From Gene Burnett
My latest album, ”More Sandcastles”, as well as my other 40 albums, is available for listening or downloading free or with a donation here: www.GeneBurnett.com It’s also available at many e-retailers of music as well as Spotify. I also made videos for all of the songs. Here’s a link to a youtube playlist with all of them: More Sandcastles Youtube Playlist
As usual I’m proud of this latest batch of songs and I hope you’ll check out a few tunes and see if you find them useful in your life.
Just a few days ago, I had my shirt off getting a little Vitamin D practicing and teaching the park. It seemed like all the flowering trees in Ashland were blooming this week. And now this morning we had a snow storm and there are several inches of snow on the ground. Our dog loves it and we took her on a romp this morning. That’s Oregon in the late winter early spring for ya. The snow is beautiful and the dog walk was great…but I’m grateful we have a warm home to come home to.
My “Sunday Stay-At-Homebodies Virtual Open Mike” continues to be my main musical outlet. As of this writing, I’ve posted 99 of them and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. I don’t get a lot of views but I’d like to think that I’m getting as much actual listening as I used to when I was playing out more. I have a folder filled with links to my various musical friends’ websites, youtube channels and such and if people don’t post anything I go find stuff to post and listen to myself. It’s been great to give my musical friend’s music the attention it deserves. So much of the time when I was younger, I was too busy, too ambitious, and sad to say, too competitive to do that. So I’m making up for lost time and thoroughly enjoying it.
Here’s the basic info on the open mike:
I post youtube video sets on Sunday nights (usually 3 songs) at 8pm PT USA and share them to my facebook timeline as well. With these posts comes a standing invitation to singer-songwriters and spoken word artists to share a recent video of some of your own stuff in the comments below my posts, as well as a promise that if you post your stuff on the same night I post mine, I will do my best to watch and comment. My Sunday nights are reserved for listening to music, preferably of the homespun variety. So join me if you can either on youtube or preferably, facebook.
I’m recovering from a gum graft as I write this. The pain is manageable and I’m mostly just taking it easy. The graft is in preparation for some dental work later in the year which might take me out of commission singing-wise for a little while, so I’ve been recording and uploading extra Open Mike sets for later release when I need them. Like this week! I call them “Wild Card Sets” and they’re comprised of what I call “Wild Card Songs”…songs that don’t fit easily into the usual song categories, or just songs that feel “wild card-ish”…I’ve enjoyed making these a lot.
It is also time for the annual NPR Tiny Desk Contest. I realized that I have no chance of winning this years ago but I keep entering because I care about my songs and I want them to get out into the world and hopefully be of use to someone out there. Every year my entry in this contest gets way more views that my typical music video does. In the past, I’ve written some slightly snarky, mostly Taoist, “I’m Gonna Lose/I’m Not Gonna Win” type songs for the contest, culminating in last year’s “Talkin’ NPR Tiny Desk Contest Blues” in which I advocated for a senior division to the contest. But those days are done. My plan now is to enter much requested audience favorite songs that are also what we call “coverable”, meaning that they are not diary type songs written particularly about me, but more universally applicable tunes. In that spirit, this year’s entry is my song “You Are Welcome Here”. It already has 283 views in less than two weeks, contrasted with my album version that has 116 views in five years. And, more importantly for me, the new video has gotten a lot of really nice comments on youtube and facebook.
I tend to focus more on music news for this newsletter but teaching T’ai-Chi continues to be my main income and central practice of my life. I consider my music as a subset of my T’ai-Chi practice. I teach mainly private lessons and very much enjoy helping people with their balance as well as their personal and physical goals. I’ve been teaching in the park here in Ashland, all weather/all year, for something like 23 years now. Even though psychologically, I feel “retired” or “semi-retired”, I have no plans to ever stop teaching.
I posted another batch of videos to my youtube channel this month.
I posted 4 “Sunday Night Stay-At-Homebodies Virtual Open Mikes”, each with a different theme..
I posted 1 SOSA Zoom Open Mike set
I posted my annual entry in the NPR Tiny Desk Contest
And I posted 1 new T’ai-Chi video
For links to all of these and more, see the Videos section below…
So here we go…I’m going to start with local events in case you’re in the Rogue Valley and then proceed with the usual information about where to find my music, videos, and pictures, including information about new projects.
There is so much to listen to and watch on the net these days…I’m amazed anyone even gets this far in the newsletter let alone watches or listens to anything I’m doing. I’m sincerely grateful for every view, every listen, and every nice comment I receive. I’m happy if anything I post truly reaches even one person. I’m offering all this stuff in a “just in case you’re interested” spirit.
Upcoming Shows:
Nothing scheduled for sure at this time.
Recorded Music
All of my over 40 albums are available for downloading free or with a donation at my website: GeneBurnett.com
Videos In General
Overall Mission: I post a lot of videos on youtube, over 2000 so far! I'm not trying to build a fan base. In fact, I'm not trying to build anything. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to follow what I'm doing or watch all of these videos. Posting videos is just part of my overall plan to make my music (and my T’ai-Chi and Nature videos too) as freely available as possible and see what freely comes back. I think of each video as sort of like a message in a bottle...and more I toss out there the more likely one of them will land on a friendly shore and something good will come back to me.
