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- Written by: Super User
- Category: Online Presence Blog
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As I was preparing for my finals last week I spent some time writing a few articles for the websites just to have some fresh content about some of the things that reflect the purpose of the sites. The main contribution yesterday was starting a section on the LetsPracticeMusic.com site for reviewing method books as well as something on this site that discusses the lyrical aspects of songwriting under the umbrella of composition. I have also been spending some time trying to improve my understanding of the tools I am and will be using to implement and enhance this Online Presence project. Currently I am working my way through several tutorials on the LinkedIn Learning site including two courses on Joomla 3, a course on YouTube Channels, and today I started looking at a course on Adobe Illustrator. Although these things aren't specifically related to music they do have a great deal to do with the way that information will ultimately be presented so I will be spending a considerable amount of time working to understand these and other related technologies in order to provide the best possible presentation of the materials. As I was visiting my son's place yesterday I started reading a book he had on design which prompted the re-exploration of the Illustrator software because of the need develop a cohesive branding image for the material I want to present. This need was most explicitly described in Richard Harrington's course Creating and Managing a YouTube Channel and the specific items that I need to go ahead and develop are the Channel Icon(s), the channel banner, and the branding watermark. Of course there are other things to consider with the channel and at some point I may want to make multiple channels to serve different purposes as soon I have have them more clearly defined. I want to have that set up along with a channel intro video and a video Then there is the linking the channel(s) to the websites and the whole website design stuff that is going on. All that is going to require a good plan of which this post represents a limited brainstorming session of thing I will need to include. As it develops it will be subject to change and the entire process, including the execution will likely take somewhat longer than the month I had hoped for but I am making progress.
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- Written by: Super User
- Category: Online Presence Blog
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I decided to start compiling my thoughts about developing my online presence (OLP) as blog entries on this site to get them of scattered pages and into a centralized location. The current status is that I have essentially four active projects that predominantly relate to this topic. Website 1: gregshoemaker.net; Website 2: letspracticemusic.com; YouTube Channel 1: Greg Shoemaker - Music; Livestream Show 1: To be determined. Each of these will be summarized later. Then there is the additional research that I need to undergo to prepare for future expansion that will include Facebook, and possibly, Twitter, Instagram, and Twich, primarily for expanding live streaming when I get that ready but there may be other applications that I might want to use with those platforms.
For most of the active projects I am still riding the learning curve and will need to spend several hours getting up to speed with using the technologies. This will be done using the LinkedIn Learning series 'Joomla 3: Essential Training', 'Creating and Managing a YouTube Channel', 'Learning Video Live Streaming', and 'Live Streaming on YouTube'. Eventually I will also go through the series 'Getting the Most Out of Video on Facebook' but that will be after I have completed a basic implementation of the currently active projects.
I am happy to report that I have made sufficient progress using OBS as a multi camera video capture tool and do not expect the technical aspects of jumping to live streaming over YouTube to be that difficult. Still, prior to launching, which I am targeting for sometime around the beginning of June, I will want to create good graphics for alternate scenes and streamline my video production processes. The current thinking is to start by creating several (5-10) five minute video segments that demonstrate those techniques that I have found most useful for learning music. I probably should go ahead and begin to compile a list of those ideas in a manner similar to the project listing in my The Music Management System (MMS). Maybe I'll call it my VMS (Video Management System). The primary tasks I want to do as soon as possible for both the YouTube project and the Streaming project is to create an appropriate splash screen to provide a consistent introduction to each video and both a trailer and message banner at the bottom when warranted. I also need to script a introductory video that describes the purpose of the channel or show.
Some other things I will need to do include setting up a SoundCloud account, explore WireCast and Livestream products and platforms, .png graphics, getting a more stable and higher speed internet service (my current AT&T service has frequent service interruptions and the upload speed is sub optimal), explore chat boxes and slide shows, set up a discord account, look into ticktok, reddit, and subreddits, develop my growth plan, and decide how I want to set up my video production studio in terms of lighting and equipment. All this will be deferred until sometime after school ends this semester.
I also need to rethink my formatting for my videos on YouTube in terms of size and resolution and creating thumbnails and additional metadata. In the past when using Premier Pro I mostly standardized on creating content at a 400x400 resolution for reasons I won't get into now but it appears YouTube uses the 16:9 aspect ratio for most things. I'll also need to look more into compression techniques and other technical aspects of video that I've been avoiding for a while.
Another area that will require some attention over time is compiling the content that I have acquired over the years and formatting to post on the appropriate platform. That about wraps up the summary of my current efforts for getting online.