Musings,Meanderings & More

Since my daughter’s newly adopted interest in piano playing emerged, I find myself searching for information and instructional tutorials on how to improve and expand an average persons existing skills.  Recently, I found a webpage that introduced another aspect of the art that is usually overlooked and at times never even pursued. It’s another way of delivering a musical rendition that’s very often never taught, and isn’t even envisioned as a possible line of study by the majority of pianst.

Some instructors believe improvisation, to be an inate quality that cannot be taught, but unbeknowst to most, this is just not true. Delivering piano chords without using sheet music is a skill most can master. Anyone that can read notes, can learn the elusive art of improvisational playing.  From day one, a novice pianist learns to play by reading and closely following the sequence of piano chords from sheet music. Some never realizing that there are techniques that can be applied that would expand the quality of any piece that they performed. In these particular video tutorial that I discovered, a student would learn to use triplet rythms which produce a 50’s sound; change a melody in 3/4 meter into 4/4th or an astounding 9/8th; switch from quarter notes to eight notes thereby producing a tango or combinations of both for a latin beat; learn how to infuse your pieces with special effects that will add even more interest to any basic song … and there is still so much more that can be learned from these tutorials.And by learning chord structures and inversions, sight reading becomes ‘a breeze’.

And she [my daughter] would not only learn all that I have mentioned so far but she would also learn to change the mood of a song just by changing which scale the song is played in. My daughter is gonna just love this program, she enjoys things that are detailed and intricate. The scope of this tutorial is phenominal, I am sure she will be dazzled by this package.

Aeolian modes, modal scales, piano chords, dominant 7th color chords, tremolo … exactly what are these terms all about, you might ask, beats me … but this and more is covered in the lessons.  The amount of information offered in this video classroom is mind boogling. I just never realized the scope of this art, and I am sure just one  semester of study only minutely touched on a few of the possible avenues that exist for someone who chooses to learn how to play a piano.

Now, the only question that remains is whether I should surprise her with this program or first show her what I found … hmmm?

To be perfectly honest, I really try very hard to avoid current events.  The media tends to bombard you with sensationalized stories, which always comes down to extreme tragedies of one type or another. Unfortunately  today, I came across two such stories … one involved a 29 year old teacher that was accused of inappropriate behavior with a minor that lasted for almost 2 years … the other story involved the killing of a woman and her four children by her live in boyfriend.

Now after reading this story about the teacher and the comments following the post … I also had many questions … firstly, the duration of the supposed relationship and how it went so totally undetected for so long when the majority of the encounters occurred in the teachers home while the husband was present; also, just how truthful and innocent is this young man that was supposedly misused.

Believe me, I realize there are some truly evil and ruthless people that live right next door to us, or sit in a cubicle behind or beside us in our work spaces or that are even in the pews in front of us at our places of worship … but there are also some children that should be feared and are capable of some horrific acts.  I hope none of this is the case, I hope the story is exaggerated and that the only crime was a fabricated story created by a child that was lonely for the mom that he lost.  But we will see how this story ends.

And then there was a headline about this man that they strongly believed killed five people of which four were children … besides the magnitude of this crime … what’s even more terrifying is that this fellow looks ordinary, an everyday kind of guy.  He looks like the average hard working JOE that you pass on your way to work, or sit beside in the subway … someone that might easily be trusted.

It’s becoming almost impossible to believe in anyone … well, no more gruesome current events for me, at least for as long as I can avoid them.  I know there are ugly and harsh realities all around me, but I just rather not read and be reminded daily about all of the abhorrent realities that exist.

I have been dabbling around in the PTC world for about 2 years and I have earned a few dollars but definitely not enough too consider the PTC area as a sustainable revenue builder.  And for the last few months I have been trying to determine how best too utilize this avenue to earn a little more money, without sacrificing any of my own and subsequently losing The Farm.  You see their are those that are really successful at PTCing and then their are others that have lost quite a bit of money.  PTCing has gained a lot of attention…both negative and positive and there are also many charlatans that are taking advantage of this marketplace for their own personal gains.  New PTC sites are popping up almost daily, doing business for maybe a month or more, promising to deliver much and then completely disappearing … and in most cases not only vanishing and owing their users ‘tons of money’ but further damaging  the already tarnished image of this enterprise.

Ideally, these sites should be a place where internet hopefuls can come, display their ADs and promote there business ventures and hopefully generate new customers and grow whatever business efforts they are trying to promote.  Now this scenario is basically what should still be the case, but with sites opening and owners running away within months this is hurting the legitimacy of these programs.  So potential investors are more inclined to look elsewhere to promote their business.

Anyway, I have been trying too decide which programs appear to be sustainable and are worth my time too promote. Although, there are many strategies that can be employed I prefer joining and promoting programs that appear too be ‘in business’ for the long haul.  I don’t want to have too devote endless hours into a product that just doesn’t produce … I want too set them up and be able to invest maybe a couple of hours a week into maintaining them and then let them take care of themselves after that.

Below I have listed a few programs that currently offer what I am looking for  in this type of  system … some have been around for years, others offer a pay per click ratio that makes sense and lastly, I have been paid more than once within there already established TOS.  Now, I may at anytime change this list, because as I have mention before this is an extremely fluid industry … but I think that these represent currently some of the healthiest PTC’s on line … Now this is just a small list, there are other’s but these are the few that I am at present comfortable with:

• BuxP
• ClixSense
• LinkGrand
• NeoBux
  
• TheClickers
• TakeTheGlobe
• WordLinx

Lately, I have been preoccupied with projects that have taken me deeply into uncharted waters.  And as you may have noticed, my postings have suffered greatly.  However, in defense of my negligence I must confess…I feel as though I am facing the end of semester exams…and I am finding out just how much I really don’t know and  subsequently I’m cramming like heck to catch up.  Ugly scenario, however that just about covers my current learning experience.

And one of the biggest obstacles that is facing me is remaining on track and staying focused on one element of the project at a time.  Whenever I enter into another playing field, I enter alone and if I should have a question about any aspect of what I am doing…there is no one to ask.  So, I have too tough my way through it…google my question, visit some of the results and cross my fingers that an answer can be found in a reasonable amount of time.

Now, that’s what is at the core of my distractions…because I do luv browsing and when I am searching for an answer to a question…visiting blogs is part of the answer.  And quite honestly there are some amazing blogs in cybercpace. Not only have I found answers to my immediate questions, but I have found answers to questions I wasn’t even working on at the moment.

But no matter how pleasureable this ’seek and discovery’ may be…it’s slowing me down, my blogs are suffering…I could really use some extra hands.

But all isn’t as bad as it sounds, I have created a couple of new blogs that I am appying different concepts to and hopefully these blogs will perform better for me.

This blog is an example of my new approach, so time will tell.

Yesterday, there was an article on YAHOO’s front page that was very informative…wait, hold up, ‘What Am I Saying’…It wasn’t simply informative, it was eye opening, illuminating, revealing, terrifying, alarming and chilling all of these at the same time.  Now we all have heard and read accounts of folks whose identity has been stolen and how their charge cards have been fraudulently used.

Well, do you know how it’s done or why just about anyone that uses the internet can become a victim. This article showed how a man used some easily obtained  info to hack to shreds someone’s life.  But in this instance, the woman’s life that he researched was a friend of his wife and was a willing participant. You are probably thinking that maybe because it was his wife’s friend that he knew enough about her to accomplish this…But nah, that wasn’t the case, he only knew her in ‘passing’.

Laddies and Lassies we all need to become a lot more proactive about protecting our identities. We reveal our birthdays; the towns we live in; the hospitals we were born in; the names of our family members; the church we attend…all of this and much more on the net. We leave all of this information floating around somewhere in cyberspace,  ripe and ready to be plucked  up and used by some unscrupulous person who could care less whose life he/she shatter.

All I can say is…We Have Been Warned!

In an earlier post I mentioned that I would be changing my theme, which I have and I also found someone to host my blog and I am no longer just MMM.wordpress but MMM.info. And believe me every step of that journey was a step into the unknown for me. There wasn’t one thing that I changed during this process that was ‘a piece of cake’, however now that quite a bit of it is done…I feel as though I have taken ‘giant strides’ while on this learning journey.

Throughout my blogs and lens, I am always referring to just how little I knew when I came here, I really can’t stress enough just how little I knew. Now although I haven’t learned volumes in the past two years, I have learned…and after finishing this project I know I am going to treat myself to something special. Gotta keep my resolve up because there are about ten really big things that I wanna venture into before this year is up.

And google has been a great help in getting my thru this process…I googled everything that presented a problem. And you wanna know something, some of my questions were listed in the results…verbatim. So no matter how silly you may think your question might be, don’t believe it…quaranteed you will find a hundred variation of whatever your ‘boggle is’ listed there.

And finally I cannot overlook the help that I received from my daughter…without her aid…I may have just thrown the proverbial towel in, and maybe waited another two years before claiming a piece of the net’s real estate.

Well, that’s it for now…Enjoy Your Weekend…

Yes, I was one of those clueless internet hopefuls, that jumped on a variety of bandwagons frantically searching for my ‘lil corner or spot on the cyber block’. Now let me clarify the use of the word ‘clueless’, I am not trying to be demeaning or trying to place myself on some type of pedistle looking down on others, nope not at all. But I do think of those initial days as a condition, a growth stage that many, many of us fight our way through. Some of us give up during that period, jump ship, quit, throw the proverbial ‘towel in’. You see finding the answers that we need, answers that would sustain us during those earlier days are difficult and sometimes almost impossible to find.

Anyway, in the beginning I circuited the forums…found a few that paid you pennies for your posts. So not only did I earn a few cents for the time that I spent there…but I also learned quite a bit while I was drifting around. Through them I learned about the Paid To Click sites. However at the time I didn’t really grasp the concept. I mean…my thoughtology was…why waste your time clicking ads for a penny, and I moved on. It was a while before I realized that the power that fueled these programs was in developing your downline. A downline, referrals, members, dedicated shopping patrons, subscribers…blog visitors…this is the ‘guts’ and the ‘meat’ of any venture that you pursue. So finally, I got it…and finally I am using what I learned. Just visit my ‘lens’, it’s called ‘My Baby Steps’ it goes into a lot of detail about PTC’s and the ‘power of a penny’.

