April Business Tip

Beware: Someone could be pulling a nasty practical joke on you directly from your website...

Once upon a time, I included a link to a party planning website on my website. They were also kind enough to link back to me.

Months went by and cobwebs began to develop on my links page as I ignored it to pursue other online tasks. Then one day, I received an email from a visitor to my site, "Did you know that one of your links connects with a p*orn site?" Aaaaargh! How did that happen?

It turns out that the party planning site that I was linking to folded, and another company, a p*orn shop, bought that party planning site's URL.

Don't let this happen to you. Check all the links on your website regularly to make sure they are not dead, or worse, linking to sites that you had no intention of linking to in the first place.

It's not necessary to spend hours clicking on all the links on your website. Instead, download a friendly application that will check the viability of your links for you. My favorite is called Integrity, but there are many others available online.

More marketing tips are available for musicians (and all entrepreneurs) in my book, "The Musician's Guide to Brides" available wherever Hal Leonard Books are sold: music and bookstores, and through online retailers including sheetmusicplus.com, Amazon.com, and of course, at my website at www.celticharpmusic.com.

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You've certainly heard the phrase, "Don't quit your day job". But in this economy, many are choosing to leave their day job to do exactly what they want in life, and to make a living doing it. Whether you are a gigging musician, or a gigging freelancer in another field, I can help you to make a living doing just what you want to do, to find your own happy niche in the marketplace. Contact me to get started today.

Are You New to Performing At Weddings? Here Are Some Wedding Favorites to Get You Started

Do what you do best, and you’ll love what you do. The music you
play that resonates within you carries your own fingerprints.
Even if other musicians can play the same songs as you do, what
you bring to these songs is uniquely your own.

To get you started, this is a list of some wedding music
standards that you might want to consider including in your
repertoire:

Wedding Ceremony Music—The Common Requests

The Top Ten Classical Music Requests (in order by composer):

1. “Air in G” from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D (J.S. Bach)

2. “Ode to Joy” from Symphony No. 9(Beethoven)

3. “Trumpet Voluntary” or “Prince of Denmark’s March” (J.
Clarke)

4. “Clair de Lune” (C. Debussy)

5. “Hornpipe” from Water Music Suite (G.F. Handel)

6. “Wedding March” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (F.
Mendelssohn)

7. “Canon in D” (J. Pachelbel)

9. “Allegro From Spring”, first movement theme from The Four
Seasons (A. Vivaldi)

10. “Bridal March” from the opera Lohengrin or “Here Comes the
Bride” (R. Wagner)

Wedding Ceremony Music Alternatives (Because Not Every Bride
Wants to Enter to “Here Comes the Bride”):

Favorite choices for Christian weddings:

1. “Amazing Grace” (American Folk Melody)

2. “Ave Maria” (F. Schubert)

3. “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (J. S. Bach)

4. “The Lord’s Prayer” (A.H. Malotte)

5. “Simple Gifts” (Elder Joseph)

Favorite choices for Jewish weddings:

1. “Dodi Li” (N. Chen)

2. “Erev Ba” (O. Avissar & A. Levanon)

3. “Siman Tov” (traditional Israeli song)

4. “Sunrise Sunset” from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”

Favorite choices for Celtic weddings:

1. “Mairi’s Wedding”

2. “Star of the County Down”

3. “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”

4. “Skye Boat Song”

5. “My Wild Irish Rose”

This is a short excerpt from my new book, “The Musician’s Guide to Brides: How to Make Money Playing Weddings" published by Hal Leonard Books. I’m sure you can think of more tunes to add to these lists. Add them in your comments below and help out other musicians to get a good start playing at weddings. Next time in this blog, we’ll tackle timeless reception favorites.

View Anne’s new book--see some individual sample page

The book is available wherever Hal Leonard Books are sold: music and bookstores, and through online retailers (including Barnesandnoble.com, Sheetmusicplus.com , and Amazon.com). I may sound like I'm shamelessly promoting it here, but I really would like to have some constructive feedback about it. I fully intend to write future editions, so your feedback would be of great help to me. Please feel free to respond with your kind constructive comments, and certainly, respond with wedding favorites that you would like to add to the above lists.

My best to you,
Anne Roos
Celtic Harp Music by Anne Roos