This song made such a strong impression on me when I was in my late twenties. I was contemplating a priestly/monastic vocation at the time. The music of John Michael Talbot fed my spirit like no other music could. It was comforting and yet challenging at the same time.
This particular song comes from his album, 'The Troubador of the Great King', which was based on the poem prayers of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis was probably the first nature lover of the popular tradition. His canticles expressed his great love for the Creator of the Universe. St. Francis was my hero and I hope you can tell from my music that I share his great love for Creation and its Creator. St. Francis could have been an American Indian! RR
Thursday, January 29, 2009
John Michael Talbot - The Pleiades and Orion
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Richard St. John: Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes
If you have three spare minutes, watch the video and learn the secrets of success. Sure, it may sound simplistic, but these secrets are true. I consider myself to be a success and I have followed these 'secrets' to enable me to live my life's dream to be a professional musician. It's not easy, but nothing worth achieving is easy. You could say that my last sentence is another 'secret'! RR
Seinfeld - Library Investigator Mr. Bookman
This is one of the funniest scenes ever from the Seinfeld comedy series. Every time I see it I just can't help but crack up. Of course the writing was topnotch. Phillip Baker Hall (Mr. Bookman, the library inspector) was inspired. He took an absurd notion and just squeezed out every last drop of laughter he could get. 'Joy Boy' ...what a hoot! Laughter really is the best medicine! RR
Monday, January 26, 2009
Stations of the Cross - San Luis, Colorado
These bronze sculptures are located on a mesa overlooking the town of San Luis, Colorado which is where I am from and where I spent my formative years. San Luis is the oldest town in Colorado and is located in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado just on the other side of the border from Taos, New Mexico.
The sculptor is Huberto Maestas, an incredibly talented artist who makes his home in San Luis. I used to play with his future wife when we were small children. Huberto's passion comes through in every sculpture. The models for each of the figures were inspired by local townspeople. The stations are found along a trail that leads to the top of the mesa. Contemplation of the stations is encouraged by the small benches that allow the pilgrim to sit, rest and pray. The view from the top of the mesa is breathtaking.
Huberto will long be known for his artistic vision and the intense devotion by which he achieved it. If you are ever in southern Colorado, a visit to the stations is a must see experience. You will be blessed by it! RR
Saturday, January 24, 2009
NAMM 2009: A Time For Sobriety - Peter Alexander
Because all music retailers are now privately held (Guitar Center was taken private by Bain Capital and delisted), we don’t really know how tough it is out there except for anecdotal quotes that pop up here and there from music dealers and reps.
However, thanks to a chart published by The Wall Street Journal we can get some idea.
If the store is a discounter, sales are edging up, slightly. No one is booming. If you’re high end, sales are going down. Pawn shops, even in Beverly Hills, are doing big business right now.
Circuit City is on the verge of collapse. And the Borders Group has been given 30 days to get its stock up to $1 a share or the company will be delisted.
The Sonic Control Music Tech 21 tracking daily all U.S. Music publicly traded stocks tells us something about products sold at retail. Mackie (LTEC), is trading well below $1 a share. Harmon is down $100 per share. Apple is off over $90 per share. AMD, Primedia, Make Music (Finale), and Sonic Solutions are all trading below $4 per share.
Today, January 9, 2009, the U.S. Government announced that the jobless rate has now risen to 7.2%. Of course, the good side of that statistic is that 92.8% of Americans are employed.
Now that’s a number to cling to.
But latch to it a recent study, also reported in the Wall Street Journal, citing that in January 2009, 90% of American consumers refuse to buy anything at list price. And that figure is up from 75% in December 2008.
It should also be noted that Apple, while maintaining the price on its computers and software, devalued the work of songwriters and composers on iTunes a little more by dropping the price of some songs to a low of 69 cents.
Consequently, going to NAMM, retailers the world over are going to have answer some tough sales/marketing questions:
* Why should a customer buy from you?
* What makes you special over another company: brick and mortar or online?
* What is the role of music technology software in your product mix as more developers go direct-to-customer with digital download sales and prices at or below dealer cost?
