April 2022 Newsletter

It’s been a long time…

NEWS New Album Album of the Year! Featured Single One of our latest projects is creating a garden. Having a garden in the Southwest is much more challenging than having a garden on the East Coast. Back in New York, I used to have a 2,500 sq. ft. garden, with a greenhouse. One truckload of horse manure in early spring and the only challenge was keeping up with the weeds. Here in the Southwest, shade from the sun and protection from high winds is a priority. It’s also important to have a drip irrigation system. Water is scarce.  We love having a garden, not only for the fresh produce, but for the birds and other wildlife that it attracts. Stay well, stay safe! Sending love, peace, joy, gratitude and good health from New Mexico~ Louis New Album Popcorn Jazz Piano Listen Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify Download on iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp Featured Single from Popcorn Jazz Piano “Celebrate Earth”Listen Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify  Download on Bandcamp, Amazon This song is about the planet we live on. It’s a call to action to address climate change. There is hope and positivity in this song and it is my wish that humans on the planet hear the call and begin to live more sustainably and intelligently in order to keep our beautiful planet a place where we can all thrive peacefully and joyfully. In spite of all that is happening now environmentally and politically, I have to stay positive and have hope that we will persevere as a species. Album of the Year! 2021 “HOLIDAY & SEASONAL” Calm and Peaceful Christmas PianoGratitude to SoloPiano.com for this honor!   DATES No concerts scheduled Follow, listen and create a Louis Landon playlist on Spotify.  LINKS To sample and buy SHEET MUSIC. Sample music here You can also download music at: Amazon – Bandcamp Create a Louis Landon station on Pandora.  Be a fan and “like” my fan page on Facebook.Follow me on Twitter

Successful Spotify Experiment

For the past four months I have been releasing singles, one every two weeks, that would ultimately end up as the Heartfelt Solo Piano album. I released ten singles, one directly through Spotify. Today, with the release of “Heartfelt Solo Piano,” I checked my new album release on Spotify through the artist portal, and everything worked out. All of the singles that I had released, showed up on the album with all of the streams intact. This is a good reason to be sure that all ISRC codes are the same when releasing an  album containing previously released singles. Before doing this, I checked with Spotify and Tunecore to see if this was something that was going to work and they both said that it would. It was great to verify that their guidance was correct.

The one thing that I did immediately was to notify Spotify that I needed to pull the one single that I distributed through them. It is not possible to isolate the one single from the album and not have it distributed by Tunecore with the rest of the album. Going directly through Spotify with one of the singles was also an experiment. I thought that by going directly through Spotify, I might get some preferential treatment playlist wise or perhaps payment wise. Unfortunately, my experience with going through Spotify was not what I had hoped for. From calculations that I made through streams and payments on Tunecore, it appeared that I was paid less through Spotify. Also, that particular track didn’t do very well stream wise. It could have been that particular piece of music and there is no way to know for sure why it didn’t do very well. In any case, I am not going to go directly through Spotify again.

I am going to wait a while before pulling the ten singles from Tunecore distribution. There is no hurry really. I already paid for the year for those singles. One thing I am not sure of is whether a single that is on a playlist will stay there once it is pulled. I don’t have any way to verify that because two of the singles that were on Spotify playlists were temporary. One was on a classical playlist that featured new music and the other was on a jazz playlist of the same kind. Both were on and then off. None of the other singles that I had released were currently on a Spotify playlist other than radio, release radar or daily mix. I am going to keep an eye on those stats to see if anything changes as I systematically pull singles.

In two weeks I will begin releasing singles for my next album, Solo Piano Space Traveler.  I will try another experiment by picking up the pace and releasing a single each week. I have no idea if this will help me in any way, but I’m sitting on an album and I don’t want to wait four months to release it. At the same time, I want to maximize the use of Spotify in promoting singles. I don’t know how long I can keep up that up. Releasing a single a week will require a little more busy work. I’ll stay in radio contact.  😉

HEARTFELT SOLO PIANO WAS RELEASED ON MAY 20, 2019. THE CD IS AVAILABLE RIGHT HERE!

It is also available available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora Radio

Available for downloading at iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp and CDBaby.

