Category: Life

Spring Vacation (Finally!)

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Here are my updates/pictures from spring break!  I really need to update this more often… but that just means you’ll get to see a lot of posts in the near future!  🙂

So a couple weeks ago, I decided to take a little mini vacation for spring break.  My hopes were to visit Memphis to check out the music scene, but unfortunately that plan didn’t quite work out for me.  So instead, I ended up heading north and visiting Indianapolis.  I left Evansville just in time to catch the end of the open mic night.  What a great experience!  My good friend Andy got me signed up to play, and though it was only one song (it was late, so they had to wind things down), I got to play on the same stage that I have seen so many of my favorite musicians- Stanley Clarke, Hiromi Uehara, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, the incredible Gerald Albright, and so many more!  It was such a humbling, surreal experience!  For those of you that are my facebook friends, there’s a live video you should definitely check out.

So the next day was incredible!  Click here to see all the pictures!

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So, my day started off at Circle Center Mall.  So much fun!  I ended up getting a neat little fan you may see at our upcoming gigs and a couple other family.  And of course, I had to visit the arcade you see here, haha.

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I then ran into a Rhythm discovery museum/workshop.  If you’re in Indianapolis, you HAVE to check it out!  it’s hands on, and so much fun!!!!!

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After checking out some live music in between the mall and the rhythm workshop, I decided to go to the Children’s Museum for a while.  Yes, all by myself, at 31 years of age.  And it was SO MUCH FUN!!!!  I’ve told many of friends already, I had more fun visiting as an adult than I did as a kid!!!! I would recommend everyone go take a trip and check it out, regardless of your age.  Most of these pics are in the album, but here are a couple that stood out to me.

Did you see the California Raisins in that last picture??  Yeah, childhood feels.

For the last bit of my trip, I decided to head to Greencastle and check out the ThinkGeek store. Oh you know I was happy.  🙂

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I got some pretty neat things from this store for sure.  Afterwards, I can back home and enjoyed some down time catching up on some gaming and other things.

My days since then have been filled with friends, family, trying to catch up with music stuff, and working on becoming a stronger, wiser person.  Life is life.  Life is good.  Life is what you make of it, how you overcome obstacles, how you respond in the face of fear and opportunity.  Life gives you a perspective, and sometimes gives you a chance to learn about the perspective of others.  Make an effort to understand as many perspectives as you can while maintaining your own.  It gives us strength, it gives us humility, it gives us diversity, it (hopefully) teaches us wisdom and love.  Enjoy your  life, don’t be afraid of growing.  That’s my little bit of life to share with you all, until next time!

Life- Divorce, Rebuilding, Becoming Wise.

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**DISCLAIMER** Just letting you know, this is a very atypical post for me.  I never post about emotionally sensitive things, but as part of my life is very public, this post is necessary, as I still get people that ask me about it.  It is not my intention to offend anyone or damage the reputation of anyone involved.  Okay, so that being said…

Yes, I am divorced.  On August 31st of last year, my (now ex-)wife came home and told me she didn’t want to be married to me anymore.  After talking and some begging, I realized there was no changing her mind.  I was told to move out within the next couple of days.  You all have to understand, I felt that I was on top of the world.  I felt I had everything I needed in life- a musical career with my partner, a family, a joyful job, a beautiful house on the north side of town, a family that, even though it was a difficult process, had religious respect and love for God…  I had it all.  Heck, I even had my own man-cave, haha.  And, no, our lives weren’t perfect at all, we had issues that arose throughout our time together- not every moment was joyful, but that’s just life/marriage.  And to have my core, this family life that we worked so hard to build, taken away so suddenly, left me in a state of shock, confusion, and bewilderment.  In my mind, no matter what, our marriage was forever.  Never in my mind did I think that divorce was even an real option.  But, things change, people change, and there is nothing you can do when a person’s mind is made up.

So, there I was.  Back at my mom’s house, the majority of my things in storage, trying to figure out what in the world just happened.  I was a mess for a little while, as you could probably imagine.  But, as my mom always taught me, we learn from every situation.  And I began to grow. Before long, I started to realize my own faults and weaknesses.  It was very humbling, to say the least.  Along with that, though, I began to realize the strength and wisdom that I had gained from my experiences.  I bowed my head and thanked God for the strength and wisdom He had given me to this point.  To this very day I do the same thing, and I constantly pray for more.  I began to talk and hang out with my positive-minded friends again.  Man, there are some people out there that have really shown me a lot of kindness and love.  You know who you are, and I am in your debt for helping me rebuild my joy, and for putting up with me having some very emotional days and moments, haha.  But anyways, taking the time to reflect on all the positive things that were happening around me- seeing all the smiling faces at my performances, getting to see and talk to my friends, the people waiting to give me a hug and talk to me that share my faith, of course the smiles and laughter that takes place in the music lessons that I teach, the festivities of the Jazz & Wine Festival last year, I could go on… I asked myself, ‘How could I NOT be joyful!?’ I’ve already been given what I need, to not only survive, but grow!  I’ve just been given a different perspective to see it from.  So a few months later, I found an apartment, changed a few things about myself, and started working on a better state of mind.  The result?

