K-12 public school education.  Although we certainly hear about cuts to programs across the country, we should still be thankful that we have programs to cut.  Not only is this a great experience for the kids, but it creates livelong lovers of the arts.  I can’t tell you how many people come up to me after a show and talk about their own band/music experience as a kid.  They appreciate what we do because they know the struggles and hurdles we’ve gotten over to be good at what we do.

Another great way the government gives back is through grants and endowments like the National Endowment for the Arts.  If you haven’t checked out your local arts council, then I suggest you do so.  There are often local and state chapters that exist to give money to YOU!  Here’s a link to the arts councils in my state and city just to give you an idea of what’s out there.

Local governments can make great strides in building a striving arts community.  For example, in Greensboro, the City Arts offers classes in many crafts, as well as a several large instrumental and vocal ensembles from the young to the young at heart.  I have dealt with the organization several times in the past and I cannot stress how important it is to have support like this in our city.

Even the military is helping to keep music alive with many part and full time bands and chamber groups.  If you haven’t ever seen one of these groups, I highly recommend doing so.  These concerts are always free (since they are your tax dollars) and feature some of best musicians in the country.  This has been a very popular route for young musicians in gaining employment.  Again, this also is great advocacy for arts to the public.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite videos that offers inspiration for those who think the government doesn’t care for you.  In this video Fred Rogers (aka Mr. Rogers) goes before congress to plead with them to not cut funding to one of my favorite public services, PBS.  Happy Tax Day!



Here’s a bonus link about Mr. Rogers at Mental Floss.

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The Psychology of Performing

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

In what will also be an ongoing discussion about psychology in music and the performing arts, I thought I’d give brief overview of some of the more recent things I’ve heard and found interesting.  I left out a lot just to keep things concise, but I hope that you look into both of the men mentioned below.

Here is a little experiment for performers: Think about the worst performances you can remember.  Now think about the best performances.  Which do you tend to remember more?  In general, we tend to remember our negative experiences over the positive both in the long term and in the short.  I might have just played a piece 99.5% accurately, but what I remember is that one tiny section I messed up.  The same is true in the big picture.  I’ve given many performances, but the ones I tend to remember most are the ones that were my worst performing.  I’ve learned to look past most of these memories, but many struggle to get over these issues.

I recently came across this video at TED.com that I think gets at this issue of recollection of past experiences (whether good of bad). If you are unfamiliar with this organization, I encourage you to visit their website and look around.  The organization holds conferences inviting many world leaders, pioneers in their fields, and artists (performing and visual).  Entry into the organization is very expensive (in the thousands of dollars per year), but they put up videos of all the speakers for free.  I find it a continuing source of inspiration both by the performances, and the talks on a number of varying subjects. In this video, Daniel Kahneman talks mostly about our two forms of memory: experiencing selves and remembering selves.  The experience self is living in the moment and deals with what is happening right now.  Most of these memories are forgotten because of the shear number of them.  The remembering self is the bigger picture and the story we tell ourselves later.  Reconciling those two can be difficult, but the video helps you to notice the difference and how than can affect your performance.

Last year at the National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy (NCPP), we actually had a sports psychologist, Dr. Bill Moore, come in to talk about some of the things he’s doing with musicians that has already worked on athletes.  Using sports psychology is not a new idea in music, as we frequently cite the work The Inner Game of Music, which was a reworking of the famous The Inner Game of Tennis.  Many of the same issues that plague athletes are the same that musicians and those in the performing arts experience when they perform.  I read this book many years ago, so I’ll try this summer to re-read it and talk more about this in the future.

Moore’s main point is that, in general, we do not practice for performances, we practice for error detection.  When we go into a practice room, our ears are listening for mistakes, and then we correct them.  Rinse and repeat.  The problem, he said, was that when we go into an actual performance, our minds are still in that mode of thinking which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.  What good is noticing an error in the middle of performance since you can’t go back and fix it.  He advocates, that upon approaching the date of a performance, start to practice performing.  This emphasizes thinking about the big picture rather than error detection.  Some of the exercises he does is having student musicians make a visual representation (graph, picture, etc.) of their performance and then practice thinking of this when they perform.  He is currently teaching a music class so I’m sure I’ve left out many of his great ideas.