If music retail owners think the answer to differentiating themselves from other dealers is, “We’ll beat any deal!” they should ponder the question, “Does anyone remember SoundChaser?”
They beat lots of deals. And they’re gone. And ultimately, so will many merchants disappear who maintain that stance because without profit margins and volume purchasing, retailers cannot sustain slashed pricing and make it. That’s as true for OEMs as it is for barbecue joints.
We don’t talk too much about chicken in music technology, but maybe we should since Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s second largest chicken provider, is in bankruptcy, and Tyson may not be far behind.
Everybody has to eat. And at $4 or less per chicken, you’d think Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride would be swimming in moolah. But they’re not, and they’re genuine mass merchandisers.
Almost nothing in a music store is a mass merchandised item unless they’re selling Holy Donuts on the side.
It’s all, nearly 100% of it, specialty retailing. Most everything in a music store, excluding t-shirts, possibly guitar picks, and items like that, requires instruction and training.
So where are the guitar lessons? Where are the keyboard lessons? Where’s the MIDI school? Where’s the recording school?
Where’s the service?
Now that the industry has successfully turned speciality retailing into a commodity marketing environment, where is it going?
IBM had to answer a similar question. When they decided to release IBM PCs to retailers, they were shocked to discover that retailers cut the prices so low that their machine was now being sold like pork chops. So the guys in the backroom who could work both a calculator and a spreadhseet began doing some serious financial analysis.
IBM discovered that once a product hits commodity pricing, you can’t make money on it any more.
So what did IBM do?
They stopped making the IBM PC. They closed their short-lived IBM stores (one of which was on Ventura Blvd in Encino, California). And today, the IBM Think-Pad is now made by Lenovo.
Then came Apple.
Apple learned from IBM. At retail, online, even at their own stores, Apple products are not commodity items because they control the discounting. And people pay. And Apple is debt free with plenty of cash in the bank.
How many music stores, software developers, manufacturers and retailers can say that?
Before the Internet, there was this thing called a sales territory where if a store took on a line exclusively, no other store in the area could get the line. The only hitch in that theory came when retailers were allowed to advertise in music publications citing, you guessed it, “we’ll beat any deal,” however they worded it. So you could have the exclusive dealership in Charlotte, NC, only to lose the sale to a store in Minneapolis or New York City who could sell lower because with bigger volume comes bigger discounts.
Some retailers responded to that problem by refusing to carry music magazines, ignoring the reality that customers could buy the same magazines at Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, news stands, and other book stores.
Now there’s the Internet. So what does line exclusivity mean today? How do you program a shopping cart to decline an order when it comes from outside a dealer’s sales territory? How much should a company pay an individual to specialize in “order declines” and deal with angry customers over the phone or by e-mail, or worse, on multiple forums with the customer complaining all along the way that the store refused to sell to them?
What retailer wants to respond on the Internet with posts like, “I’m sorry, but per our contract with Chicken Little Electronics and Alligator Nuggets, you’re outside our sales area and we can’t sell or ship to you.”
Imagine customer response to that online! It doesn’t bare thinking about.
Even with music technology software, you can’t maintain an exclusivity as now software developers are more aggressively selling direct, and as we saw at Christmas, and now post-Christmas, at or below dealer costs - and internationally at that.
This trend has been developing for years and now it’s really taking off. But even here, those selling direct mostly, or who are scroogingly meditating on selling 100% direct, are going to be in for a rude awakening when they discover how much more in advertising they’re going to be paying because dealers who supported them online, or in printed catalogs, may no longer feel obliged to.
Music technology software folks, especially those who make virtual instruments, forget that this is a much smaller marketplace than guitar sales. They forget that their products follow the sales of sequencing and notation programs, and that half of those sales are U.S. and the rest are The World. And the one really big thing they forget is that because they need sequencing and notation programs to operate their virtual instruments, (unless their products are virtual piano, guitar or bass amp emulations), all the legal customers are registered in the computers of Apple, Avid, Cakewalk (partially owned by Rolandcorp), DigiDesign/Sibelius (Avid), Make Music, Mark of The Unicorn, and Steinberg - and they’re not making their customer lists available for direct advertising because of privacy laws.