Here I am today, and I can honestly say that I am happier and healthier than I have been in a very, very long time.  Actually, let me rephrase that- I finally found joy and contentment within myself.  I finally really understand the value of friends, the value of faith, the value of showing love to others and being there to help those around me.  My incredibly wonderful Mom always told me the same thing- COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I recommend everyone follow those words.  You will realize how special and amazing your life really is.  In my Instagram/Facebook posts, I often use the hashtag #blessed.  The reason why I do is because I am truly thankful for every opportunity I have to share my music and my thoughts with others.  I feel blessed to have legs to stand on, fingers that move in a way that helps me express myself through music, a brain that works well enough to help me be a logical, understanding, and calm person.  I feel very blessed and honored to have a mom that simply refuses to let me stay down if I fall, no matter what.  I am thankful that I had the short experience of being a father figure, something I wanted for a long time and which helped me grow up tremendously.  I feel blessed to have friends, inside and outside of my profession, that I can call on for anything.  I feel blessed to know what unconditional, true love feels like and what it takes to have and show that love.  I am very blessed to have my own incredible safe place to call home, filled with the things that bring me joy.  Amidst all the crazy things that are happening all around us in the world, I am blessed that I have the ability to not let it bring me down and blessed with the strength to rise above the negativity that surrounds us all.

Things change, people change, situations arise.  We all have choices in life.  Some are easy to see, some not so much, some take research and some are based on simplicity and intuition/faith.  If we make the right choice, awesome!  Take it to the next level.  If we make the wrong choice, learn from it and grow so we can become better.  Failure is an essential part of success.  Strive to become rich- not with material things, but rich in heart, in joy, in understanding.  Understand that we are all works in progress. I know I sure am, and I have a LOOOOOONG way to go.  But never give up on yourself: you are capable of a lot more than what meets the eye.  But you have to be strong mentally to realize your full potential.

That’s my little bit of wisdom for today.  Once again I hope that this clears some things up for those of you wondering where I am in my life at this point.  I’m happy, I’ve definitely been humbled in a good way, and I’m looking forward to seeing what this new chapter in my life has in store for me.  By the way, I got new glasses, the band is working on some insanely awesome new originals, and I’m working on a few new tunes for a solo album myself!  Thanks for reading this everyone, until next time!

Music Workshop at Delaware!

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Yesterday, I was blessed with the opportunity to teach a workshop to the 4-6th grade classes at Delaware Elementary School.  What a fun time we had!  These excited young ones shared with me the instruments that they play, as well as letting me in on the instruments they’d like to play in the future.  I was able to help them understand the value of practice and how long it takes to get to the ‘professional level’ of musicianship. And of course, I showed them what I do as far as looping and playing multiple instruments. After explaining the EWI, my ‘odd’ 6 string bass guitar, and alto and soprano saxophones, I played a few songs for them. At the very end, after answering as many questions as I could, I got just a little snippet of video and some selfies with these awesome young kids!  Here’s what I got:

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Words just cannot describe how much happiness and joy I received from all the students, and having an opportunity to get them motivated and excited about music that isn’t just delivered to them via cell phone or a push of a button.  But real, live music made in front of them by a musician.  My heart is so full of joy!

Please stay tuned to the website.  My next post will be a very important one, or should I say, a very rare post coming from me.  Cheers!

Monte

Next Chapter- November 2016

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This has definitely been a year of wisdom, understanding, joy, pain, confusion, happiness, and pretty much everything in between, haha!  I’ve learned so much about myself and others this year.  And though my life took a very unexpected turn a few months ago, I find it so amazing how much I’ve learned about the love and support that my true friends and family have shown.  I am so truly grateful for them, and of course, our loving Father in the heavens.

I have my own place again!!!!  I’m really excited about writing new ideas and starting some new projects.  There are some really awesome things in the works, so stay tuned for new updates!  The above picture is my new music workspace; I’m sure you’ll be seeing lots of videos coming from this area starting soon!

For you venue owners, I am now booking 2017!  make sure you contact me if you have any questions!