There’s a wealth of information out there, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.  I’m surely not an expert in this field, but I’ll try to send information as I hear of any new/interesting takes on performance psychology.

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The iPad and You

Sunday, April 4th, 2010
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iPad

With the release of the iPad this weekend, I thought that I would take some time to discuss what will likely be a continuously evolving discussion of technology in the arts.  Apple has consistently been at the forefront of technology dealing with music and video for years now.  As any who have been following the buzz or watched the keynote address about the iPad will know, Apple also hopes to add books/magazines/print media to that.  Products like the Kindle have been around and have certainly set the precedent, but Apple seems to have a penchant for upping the ante with creating or boosting markets to new heights.

I’d like to think that I will always buy hard copies of books.  I said the same about CD’s when everyone starting purchasing mp3’s a few years back.  But even I eventually found it much easier to hear a song on the radio and within seconds be listening to the entire album.  So does this mean the end of bookstores?  I certainly don’t see too many CD stores around much anymore.  Luckily, I think the culture of bookstores and the tactile book experience will keep these companies afloat for at least a few more years.  If Amazon didn’t put them out of business, then there’s still hope for survival.

So what does this mean for authors and writers?  Well, for one, a shift into the digital world can in many ways equal out the playing field.  It appears that Apple is still pairing with the large publishing companies for their main source of titles and print media. However, I see no reason why upstart writers with no large company backing will begin to show up on the virtual shelves.  Essentially, the future will require only an idea and a computer to write and “publish” a book and sell it.  If YouTube has taught us anything, it’s that anyone can be famous for any reason, whether good or bad.  I’m starting to see “going viral” as the new American Dream realized, just replace Westward Expansion and the gold rushes of the previous centuries with the serious underdog coming up big and making millions in the 21st century.  We’ve truly seen a Renaissance of the output of individuals in all fields over the past decade or so, and it’s all thanks to the increases accessibility and decreased cost of production and market access.

So what does this do for the world of words?  Well, the good news is that I see a future of a continued increasing of productivity that will likely give us some of the greatest works ever written.  Unfortunately, we’ll have to sift through the mounds of garbage to find it.  I’ll certainly get into this on a later post, but the good thing is that even that process of sifting has been streamlined.  And much like we’ve seen with the newspaper industry, it means that the traditional model of production and sales has been turned upside-down.  This in many ways means that there are more opportunities out there, but writers must be creative and adaptive to the quickly changing world.  They must also be ready on the business end by keeping up with online publishing trends/procedures, finding creative advertising solutions, and turning yourself into a self-sustaining business.  Now might be a good time to take an Intro to Business class and make friends with computer savvy people who can help you get where you want to be.  One small mistake or missed opportunity can make the difference between the next-big-thing and the next-big-nobody-knows-about-this-dud.

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Hello and welcome…

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Michael WoodHi all, and welcome to the Projected Frame Blog.  My name is Michael and in the coming weeks and months, I hope to bring you news and insight into my personal journey through this crazy world as well as interesting stories and events I happen upon.

I’ll start by telling you a little about myself.  I am currently finishing my Doctor of Musical Arts degree in music performance at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.  I live in North Carolina, near where I grew up with my wife, Sara, and two dogs, Mattie and Buxy .  Like many of you, I hope to one day make a living with my art.  Also like many of you, school has prepared me for a lot of things, but running a business wasn’t one of them.  But every once in a while, I find/learn something that makes my life much easier.

Since getting married in 2007, my wife and I have been on a joint (ad)venture of trying to make money playing percussion instruments for weddings and church services?!?  When most people hear the word “percussion”, they think of drums (or don’t know what the word means).  Wedding/church music is certainly not what comes to mind as a good match.  We play relatively unheard of instruments, the marimba and vibraphone.  Heard of them?  Likely not, and unfortunately, most people haven’t either.  This was our first major hurdle when starting our business; how do we explain what we do?.  It sounds simple enough, but we still struggle with this problem every day.  Interested to find out what these instruments are and what they sound like?  Try going here.

