Feedback please

RknRusty wrote:Okay Roddie. I've built a few fairly basic HTML websites for jewelry and other sales, things like that. They can be tricky. I'll check with three different browsers.
Rusty

Thanks Rusty! The link worked fine for me.. and the site was designed using a different PC/browser than the one I'm using right now.

Wow. I wish you the very best in success in this endeavor. I know for a fact that "Music Day" was my moms favorite day during her days in retired/assisted living. I'm sure the activities directors will be happy to have  a uplifting activity for their residents, much better that watching the ducks in the duck pond or water color painting. IF you don't already have, you should get some large print sing along songs printed to pass out to the residents and a encourage them to join in. ( you can wear earplugs !)

Your web page is very straightforward, uncluttered and easy to navigate. the cover picture of you, shown as you would appear in person is very acceptable as are the pictures of you in the band. I do like the Music samplers you've included. I almost hit the "Book Now" button, but don't have any upcoming events that my stereo won't handle.

Have you done any "market research" on your target business? IIRC my mom place was owned by a MUCH larger corporate entity. they had places all over the state, different Names, different locations, all with the same business model: Pack 'em in and collect the rent a month in advance...SO if its similar in your state you could hook up with one or two companies who could send you on a rotating basis to all the other facilities. You should do very well.  Again I wish you the best!

Marleysky wrote:Wow. I wish you the very best in success in this endeavor. I know for a fact that "Music Day" was my moms favorite day during her days in retired/assisted living. I'm sure the activities directors will be happy to have  a uplifting activity for their residents, much better that watching the ducks in the duck pond or water color painting. IF you don't already have, you should get some large print sing along songs printed to pass out to the residents and a encourage them to join in. ( you can wear earplugs !)

Your web page is very straightforward, uncluttered and easy to navigate. the cover picture of you, shown as you would appear in person is very acceptable as are the pictures of you in the band. I do like the Music samplers you've included. I almost hit the "Book Now" button, but don't have any upcoming events that my stereo won't handle.

Have you done any "market research" on your target business? IIRC my mom place was owned by a MUCH larger corporate entity. they had places all over the state, different Names, different locations, all with the same business model: Pack 'em in and collect the rent a month in advance...SO if its similar in your state you could hook up with one or two companies who could send you on a rotating basis to all the other facilities. You should do very well.  Again I wish you the best!

Thank You Marleysky. The large-font song lyrics is key. Probably 4-5 well known songs/visit. I have a pretty good "bank" of songs.. but could always use suggestions. There are nearly one hundred facilities within a 20mi. radius of my home base. I need to transfer the list I have, to a spread-sheet. Business cards will be printed this week. We wanted to duplicate the webpages' "header-font".. but we can't copy it.. and we can't find it. My wife designed the site. She's a DOLL!!

Good feedback is hard to come by. And Marley makes some really good points that I wouldn't have thought of. When I did a lot of writing, I remember so many times handing someone a composition to read and help me tune it up and fix errors. They almost always handed it back, saying, "Duh, yeah, looks good just like it is, man." I hate that!

So I try to offer constructive critique, as writing and presenting are a large part of what I used to make a living doing. And do for fun now. So please take my comments as just that. Ask ten good writers and you'll get 12 different opinions, all of which may be just as right, but you have to consider and decide. Here's my take on what I see so far in Chrome:

In the late '90s through mid 2000s, I used Front Page. This is not written in the simple form of html that I used, so I couldn't understand much of the syntax. It does look like you instructed it to be Chrome compatible, which is the first browser I've looked at it with. Here are some points I feel need to be addressed.

*** The "Home" page is great. Friendly and identifying. Good simple interesting, even eclectic depth to the photo.

*** Your "About" page is a perfect composition, however I strongly feel it should be presented in First Person. Because you're reaching out to the reader, trying to give them a feel about how you will be for them, and who you will be to their audience. As opposed to sounding like you're telling them about your buddy, who's a great entertainer. I think FP would instill a more personal connection with the reader. But it really is a good page, aside from some punctuation that's not wrong, but changing in a way I personally prefer, for the sake of quick uptake by the reader. We can discuss this best on the phone.

