Photo by gcoldironjr2003
Step 10 in increasing your chances of getting on any vocal reality show should be that you need to learn how to make eye contact and sell the song and the experience.

One of THE MOST important skills you need to master is eye contact. If you are uncomfortable making eye contact in general you’ll need to overcome that fear. Otherwise, the judges will notice your lack of confidence. Great artists know how to connect with their audience.

To help you overcome your fear, a good practice is to lock into the eyes of the person you are engaging in conversation. Stare them down. You can actually make it a game and see how long it takes them to start feeling uncomfortable and look the other way. Eye contact is the cornerstone to an artists’ confidence. Think about this. If you go to a concert or meet your favorite artist, wouldn’t you feel more engaged with the artist if he or she notices you and looks you directly in the eyes? I believe you would. When you are performing your song, don’t just stare uncomfortably into outer space. Deliver your song to the audience, the judges! Sell them. Convince them you’ve lived the song you are singing. Master this skill of eye contact while performing. Even if your vocal performance may not be the best, confident eye contact could make the difference in you getting to the next round!

Here is a quick story about eye contact. When I was performing showcases for record labels, oftentimes the room would be full of men. Imagine singing a love song to that audience. Sheesh! If you are a male singer, then this is uncomfortable to say the least. I eventually overcame the discomfort and turned it into one of my new weapons. What I found out was that the more I stared them down, the more uncomfortable THEY became. I had just flipped the script on them. What I demonstrated to them was that I wasn’t scared; I was willing to sing to them any song, of any subject, to convince them that I had what it takes to become a recording artist. Not sure what they thought but it worked for me.

That wraps our series of ten tips on how to audition for American Idol for this month. Be sure to check out our YouTube Channel-My Idol Time for plenty of videos that will give you the edge to get on your favorite vocal reality show!

I’m the author of “My Idol Time” and vocal producer on AI. Find more on how to audition for American Idol . Get my e-book on how to audition for American Idol by going to Amazon or at BnN.

Photo by rcanepaWhoever you are and whatever you do for a living, there’s a great possibility that music plays a great role in your life. That is because this type of art doesn’t require any special knowledge, nor a certain personality: people of all kinds are attracted to it and can benefit from listening or playing music. If you’re interested in the ways in which music can improve your life, read on for some interesting facts.

First of all, everyone knows that music can greatly influence your state of mind. For instance, when you feel depressed and you happen to listen to some upbeat, energetic songs, you might find that you will feel better in just a short while. On the other hand, if you’re all pumped up and want to relax a bit so you can get a good night’s sleep, it might be enough to play a soothing record of your choice and you will soon be on your way to Dreamland.

By relaxing you, music can also influence some of your medical conditions. For instance, it can help stabilize one’s blood pressure, heart rate, make you breathe deeper and better, thus reducing the risk of a stroke or of any other serious illnesses. Harmonious sounds are also said to have an effect on the brain, making its waves more regular and in sync with the heart rhythm. In addition to this, music improves concentration skills and learning capacities, so it can lead to better grades in students, too.

Another great benefit of this art form is that it can sometimes act as a natural pain killer. When you listen to music, your body starts producing endorphins, which make you feel more relaxed, while at the same time working against chronic pain. However, that doesn’t mean that you ought to forgo all medical treatments and rely only on this, because it might not work so well. Instead, take your pills as the doctors prescribed and set apart an hour or two for listening to your favorite tunes. If nothing else, you will at least feel happier than before.

Finally, be aware that music doesn’t only mean listening; it can also include actively playing music, whether you do it for fun or as a profession. Therefore, grab the nearest guitar and an effects pedal and play like you’ve never done before; it will make you feel like a million bucks and at least for a few moments, all your worries will seem far away.

If you’re looking to buy an effects pedal, go to Sounds Great Music.

Photo by dobrych
It seems like music in present times is lacking the magic it had in the past. Everyone is in the middle of an avalanche of songs that are technically changed to sound “in”, yet the result is an unsatisfactory pile of sounds, electronic support and less voice. There is a culture of global consumption and performers appear not to possess the aptitudes that enable them to offer to the public an ingenious music masterpiece.

