Resuming
I haven't made a post in many months. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's the peaks and valleys and how life takes over. I did not go to Denver for the Pan Ramajay Steel Drum Festival week in 2013, but I'm lucky enough to be going this year (for the 3rd time). As I did in 2012, I'll be in the advanced band and spending many hours practicing.Aside from that, I started taking a one hour pan lesson every two weeks from a very talented musician and educator, Chris Patterson via Skype (he's in Nashville, TN) for 6 months now. With Chris's help, I've developed as a musician, improviser, and pan player in almost every way.
It was because of the prompting of Chris and Todd Phillips that decided at the beginning of the year to start playing solo gigs by performing to backing tracks. The primary goal being to play music for people on a regular basis. As Chris explained it (and it was explained to him years before by Tom Miller), to improve as a player, you just gotta play. The extra money will go to Tony's new pan fund.
Gigging Out
My first gigs were playing the local Senior Center, a coffee shop owned by a friend, and playing for a church dinner. I got organized by putting together a website, tonyschmitt.com, making business cards, a yard sign (for public performances), getting a friend to help with videos to put on my site and making some sound clips.Now I have a regular summer gig (for exposure, not pay) at a free weekly outdoor community movie event (I'm the pre-show entertainment). This will hopefully drum up some business (sorry). I'm just not allowed to take any money while playing in the parks...that would be pan-handling (ba-dum-bum)!
Community Band & Arranging
I'm still a member of the Winchester Steel Co. Adult/Community Band. I have also arranged two charts for the group: Plasticities by Andrew Bird and most recently, Butterfly by Herbie Hancock. We plan to perform the latter arrangement in December of 2014.We typically have just two performances each year: in mid-May and mid-December. This year is the first time that our adult group has been asked to record for a CD featuring the high school steel band. So, we recorded Laventile (Andy Narrell) and Spain (Chick Corea). This was very exciting to be a part of.
Tony
