Album Release News! (And teaching, and birthday!)

Click the photo to see JPJQ's Facebook Event Page


The Big Day is Coming!

I'm so excited to be getting ready for JPJQ's big Album Release Party in less than 2 weeks (Holy Kamoley)! We had a fantastic rehearsal this past Monday with Team Portland of the JPJQ, along with our amazing special guests Katie Presley (trumpet) and Stan Bock (trombone). The band is going to sound so hot! Adam has added some extra horn parts (in addition to the ones on the album) and, unsurprisingly, they sound great... and we even have a few surprises in store for our supporters and friends in the audience!

We've also booked a photographer to come and document our big debut, but if you're coming, we encourage you to take photos and video and share them with us - it takes a village (or a city) to promote an album, apparently!

If you haven't already made plans for Wednesday, May 4th, please come down to Vie de Boheme to help us launch our album! Admission is only $7, and you'll get a great show (and we won't cry (too hard) if you have to leave early so that you can get up for work in the morning). The show starts at 8pm and there will be 3 sets between 8 and midnight.

It's my birthday this weekend, and I honestly couldn't have asked for a better gift than the opportunity to share these songs with our new Portland audience... unless it were the chance to have Max and Andrew there with us, playing the songs they recorded and bringing the Vancouver flavour. But I guess we'll have to wait til June for that! (By the way, if I have any government bigwigs in my readership, please feel free to pass the Bringing Entertainment Artists to the States (BEATS) Act at your earliest convenience! I promise I'll seriously consider voting for you when I'm able to!)

In Other News...


...my teaching schedule is filling up nicely; to the point where I'm having a little bit of difficulty rescheduling students whose extracurricular activities are changing their availability. I do apologize for that, but remember that I schedule you for your time and save that time for you and only you. I do that for all my students. I hope and expect that your time with me is as much of a priority for you as it is for me. Let's work together to make this spring a great time for all of us! My schedule will probably become a little freer during the summer, so maybe we can do some extra classes then. And when you book your lesson time for the upcoming school year, we'll both work to find a time that will work for all of us, all year long! (I'm hoping to be able to consolidate my schedule so that maybe next year I might even be able to have the occasional day off!)

...Adam and I are beginning the hunt for a new place to call home! The rentals market is tight in Portland, and we're trying to keep our costs low and our expectations reasonable (in the hopes that we will be able to rent for awhile and then actually buy a place within the next year or so), so if you have any tips on good places to rent, send them along, or at least send along your good wishes for a successful hunt!






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leaving a Legacy of Music

Image
This is my mom, Joyce (Reatherford) Pinckney. She was what I always used to call a "Professional tough act to follow." I'll get the sad news out of the way first. She passed away last month, and I miss her like crazy. But now for the good news. She remains a touchstone for everything I want to accomplish in the world. She exemplified the love of music that I want to inspire in my students and my audiences, and her celebration of life "party" was evidence of all the lives she touched; all the people who loved her, whether they'd known her for only a few months, or since they were 5 years old. I remember the students coming and going from our house, always thrilled with the new songs that Mom assigned for them to learn - especially when she started writing teaching music for them (and ultimately, publishing it)! One of her former students, now grown, even went home during the party, only to come back with a stack of her music that he played to entertain
Read more

Artists and Performers

Image
I have immense love and respect for my "capital A Artist" friends who write such fascinating and creative and wonderful music (and sometimes let me sing it)!  And I'm intrigued by (albeit occasionally defensive about) the fact that I'm not really one of them. What I think is that there are 2 main categories: Artists and Performers.  I am staunchly in the latter camp.  I love being on stage, performing for and connecting with the audience.  For me, it's all about that connection.  The moment when the band and the crowd are like one organism - I live for the recognition applause for the arpeggio at the top of "I Will Survive" or the guitar riff that begins "Sweet Child of Mine".  I  get goosebumps when I hear people spontaneously begin singing along - sometimes even singing the harmonies - and it's an immense thrill to be able to hold out the microphone over the dancefloor and feel like a rock star while the audience takes over the chorus
Read more

What Happens When a Performer Doesn't Perform?

Image
In my very first blog post , (which was actually written long before the version of it posted on this blog) I talked about the differences between "Capital A" Artists and Performers, and how I am, at heart, a performer. Back then, I was still doing a bit of theatre work, singing with a couple of cover bands, and starting to turn my "side hustle" (teaching) into my main money earning job. Cut to 2018. I haven't had a non-music job in almost 2 years... which is awesome! I have discovered a love for teaching that I hadn't really known was there, and I feel immeasurably lucky that I get to make music almost every day. I work a couple of days a week at a "strip mall music school" and the remainder of the week I teach from home, under the name Desert Home Music . I started this company with my husband/bassist/arranger/all around awesome dude, Adam Jones. We learned a lot having piloted this business model when we lived in Portland, and were able to tak
Read more