Nor are they reporting current installs. Think about it. How many times a year do you see news stories on how many iPods or iPhones Apple has sold vs. how many copies of Logic they’ve sold? Or how about Sonar? Or Cubase? Or Digital Performer?
How many customers are software developers actually developing for? Where’s that number?
This means that virtual instrument creators must spend advertising money looking for a needle in a haystack. As a result, the advertising cost to find those existing buyers is going to be outrageously expensive. Companies who think Google Adwords is the solution will faint when they see their click thru charges angle upwards to $1 to $5 per click through. I know because I almost fainted.
While it’s not popular to say, I’m sorry, but NAMM itself is part of the problem. Every year, NAMM proudly, or is that foolishly, advertises that it’s closed to the public, except for hundreds of the public who get in via free passes because they’re good customers. So every year, products are getting more technically sophisticated, and every year, because these products rarely, if ever, make the evening news, the buying public gets left further and further behind.
Since so few retailers can afford to hire specialists who teach, train, tech support and explain, isn’t it wiser to open up NAMM for 1 or 2 days while the industry is there doing demonstrations and can meet potentially new customers and answer basic questions without insulting the same customers behind their backs at the retail level by calling them MIDI Idiots or some derivation thereof?
Maybe I’ve missed something, but where did the sales philosophy come from that states you can increase sales dramatically by calling your customers stupidos? Or the more politically nickname - newbie? And then make customers that you want to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars for your products feel embarrassed because they need to ask questions about products, the computing power of which needed to operate, is literally, greater exponentially than the computers used to put 12 Americans on the moon in the Apollo program?
That observation didn’t come from me, it came from Tom Stafford who did walk on the moon.
Who in a retail store, or tele-sales line, can clearly and simply articulate the differences between a Core2Duo, a Quad Core, an Eight Core, or a comparable CPU from AMD and which will best run sequencing software programs 1-7 and virtual instrument programs 1 to 1285 with how much RAM and with which audio and MIDI drivers that operate flawlessly?
Norman Augustine, the past-president and CEO of Martin-Marietta wrote a terrific book called Augustine’s Laws. In it is a chart that’s both funny and tragic because it cross tabs declining college board scores (reading levels) with the increase of the number of pages of aircraft repair manuals.
So at a time where we’re having this explosion in music technology, from keyboards to digital recorders to USB Guitars, the reading comprehension levels of the proposed target audience, including the sales staff at many locations, are sinking or have sunk.
This is not a rant. These are the serious sales/marketing issues the industry doesn’t want to talk about.
So I restate the question: Where is the industry going?
Peter Alexander is CEO of Alexander University, Inc., and through Alexander Publishing, deals corporately with many of the same issues with book and music distribution.
However, thanks to a chart published by The Wall Street Journal we can get some idea.
If the store is a discounter, sales are edging up, slightly. No one is booming. If you’re high end, sales are going down. Pawn shops, even in Beverly Hills, are doing big business right now.
Circuit City is on the verge of collapse. And the Borders Group has been given 30 days to get its stock up to $1 a share or the company will be delisted.
The Sonic Control Music Tech 21 tracking daily all U.S. Music publicly traded stocks tells us something about products sold at retail. Mackie (LTEC), is trading well below $1 a share. Harmon is down $100 per share. Apple is off over $90 per share. AMD, Primedia, Make Music (Finale), and Sonic Solutions are all trading below $4 per share.
Today, January 9, 2009, the U.S. Government announced that the jobless rate has now risen to 7.2%. Of course, the good side of that statistic is that 92.8% of Americans are employed.
Now that’s a number to cling to.
But latch to it a recent study, also reported in the Wall Street Journal, citing that in January 2009, 90% of American consumers refuse to buy anything at list price. And that figure is up from 75% in December 2008.
It should also be noted that Apple, while maintaining the price on its computers and software, devalued the work of songwriters and composers on iTunes a little more by dropping the price of some songs to a low of 69 cents.