*** The "Listen Now" page is simple and to the point. Part of its job is to ensure the reader is not getting bored and is enjoying exploring RJL. For instance, I took the POV of an interested recreation director and came away with an idea of the effect it will have on this person. I think it can be adjusted as follows: After the Loving is the most instantly endearing song of the bunch. A slam Dunk. But that's just MHO. That song nailed me in the first ten seconds and I had no hesitation to keep listening. This is why I would recommend reversing the order of the list. You've now led them to the place where presently they're thinking about how your show might appeal to their wonderful old charges. When After the Loving is played first, the reader is hopefully excited with your style of relaxed but exhilarating fun. I think now after previewing the first two songs, they may believe the closing element of your demo, Cabaret and it's wide familiarity would make their old folks' COPD fade a bit and get them smiling and clapping their hands, and remembering a classic fun song of their lives... maybe even spinning their wheelchairs in circles and tapping their canes to the favorite old beat. (pardon, I don't speak the language of music and musical critique)

*** Add an e-mail tag to your e-mail address text, such as the following code


*** Is it supposed to be spelled with two "i"s in Roddie?

*** Remove the hyperlink from the "Book Now!" button on the "Booking" page. It may be mildly confusing or at worst, possibly distracting.

*** Slow the Gallery slideshow to 4 seconds. I wanted to look at each picture longer, enough time to form an impression of what your show looks like, get another look at your personality.

*** The top navigation bar may need a larger font. It's good that you don't use buttons. A bottom nav bar is an easy option too, but necessary.

That's all I have right now. Tomorrow, I'll look with IE and Firefox to see if there are any inconsistencies.
Hope that helps,
Rusty

Firefox 16.0.2


Safari 5.0.6

It wouldn't load in Opera 11.01 or the extra old Internet Explorer 5.2

I need to update this MacBook LOL, still running 10.5.8. We have several update discs somewhere around the house that was used for the other Macs but I don't know where they went (oops!). I'll have to go to the Apple Store one of these days and get a replacement disc, they'll replace the disc as they can look up and see that we did purchase the "family pack".


You should get yourself in the studio and record some stuff to put on cassette and CD to sell after your performances.

I basically spent over half a year at two different nursing homes when my grandma was there for therapy, we stayed with her from morning to night and either my mother or I stayed overnight with her every night. From my observations, those places need people to come in and put on a show. At one nursing home, a guy would come in and play piano once a week and some other acts was a guy playing a guitar and some tap dancing group. At the other nursing home, there was a polka band that would come and play once every two weeks or so along with a few other musical acts. I bought a cassette from a country guitar player/singer that was playing at one of the homes. He had cassettes and CDs available and handed out order forms after the performance to anyone who was interested in one and couldn't pay for it right then. They could take it back to the room and fill it out with cash, check or credit card # and then give it to a nurse later on.

Thanks very much Rusty and Jacob. My wife designed the page in "WIX" which is advertised as a DIY "easy as drag and drop" deal.. but; what should have taken my poor wife a few hours to complete.. took the whole weekend (10-12 hours anyway) Then there was the embedding of "Sound-Cloud" to link/play the tunes.

Rusty, I'll have Lynne read your comments when she comes home from work tonight. I mentioned your "first person" aspect to my bio to her, before she left for work this morning. She disagreed.. but I did not read your comments verbatim. She feels it's inline with most Musician's bios that she's read. She also specifically thought that "Cabaret" should be first in the playlist when we initially set the order of the three tunes. Lynne and I both felt that "Cabaret" being first; provides a "happy energy" up-front.. which could make a big difference to an Activity Director. I'm glad that you like "After the Loving" though. There's more "going on" musically in that tune than the other two. After the Loving has 4 separate tracks consisting of Piano, Vocal, Strings and Bass.. which allowed for some stereo R/L mixing. Cabaret is two tracks (Piano/Vocal) and the Third Man (instrumental) medley is just a single Piano track. The stereo-mix that "ATL" has, is lacking in the other two songs. I recently recorded America's "Lonely People" and the Beatle's "Nowhere Man"... but not for this project. Those two songs have 8-9 tracks with lots of vocal harmonies as well as a harmonica solo (Lonely People) and lots of stereo "panning" to really provide some depth and separation.

Jacob, Thanks for providing the alternate browser screen-shots of my homepage. I see that the header (RLJ MUSIC) is messed-up in both.. as well as the top-right section; as viewed in Firefox 16.0.2 I don't know if anything can be done about that. Maybe slightly decreasing the "RLJ" font-size and/or re-centering might fix it? My wife Lynne has more patience and knowledge with computers than I do. We also have completely different methods of navigation than each other. Sometimes it takes the two of us together to solve a problem though. She got frustrated several times while using WIX. She thought it should be as easy as they claim.. and it wasn't for her.

This is GOOD feedback.. and I really appreciate it!

