I was standing outside a massive DIY store on Friday. The wind was blowing dry autumn leaves around the car park in circles, and I was fixated on the scraping sound of the leaves. It was an autumn sound I hadn’t heard in a while. It was a familiar sound back in Finland, but I rarely hear it in Ireland. Yes, we have autumn leaves in Ireland, but they rarely get to dry out enough to make this sound. It rains a lot in Ireland, but even when it does not, it’s still humid. Oh yeah, and when it is windy, it is really windy!

So where am I? In Warsaw, Poland. Some of you know I spend a quite bit of time here. This time I’m over for a quick weekend and a house-warming party (hence the DIY store.)  I was helping my friends to do the last-minute shopping for the party. I got to visit a lot of small food stores, every one of them specialised in particular product. There was a (cold) meat shop, that had a queue outside. Friend of mine, Peter told me the queue was nothing compared to what it is like on evening time, or weekends. Apparently the owners, elder couple, love to talk about the product a lot, so sometimes the service can be bit on a slow side. But In my books, if the passion for their product is behind the delay, I don’t mind waiting 🙂

But this is only a quick visit, I’ll be back in Dublin by late Monday afternoon. Before I left Dublin I had very productive week 🙂 So let’s have look at some of this weeks lessons.

1. It is funny how stubborn we can be sometimes, and we need to learn some lessons over and over again. This weeks big one was just to stop worrying about things, and just get it done.
2. I learned how the language of a bedtime story is not always half as important as the tone of voice and the person reading it, even if I say so my self 😉
3. I learned how hard it is sometimes to let go of preconceptions we seem to be holding on.
4. How I really need to learn to sleep little bit more 😀

And then onto another busy week of posts. Lets start with this weeks song “Second Best.” As always you can grab a download copy of the song from my Bandcamp page:

Second Best

On Monday I talked about how you should approach your online promotion, and even more so what not to do. There are some solid advice here for artists at any level:

Bad promotion

In today’s music business you need to be willing to let your fans to get to know you:

Quick tip 201 Let your fans get to know you

Here’s a way I have learned so much in the past. It might not work for everyone, but it does work for me:

Figure it out by yourself

In the early days of your career you might not have the budgets of the major labels, but you do have a lot more time than they do. Use this to your advantage:

Quick tip 202 Advantage of time in your early days

Vlog 9 I talk about the milestone of 200th quick tip, and a lot more. Check it out here:

Vlog 9

Here’s a Quick tip I have learned the hard way. Read it, learn it, and don’t be taken for a fool in this business:

Quick tip 203 Don’t only ask quote, ask deliverables

On Thursday I shared some more music. So if you haven’t heard Kirbanu yet, check her music out here:

Share love, music and art part 8

Content is the king, without it you have nothing to promote:

Quick tip 204 Have something to promote

The lack of budget rarely is a real excuse for not recording music or videos these days anymore. Read all about it here:

Quick tip 205 Don’t use the lack of money as an excuse

It still amazes me how we are taught nutrition (to certain extent) and exercise in school, but nothing about taking care of our mind. Read my thoughts here:

Learn to switch off

So there you go, that’s another week in the bag. Hope you enjoyed the posts, and maybe even learned something 🙂 If you enjoyed these posts and my music, please consider supporting me on my Patreon page HERE. Even a $1 a month makes a big difference 🙂 Now I got to run, It’s my last day in Warsaw this time, and I’m going to make the best of it 😉 Have a great week guys.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE