Welcome to another installment of the Fiddle Jam Club Newsletter! 

I purposely have not been sending too many of these of late, as I’m kind of sensitive to bombarding people with a bunch of stuff that might not matter to them… If your inbox is anything like mine, I’m betting that you’ll appreciate that!  But, that said, I have been working my butt off on the site to bring you new features, improvements, and content, and I’m getting super excited about them too!  See below…

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So, what’s new? 

1) NEW “LEARNING PATH” SYSTEM!  OK, in the development of FJi, I’m very thankful to have gotten a lot of great and positive feedback, with a few even going so far as to say that I’ve changed their life! …pretty cool.  That said, FJi has gotten some complaints too… one of them that came up a number of times was that some of you “didn’t know where to start.”  There are now 200+ lessons on the site (and growing!) and I get it that some are overwhelmed.  After a number of failed attempts (one that crashed the whole site for a couple hours!  Yikes!), I think I now have a good and growable system that will be focused on giving short learning “paths” (3-4 steps to a specific result) for you to chew on.  I will also try to always follow each “Path” with “further studies” suggestions too.

I’m kind of proud of the system, I hope you like it.  As I said, it is designed to be easily expandable and I will be GLAD TO TAKE YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND REQUESTS FOR MORE.  You can check it out for yourself by clicking here: Learning Path System.  I also did a recent founder’s blog post about it here: Founder’s Blog.

2) COURSES!  It has taken some pretty massive work, behind the scenes, but I have re-developed the TWO COURSES that I ran last year, adding a lot of new content, and changing the way they will be offered.  The new format is going to include LIFETIME ACCESS for one low price!  If you already took either the Music Mechanics 101 or Fiddle Jam 101 courses last year, no worries, as you will automatically be grandfathered in to this new course model.  

When we ran these courses last year, I thought it was a good idea to have a specific start and end date, and have the whole class, as a community, move forward in a shared experience together, and kind-of hold the participant’s “feet to the fire” to keep up and finish it.  Well… as it turned out, that was a good idea on paper more than reality.  

The stats did not lie, and told me that only about 15% of participants actually finished the courses!  I get it.  People are busy (me too!).  I have re-evaluated, and realized that, at the core of the Fiddle Jam Institute is FUN!… and all business models associated with it should mirror that too.  Yes, we’ll maybe loose a bit of the “real-time community” aspect this way, but I want as many people to be enriched by music making and have as much fun as possible!… at your OWN pace.

I will still have a HOMEWORK BLOG associated with the courses where I will (with your permission, of course) post your homework performance videos you send in, and feel that this should help keep the community aspect of these courses alive.  We are currently testing that fine point before an official course re-launch.  

STAY TUNED!>>> Blues Fiddle, The Sit-In Situation, & Violin Alive! are all coming up the to-do list!

3) NEW CAJUN/ZYDECO LESSONS.  As many of you know, I played, off and on, for 10 years with LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales, as well as put out a “solo” Zydeco flavored Fiddle-Rock CD (“Flavor” on HotWings Entertainment) and have a deep love for this rich style.  Thanks to the prodding from one of our members (thanks, Richard!), I finally bumped them up my to-do list.   I think I just found some digital copies of my old bandstand cassette recordings of LeeRon in my iTunes library too so, first chance, I’ll dig through those to see what other Zydeco tunes I can add as well.  See Zydeco/Cajun Section.

4) SPECIAL “INSIDER’S” OFFER COMING!  The Fiddle Jam Institute has been up and running for a few years now, and with only word of mouth and nearly zero advertising, has been more generally “launched” the past couple years as we work out the kinks to delivering jamming content.  I’m feeling confident that the site has finally reached, what I call “advertise-able” status, and I’m preparing for a larger public push very soon.  

**Before I do this ad campaign, I would like to offer you, the Fiddle Jam Club “early responders,” a special premium services bundled offer that could take your playing to the next level.  This will not be offered to the general public, and will include a number of months of private sessions with me, a Lifetime All Access Pass to the Fiddle Jam Institute and other perks and bonuses I am putting together now.

<<:Watch for an announcement about this soon!:>>

5) Open Office Hours.  I will continue with another OPEN OFFICE HOUR in MAY.  Please feel free to send me your questions, concerns, or ideas that you’d like me to cover.  You can send me a message via any contact form at the bottom of every page on the site.    I look forward to hearing from you!   Here’s the past one for review:  Open Office Hours

Overall, I’m pretty excited about the new developments!  I hope you are with me!  Stay in touch.  Don’t be shy about sending me your thoughts and questions.  You can use the form below.

Talk soon!

Fitz

PS: if the contact form (that is supposed to be below) does not appear in your browser, click here to send me a message instead.