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| Brainstorm time! A new competitor is moving into the community where my music school  resides. Among other competitive strategies, I'm looking for ways to beef up our blog to add variety, engage more readers, and, obviously, improve SEO. . Assume you are a parent, a music student yourself (school aged, young adult, career adult, retiree), or you are a musician / teacher seeking employment. What topics would interest you? What would you find engaging to read? I encourage more commonly tackled subjects like cognitive, mental and physical benefits of learning music or how to get your child to practice. I especially encourage creative, out-of-the-box thinking, like, for example, statistical analyses of high school talent show performances by skill or genre, the impact of AI on music careers, or an ongoing fictional saga featuring a main character that fits in one of the reader categories above (or doesn't! Don't let me limit you.) There will naturally be merit badges up for grabs.    |
Two Weeks 'til Prep! Shortcut to Sign-up Form Do you have an idea yet?    
Cheerleaders: READY THE FAIRY DUST!  It's about to be raining GPs up in the Prep forum, y'all. |
| Is "rat bastard" a Gen X term? Dear Urban Dictionary, please start including the generation of origin in your definitions so I know to whom I should be trying to look smart and with it while using your vocabulary. Also, please invent the Urban Thesaurus so I can look up smart, with-it words that mean "smart" and "with it". Wait... *runs to check* GUYS! There's an Urban Thesaurus! Which also does not include the generation of origin. Useless. It didn't help me look like a bitchin vsp at all. š |
| I just spent two hours dumbing down a music school blog post at the behest of the Yoast plugin, suggested by my marketing guru, from a grade 14.63 level to a grade 11.91 level, because Yoast recommends targeting copy below grade 12 for wider audience readability. (And, to be clear, grade 12 is the *top* of the range, with a min at about - grade 6? I forget. I was laser-focused on getting below the max, and, I remind you, I was working on it for two hours.) Apparently, Yoast thinks that parents of music students don't want to work that hard to read the synopsis of their children's recital when the music school publishes event photos to their website. The plugin flagged the word "participate" as too complex for a wide audience and suggested the replacement word, "join." The phrase "such as" was similarly flagged for complexity. Seriously?? I complied because I want to sell more music lessons, and my marketing guru has a college degree in marketing, whereas, I have not had even so much as a one-credit-hour community college class in marketing. I trust his judgment. But I feel like a fraud.  |
Humble_Po PNG  - sorry, "lofty thought" is too complex. Have you considered "high-fallutin' thinkings"? |
As a former technical writer of user manuals and training materials, this is a real problem. The items I worked on had to be written specifically for a target audience. In my case, physicians and their front desk staff. This equates to two separate sets of documentation.  |
| Humble_Po PNG - I agree with you about dumbing down. Sadly, ordinary 1860s 19-year-olds wrote better, and with vocabularies three times larger than today's PHD candidates. We used to call the first through sixth grades ... "Grammar School" for a reason! Now our children are taught middle school subjects in high school. Our universities teach hate, for our nation and the millions of men and women who made this country. But it is to be expected when our schools no longer teach anything of value! And I have a daughter who is a teacher, and four grandsons. The oldest started school three grade levels above his age. Not because he is a genius, (Though, he is quite smart,) but rather his parents and grandparents did for him, as my wife, parents, and I did for my children. We taught them the basics needed to survive in the world. I am frequently told my writing is stilled, I just find it ridiculous that today's youngsters can't read or write a complete sentence. much less use something as simple as a pencil. I say ... Blessed be the bowels of Sheol that receive these education administrators for their parts in betraying humanity. Of course, I understand why these despots do as they do, it is much harder to control and manipulate educated people. |
