Don't Wait...

Do it Now.

People often come to me for T'ai-Chi lessons or tell me they are thinking of doing so when they get sick or have some kind of medical or personal crisis. Usually it's part of a entire life-style change program...diet, exercise, posture, etc. I have nothing against this, it's all good and helpful stuff. I've made plenty of changes myself over the years because I got sick and wanted to feel better. But really, the best time to do all this stuff is before you get sick or have that crisis. Diet and exercise, including T'ai-Chi, are much better at preventing disease than curing it.

The medical benefits of daily moderate exercise, especially exercise that includes some attention to posture, are not mystical or very woo-woo at all. Good posture reduces wear and tear and compression, increases true relaxation, and makes space in the body. More space = better circulation, breathing, and organ function. Better circulation means the body cleans itself out better and faster. Same with eating well and drinking enough water. Less stasis and stress in the body, more movement and circulation, means better health. And it's just a pleasure to move and breath and live in a relaxed and healthy body.

Our lives are so sedentary and "head" oriented these days...people seem to be stampeding out of their bodies, especially their legs, and into their heads and gadgets. Most people I see have poor posture with weak and misaligned legs, and that's in Ashland which is a fairly health conscious town. Even the stronger people I see often have "gym muscles" that do not give them much functional mobility. This loss of mobility and springy active leg strength contributes directly to all kinds of health problems down the line.

If you can read the writing on the wall and want to start turning the tide before you get ill or have some kind of personal crisis, I highly recommend some kind of posture discipline, eating better, drinking enough water, and moving more. This is not a plug for taking T'ai-Chi lessons with me. I don't need more students. I have almost as many as I can take. This is a plug for you (and me) taking better care of ourselves before we get sick.

The World's Easiest

Fundraiser...

Hi Friends

As I’m sure many of you know, many musicians have used Kickstarter to fund their various musical endeavors. I’ve seen Kickstarter campaigns to fund new albums, finance tours, buy new equipment, etc. I think this is a good thing, artists asking for help from their friends, family and fans is a time honored tradition. Kickstarter is just an organized digital way to do it.

So I’ve decided to do something similar…but different. It’s not a Kickstarter fundraising campaign, it’s more of a direct appeal to help me with one of the key expenses involved in making my music available to the public. And the amount of support I’m asking for is minimal. Only a buck. And you’ll get something back immediately. Let me explain.

As many of you know, all of my albums are available for downloading free or with a donation at my site. It’s an ongoing creative experiment to make all of my music as freely available as possible and see what comes freely back. So far so good. I have no plans to stop. You are most welcome to visit the site anytime and download as many songs as you want to. All kinds of good things and even a bit of money has come back to me since I started doing this, but donations are strictly optional.

In addition to making my albums available at my site, I’ve also listed all of them (29 at the moment) with a company called CD Baby which in turn makes them available at many e-retailers of music including iTunes. I do this mainly to help people who might not know about my site to find my music more easily. On iTunes or at the CD Baby site, it’s very easy to just search a given song title or album title and buy it. At my site it’s all free, but it takes a bit more time to find individual songs. I don’t make very much money in digital royalties from these CD Baby listings. My main goal has always been to break even for the listing fees I’ve had to pay to list all those albums on the site.  

The other day I was looking over my CD Baby account. There’s a feature where they show you how much money you’ve made to date and so far, the difference between what I’ve paid out to list those 29 albums and the amount of money they’ve brought in so far is about eleven hundred dollars. I sure would like to see those numbers closer together…

So what I’m asking for is very simple and requires minimal financial investment on your part and you’ll get something back immediately. What I’m asking for is that you visit iTunes or CD Baby and buy one of my songs between now and January 1rst, 2014. If all of my friends here and other places on the net each did this, I would reach or at least be closer to my break-even point.

So what do you say? It’s only a buck and you’ll be helping not to make me rich but simply to break even on one part of my overall mission to make my music as widely available as possible. All you have to do between now and January 1rst, 2014, is visit iTunes or CD Baby, (see links below) and buy one song, any song, and I’ll be that much closer to my goal. If you don’t want to shop at iTunes or CD Baby but still want to support me in this goal, you can just go to my site and make a donation there. The problem is that with very small donations, paypal takes a pretty hefty cut. I think it’s almost 50% of a one dollar donation. So if you can do it at iTunes or CD Baby more of your money will actually make it to me.

Thanks for your support! GB

Links:

My website (Musical Recordings Page): 

http://www.geneburnett.com/gb/Media/music.asp

My iTunes page: 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/gene-burnett/id288591044

My CD Baby page: 

http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/GeneBurnett