Sorting out the diary...

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Sigh... this is the ongoing nightmare that is life as a freelance musician. Trying to sort out different clashing and overlapping projects whilst trying to not piss off every ensemble and musician out there. This is a little bit trickier in Australia than it was in Europe... back in Europe, there seemed to be (at least for the large established groups) an organised way of doing bookings that meant that I was being asked about bookings and dates to pencil at least a year or two in advance.

Here, in Australia, it appears that the freelance groups do this desperate mad rush just before Christmas or in January... and so you end up with different requests about whether or not you are free and available all coming on top of each other. Add in the problem that they don't give very detailed schedules, and just ask you about a block of dates... that can often contain large holes in it... and it is a recipe for a date juggling nightmare.

There are a few groups that have managed to do it in a bit more of an orderly fashion, in fact, one group had their requests out in early November or something like that. Unfortunately, I had to hold them off a bit until I had a better idea of what the other groups were doing! Luckily, they were quite understanding about that!

Meanwhile, on the slightly hypocritical front, I have also yet to put out feelers for who is available for my own ensemble... but I'm going to plead newness to the organisational aspect, and also the unsure-ness of one date (I'm waiting on a reply back from the venue!)... and partly the fear of asking people when the amount that I can offer is uncertain.

Another piece of annoyance is that most musicians are actually away and uncontactable during the summer period, and that also relates a bit to the arts organisations as well! It is a bit of a lull period for ensembles and concerts... so, that isn't a surprise... but different groups are more or less active, and the more active ones prefer to have answers relatively sooner!

Anyway... I am doing my best to try not to irritate people. I will always honour my word, and if I say YES to a project, then I'm there... regardless of whatever offers come later. I know that isn't always the case for everyone, and there is often a good deal of shopping around to get better jobs... but for me, the juggling happens BEFORE you commit... and then when you commit, you are committed. I have also been harrassing people for detailed schedules or at least rough schedules so that I can see if I juggle multiple projects at the same time... often, that involves a good deal of creative travel as well!

I do have a sort of "pecking" order for the jobs that I take... obviously the first to be considered are the established Early Music groups. Those are the bread and butter that pay the best, have the best artistic direction, and are the actual things that I specialise in! Next, come the less well-known Early Music groups... and then followed lastly by symphonic orchestra contracts. This all generally reflects the type of music that I'm most involved and specialised as... but I do also like to try and do as much as I can!

Anyway... back to the puzzle board! I will need to see if I can fit the symphonic contracts into the existing puzzle... So far, it isn't looking that good...

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Let's talk about Binance:

  • Binance Improperly used users' funds to take over the Steem blockchain
  • Binance does not always refund your money - violating our property
  • Binance is almost constantly with Hive in maintenance mode.
  • Binance will never return any Hive Dollars you send to it
  • This user sent Hive to Binance, and they refuse to refund it!

Read about it here

Ionomy, HitBTC, and Bittrex have always credited my account when there was a mistake in the memo after communicating with support.

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