One of the denominators responsible for a state of banality is owed to the fact that many artists cover already original songs. They change the format of a melody from past decades like the 80s and the 90s and give them a modern twist as far as sound is concerned. Regrettably, the result succeeds unanimously to upset the listeners and remains at the stage of being an unlucky endeavor to produce something novel.

Originality is not full of infinite resources. Nevertheless, in past decades music was genuine and succeeded in mesmerizing the audience, attribute that present music lacks. The issue is that surrounded by hi-tech approach you cannot feel the lyrics or the message they convey for that matter. All the “smashing hits” are like a global chorus, using autotune and being ruled by beats whereas the voice is something left in the background.

If you want to reconnect with originality, a suggestion would be to attempt to learn the secrets of instruments that express freshness, such as the guitar. You can procure one and try to create something singular with the help of the thrilling strings. At Sounds Great Music, effects pedal is an excellent acquisition if you are passionate about giving a new face to the value of your music. Practice makes perfect, so how about making in time a contemporary song?

The cause of the actual uninspired music entertainment successes lies in the fact that a majority of them do not succeed to originate a communion between the listeners and the music lines. They are simply emblematic for an originality that seems eclipsed. Metaphorically speaking, in order to cast the darkness away and welcome the sun again, there is a need of inspiration that can be a savior for all that serves the purpose of massive consumption and not that of offering fascination to one’s hearing.

It is essential to get rid of this label of monotonous music with lyrics that are not too smart and artists should focus their attention on simple things like a guitar tune or a piano and add their voice in the equation. They can pair the instrument with the resourceful voice and exclude hackneyed lyrics and explicit videos. Artists should attempt to capture the fundamentals of originality with the help of essential and forever actual instruments!

At Sounds Great Music, effects pedal is a marvelous purchase if you wish ardently to get some progress in the value of your music.

First day of the New Year… what can we say about the old one? Many problems we faced, worldwide. The crisis is still ahead, but all the Countries are working to solve it soon. I feel a new atmosphere today. People are more relaxed, the New Year brings fresh air of positive energy.

A new year ahead, and Arts win

When economy, pragmatism, materialism and left brain methods fail, Arts help and right brain can give you what you need: love, hope, creation, imagination, a change.

Museums record higher than expected attendance in all the world.

But it is not only a kind of healing salve. Arts help you understand better the world, yourself, the others and the society.

Many of you will say: but we just need to be Rational, Analytical, Objective. Wrong! you are not a machine!

Arts will teach you that problems can have more than one solution, that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity.

Small differences can have large effects.

You don’t live to work, you work to live, and you live to be happy and to love.

We just need to grab the intuition we lost with all the materialism in the world. I know it’s not an easy task but 2009 will be an year of change for everyone, and for the best. I wish you all the best, my friends, and Happy New Year!

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Matti Mattila wrote for us A musician story. He is back with a new article, this time a technology topic that I’m sure will interest many of you.

Exporting Outlook mail messages

I ran into a whole new problem a week ago when my six years old computer stopped working. The “Old Faithful” had served me for years, but now she finally wanted to get retired. Well, that was something she certainly had deserved after all these precious moments. I now look her sadly kicking her heels on the floor and waiting for a new life as spare parts somewhere else. The new and energetic beauty hums silently and dignified on my desk at the very same place the Old Lady was sitting before only a few days ago.

She runs on Windows Vista, which is quite a beauty but not a beast. The old wrinkly ran Windows XP, but already showed exhaustion under the too heavy workload. Now everything is changed, even my mail application turned from Outlook 2000 into a brand new Windows Mail.

Shifting from XP to Vista raised a bunch of new and unpredictable problems to solve. First of all was my new mail client. It works like a charm and that’s why I wanted to move my six-years-old email message archive from Outlook to this new client, but everything didn’t go as planned. Windows Mail could not interact with Outlook 2000 despite I set Outlook as my default mail client. This path came to its dead-end and I needed completely new approach.

My programming background was a relief as I understood that I can write a small VBA script to rescue my old messages. After thorough investigation I decided to individually save each mail message as an eml file. This format is widely understood by many different mail clients, so it was an excellent choice.

Unfortunately native Outlook 2000 lacks ability to export in eml format. Actually the format follows strictly RFC 822 specification, so writing such a script wouldn’t be too complicated. But I waited a second before rushing to code.

