Eric Miyashiro trumpet high notes on Give It One

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/IMoQF)
I had the great opportunity to live in Japan for 5 years. While I was stationed in Japan I also had the opportunity to meet Eric Miyashiro in person. It's a funny story really, I was at a music store near Tokyo and heard a trumpet player doing two octave lip slurs in the distance. I was curious to see who it was because the trumpet player was wailing up to double high Cs and beyond in his lip slurs.

I walked towards the trumpet high notes and to my utter amazement, Eric Miyashiro was in a separate room giving a Yamaha trumpet clinic to about 30 viewers. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. I stood outside as the clinic continued on. Eric Miyashiro continued to play some Maynard Ferguson type Jazz licks on different Yamaha trumpets. After each Maynard sound sample he spoke in Japanese about each trumpet.

After the clinic was finished, I seized the opportunity to introduce myself to Eric Miyashiro as he walked out of the room. I haphazardly told him I was a big fan. He asked me if I play. I told him I was in the Navy Band over in Yokosuka. He surprisingly got excited and happily stated that he loved performing with the Navy Band folks. He even mentioned a bunch of names of Navy cats that he used to work with.

That was my first experience meeting Eric Miyashiro. I got to see him perform several times while I was stationed in Japan. Great times!

I love this video of Eric Miyashiro performing Give it One. He has such a powerful trumpet sound.

Monster Bux paid to click community sign up bonus

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/6smOK)
I ran into yet another bux site, Monster Bux is free to join and they offer a $1.00 sign up bonus as well. I don't know how long the sign up bonus promotion is going to last, so take advantage of it as soon as possible. Just so you know, I'm not a huge fan of bux type websites. Monster Bux is no exception. I would recommend only signing up with Monster Bux if you promise me you WON'T:

• buy any referrals.


• put too much time into Monster Bux.


• upgrade in Monster Bux.


• don't buy advertising. (this is only because I haven't had much success advertising on bux sites)

Why am I asking you not to do these things? It's simply because I've seen a lot of bux sites come and go, what makes me think Monster Bux is going to be any different. Just keep you guard up and you should be fine.

But Greg, if you're asking me to not put any time or money into Monster Bux, what's the point of joining? This is a good question. I am only promoting Monster Bux because they are currently offering a free sign up bonus for joining, which I think is cool. Since Monster Bux is free to join and try, it wouldn't be a bad idea to give it a low maintenance test drive to see if you like the membership.

You can cash out with Monster Bux once you reach $2.00. This is pretty standard with most bux sites. If most clicks actually earn you a hefty 1 cent and you don't refer anyone, after your $1.00 sign up bonus, you'll have to click approximately 100 30 second ads before you can cash out. Unfortunately, Monster Bux only pays its members a monstrous 1/4th of cent per click, so 400 clicks will get you to the required minimum cash out level. That sounds like a lot, because it is. This is why it's good to refer others if you are going to be serious about these kinds of sites.

iDevAffiliate program pays a $25.00 sign up bonus

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.signupandmakemoney.com/blog/2009/07/idevaffiliate-program-pays-a-25-00-sign-up-bonus/)
The iDevAffiliate program is yet another free to join website that will pay you a sign up bonus just for joining their program. If you're not familiar with iDevAffiliate, they offer an affiliate marketing software that allows people like you and me to be able to set up our own affiliate program. If you used Joomla to build your website, they have a plugin just for you. Of course, Joomla is free, but a lot of their mods aren't, this one included, because iDevAffiliate costs $100.00 for the standard version.

I did some research on their actual affiliate program product and wasn't too impressed. The urls aren't SEO friendly and the affiliate program itself looks a little bit too dull for my tastes. That's just me though, you'll have to take a look at iDevAffiliate yourself to get your own opinion of them.

One thing I noticed about the iDevAffiliate program is that they don't offer a way to refer other free affiliates so you can earn a percentage of their sales. I could be wrong, but I did take a really long look at my back office and didn't find anything about it.

I like that the iDevAffiliate program offers a video training library to help affiliate managers train their affiliate to be better Internet marketers. Another good thing about the iDevAffilite program is you only need to earn $25.00 after your $25.00 sign up bonus for minimum withdrawal of only $50.00. This sure beats the normal $100.00 minimum withdrawal rate most affiliate companies follow.

Unfortunately, the iDevAffiliate program only pays its affiliates a measly 15% commission for their efforts. This isn't so great in my opinion, especially when you see a lot of 40% to 50% commission structures out there.

There you have it, take a look at some more affiliate program sign up bonuses and let me know what you think of them.

Jon Faddis trumpet solo on Donna Lee

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/suDJo)
You're going to love this Jon Faddis Jazz trumpet solo on Donna Lee. If you want to get right to the Jon Faddis trumpet solo, skip ahead on the video to 1:40 . I'm not saying the sax player isn't worth listening to, I'm just trying to save some of your time as these are busy times. Jon Faddis improvises a little bit more towards the end as he and the sax player trade before going back into the head. I love high note trumpet solos that also have Jazz licks in them.

