Wallitner Weekly 42

Hello everyone!

A lot of amazing things happened since I last wrote

The world has been spinning faster than I can keep up with it the past month or so. Between the move, playing in a pit orchestra and starting a new job I have been very busy. As you’ve probably noticed the Wallitner Weekly has fallen behind because of that, but I have a lot of big projects in the works and have been busy DOING instead of WRITING about doing. I will try to find a balance as I adjust to this new life I live in a new, yet familiar place.

Our new apartment is much nicer than the one we lived in before, and it is near a lake so I have been spending my mornings and evenings with the ducks and the geese. We’ve been here about a month so far and I have been loving every minute of it.

I owe my wife big time though, because during the move in process I came down with covid and had to be quarantined in our room while she and our friends moved our stuff in. She made several trips from the old apartment to the new one without me to make sure we were all squared away.

I also started a new job as a pro audio sales person. Basically I spend my day in a music store helping people decide which microphones or speakers or headphones or keyboard is the best fit for them. It has been a blast learning about all sorts of different musical equipment and meeting all sorts of different people. From music teachers to DJs to singer/songwriters I’ve helped them all this past month.

This job is great, but I am still adjusting to a 9-5 work schedule. I much preferred working at the theater where the days were long, but then I’d have a week off. Im struggling to find the energy on my days off to continue working on side projects, however as I get better at my job I am starting to regain that energy. Thus, I am writing you all today to say IM BACK!

I’ve got lots of plans for next week too!

I have been chatting with my co-workers about my aspirations to start a publishing company and several of them are interested in helping me out. I have been doing a lot of research into what goes into starting a publishing business, and allegedly the hardest part when starting out is finding people to publish. So I have been reaching out to those I know to see if they’d be willing to go with me on this journey and the response has been very positive overall!

My first course of action will be to develop an organizational system for all of the different styles of music. Ideally you should be able to tell what genre/instrumentation/difficulty a piece is just by seeing the cover. This will make shopping for sheet music much easier AND it will develop a sort of brand recognition. Id like to be able to publish a wide assortment of styles and difficulty levels, though I understand that specialization is easier to market.

I think the solution to that problem is to start with something specific, and then branch out from there as the company gains popularity.

I of course am still writing my own music which will eventually be published under said publishing company. I was sent a new poem to set. AND I have still been working on that trumpet solo. So I have kept very busy despite my lack of writing Wallitner Weekly’s.

My Work Is Like School.

I never thought I would work a traditional 9-5 job. I always hated the idea of it. I wanted to be able to make my own schedule and live my life on my own terms. Not constricted by sick leave or vacation leave or weekends. This was and still is my dream. However due to the uncertainties of moving across the state, I took this job. It kind of fell into my lap actually. A friend of mine texted me saying, “Hey are you looking for work when you move over here” and I said yes haha.

I do not like working a 9-5. But I love what i’m learning by working THIS 9-5. I am making connections with all sorts of incredible musicians through this job. And I am getting paid to be there. Yesterday, I spent the majority of the day (when I wasn’t with customers) looking at frequency response graphs for different headphones and speakers. I learned about different audio phenomena like the Haas effect and the Fletcher-Munson curve. I learned about how people hear different frequencies better than others. And the specifics about how our ability to hear frequencies changes as we get older.

There are different sales reps that come to visit and demo gear for us to potentially sell. Yesterday a rep came to demo some loudspeakers and a subwoofer. And I thought it was hilarious because he couldn’t hear very well at all. Like you would ask him a question to his face and he would ask you to speak up. I suppose that’s something that would happen after demo-ing loudspeakers everyday for a few years haha.

It was really interesting to test all of our different speakers side by side against these new ones. I always had certain brands that I liked more than others, but to actually have that side by side comparison was really cool.

Earlier in the week we did a similar thing with microphones. Testing all sorts of different mics against ones that a rep brought in. Its been fun to share what I learn about these products with my friends and being able to suggest exactly which piece of equipment they should get and why.

I like being the person who knows things. The one that people call when they have a question. And thanks to this job I can be that person in an entirely new way than before.

The only downside to this job (aside from the 9-5 part) is that the employee discount is really good.. So I struggle not to spend my paycheck at work haha.