A Note on Monetization: I won’t be able to monetize my videos on youtube anymore. Monetization seems to be an option youtube wants to reserve for bigger more ambitions channels. I’ve always had mixed feelings about having ads on my videos, so to some extent, this is actually a bit of a relief. On the other hand, it was nice to make a little money from my videos and nice to think of “views” as adding slightly to my income. But such is life. I’m happy to be rolling free and clear of ads. With the help of some savvy facebook friends, I was able to ad this paragraph to the descriptions on all of my videos at once:
I hope this video has been helpful to you or touched you in some way that leaves you a little better off for having watched it. This is not a big time channel and I have no plans for it to become one. I’m too small to have ads on my videos and I’ve always had mixed feelings about them anyway. If you would like to support and encourage what I do here, you can make a donation to me directly via paypal. No donation is too small, (or too big!) and all donations are very much appreciated. Paypal Me
So here are some video links in case you're interested:
How to Find My Videos: First of all, I've set up a Videos Page on my website with a menu similar to what you see below as well as a digital tip jar in case any of you want to contribute to my cottage industry. Every little bit helps and not just financially.
I've also set up some blogs that make navigating and viewing my various videos much easier. You can go to any of these blogs and see thumbnails for all of the videos posted there. Scroll across the thumbnails and you will see the titles of each video. Click on it and a page will open that will let you watch the video right there without going to youtube. My latest videos are always in the upper left hand corner.
To see all of my Music videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Videos
To see all of my T'ai-Chi videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Movement
To see all of my Nature videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Nature
For a quick and easy way to sort through, listen to, or download all of my albums free or with a donation, click here: The Unforced Music
To see my regular blog “The Unforced Life”, click here: The Unforced Life
To visit my youtube channel and possibly subscribe, click here: My Youtube Channel
To see all of my youtube playlists click here: My Youtube Playlists
To see a youtube playlist featuring all my Pandemic And Post Pandemic Open Mike sets and songs click here: Pandemic Open Mike Sets & Songs
And here are links to my individual album youtube playlists.
Who's A Good Dog?
By Ear~20 Songs From 2020
From The Temple To The Street
The Way Of All Things
Slow Down Fast
Thunder Moon
Love & Heartache
Better Off Broken
Crooked Love
Doubles Hitter
Already There
Why Start Now?
Where I Belong
Have A Wonderful Miserable Life
Too Busy To Worry
No Other Life
See No Evil
Brand New World
Up For Grabs
Flow More ~ Force Less
Undiscovered~Parts 1 & 2
Maybe Nothing’s Wrong~Parts 1 & 2
Without The Moon
Nothing’s Impossible Now
You Are Wrong
My Song Now
Terms Of Surrender~Parts 1 & 2
Undiscovered Country
Plan B
Where Will You Sleep Tonight?
New Videos
I’m going to do something a little different with this section of the newsletter. Rather than provide individual links to each video, I’m going list the titles to the videos followed by a link to a blog I’ve set up for that category of video. Just click on the link and you’ll go to either my Music videos blog, or my T’ai-Chi videos blog or my Nature videos blog. Once there you’ll see a wall of thumbnails. The ones in the upper left corner are the most recent posts. You’ll be able to scroll over any of these thumbnails. It will flip over and show you the title of that video. Click on it and you can watch that video without leaving the blog. This method is much less time-consuming for me and actually, I think, more convenient for you. It might sound complicated but it’s very easy. Give it a try.
I posted 6 new Music videos:
Sunday Stay-At-Homebodies Virtual Open Mike #96
Sunday Stay-At-Homebodies Virtual Open Mike #97
Sunday Stay-At-Homebodies Virtual Open Mike #98
Sunday Stay-At-Homebodies Virtual Open Mike #99
SOSA Zoom Open Mike #51
“You Are Welcome Here” (2024 NPR Tiny Desk Contest Entry)
These and all my music videos are right here: The Unforced Videos
1 new T’ai-Chi video:
How My Training Trains Me
This all my past T’ai-Chi Videos are right here: The Unforced Movement
No new Nature videos:
But all my past Nature Videos are right here: The Unforced Nature
Pictures
I've stopped posting as many pictures on facebook, (for many reasons), and started posting them instead on Flickr, which I like much better.
Here's a link to my "Albums" page at Flicker: Albums
I have many photo albums there but a few of my favorites are:
Small Miracles (mostly Nature related stuff)
The Dish Whisperer (I started posting a daily picture of my dish stacking work over a year ago. I recently crossed the 4000 straight days mark. I have no idea how long I’ll keep doing this. I’m so used to it, it hardly takes any effort at all to continue. I made a video for my song “I'll Do The Dishes Tonight” that featured a slideshow of the first year.
Website
I continue to offer all of my albums for downloading, free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com I started doing this over 10 years ago and considered it a 5-year creative experiment. Well the 5 years passed and I decided to start calling it my "ongoing creative experiment" as I have no plans to stop. Since I returned to my folk roots and stopped climbing, or trying to climb, the industry ladder, I've been enjoying music in my life more than ever before. And enjoyment, rather than achievement or worldly success has always been dearest to my heart anyway. So now I focus totally on what I love most: writing, recording, performing and sharing what I create. If other people like it, so much the better, but getting other people to like me or what I do is no longer my goal or focus. I'm out to please myself first. I want to do my music exactly the way I want to do it and see who likes it that way, not figure out what people will like and try to do it that way. I put it out there freely and see what comes freely back. So far so good. I've never had more success and appreciation than I have since I started doing it this way. Go figure.
Thanks, as usual, for your support and well wishes!
GB