A quick search with my favorite search engine gave me pain relief. I found an Outlook Redemption library on the net, which would answer all my questions exporting messages from Outlook PST storage as single files. Redemption object library gives new functions thus expanding the basic Outlook object model. One of these important functions is saving a message as RFC 822 format. This is exactly what I was looking for, so writing a short script was merely whistling and wheeling.

First we need to download the Redemption object library. It’s free for development purposes and this would be enough for our sample. The second stage is unpacking the zipped file. After that the installation is just registering the library in the command prompt as follows:

regsvr32.exe C:[full path]redemption.dll

The example above assumes that you unzip the package on your hard disk in a folder you specify replacing [full path] placeholder. Finally, we need to make a reference to this library in Outlook Visual Basic editor. To do so, select Tools / References and tick the checkbox next to Redemption Outlook Library. All the objects will be exposed to the project as soon as you click OK. The following code snippet shows the basic idea on how to save the first message in Inbox as test.eml file.

Dim o As Redemption.SafeMailItem
dim i As Outlook.Explorer
Set i = ThisOutlookSession.Explorers.Item(1).Explorer
Set o = CreateObject(“Redemption.SafeMailItem”)

o.Item = i.CurrentFolder.Items.Item(1)
o.SaveAs “test.eml”, Redemption.rdoSaveAsType.olRFC822
Set o = Nothing
Set i = Nothing

Knitting the rest of the code should be relatively easy. A loop would do the most of the task while it recursively loops through the messages in Outlook folders. Each mail item is saved with unique name on the disk. Restoring these messages to Windows Mail is just dragging and dropping the files into the appropriate folders. So, thanks to Redemption for giving me these great tools to export my Outlook mail message into Windows Mail.

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Joyce Boncal wrote this exclusive article for us.

Artwork Displayed in Unusual Places

If you’re young, budding artist, hoping to be discovered, where can you display your artwork? There is always your own web page but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you can afford to advertise that web page. This very web environment, ManuelMarino.com, is a good starting place. You might try your local library. Some libraries show works of art by local artists but are sure to ask if they also sell artwork on commission.

Also consider entering your work at a country fair or displaying your work in offices and restaurants. Contact your area art league for their ideas about local opportunities. If you’re a student at a college, most have yearly art shows. Then there are craft consignment shops selling everything from jewelry to framed photographs.

How about a local laundromat? Wait, before you laugh, think of the high volume of traffic a laundromat gets. I’m thinking of a local laundromat that is a cafe, laundry center, and entertainment hub called Spin Cycle Cafe Laundromat in Newington, CT. In addition to people coming in to do laundry, you have people coming in to eat, people coming in to watch a movie, etc. all the while your painting, photograph, or sketch is hanging on the wall for all the world to see.

At Spin Cycle, on the wall, are several paintings and pieces of art. One captivating piece of work was created by an artist named Lindsey Behrens. It’s a silkscreen piece of artwork where she used two different woodcuts to get the desired effect. The background is the earth as seen from outerspace and the foreground is a caveman in a flying saucer flying over the earth. There is something mesmerizing about this piece of artwork so I wasn’t surprised when I learned that it sold for $210.00.

I called Lindsey to learn about her art education. She studied art in college and gets her art inspiration from her young son and the outdoor environment around her. She heard about displaying artwork at Spin Cyle simply by word of mouth. She recommends young artists try to display their work at art shows, frame shops, galleries, art events, and, of course laundromats.

You just never know where your art talent might be discovered.

This is a very interesting story about a director with a great idea but no money. Kely McClung is a director writer actor editor. He’s been able to film his movie with no money and very low resources. But he made it! The award winning Blood Ties is his first feature film. His first short film, AM Session, was recently nominated for HBO’s Short Film Award. Here’s what he wrote for us.

How to film an award winning movie with no money

The four year, twenty-three day, ninety-three minute movie!

Yeah, yeah. The movie’s not that long, it just has been for me. Everyone else, besides friends and family, will get to see the 93 minute version. And the reality is, I might be on it another couple years, though what anyone sees will still be the 93 minute version.

“Blood Ties” was filmed with no money by a crew of three in both the US and Thailand (with just a few moments over the border into Cambodia). Just to make things a bit more complicated, we filmed in the mountains of Virginia, Washington D.C. on the Mall, The Port of Miami, and Atlanta. Our crew numbers stayed at a maximum of three and our cast grew to 154.