Consequently, going to NAMM, retailers the world over are going to have answer some tough sales/marketing questions:
* Why should a customer buy from you?
* What makes you special over another company: brick and mortar or online?
* What is the role of music technology software in your product mix as more developers go direct-to-customer with digital download sales and prices at or below dealer cost?
If music retail owners think the answer to differentiating themselves from other dealers is, “We’ll beat any deal!” they should ponder the question, “Does anyone remember SoundChaser?”
They beat lots of deals. And they’re gone. And ultimately, so will many merchants disappear who maintain that stance because without profit margins and volume purchasing, retailers cannot sustain slashed pricing and make it. That’s as true for OEMs as it is for barbecue joints.
We don’t talk too much about chicken in music technology, but maybe we should since Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s second largest chicken provider, is in bankruptcy, and Tyson may not be far behind.
Everybody has to eat. And at $4 or less per chicken, you’d think Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride would be swimming in moolah. But they’re not, and they’re genuine mass merchandisers.
Almost nothing in a music store is a mass merchandised item unless they’re selling Holy Donuts on the side.
It’s all, nearly 100% of it, specialty retailing. Most everything in a music store, excluding t-shirts, possibly guitar picks, and items like that, requires instruction and training.
So where are the guitar lessons? Where are the keyboard lessons? Where’s the MIDI school? Where’s the recording school?
Where’s the service?
Now that the industry has successfully turned speciality retailing into a commodity marketing environment, where is it going?
IBM had to answer a similar question. When they decided to release IBM PCs to retailers, they were shocked to discover that retailers cut the prices so low that their machine was now being sold like pork chops. So the guys in the backroom who could work both a calculator and a spreadhseet began doing some serious financial analysis.
IBM discovered that once a product hits commodity pricing, you can’t make money on it any more.
So what did IBM do?
They stopped making the IBM PC. They closed their short-lived IBM stores (one of which was on Ventura Blvd in Encino, California). And today, the IBM Think-Pad is now made by Lenovo.
Then came Apple.
Apple learned from IBM. At retail, online, even at their own stores, Apple products are not commodity items because they control the discounting. And people pay. And Apple is debt free with plenty of cash in the bank.
How many music stores, software developers, manufacturers and retailers can say that?
Before the Internet, there was this thing called a sales territory where if a store took on a line exclusively, no other store in the area could get the line. The only hitch in that theory came when retailers were allowed to advertise in music publications citing, you guessed it, “we’ll beat any deal,” however they worded it. So you could have the exclusive dealership in Charlotte, NC, only to lose the sale to a store in Minneapolis or New York City who could sell lower because with bigger volume comes bigger discounts.
Some retailers responded to that problem by refusing to carry music magazines, ignoring the reality that customers could buy the same magazines at Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, news stands, and other book stores.
Now there’s the Internet. So what does line exclusivity mean today? How do you program a shopping cart to decline an order when it comes from outside a dealer’s sales territory? How much should a company pay an individual to specialize in “order declines” and deal with angry customers over the phone or by e-mail, or worse, on multiple forums with the customer complaining all along the way that the store refused to sell to them?
What retailer wants to respond on the Internet with posts like, “I’m sorry, but per our contract with Chicken Little Electronics and Alligator Nuggets, you’re outside our sales area and we can’t sell or ship to you.”
Imagine customer response to that online! It doesn’t bare thinking about.
Even with music technology software, you can’t maintain an exclusivity as now software developers are more aggressively selling direct, and as we saw at Christmas, and now post-Christmas, at or below dealer costs - and internationally at that.
This trend has been developing for years and now it’s really taking off. But even here, those selling direct mostly, or who are scroogingly meditating on selling 100% direct, are going to be in for a rude awakening when they discover how much more in advertising they’re going to be paying because dealers who supported them online, or in printed catalogs, may no longer feel obliged to.