But that isn’t what I wanted to Pout About Today, you see not only did I get introduced to PTC’s I also learned about sponsored blog posts. I didn’t take advantage of them until much later, because I really didn’t get this blogging thing back then either, OMGosh am I ever a slow learner. But eventually I did and I dived in…and I thought I had found a solid source of income while I continued my net trek.

Then BOOM, Google started swinging it’s mighty mallet around, and no sooner then I started building revenue then I was thrown back to square one. Nobody wanted anything to do with your blog, if you didn’t have a PR rating of at least 2, and I had been a 4 and was kicked back to a goose egg, a ‘0′…someone all the advertisers wanted to avoid.

OK, so I will get to the meat of this post, I had completely given up on sponsored postings, none of the better programs were throwing anything my way. In a way, they really did me a favor because I have been forced to consider other paths…but this morning I received an email from one of those companies that an offer that I submitted ages ago was accepted by an advertiser.

Get this, I have been with this company since Nov. 07, and not one of my offers were ever accepted, was I ever just Blown Away this morning. And it just so happens that I have a post that deals with that topic, that was a ‘knock out’ if I say so myself…that was rejected by one of those better programs because I wasn’t a PR3.

Well, now I feel a lot better, I just had to get this out of my head. I think I can now go and do a little bit more work on my Squidoo Lens, I am updating it a bit gals/guys. It is a bit tacky,not complete in some parts…fine tuning is definitely needed, hense I am working on improving it some more. Yall have a Great Weekend and I’ll be talkin’ to ya soon…

Besides this blog, I also have two other blogs and two lens. I haven’t really been keeping any of my real estate current which is something I am not proud of and I realize I must remedy that. And to add kindling to that fire, lately I have been on a serious ’search n seek’ site mission. I know, I know that statement doesn’t make a ‘whole lot of sense’.

The truth is I feel as though I am missing something critically necessary. Something that will give this whole internet experience some cohesion. That one piece or maybe it’s a group of pieces that still eludes me, is a source of a lot of mental unrest.

Or I just may be pulling the ‘wool over my own eyes’ and the answer may be quite simple…and what I should be doing is directing all of my attention to completing my projects, that alone would probably lead to a more focused me.

Although I have been plagued by this gnawing distraction, I have still been a ‘busy little beaver’ and I have still eliminated many items from my ‘to do list’.

Let me just give you one example…I applied the EC 300 card drop system to my PC and I am doing that while I write this post. You see it takes a while to load those sites, so while they fully loads, I am doing other things on my laptop. And by dropping these EC cards, everyday I am viewing loads of fabulous and interesting sites. Each one jammed packed with a host of topics that feed that need I have for ’searching n seeking’.

Well, this is just an update on ‘me’ and what I am currently about…Wishing you and your’s a very Happy and Peaceful Sunday…

It’s Sunday yall, either you view it as the end of the week…a day to rest and recoup from the rigors of the prior week or the beginning of a new week…fresh and full of promise.

Well, I’m not resting…for me it’s just another day at the office and full steam ahead…I really got a lot of unfinished projects to focus on. Although I am reducing my huge ‘to do list’, there are still plenty of things to do. One of the hardest things I have had to do lately was decide on a not only functional but also visibly appealing theme for 2 of my blogs. I have finally narrowed it down to about 10 choices, which is really quite an accomplishment when you consider just how many gorgeous templates are available.

So while in the process of doing that, I came across a really neat tool for creating and customizing your very own WP theme. Just follow this WordPress link and have a blast…

Lately I have been rethinking what my ultimate online goals should be, and how best to accomplish those ends. I do want to build a web based business, I would like to earn a respectable income and I know that the learning curve to accomplish this is endless.

However, there are things I will not do to reach those ends. Excelling at the expense of others…uh, uh I just won’t do it. Knowingly offering and selling a product that just isn’t going anywhere to an unsuspecting public is just another no..no, can’t and won’t do that either. Looking for programs and systems that may help myself and others launch and establish a presence on the net, yep…I think I am more in line with that.

So, as I develop my portfolio [really like using that word] of income producing programs, I will be sharing those with you. I will avoid anything that sounds like a lot of hype, and I will do a deep search for projects with substance.

But, just as important as all of the above is, I am determine to enjoy my time here. So , whenever I come across a site, a blog, an article, a post or whatever I think needs to be mentioned…I will. Or if I think a site should be visited, I will suggest it. So, expect to see anything here. If I like it, I am going to blog about it…

Oh, just one more thing…although I love the simplicity of this theme…it’s just gonna be temporary. It just doesn’t have everything I want from a template. And I am finding it extremely hard to pick a theme, you would think it would be easier than creating a post…nope, not for me. I will just have to buckle down and choose.