And post production? Me. Sound, visual effects, editing, ADR, Foley, graphics, titles, music? Me. Which is not to say everything is great, it’s just what we could afford on a no budget movie. Every time I’d get ready to fire myself, I’d remember that I’m the only guy I could afford! And even with that, I definitely had some long talks with myself.
Is it worth watching? We hope so, and our success on the beginning of the film circuit says we might be right.

Blood Ties won The Action on Film International Film Festival’s “Action Film of the Year”, The Audience Award for “Best Director” at the Big Bang Film Festival, “Best of the Festival” at the Indie Fest USA International Film Festival, “Best Visual Effects” at the same, and has been nominated for various other awards at various other festivals.

Could I teach something about directing? Yeah, probably, even though Blood Ties is a first movie. About editing? Yeah, I’m known as a strong editor. After Effects, sound editing, composing for film, and 200 other subjects involved in making a movie? I’m pretty sure I could. But that’s not want I want to teach or preach or pass on in these few words.

The lesson I hope to share right now is in creating a vision – not only of the movie and what you want it to be but how you want to be perceived – keeping it in mind, and striving toward it with as little compromise as possible no matter how long it takes. Knowing that in twenty or thirty years, your first film won’t matter in the scheme of things except that it will always be, no matter how successful or not, your first film.

One of the things to strive for is surrounding yourself with a strong cheering section. My film partner, my family, my amazing girlfriend. Though they might not physically take on the work, without them, there is no movie.

My film partner, Robert Pralgo put up the initial money, as well as a seemingly endless trickle of money since. He also co-starred, help cast, pushed, pulled and dared me to make a better movie than what we thought was possible.

My family never talked down to me even though I am the one brother of five who they all have to worry about if I have a roof over my head.

And the Amazing Amanda let me see the movie from many different angles, again setting me up to challenge myself to make it even stronger.

Our crew of three rotated several times, and our cast gave their all because they somehow knew that I believed in what I was doing. There would be no movie without all of their many efforts. I give credit to almost everyone I meet and genuinely mean and feel it. They color the way I look at myself and my work, and are reflected in the images jumping around on screen.

And jump around they do! Blood Ties embraced the hand held look simply because I knew where I was wanting to shoot, a tripod, a dolly, or a steadicam would get us arrested. “You mean you aren’t supposed to shoot on the Mall or the Port or in the streets of a foreign country without permission?” Permission is relatively easy to get, if you pay for it. And that just wasn’t part of the budget!

I am sure I could talk about the making of the movie for the about the same length of time it took to make it. And maybe I’ll get the chance to write more. There is a lot more information on our website and other people are starting to talk and write as well.

What I hope with this introduction is to pass on the challenge to others to make the movies they want to see. To learn and persevere. To look at the art around them and if they find themselves saying “I could do that” – then to do it!

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Dr. Roberto Dillon has written this article about his Music-Emotion Driven Game Engine. I think this idea to really have potential.

Game Engine

In the fast developing world of videogames, sound has traditionally played a less important role than other features, such as graphics. Nonetheless, recently, due to the latest technological advances, both developers and audiences alike have understood how much sound and music can do to enhance gaming experiences and increase the overall realism and emotional impact of virtual worlds.

Today, many music games are being released with great acclaim on different formats but many of these games tend to be in the rhythm/action category where the player is actually “reacting” to music while a real and natural “interaction” with this medium is still lacking.

This aspect is currently being addressed by a team of researchers and developers at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore, led by Italian computer engineer Dr. Roberto Dillon, with a project codenamed M-EDGE (“Music-Emotion Driven Game Engine”) which is fully supported by the National Research Foundation of Singapore.

The underlying idea of the project is to assess and further investigate music related cognitive science topics and integrate the results into games by designing and developing an interactive and emotionally-aware musical game engine that enables players to experiment with a completely new gaming interface.

In fact, by using this engine as a development tool, game developers will be able to build content on top of it where players are not limited to control their actions in the virtual world by using standard interfaces, like a mouse or keyboard, but also to directly affect the game progress by expressing emotional content through the playing of a real musical instrument.