Music technology software folks, especially those who make virtual instruments, forget that this is a much smaller marketplace than guitar sales. They forget that their products follow the sales of sequencing and notation programs, and that half of those sales are U.S. and the rest are The World. And the one really big thing they forget is that because they need sequencing and notation programs to operate their virtual instruments, (unless their products are virtual piano, guitar or bass amp emulations), all the legal customers are registered in the computers of Apple, Avid, Cakewalk (partially owned by Rolandcorp), DigiDesign/Sibelius (Avid), Make Music, Mark of The Unicorn, and Steinberg - and they’re not making their customer lists available for direct advertising because of privacy laws.
Nor are they reporting current installs. Think about it. How many times a year do you see news stories on how many iPods or iPhones Apple has sold vs. how many copies of Logic they’ve sold? Or how about Sonar? Or Cubase? Or Digital Performer?
How many customers are software developers actually developing for? Where’s that number?
This means that virtual instrument creators must spend advertising money looking for a needle in a haystack. As a result, the advertising cost to find those existing buyers is going to be outrageously expensive. Companies who think Google Adwords is the solution will faint when they see their click thru charges angle upwards to $1 to $5 per click through. I know because I almost fainted.
While it’s not popular to say, I’m sorry, but NAMM itself is part of the problem. Every year, NAMM proudly, or is that foolishly, advertises that it’s closed to the public, except for hundreds of the public who get in via free passes because they’re good customers. So every year, products are getting more technically sophisticated, and every year, because these products rarely, if ever, make the evening news, the buying public gets left further and further behind.
Since so few retailers can afford to hire specialists who teach, train, tech support and explain, isn’t it wiser to open up NAMM for 1 or 2 days while the industry is there doing demonstrations and can meet potentially new customers and answer basic questions without insulting the same customers behind their backs at the retail level by calling them MIDI Idiots or some derivation thereof?
Maybe I’ve missed something, but where did the sales philosophy come from that states you can increase sales dramatically by calling your customers stupidos? Or the more politically nickname - newbie? And then make customers that you want to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars for your products feel embarrassed because they need to ask questions about products, the computing power of which needed to operate, is literally, greater exponentially than the computers used to put 12 Americans on the moon in the Apollo program?
That observation didn’t come from me, it came from Tom Stafford who did walk on the moon.
Who in a retail store, or tele-sales line, can clearly and simply articulate the differences between a Core2Duo, a Quad Core, an Eight Core, or a comparable CPU from AMD and which will best run sequencing software programs 1-7 and virtual instrument programs 1 to 1285 with how much RAM and with which audio and MIDI drivers that operate flawlessly?
Norman Augustine, the past-president and CEO of Martin-Marietta wrote a terrific book called Augustine’s Laws. In it is a chart that’s both funny and tragic because it cross tabs declining college board scores (reading levels) with the increase of the number of pages of aircraft repair manuals.
So at a time where we’re having this explosion in music technology, from keyboards to digital recorders to USB Guitars, the reading comprehension levels of the proposed target audience, including the sales staff at many locations, are sinking or have sunk.
This is not a rant. These are the serious sales/marketing issues the industry doesn’t want to talk about.
So I restate the question: Where is the industry going?
Peter Alexander is CEO of Alexander University, Inc., and through Alexander Publishing, deals corporately with many of the same issues with book and music distribution.
Friday, January 23, 2009
B.B. King Live Japan 1989
B.B. was at the height of his powers when this video was made. I personally think that this is one of his best YouTube performances and I especially like it because it is a guitar solo. He seems to be in a trance and in the throes of ecstatic vision which means he is really digging in. He takes blues guitar and sends it into a transcendent level. He is the KING of the blues! RR
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Stella By Starlight on the EWI 4000
Bernie Kenerson is one of the best EWI players on the planet. Here he is with his trio. Gary Craddock on Bass can really cook! Bernie really shows off the possibilities of the EWI. By the way, EWI stands for Electronic Wind Instrument. RR
EWI 4000s Sandalo Giordano Misty
Sandalo Giordano is one of my favorite YouTube EWI performers. His rendition of Misty is just great! RR
Jeff Kashiwa playing the Akai EWI4000s
I recently acquired an EWI and am looking forward to developing some repertoire with it. I have a physical problem with my lip which prevents me from playing sax or clarinet or trumpet. I enjoy the Native Flute because it doesn't require me to have a highly developed lip formation (emboucher). Unfortunately, I'm stuck with a pentatonic scale which makes it impossible to play jazz standards. The EWI will now make it possible for me to play my favorite jazz works on a wind instrument. It opens up a whole new world of musical possibilities. Because it is a synthesizer, the EWI can mimic the sounds of a variety of woodwinds and brass. It's a lot of fun and is really very versatile. It's different from the Native Flute but my skills are transferable to the EWI. Technology can be so cool! RR
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Maria Martinez: Notable New Mexican
A look at the life and art of Native American craft artist and potter Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo. Few craft artists, Native American or otherwise, can claim worldwide fame and appreciation like Maria Martinez. Through her hard work and generous sharing of her pottery techniques, Maria reintroduced the art of pottery making to her people, providing them with a means of artistic expression and for retaining traditional aspects of the pueblo way of life.