Looks fine to me on latest Chrome and MicroSoft Win 7

I personally do not like the background color but that is just me

I agree the Bio should be first person.... seemed impersonal the way it is written

The Gallery photos are good.... increase the "hang time" a bit so viewer can enjoy the photo

Sincerely wish you much success

Entrepreneurs are part of what makes America great!

Roddie, other than testing it in some other browsers, which I'll do tonight, I think I covered my impressions pretty well. I didn't expect to be showered with agreement, so that's why I sprunkle an "IMO" here and there. Lol, I made up another new word, I should catalog those. Let me know if there is anything else I can do. Good luck.

And Lynne, none of these programs are easy to use, like they all claim. I've burned a lot of midnight oil cursing at Front Page, and always had to compromise to get it to work across all the platforms. I'll see if I can turn up any bugs and let y'all know what I find. Probably not much though. The pages are nice and simple, just as they should be. Good work.
Rusty

fredvon4 wrote:Looks fine to me on latest Chrome and MicroSoft Win 7

I personally do not like the background color but that is just me

I agree the Bio should be first person.... seemed impersonal the way it is written

The Gallery photos are good.... increase the "hang time" a bit so viewer can enjoy the photo

Sincerely wish you much success

Entrepreneurs are part of what makes America great!

Thank You very much Fred. You and Rusty are in agreement on both; the "first-person" aspect of my bio.. and slowing-down the slide-show in the gallery. I definitely agree that the slide-show's speed is too fast. We initially had problems getting the slide-show to work. Maybe a few personal changes here and there in my bio would be good. Again; I appreciate all of this commentary very much.

Roddie,

The 3rd person doesn't bother me that much. I had a look on websites of collegue surveyors and survey companies and the sites are all written in the 3rd person. I think you should consider it as a website, presenting your company, and not as a letter written by yourself about yourself. Keep the 3rd person!!

On your homepage, I would put your activity more in the centre of the page and not in a corner, i.e. the phrase "Piano and Vocals
for Your NEXT Event". Why not moving that below yor picture? When the home page opens, eyes atomatically focus on what's in the middle of the page and not what's written in the corners. What do you think?

I wish you good luck and success!!

One more idea

I frequently stumble across web pages of something I am interested in

In many cases it is impossible to tell WHERE the person or event is, even from hitting the contact me/us link

We here on CEF know you to be around N. Smithfield, Rhode Island.

I think some where you might add general location you are located and perhaps a reasonable range you are willing to travel to for a "gig"

What I forgot to say; when googling "rljmusic", your website is not known. However, a chap with a YouTube account RLJMUSIC exists and what a coincidence, he's also a musician. His name is Ray Lawrence Jr.

https://www.youtube.com/user/rljmusic

You don't want to make any publicity for him!!

Lieven

Hi Lieven! I guess our googling rljmusic would have initially been a good idea huh? I probably should have mentioned in my OP.. that "I will be soliciting" regional Assisted-Living Activity-Directors with the URL; www.rljmusic.com which when typed into their browser, will bring them to my website. I was not expecting any solicitations from Activity Directors whom I had not contacted first. This particular business is greatly driven by communication/networking between regional Activity-Directors. Once you establish a good reputation with them.. they will gladly give you an endorsement and/or refer you to others A.D.'s in the region.  

If I were looking for "Gen. Business" work as a Pianist/Vocalist, a website would be a lot different.. and more "searchable".

Thanks again everyone! This is a big help to me.

RknRusty wrote:

*** Add an e-mail tag to your e-mail address text, such as the following code


*** Is it supposed to be spelled with two "i"s in Roddie?

Rusty, Sorry.. I forgot to answer this. Yes.. the two i's are correct. Thanks for checking though. We tested that notification link.. and it works. It's also set up to link to Lynne's smartphone.. in case I accidentally overlook an email notification.

Lynne and I will be re-reading all of these comments over the next few nights.. so please feel free "everyone".. to comment if you can think of anything else. We will surely be changing a few things throughout the site.

Thanks again!

Roddie just got around to reading/listening to the site , I am no expert but I do know what I like or not . Slow down the gallery can you make the pictures bigger ? The songs are great but I did notice on after the loving I had to turn up the volume , can you make that song the same as the others ? Will the people in the homes see this or just for advertising / the sound is of the 1930-1940s ? and some pics of that error would be a prize as the music plays . You have a real talent and is wonderful that you are wanting to share with the more unfortunate / and lonely people in the community ( to bring that smile to someone is a gift in its self ) Eric ... Best of Luck to you brother .

getback wrote:Roddie just got around to reading/listening to the site , I am no expert but I do know what I like or not . Slow down the gallery can you make the pictures bigger ? The songs are great but I did notice on after the loving I had to turn up the volume , can you make that song the same as the others ? Will the people in the homes see this or just for advertising / the sound is of the 1930-1940s ?  and some pics of that error would be a prize as the music plays . You have a real talent and is wonderful that you are wanting to share with the more unfortunate / and lonely people in the  community ( to bring that smile to someone is a gift in its self ) Eric ... Best of Luck to you brother .

