March is a great month for getting venues and elements of your wedding scheduled and booked. Many weekends are starting to fill on Reuben's Calendar. So don't delay. Read the entries on Reuben's Wedding / Bio page. There are descriptions of packages with great savings over his single hourly rate.
I just traded a Town and Country van for performing at a wedding. Its perfect for winter driving, seen better days cosmetically, but no monthly payments is a nice way to go. I've always wanted a T & C because it has neat features and captains chairs in the back.
Do you want to know what is exciting me these days? My students! It is so much fun to watch them discover that they can make beautiful music on the harp. Right now I have 6 students from age 9 to adults.
The difference between what I do and other teachers is that I travel to their homes so they can be less stressed out when they begin their lesson. I used to have them come to my home which is kind of like walking into the lion's den. The nerves start long before the ring the doorbell.
They never really seemed to get a full lesson then because of all the time it took to unpack the harp from its case, retune it and calm down from the traffic they had to fight coming to my home. Now I just walk in, we get preliminary greetings out of the way, do a little diversionary stress relief and then we plunge into the lesson.
The harp has very specific basic technique so I like to start slowly. [...]
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This year is a turning point for me in that I think that performing in Nashville, and the Minneapolis / St. Paul Airport has opened many more doors. Also a little persistance has paid off and I have learned how to work a little more with facebook. It only took me 10 hours to figure out how to link my recordings to my facebook profile and create a fan page.
Since then in a matter of two weeks or less, I have almost sold more cds online than I did all of last year. I wish I had figured out how to link my cds before Christmas, but I was working in every direction with gigs, students, full time job and family and couldn't even have begun to have the strength or brain power to figure that process out.
Oh well now that its done I am quite happy that it is working. Maybe my goal of getting 1 million listeners this year will not be so impossible.
I had a really interesting experience this past week as a couple visiting family in the area asked if I could give a private lesson and recommend harps and harp builders to them. I was quite honored and we had a wonderful time of visiting enjoying each other company and learning.
I don't think that I have ever taught so much in such a little amount of time, but it was a rewarding and productive hour.
If you are ever in town and would like to meet with me, do give a jingle or email me at rubatomanmusic2@aol.com. I'd be delighted to share the little bit that I know and learn from you as well.
Happy New Year
Reuben