To accomplish this, M-EDGE will be developed to recognize different basic emotions (like happiness, sadness and anger) as expressed by players in their musical playing on an instrument of their choice like flute, guitar, violin or drums.

This information can then be used to control the game accordingly by allowing the player’s in-game character to perform particular tasks or by developing the game story in particular directions. For example, one of the games currently being designed by Dr. Dillon to test the system capabilities is based on the well known legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. In the game the player will impersonate the Piper himself by actually playing a flute and go through the storyline, including its multiple endings as described by different versions of the original legend, according to the emotions he will be able to express through his very own playing and hence decide the fate of Hamelin young people.

Obviously, this kind of games would be a great tool for players who have previous musical knowledge and know how to play a musical instrument, nonetheless special attention will also be dedicated to give a chance of successful playing to people who never played music before. This will be achieved by allowing prospective players to experiment with simple percussive instruments so as to give a chance and an incentive to get into the fascinating world of music making through games to as many people as possible.

The Singaporean team believes the concept of an emotion-based music game engine like this would represent a leap forward within the music games genre and could also have a strong potential for commercial exploitations, besides having a valuable educational side. In fact, as suggested, it will actually encourage people to learn and practice music through a challenging and fun tool where all players, from beginners to professionals, will be given a chance to freely express themselves through music, something no other game has ever done before.

Besides these, more serious and medical applications could also be possible: the final framework could, in fact, be a valuable tool in assisting emotionally impaired people to practice and experiment with their feelings under supervision of a physician/psychologist.

The project, though still in its early stages, is raising a good interest in the gaming community and has already been presented at the Game Convention Asia Conference in Singapore last September. For those interested, slides of the presentation can be downloaded from Dr. Dillon’s website.

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This is the Part Two of the powerful article by Deremiah. (Part One)

Creative Ideas (Part Two)

RELATIONSHIPS INFLUENCE THE POWER OF YOUR IDEAS…

Brian Tracy who has done a lot of research to compile the information in his wonderful book “CREATE YOUR OWN FUTURE” expresses in Chapter 7, page 115 that Relationships Are Essential toward the development of your future. The Power of Ideas are improved by the friendships we develop and nurture. Most people underestimate how their friends impact the direction they are going and will continue to go in as a result of the company they choose. Sometimes you have to realign yourself with new partnerships in business, new personal and business relationships just to place yourself in a more positively influential environment with others who have the same values that you do. When you begin to hang out, spend time talking with people who reflect the kinds of attitudes that uplift you. It’s just as important to get yourself moving in the right direction as it is to get an electric current to the right appliance or device you’re trying to power. Like electric current powerful ideas have to be directed. It’s very important that if we want to be successful business people that we need to hang out with other successful business people. If you want to be elevating the level of the power of your ideas you need to begin to elevate your level of friendships. Edward Bernays said it best in his book called “Propaganda” where he references many times that a large volume of our society is often being governed by a small handful of influential people. So who are the small influential players in your commiunity? How could you influence the relationships you desire to have in the art world, the music world, or the business world that governs a great deal of the future direction of those industries? Finally how can you gain recognition and be known as one of the Kings or Queens of your industry?

ELECTRICITY AND THE POWER OF IDEAS BOTH OPERATE IN STREAMS…

Real electric power moves in streams we call currents. Those currents flow in the direction we aim them in. Now the Power of Ideas works the same way. The more powerful the idea the more others join in to move along with the flow of our stream. So it becomes very important that others know that the ideas that we have are electric. The sooner others find out and hear or see the impact that our elecritc current has the better it is for us and the sooner they can jump into the stream and add to the flow of the current. When an idea doesn’t have a charge it will fail to add it’s electricity to the atmosphere. It’s like the creative atmosphere of our house when I was a child was conducive for bringing about more artistic gifts because the atmosphere was charged with a certain current for the arts. How can you charge the atmosphere of your home or your job to create the type of electricity that gives your ideas the power to channel themselves into a boisterous stream that grows?

WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO INFLUENCE THE POWER OF YOUR IDEAS.