I wonder what tempo they are taking Donna Lee at, does anybody know? This video is of a TV broadcast performed live in the mid 1990s.

The Crocmint free affiliate program sign up bonus

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.signupandmakemoney.com/blog/2009/07/the-crocmint-free-affiliate-program-sign-up-bonus/)
Crocmint is yet another free affiliate program that on top of being 100% free to join, they will throw in a $50.00 sign up bonus as well. That's a pretty generous offer for future Crocmint affiliates.

I'm not to hip on the products Crocmint has available to promote. It looks like just a bunch of pharmaceutical products that focus in weight-loss, hair loss, skincare, sexual health, etc..  Nothing I would really enjoy promoting. Crocmint does however pay a hefty 40% commission to all sales made under $1,000.00 (silver plan). Once you earn over $1,000.00 in one month you'll jump into the gold plan at 45% earned commissions.

If you're anything like me, you'll probably just want to focus on recruiting other affiliates like yourself because with Crocmint you can earn 10% off of all their earnings. Here is an example provided by Crocmint on how much you could potentially earn for referring other free affiliates:

Unfortunately, if you want to receive commissions through Paypal you'll have to earn a minimum of $500.00 in commissions. I'm starting to see where the $50.00 sign up bonus is coming. They are probably offering the sign up bonus knowing that most of the free affiliates that join are probably never going to see that free $50.00 in their bank accounts. If you decide to use ePassporte you'll only need to earn a minimum of $150.00 to earn your first paycheck with Crocmint. I've never owned a ePassporte account and I don't intend to get one just for Crocmint's affilliate program. I'm involved with quite enough payment processors to know that enough is enough.

A good thing about Crocmint, and you don't see this very often, they pay every Wednesday once you earn over the minimum in commissions. I just think that's odd. All I got to say about Crocmint is that they are a free affiliate company to join. If you have a website or blog, you can easily promote their products on your website and hopefully earn some extra cash from home. You're not going to lose any money by doing this at least.

Difference between one time and monthly payment programs

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/SkIwA)
I'm not big on switching between different online money making programs as it isn't a very wise financial decision, but I have been around the block a quite a few times. I want to briefly explain the difference between joining a money making program that you only have to pay a one time fee to be a member versus joining a business opportunity where you pay a monthly commission.

Essentially, the main difference I wanted to share with you is that the amount of money you can earn with monthly paid programs is significantly larger than the amount of money you can earn with one time payment programs. Monthly paid programs also offer the ability to earn a residual income whether you work or not. With a one time payment affiliate program you will have to keep working in order to receive commissions. Once you stop, the money stops.

For those of you who are jumping from one program to another, make sure you are at least sticking with the memberships that require a monthly payment to stay in. This means all the people you refer will be paying you a percentage of their bill every month instead of a percentage of a one time payment.

Yes, it does suck to have to pay the monthly membership dues to stay active as an affiliate, but you have to think long term. Most new prospecting members are going to be attracted to the better compensation plans because of the more residual money they can make. Plus you want to be able to build your business opportunity of choice to the point where the business grows away from you.

In case you're not sure of what business opportunities require monthly dues and which ones require a one time payment, let me show you some examples.

Examples of some monthly residual programs: (good for long term growth)

• The Global NPN


• Global Domains International

Examples of some one time payment programs: (will have to work harder for the income to keep coming in)

• Mammoth List


• Ez2x2

Remember to always do your due diligence before joining any program that costs you money to join.

Whole tone pattern that walks down the augmented triad

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/G2MQo)
I can't remember where I got this whole tone pattern from, but the Jazz lick sounds cool to play so I wanted to share it with you. The lick was a little tricky for me to get down on trumpet because of the fingering it requires. I hope the lick is a lot easier for you to learn than it was for me. If anything, you can use this whole tone pattern as a good trumpet fingering exercise.



Here is a sound sample on played on trumpet:

How to memorize this Jazz lick in 12 keys:

This Jazz lick is a whole tone lick so you'll "technically" only need to learn it twice. When I think of executing this Jazz pattern, I think in a combination of going down the augmented triad from the note I start on. In the above example you'll start on the 3rd of the C augmented triad. So you're in second inversion because the 5th is the bottom note.

If you look at the example above, the first note of each measure is part of the augmented triad you are thinking in. If you're not familiar or comfortable playing augmented triads, a good exercise is to just go up and down each augmented triad going up in whole steps, half steps, and alternating in between them until you really have a good feel for them.

So, as you can see the whole tone pattern simply repeats itself over and over again going down the augmented triad. The pattern you're repeating is ( 3 1 2 3 Aug triad down). Thats it, or at least that is how I memorized the lick. You may find a more comfortable way. Whatever works for you!