(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you can find out about what it is here.)
Updated September 19, 2022, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Courses & Teaching
I’m currently mostly making new guitar & music courses in Malay. The guitar courses go out to members of Kelab Gitar Az Samad & the music courses cover music business, marketing, copywriting & music career planning kind of stuff. The core music career material is tested with my three person coaching group, Coaching Kerjaya Muzik which is about to celebrate it’s first year anniversary.
I also teach & coach 1-on-1 in person and via Zoom video calls, those slots are limited and expensive. If you’re interested to find out more about that, contact me here with your name, what you want to learn, your location, background & goals (basically as much info to give context).
Writing
I write course, book & music reviews here on this website. Right now I’m into older guitar & music books from the 60s to 90s, especially older out of print books. I find that some of the best teaching materials are lost because:
(1) they were written by specialists who are not known outside of the field
(2) the books didn’t sell much & went out of print
I’m studying the body of educational works by specific musicians who were important at the beginning of institutions like Berklee College of Music & Guitar Institute of Technology. I find it fascinating how they organized the syllabus & structured lessons, topics etc. I geek out on this. Some of the books I’m studying include the works of John Laporta, Howard Roberts & William Leavitt.
I also write reviews of the latest guitar & music courses (and CDs) on this site & accept submissions from publisher, record labels and independent artists.
Content Creation
I have a love-hate relationship with social media & the internet. Some days I love it more, some day less. Basically though, I am fascinated with SEO, content creation formats, memes, email marketing, copywriting structures, storytelling & worldbuilding — how it relates to creatives in general & musicians specifically.
I’ve taught Zoom workshops on topics like social media, content creation, copywriting & how to maximize content creation in terms of building a long term career. This is one of my favorite things to talk about. My most recent panel discussion was “HOW TO FIND SUSTAINABILITY IN MUSIC, WHETHER IT IS WEB2 OR WEB3” for M1nted, Malaysia’s First NFT Conference. That also lead to my first two NFT collection drops on Pentas.io.
Consulting
My 1-on-1 consulting clients have included professional musicians & music college professors from the United States. I have also been appointed as a member of the Industry Advisory Panel for the Institute of Music, UCSI University for two years in 2022 and 2023.
Speaking
I run a Clubhouse room (yes I still use that ancient app) with Malaysian songwriter & entrepreneur, Altimet every Wednesday night from 9:30 PM (GMT+8, Malaysian time zone).
We just ran our 81st weekly session last Wednesday. We have 1.2k members in the Malaysian Musicians on CH club. Find out more info about our future sessions here.
It’s a room for musicians to discuss, exchange ideas & network. Although we call it Malaysian Musicians on CH, anyone is welcome to hang out with us. Among the people we’ve had in past sessions include Sheila Majid, Aubrey Suwito, Ahmad Izham Omar, JD Wong, Emmett (Butterfingers), Sina Djavadkhani (Damn Dirty Apes), Joe Flizzow, SonaOne, Cody Foo, Aman Ra, members of Late Night Frequency, Jennifer Thompson, Melakaboy and Joe Lee.
Performing
I just did my first live solo guitar performance after almost 3 years of not performing in person. I did performances via Zoom throughout the past few years but it was nice to be back on stage. I’m currently messing around the idea of doing a new trio or quartet project with original music.
Nature
I’ve been spending more time talking walks in nature, staring at butterflies, dragonflies, turtles, lizards and birds. It’s also the topic and inspiration for my second NFT collection.