I have over 21 things you can do to unleash the “Power of Ideas” but I’ll give you 4 today that will free you up to live more creatively right now. If you’d like to get 3 more Free ideas shoot me an email at deremiahcpe@gmail.com . And the first 20 people to respond who use the headline “More Power of Ideas for me, Deremiah *CPE” and give me their name and mailing address I’ll give you a Free opportunity to coach you via email (which means I’ll respond to no more than 7 of your emails…working toward helping you to solve the problem). Here are the four I said I would share with you right now.
1.) Make a list of 7 people you’d like to meet and then get on the internet and get to introducing yourself.
2.) Get a journal today and start using your journal like a Fishing Net to capture all the ideas you’re loosing.
3.) Turn your TV off for the next 30 days and dedicate your TV time to making one or more goals develop.
4.) Get a pack of 25 Thank you cards and force yourself to Thank at least 5 people everyday.

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Today we interview Robert Benson, who wrote the ebook called “The Fascinating Hobby Of Vinyl Record Collecting“.

Vinyl Collection

MM: Robert, when did you have the idea to write a book about Vinyl Record Collecting? It is an unusual (but also very fascinating) topic.

RB: The ebook started out as a five page “report” about the subject and just grew from there. There is so much detail that is involved in collecting vinyl, and I just wanted to cover the topic in the best way possible, hence the ebook. And, I have made it very affordable at $4.99 a copy and certainly am not getting rich selling it, but rather I get a keen sense of satisfaction in detailing and explaining the hobby to others. But, the beauty of a digital product like this is that I can add information, interviews and updated material anytime, in fact just six months ago the ebook was at 40 pages, it is now over 70 pages. I wanted to delve into why people collect, the thrill and passion, that not only do I get from collecting, but what other collectors and dealers feel about the hobby. I have over 10,000 records and love adding to my collection, the thrill of the hunt is special to me (and as I found out, to others as well). I do not sell my records, rather, I think that they will be passed on to my family and continue to appreciate in value.

Many people argue about Vinyl and the “old good quality”, are they right? We lost something with digital media?

Oh, yes, there is a “sound fingerprint” that is lost when music is “compressed” into digital format. I call it “binary sound” and the human ear hears music in analogue sound and that is why music on vinyl sounds so much better. In fact, ask any musician (many of who are vinyl record collectors) and they can tell you what compressing the music into digital sound does to the music; that “sound fingerprint” is lost. As for my opinion, music wasn’t meant to be heard as a bunch of 1′s and 0′s compressed together to form the sound, and vinyl records have been around since sound reproduction began; and quite frankly, aren’t going anywhere (remember the reel to reel tapes, eight-tracks and cassettes? vinyl withstood those sound formats for a reason, the sound quality)

What can you tell us about the new media trends and their future?

I had to chuckle when I read about this marketing ploy-they have combined a CD and vinyl into one product. One side is the music in CD format and the other side is a 3 minute vinyl record. Now, I don’t think this is the answer, but I would assume if you can get a hold of one of these, do so, I would think they may be highly collectible once the dust settles.

I have also taken a keen interest in what the band Radiohead has done with their latest release, in fact I have an article on my blog about it.

I am also writing band biographies and reviews about new independent bands for an Internet radio station and I feel that, although a lot of bands still release their product via vinyl or CD, the distribution methods are changing, which to me, is a good thing; a music lover can get to hear so much more music that they may have otherwise not have heard. Many bands are releasing their music independent of the record labels (i.e. Radiohead) and going to MySpace or CD Baby to get their music heard. But, bands will continue to release music on vinyl, because that is what the consumer is looking for.

What about your next projects?

I am currently working on another ebook about “bird” and “animal” names and groups in rock and roll (a daunting task!) and I am having a blast doing this. I also write for www.gemm.com, which is one of the largest vinyl retailers on the Internet (I do band bios and articles). I am also busy working up a couple of more web sites, which I hope to go “live” very soon. I am also involved with a wonderful organization headed by Gary Freiberg called Vinyl Record Day, which helps educate the public about the cultural and social impact that the vinyl record has had on our society. Vinyl Record Day also helps promote and preserve the wonderful art work that has been created throughout the years. I also answer emails that people have about vinyl as well as pursue my fascinating hobby of collecting vinyl records.

On a personal note, I want to thank you for your time and the opportunity to discuss my ebook and hope that you got as much enjoyment out of reading it, as I did putting it all together.

And I thank you, Robert, I wish you big success, your ebook is really charming.

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