Incentive Ideas for my CD/Kickstarter project

Earlier today I wrote about Kickstarter.com and my desire try to get on the website and get going with my CD project.   I have floated the idea past a couple of people, and everyone seems positive.  I am moving forward.

One of the key ingredients of the program is to have incentives to for people to invest in your project.   If you don't have incentives, then you might as well just be panhandling.  I thought I would work through a couple of things on my blog and see if my readers might help me as I develop a fair and exciting incentive program for potential backers of my recording project.  This is what I have come up with so far: (note I am still working on this and taking suggestions)

• $1 or more - SILVER access to exclusive online behind the scenes blog of the entire project.
• $15 or more - GOLD a digital download of the complete album, one week before public release 
• $30 or more - PLATINUM a signed copy of the CD, one week before public release 
• $50 or more - DIAMOND a signed copy of the CD for you, plus a copy to give away as a gift!
• $100 or more  - MEMBER limited edition t-shirt + Diamond level+ name in CD as Project MEMBER
• $250 or more - SPONSOR special DVD of behind the scenes footage of the recording process + Diamond and Member levels+ special recognition as Project SPONSOR 
• $500 or more -BENEFACTOR framed and signed limited edition print of the album art, signed by the designer and the artists+ diamond, member, and sponsor perks.  CD recognition as Project Benefactor
• 1500 or more - PATRON Listed on cd and website at the highest level of donor as a patron...Private recital for you and 20 of your closest friends + + diamond, member, sponsor, and benefactor perks.  CD recognition at the highest level as Project Partron
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Of course I am open for additional ideas and I am not quite sure if all of the "Price Points" are right yet, either.  Feel free to give me your feedback. I haven't established a running budget yet for the project, which is the next step, but I am estimating at this point, a fund raising goal of around $6000 or so to make this happen.

Thoughts?

My Recording Project, Kickstarter Worthy?

Last night, I was sitting in front of the TV, eating some leftover lasagna from the night before and I saw an interesting tease on the local evening news. The tease was about "new website" that was offering "thousands in free money for good ideas." Being a sucker for the words free money and good ideas, I decided to stick around and see what this was all about.

Two segments later I see the story on the news.  The story is about a website called Kickstarter.com .  I won't go into the news item, but it interested me enough to hop online and check out the website.   What I found on the very first page of their site really got me extremely excited.   "Kickstarter is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers..."

The basic idea behind Kickstarter is give people a way to organize fundraising efforts for their artistic projects.   Well, as I mention in my very first blog, I have three very, very specific projects for the year.   I have been talking about Germany a bit, but I haven't mentioned too much about the other two...the recital tour (which I need to seriously begin to put on the calendar) and the CD.   Kickstarter helps match up investors (as well as your social network) to help you meet your fundraising goals.  

Recording has to this point been a very large dream.  I have several people who have been asking me when I would record.   When I tell people that I meet that I am an "opera singer" they always jump straight to "Do you have a CD?"   I have to always answer, "Unfortunately, no."   One of the huge issues has always been cost.  It is expensive to record.   It is expensive to record it right. I often ask myself, "How on earth am I going to pay for the $5-$15k it would take to make a CD, the right way?  I have very difficult time asking people for any help; people want a CD, but are they willing to help me invest in this project?"   Last night I found a way to do more than test the waters....Kickstarter.

I have three things that I really must do to "set up shop" on Kickstarter, to help me get off the ground with my recording project.

• Settle on specific repertoire - This is important because it drastically affects the budget.  Recording with just piano is less expensive than with chamber musicians or orchestra.  Recording music in the public domain is less expensive than recording music of the last century.  Balancing what I want to record versus what someone would invest in is huge.  I have to define the project.
  
• Establish basic budget  - Once I have settled on repertoire, this will be much easier to accomplish
  
• Develop a pitch - This will include things such as a video presentation of the project, a written pitch, and developing whatever incentives that I will have for my investors.

I couldn't sleep last night, so I kind of worked this through in my head a bit, with the help of the fine folks of my Facebook fan page who I asked a couple of months ago, what type of CD I should record for a debut recording.   It seems fitting that if I am moving to Germany and will be singing more Lieder, that I should revisit Franz Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin.   This is a piece that I first sang in graduate school, and is a cornerstone piece in the Lieder repertoire.   This is also a cost effective piece as there are no royalties, it is just singer and piano, and can be recorded in only a couple of days of "studio time."  It also fits very nicely on one CD.  It also makes for a nice stand alone recital program.

