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Our quest for popularity

“The audience comes last. I’m not making it for them. I’m making it for me. And it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself, you’re doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience.” That was spoken by the legendary rock music producer Rick Rubin, about…

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Massive Crowd
Our quest for popularity
“The audience comes last. I’m not making it for them. I’m making it for me. And it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself,...
TV with Cocke ad copy
Marketing for musicians
I don’t think it’s any secret that most musicians dislike promoting themselves. I’ll go even further and observe that most musicians are...
Flim Flam man
You don't like to promote yourself - what to do?
Does this sound like you: You want more money but you don’t love promoting yourself. Even so, you’re not sure how to go about promoting yourself...
Graphic of books and ebooks
Make your next book a reality through Music Savvy
Over the the years I’ve written many books on a variety of topics and have been selling music books and music compositions & arrangements through...
NAMM sign
Some post-show thoughts about the 2022 NAMM
This month’s NAMM 2022 in Anaheim was great. It had been two and a half years since the previous show. This year’s show was less than half the size...
A man sharpening his axe
Sharpen your skills and mindset to get more and better paying gigs
The holiday season is here once again and so are more opportunities for musicians to play and earn money. I want to help by sharing some tips with you on...
Man with light bulb showing bright idea
Is this your time to consider a new business idea?
On Labor day 1995, an Iranian-American named Pierre Omidyar tried auctioning off some stuff on his personal website that he no longer wanted. He wasn’t...
Michael Lake

Michael Lake

Trombonist, author, composer, marketer

Courses and books

Pocket Jazz

The Pocket Jazz course is a completely redesigned series of online videos of no more than three-minutes each. Most of the lessons also contain short excerpts of tips and wisdom from masters like Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and many more.

Teaching & Learning Jazz

From this book, Richie Beirach and Mike provide great stories of jazz wisdom, a reflection on university jazz education including how to choose a school, an analysis of the Hollywood view of jazz education, a look at the psychology of education, and many other previously unexplored essential topics for both teachers and students.

Available in soft cover and digital editions.

Trombone Improvisation Savvy

Trombone demands different physical abilities from other instruments, but certain skills are universal such as connecting your instrument to your musical mind. Learn from exercises and audio files specifically focused on trombone that will help you improvise much better.

This is just a fake book example for the type of website I can build for you. Just trying to use a little humor here!