6 Weeks 'til Prep!
Prep 2024 is still seeking:  Donations: "October Novel Prep Challenge Group" [E] Judging Coordinator: "Prep Instructions: Contest Round Judges" [E] Contest Round Judges: "Prep Instructions: Contest Round Judges" [E] Meanwhile, take your settings to the next level:
Not just for spec fic! |
Korosu  - NaNo is short for "National Novel Writing Month". It's an annual event in which writers are challenged to crank out 50,000 words in 30 days (the month of November) with the "rule" that you're supposed to suppress your inner editor until after the 30 days. No deleting words. Just write. The organization who created it have a website (http://www.nanowrimo.org) where you can create an author profile, track your word count through the month, connect with other writers both virtually and in person at local "write-ins", and earn digital badges and bragging rights for "winning" (defined as achieving 50k words by Nov. 30, but there's a whole community of "NaNo Rebels" who redefine the rules for themselves.) The Prep is a month-long activity hosted here on WDC where writers create their characters, define settings, plot their stories and generally ease into good daily writing habits. The Prep can technically be completed with just 15 minutes per day (with 4 freebie days). Completing 50k words in 30 days usually takes more like an hour or two per day. You don't have to post your work for either event. For the Prep, you're on the honor system. NaNoWriMo.org only declares you a winner if you copy/paste your work into their word counter and it counts 50k+ words, but there are plenty of NaNo Rebels who declare themselves winners without the NaNo website's official stamp of completion, and really, if you write even 5,000 words in November, I'd still call you a winner. |
Elycia Lee ā®  - You know you have plenty of time to decide. I'll watch you panic for real on Oct. 1.  |
| I was today years old when I discovered "Holding Out for a Hero" is sung by Bonnie Tyler, not Laura Branigan. Dude. What in the holy hell is going on. Bonnie, you're Laura's voice twin. |
Robert Waltz  - Editing the post to say "...SUNG by..." It's the voice that baffles me. I would have bet money that voice belonged to Laura Branigan. Like, large tracts of land sums of money. |
| Robert Waltz - Another crazy fact: Bonnie Tyler didn't sing the unforgettable chorus "turn around bright-eyes" in her song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. Funny ole world, inn'it? |
buddhangela's brave & crazy  - I've always loved that song, and I've always thought it sounded like she's singing a duet with herself (two different voices). This explains it! |
| Fun new trend: Gen X arguing with other Gen X about whether music, shows, movies, etc are Gen X because they launched around the time millenials were born. |
| Funnily enough, I work with other Gen X about this. The music from the 1970/80's is fantastic! |
| Asha Moonfall - Plotting Book! - Because it's true. The movies and music of the 1980's are fantastic. |
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You can reach out to local ESL (English as a second language) teachers. They're often found at schools and churches. Music can be a great way to help new people integrate into the community.
Sorry. I know you were asking mainly about blog posts. I easily get sidetracked.
You could do blog posts about famous musicians, especially pop musicians and the instruments they play. You could create little 30 minute concerts with your students and go to local nursing homes, retirement facilities, and senior care places, maybe even hospices and hospitals. You can even reach out to homeless shelters, rehab facilities, etc. Consider setting up one with your adult students for the local jail to enjoy. Then create a blog post about the good your school is doing for the community. Naturally, give a brief talk (with permission) about the benefits of being a student at your school, preferably given by one of your students, in case someone wants to get lessons or knows someone who might. You can talk about the benefits of music as they apply to that specific population. Always remind them to think about who they might know who might want lessons, even if it's not them. Even in jail, they might want to get their kid lessons and maybe their wife, ex-, or baby mama or whomever has the money to afford it. Maybe even see if there's research that shows music lessons help keep kids off the streets and out of jail.
Consider googling to see what other music schools are doing on their blogs. lol
What about a blog post about music scholarships for universities. Yep, I'm pleased with that idea! Maybe you can even find specific scholarships to discuss at both nearby and state schools as well as at famous ones everyone wants to go to.
Interview some parents about what the experience has been like. If you can get ones who got lessons elsewhere in the past (even if it was in a different place), that is even better when they talk about how much better you are.
Ask parents and kids what their concerns were (and are, if they're new) before starting and do a post addressing that.
Engaging with any comments helps too. Most people like to be acknowledged.
I'm totally not a social media expert though.
https://x.com/pwheelerwrites/status/1837177062097924578