I think the most important thing beyond cost is that  I want to do this with all of my heart.  This is a piece of music that has always spoken to me, since I first heard a recording of Fritz Wunderlich singing it.  It is a piece of repertoire that I can embrace living with for the next several months.  I would love to I think that now I have a deeper understanding today of the raw emotions of the text and the musical style than I did back a decade ago.  I could go on and on, but I will save that for the project itself... 

This all sounds great, right?  One small problem....you can't just hop on Kickstarter to set up your project.  You must have an invite.   So, goal one:  get a pitch ready in the next day or two and get an invite to the site.  I could go directly to the site (hundreds a day do this) and basically be put on a wait list.....or I could get creative.  This is what this is all about, right? Creativity.

I think my project is Kickstarter worthy....now I just have to get someone to agree with me.

A Burning Feeling (but the Lasagna Tasted Good)

I missed the last two days of writing on my blog, and I feel guilty.  I was planning on writing on Sunday, but after church, three hours of Gluck Opera, and dinner out, I arrived home pretty exhausted....nothing like a full 13 hour day to wear you out.   Yesterday, I had all sorts of intentions of getting a ton done on all fronts.  Cleaning, practicing, language learning, a couple of special projects...none of it really got accomplished.   However, I did decide to make dinner for my mom and stepdad.  (I tried to give my mother a night off from cooking)I set out to bake lasagna.


Lasagna is a dish that I have made enough times that I don't use a recipe.  I have baked lasagna for two; I have baked lasagna for 30.   This is one dish I know how to make.  I have also learned how to make it quickly, mostly by "faking" the sauce a little.  Basically I take one bottle of "pre-made sauce" and add to it, stretching it and adapting it.  Last night's sauce started off as a bottle of Bertolli's Marinara with Burgundy Wine sauce.  To it I added the following:

• Ground beef
• a bell pepper
• a Vidalia onion (a sweet onion)
• roasted minced garlic
• olive oil
  
• a can of crushed tomatoes with garlic, basil, and oregano
• a can of tomato sauce
• freshly ground black pepper

Notice I added no salt. There is already salt in the bottled sauce and in the cheese.  Plus Mayor Bloomberg would be proud that I am limiting salt intake.

So...I get the lasagna into the oven.  From prep to oven I can get a lasagna whipped up in about 20-25 minutes.   I have dishes cleaned up, and all I have to do is wait to put the garlic bread (yeah I cheated here too) into the oven with about 9 minutes left on the pasta so they will be ready at the same time.   After 55 minutes baking, I pull off the aluminum foil top of dinner to let the cheese on the top finish.  I up the temp of the oven to 400 (from 375) and go to grab the bread from the fridge to start it. My step father is there so I ask him to pass me the bread...and this is where things get dicey.

I pull out a metal baking tray to place the bread on top of to throw it in the oven.  As I am about to throw the bread on the tray, my step father stops me and places a small piece of foil under the bread (so that cleaning the tray would be rendered non-essential.   We did not bend the edge of the foil around  the edge of the tray.  I just was trying to get the bread in the oven.   Little did I know how this attempt by him to "help me" with clean up would prove to be a costly mistake.

Ding...9 minutes are up and I go to grab the bread out of the oven.  I open the oven door and smell the garlic, wafting from the oven.  "This is going to be good!"    I reach down with an oven pad in my right hand to pull out the tray.   As I am lifting the tray...the bread on the aluminum foil beings to slide and tumble off of the tray.  Somewhere in the back of my grey matter, an alarm goes off.  "MUST SAVE BREAD"

In a split second it was over....and the cold water was rushing over my left hand.   I had rescued the slipping bread by steadying the tray with my unprotected left hand.   In that split second, my bare fingers had met the 400 degree metal tray.   By the time I had realized what I had done, it was too late.  I had burned the cr@p out of three fingers and a thumb.  (Yes, my pinky survived unscathed!)   Note, I don't blame my stepfather for any of this happening to me.

Now I don't have much of a threshold for pain.  Pain management for a borderline 2nd degree burn on your hand is not easy.   Cold numbs the pain, the aloe helps the pain.  Move your hand this way no stinging and burning sensation...two seconds later a sharp pain that makes you want to scream, "Just cut it off, just cut it off!"   Somehow, I got to sleep last night, while gripping an ice pack wrapped in a damp washcloth.

I will say that the burn is not as bad (thanks to the ice and aloe treatments last night) as I feared when I woke up this morning.  I have small blisters on all four fingers (not the pinky) and a slight tingling to the touch, but I am able to type with both hands today without any pain at all!  And you want to know what the best part of all of this is?   The lasagna turned out great yesterday, and I get to have leftovers today!