 

Recorded at the Peace Palace from November 2018 – January 2019

Music mastering: Joe Bongiorno at Piano Haven Studio, Sedona, AZ
CD Layout and Design: Louis Landon
Cover design: Louis Landon
Cover, disc & back art: Louis Landon

Innocence 3:00
Sweet Honey 2:39
Yin and Yang 4:25
Sweet Sadness 4:10
Foreign Lands 4;02
Have No Fear 2:42
Epic World 3:41
Speak Your Truth 3:09
Resting in Grace 3:49
Remembering 3:18
Play 4:17
Viva 3:25
Day of Reckoning 4:35
Pure Joy- Live at Piano Haven 3:45

EWR > DEN – 37K feet

I have been thinking about my mission and how it is in need of revision. My mission changes as I change. The album I am working on is a retrospective. I am calling it “Ten Years of Peaceful Solo Piano.” It has what I consider to be my best work from my 6 solo piano albums. It took about 10 years to find my inner peace. My mission was (and still is) to create a more loving and peaceful world by writing, recording and performing music from the heart. It has served me well and I have served it well. Inner peace and outer peace in the world has been a worthy goal and mission. I will continue to promote peace, but additionally, I am looking to inspire people to live passionately and joyously. Wow, that’s it!! My mission is to inspire people to live passionately and joyously. My vehicle to do that is music, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the only way that I can inspire people to live passionately and joyously. I can do it through teaching and life coaching as well.

I have done work using Native American traditions and through that work, I discovered my animal name. My animal name was “Running Deer.” I stayed with that name for about 5 or 6 years. The name changed when I had an experience with my daughter when driving on a country road in the Catskill Mountains. We saw what seemed to be a large dog or deer in the road. It turned out to be a black bear. We got pretty close to it and I slowed the car and we looked at the bear and the bear looked at us. Then it slowly walked away into the woods. I felt a strong connection to that bear and felt that I needed to change my animal name. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the bear symbolizes transformation in the way that it goes into a cave to hibernate and comes out refreshed and reborn in the Spring. In a similar way, people can transforms themselves by looking into their darkest depths to truly know and understand who they are and why they do what they do. For a while my name was “Loving Bear.” It then became “Fearless Loving Bear.” Very recently it has changed again. My new animal name is “Joyous Super Star Bear.”

The joyous is pretty clear and in keeping with my new state of being and new mission. But why “Super Star”? When I am on the road traveling, performing, concertizing, teaching and meeting people, I am totally fulfilled. I am living my mission and I am joyous. I have taken to calling this joyous state my inner super star. I am successful. I am open. I am loving. I am loved. I am appreciated and I inspire people. It is an amazing feeling. What an amazing job I have! Then, when I go home, I can’t keep that same state of joyousness at the same level. I am doing busy work. Making calls. Washing dishes. Cleaning. What I needed to do was to bring my inner super star, that state, that feeling, to all the mundane activities in my life so that I could remain in the joyous elevated state. This also relates to the work that I do to be present always and everywhere; living in the moment. But it’s not just about being aware of my Higher Self in any given moment, it is about living passionately and joyously in any given moment. Yes, a tall order in the world that we live in, especially in the 21st century. But then again, it has always been difficult for anyone to live in the moment. And it always will be because it is not mechanical. It requires effort, desire and will.

I will be landing in Denver in one hour. Concert tonight in Denver. Day off tomorrow. Master Class in Improvisation in Boulder on Saturday afternoon. Concert in Boulder on Saturday night. House concert outside of Denver on Sunday afternoon. I can say that I’m looking forward to it, but when I say that I am looking forward to anything, I really don’t mean it. To derive a feeling in the moment for a future moment is not real. It’s nice to know that there are things coming up in the future that one enjoys, but trying to get a charge in the present out of events or activities that will take place in the future does not allow for getting the very most out of what this present moment has to offer.

Friday, March 22nd – Mesa, AZ – Whisperings solo piano concert at My First Piano

Concert poster – tickets are general $15/students $10 in advance and $20/$15 at the door. Ticket link is: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/307670

Solo Piano Concert at Downtown Piano Works

Concert flyer

Louis Landon at Downtown Piano Works – Frederick, MD

Flyer for concert