For nearly one hundred years, until her death in 1980, Maria was always eager to greet visitors and share her craft. Maria and her family have been and continue to be ambassadors from San Ildefonso Pueblo sharing the rich culture and heritage with the rest of the world. In this documentary, Maria's grandchildren and great grand children share their memories and appreciation for the work and legacy of this notable New Mexican.
(From the New Mexico PBS website)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Bear - In The Stone Circle
A fan in Germany put this video together by adding my music (In The Stone Circle) to her photos of bears. I liked it! I hope you do too! RR
Friday, January 16, 2009
YouTube Gadget
Here's a new YouTube gadget. It can be embedded just about anywhere so I have one on my website at www.ronaldroybal.com . It's pretty neat in that it has a slide show of videos from my YouTube channel. You can scroll through the different videos and play them right from the page in which they are embedded. You can also subscribe to my channel or visit it from the link provided. Another tool to add to my Web 2.0 marketing strategy tool box. If you haven't visited my YouTube channel, here's a great opportunity! RR
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
El Cid - Miklos Rozsa - The New Recording
Two of my favorite movie soundtracks are 'Ben Hur' and 'El Cid'. Both were composed by Miklos Rozsa. Here is the session for the new recording of 'El Cid'. The work perfectly describes the epic story. The Spanish influences are evident with a great North African subtext. The composition stands on its own and this is a great opportunity to hear a new recording of this classic in film music composition. Miklos Rozsa was a genius! RR
Monday, January 5, 2009
Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word meaning 'life out of balance'. Director Godrey Reggio includes beautifully haunting imagery and the soundtrack by Phillip Glass compliments the images in a way that is kind of startling. When I first saw this film I was mesmerized. I still get goosebumps watching it. I will leave it to you to ascertain its meaning. The title gives us the needed hint to get us looking in the right direction.
This is the entire feature length film so get some popcorn! RR
(Note: You should double click on the video screen to see it in widescreen on YouTube.)
Sunday, January 4, 2009
David Gilmour and David Bowie - Comfortably Numb
Pink Floyd, outside of the Beatles, is probably the most influential rock band of all time. Layers of sound and virtuoso guitar work by David Gilmour made a great impression on me in my younger days. David Gilmour is an EGG (Electric Guitar God) of the highest order. He doesn't receive the respect from the music press that he deserves but legions of devoted fans attest to his great expressive talent. A Fender guitar has never sounded so good!
'Comfortably Numb' is an amazing song. The lyrics paint pictures of human alienation and the longing for connection with ultimate reality. If you look at the comments left on youtube videos of this song, you might be impressed by the number of people who are moved to tears. I am always moved by this song and now I know that I am not alone in my sentiments.
By the way, David Bowie is great! RR
Friday, January 2, 2009
Charlie Rose - Jazz with Ken Burns and Wynton Marsalis
This is a great interview with Ken Burns and Wynton Marsalis on the making of the 'Jazz' series. It's great to hear them both discuss something that is beyond words. The history of jazz is full of great characters that are woven within the fabric of American life in the 20th century. If you haven't seen this series, you really should do yourself a favor and check it out.
My only problem with this interview is Burn's contention that Jazz is America's only self invented musical artform. What about Native American music? RR
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