Piano Thor'sdays: You aren't leaving your house anyway

People and their gosh darn flannel pajamas

I firmly believe in praising the people who have helped me, and giving credit where credit is due. That's why I'm blaming my friend Shawn. This, of course, relates to the progress of my musical endeavors. And pajamas.

But before we talk about misshaped eyebrows and out-of-place nose hair, I want to summarize the reality of my current situation. Right now I'm at a crossroads, of sorts, and many people may be aware of this already. In the past year or two my music has really had two main facets: the private piano lessons, which have been a decent success for me (they're now providing about half my income) and the other one being the occasional live performances. When it comes to the "end goal", I've maintained consistently that the live performances are my focus. It's been my dream to tour, perform, play my music live for a big audience, etc., because what person wouldn't want that? For the moment, the piano lessons are much better financially, but as it stands my dreams still haven't changed.


I'm sometimes mildly concerned that this two-tier system is too multi-faceted, and that I need to pick just one, instead of offering two services. The very few opinions that have been given to me have been somewhat mixed; a business guy once told me that it's good to be multi-faceted, but not too multi-faceted. On the other hand, when it comes to providing private lessons and live performances, many people have responded with "why not?" when it comes to the idea of doing both.

A live show I did at La Rocca last year

Aside from the fact that I actually sort of enjoy teaching piano lessons (most of the time) the reason I do it is to make money and invest it in better music equipment, and in the live performances. The other way I make money for this purpose is by droning on about independent clauses to a classroom full of confused foreigners, who mistakenly say "My wife is a bitch," when they meant to say "My wife is at the beach." The income I get from teaching English as a second language is not without the entertainment of mispronounced vowels and catastrophic misunderstandings.

So I figured, what's the difference if I make my money just teaching music lessons instead? I may also be able to use my piano instruction as a springboard into the live performances (see my recital hall idea on my previous blog post, August In Bloom Album (And Other Updates) ). And in addition to the recital hall idea, another way I may be able to use it as a springboard towards getting more live performances is by Internet marketing, an idea concocted by Shawn himself. If people are able to learn the piano without leaving their homes, they can just stay in their fuzzy flannel pajamas, and not have to get all gussied up to drive to a lesson. It is fall, after all. Did you think I was not going to somehow relate this to flannel nightwear? I don't just spout out words willy-nilly, you know. This is also why my unusually long eyelashes will come in handy.


Smile! It's time for Piano Thor'sdays

It's not enough that I have the Thor'sday Blogs, a Discussion "Thorum" on my website, and "Throwback Thor'sdays" on my Facebook page for people who want to see my face during the dorky pre-bearded era, but my friend insisted that I also call this Internet marketing endeavor "Piano Thor'sdays." The next thing you know is I'll be opening up my own piano store and calling it "Thor's Hammers."

In any case, the idea is that each week (I'm sure you can guess which day of the week it is) I will record a few-ish minutes of live Facebook streaming, in which I play "teasers" on the piano, either to introduce a new song or to showcase part of a song for an upcoming album or show. The live streaming feature on Facebook is apparently becoming popular with businesses because it reaches a lot of people. Plus, people are drawn to videos in general; they gravitate towards them like a moth fluttering straight into a porch light.

This, of course, is also where the springboard comes in. Not a real springboard, a metaphorical one. Stay with me here. Eventually (somewhat soon, I would think) I would do a short mini-lesson on the piano, during one of these Thor'sday streaming vids. If people liked it, they could sign up for the at-home piano course that I'm going to offer. This means that people can pre-pay for a series of videos, and once they pay they will have access to, say, 20 videos, each containing a piano lesson (I would be in the vid, giving the lesson). They would have to watch them in order, and as per my recommendation they would watch one video each week. That way they could sit at their piano at home, in their flannel pajamas, and have their lesson right there while they drink their morning coffee. Again, this is why my long eyelashes will come in handy, as will my trimmed nose hairs and eyebrows that I mentioned earlier. And if people don't like my long eyelashes then they don't have to buy the videos.

These at-home video lessons could be put on my website for purchase, and as I said the reputation that I might be able to build could help me launch into the live performances more easily, especially if I'm able to announce and promote the upcoming shows, using the existing fan base to reach more people in the process.

The first video for this Facebook live stream series will be tonight (or, it was, depending on if you're reading this after the fact) and this is because Shawn is making me do it. Apparently I'm not allowed to procrastinate, hence me placing the blame entirely on him for even giving me this idea in the first place.

Remember, flannel is underrated. So stay tuned and you might be able to take piano lessons without leaving your home... because I know that's exactly what you've been wanting to do :D