Thanks Buddy, Yes.. the slideshow speed can and will be slowed down. I don't think that the photos can be made to display larger.. I'll have to ask Lynne about that.

I could adjust the output level of "After the Loving".. to be higher. I should have paid a little more attention to the output-levels when I "bounced" the sessions to disc with my recording software. Actually; "Cabaret" and "Third Man medley" both have particularly "hot" output-levels.. because of my piano playing style. The harder I hit the piano keys.. the louder it plays. It would probably be easier to "reduce" the levels on those two songs.. than to "increase" the output-level of "After the Loving".

My website will only be viewed by "Activity-Directors" whom I provide the link to. I suppose it's possible that some A.D.'s may share it with certain residents for an opinion.

I relate very well with Seniors. I enjoy conversing with them.. and am always interested in their stories. When you think about it; once they're in a "home".. "their stories" are often all that they have left. It inspires me to provide entertainment that might put a smile on their face, bring back a memory.. or entice them into singing or just "tapping along" with the rhythm. That's the SINGLE most important element of what I'll be doing.

Just an update on my business venture. It's not going well at all.. which is disturbing to me. I have found that most; if not all clients, have booked their entertainment for 2015 already. Even if I were to "substitute" in place of a cancellations, I couldn't get enough gigs to have an income that I could count on. It would be too sporadic.

This was poor planning on my part. If I had done a little research beforehand.. I would have known what I was up against. At least the "band" season is resuming, following a 3 month hiatus.

On a positive note; I was accepted this morning, for a local part-time retail position that will bring in some income.

The ramen-noodle-eating Roddie

Just a thought as a officer in my local VFW, American Legion, as well as DAV, AMVETS. We always get requests from new start up entertainers, (solo, band, DJ etc) to play "for the door" or "donations" or in the case of good acts they want between $500 to $2500 for a couple hour gig.... we are poor club so we book a lot of the free acts and usually they are a bust. Our cheap customers expect it is just a freebie and listen while they suck up low cost beers.

That said, occasionally we hire someone like your act and the customers have a lot of fun and ask when "they" are coming back. Eventually word gets around and on the days when "they" are playing, we get increased crowd, the ACT makes more "donations" or the "door" is pretty good. ($200~$500)

One of these ACTs, Bahama Bille and Renee got their start in our VFW. Now we have to get in line to book them once a month...Because they "made it" in our club they donate their time for Free for the afternoon or evening...but they are so well liked our bar ladies solicit donations from the customers and later give the "jar" to them

Bottom line from my rambling is to NOT forget the service organizations in your area...especially the ones to have a canteen/bar with perhaps bingo, Pool tournaments, "benefit" events to raise money for some cause, or other frequent entertainment needs...You will never make a fortune--- but you will get exposure

fredvon4 wrote:Just a thought as a officer in my local VFW, American Legion, as well as DAV, AMVETS. We always get requests from new start up entertainers, (solo, band, DJ etc) to play "for the door" or "donations" or in the case of good acts they want between $500 to $2500 for a couple hour gig.... we are poor club so we book a lot of the free acts and usually they are a bust. Our cheap customers expect it is just a freebie and listen while they suck up low cost beers.

That said, occasionally we hire someone like your act and the customers have a lot of fun and ask when "they" are coming back. Eventually word gets around and on the days when "they" are playing, we get increased crowd, the ACT makes more "donations" or the "door" is pretty good. ($200~$500)

One of these ACTs, Bahama Bille and Renee got their start in our VFW. Now we have to get in line to book them once a month...Because they "made it" in our club they donate their time for Free for the afternoon or evening...but they are so well liked our bar ladies solicit donations from the customers and later give the "jar" to them

Bottom line from my rambling is to NOT forget the service organizations in your area...especially the ones to have a canteen/bar  with perhaps bingo, Pool tournaments, "benefit" events to raise money for some cause, or other frequent entertainment needs...You will never make a fortune--- but you will get exposure

Thank You Fred. I'll keep "plugging away".. "Donating" my time as an entertainer may help to get things going.. but my financial situation dictates earning some $$ immediately. Things are looking up though. This has been a grueling Winter.. being unemployed.. let me tell you.