Did you go to the website?  Do you know what we do?  Do you know what the instruments are and sound like?  I certainly hope so.  Problem solved?  Not completely, but it’s a start, and it has certainly increased our number of clients as well as our visibility in the community (both physical and cyber).  The best part is that I know very little about web site design and I certainly didn’t make the website look that good on my own.  It’s actually a service that creates these web “portals” and all I do is plug in the pictures and audio and now the public face of our business gets as many compliments as our performances do!  The company is called Dynamod and is primarily used by musicians and others in the performing and visual arts because of the attention it gives to presenting music and video and images in a Flash format.  I can also update it from anywhere in the world and from any computer since the files are saved on their servers.  There’s no clutter on my computer and everything works 99.9% of the time!

That company gives us a professional looking product which makes us look better as a small company without the large budget of bigger companies.  This is exactly what Projected Frame is trying to do for you and your company in the world of accounting and bookkeeping.  It is taking the hassle out of something that often gets in the way of your primary purpose of making art!  We don’t work in a office building, so we need a product that goes where we go and allows us to do what we need quickly and efficiently.

Keep checking back, as I’ll try to keep this blog updated with interesting articles and events going on in the various arts.

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Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

On Saturday we attended the UNC Greensboro Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference and absolutely had a blast.  The SEA conference was designed for all artists, whether they be in the literary, visual, or performing arts, who have dreams of turning their passion into a career.

There were breakout work group sessions held throughout the day on UNC Greensboro’s campus and all totaled there were over 300 in attendance.

Projected Frame Accounting on display at the UNCG SEA Conference

We were able to connect with a number of people who explained their woes when it comes to accounting and I hope we were able to provide some relief.  Our upcoming Beta release was well received by everyone we talked to and we got some good feedback about some new features that we will be working to include in future revisions.

I for one was very pleased with the turn out and I intend to follow up on the opportunity to actually host a break out session on accounting solutions next year… that’s right, next years conference has already been scheduled for March 26, 2011.  I hope to see you there.

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UNCG Hosts the Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference

Helping Artists Prevail in the Business World

Saturday, March 27, 2010
9:00am-5:30pm
Elliott University Center at UNCG

Learn how to turn artistic passion into a living. This artist-led conference will present entrepreneurial strategies and resources for student artists and emerging artists to become self-supporting. The conference will feature numerous speakers in three breakout sessions: Literary, Performing and Visual Arts.

Take advantage of this opportunity to meet and network with successful artists and make strong connections for the future.

The cost is $45 for non-students and $25 for students.  More information can be obtained from their web site at http://entrepreneur.uncg.edu

For any questions or concerns, please:
visit our website: http://entrepreneur.uncg.edu
email: ncec@uncg.edu
phone: (336) 256-8649

Projected Frame Accounting will be an exhibitor at this conference so if you are in the area please do stop in and say hello (and register for a chance to win a cool prize).

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Becoming a Legitimate Business: Sole Proprietor, LLC, or S Corp

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Ran across this excellent article, not only does it apply to photographers but to all sorts of artists out there.  If you make money then you should really read the rest of this article, here’s a blurb:

So you’ve hired a logo designer, bought a .com – what’s next? While I don’t recommend those things being your first call to action in starting your “business” – determining what business designation you choose is a very important first step. There’s no magic answer here. Everyone’s situation and where they operate their business can impact the choice they make. Ultimately, it is a balancing act of the tax and legal benefits against your cost of maintaining and incorporating your business.

Sole Proprietor – DBA (Doing Business As) – most photography businesses are established as sole proprietors. In fact…

Click Here to read the rest of the article, trust me, if you’re new to the business world then it is definitely worth it.

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What you don’t know about SEO

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Okay, so this probably isn’t worth a blog post but we have just made some adjustments to our web site based on an article in the latest issue of Entrepreneur magazine to help people like you find us easier on the Internet.  The article is on entitled “What you don’t know about SEO” and quite honestly, it was helpful… you know, things you knew at some point in the past but had forgotten and needed reminding.

Granted, I’m probably not the best source for advice on Search Engine Optimization (I mean, we do online accounting software for small business) but every now and then I run across a good article that is noteworthy.  SEO isn’t a science, it’s an art and it takes patience and perseverance.  Hopefully this article will help you save some money on what could be unnecessary services.

If you are in a decision making position in a small business and are not already subscribed to Entrepreneur magazine then I would highly recommend it.  It often times has good information to help you get started in business… so get your advice from Entrepreneur and let us take care of your accounting and you’ll be all set. :-)

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