There are so many great things happening in Evansville currently!  If you don’t live in the area, make sure to visit soon!  It’s great to see so many local businesses working hard and thriving in this area.  If you are a local business and would like to team up, please let me know!  Check out the calendar page for information on upcoming events, including late December fun! 🙂

Reflection of Jazz & Wine Festival 2016! 

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So many great things happening lately. First off, Team Skelton rocked the Kenny Kent Lexus Jazz & Wine Festival this year! Despite the event being inside due to impending weather, all the musicians involved did a spectacular job. 


To top the night off, a moment that will forever be in my heart and soul. I was named the 2016 musician of the year, and who presented it to me? None other than my incredible mom. This moment could not have been any better! 

This is so very special. I think I may make a separate blog post about what this moment really means for my mom and I. 

I got to tour around a bit during the festival and got to see a lot of amazing people! On Tap Project was the first group I heard at the event, and of course with the talent of Theo Akai, Johnny Coates and Dekar Baker, you know you’re going to get an incredible show. They killed it! Of course I had to jump up and play a couple tunes with my brothers… Haha! 

I also had a little time to hear a few songs from other artists, including Stephen Horning and Big Ninja Delight, Carl Rodenberg and Company, BG3, and After Hours. All the groups really brought their A game, I was floored! And of course, my good friends Wade Baker and Jamie Taylor took the stage and truly put on an amazing performance. Shout outs to them, they are amazing people!   If you have me on Facebook, check out the live videos! 

There will be more posts, stay tuned! 

Tips on making your YouTube page better

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Really quick update:  I logged in to my YouTube account earlier today, and realized that I haven’t really updated the format in like… 3 years.  Yeah.  So check out the new and improved page!  For you musicians and YouTubers out there, I definitely recommend you make these changes to your pages as well:

  • If you have personal playlists, make/keep them private!
    • If you’re like me, personal playlists will start to accumulate, just because we all like to be organized.  Not everyone wants to see that stuff!  So just make them private playlists, or make them unlisted so that you can share the link with family or friends that actually care about the vids.  Keep the 200 cat videos to yourself!
  • If you have interesting playlists with information or things relevant to your content, keep a few, or rotate them for interest. 
    • Enough said.  It just keeps things organized.
  • Manage your featured videos!
    • Display your videos on your front page.  Log in via your laptop or PC, look at your landing page, and put the content that you want people to see right in front of them.  You can add as many as you want, but keep it organized.
  • If you have videos of yourself uploaded by others, add them to a playlist and feature them.
    • Some of my highest quality videos were uploaded by bands I’ve been in, or by family (my mom is awesome btw).  I added these to a featured playlist so that those can be displayed on my page for those who may not know to go to other pages to look up sample videos.
  • Change the order of your video to display the latest uploaded videos first. 
    • I may be wrong, but by what I can see, this doesn’t happen automatically.  Just click on your playlist name, go to Playlist Settings, and click on order settings. Change this to ‘Date Published (newest).’  It looks much better this way.

Have you found other things to make your page more professional?  Please comment and let me know!  And make sure to check out my YouTube Page and let me know what you think about it!

#Blessed.

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“Pray constantly. Give thanks for everything.”- 1 Thessalonians 5:17, 18a.

On many of my posts on Facebook, I use the hashtag ‘blessed.’  How true this really is!  I am so grateful for the things I have been blessed with in my life, even the little things.  Never take that for granted!  Just reflecting on the past few days:

Thursday evening I performed at a fundraiser for the Tri-State Multiple Sclerosis Association.  I had an absolute blast, and made some new friends in the process.  Before I began though, my attention was drawn to the cord that I use for my EWI.  I noticed that the very end of it was missing… Of course, first thing anyone would do is panic, which I almost did, especially after I realized on further investigation that the other end was stuck inside the very pedal that I use to connect the EWI to everything else.  But, remembering what my mom always taught me, I kept my cool and figured out another way to route my EWI on the fly so that it would still work for the evening.  Lesson learned: Thank you mom for always teaching me patience, and helping me live up to the quote, “when in doubt, improvise.”  It was so much fun performing for that event.

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Friday morning I got up and realized that I had to do something about the broken cord and piece lodged inside my pedal.  So I took the whole thing apart, got the piece out, and ran over to Guitar Center to see if they would replace the cord for me (that’s where I originally bought the cord.)  Thankfully, they replaced it for free, which was great since we’re on an extremely tight budget right now.  Brand new cord for free?  I’ll take it.  And yes, I count that as a blessing.

A few hours later, I started teaching my lessons over at Evansville Music Academy.  My first student is an older gentleman with special needs.  He just started playing guitar with me a few weeks ago as a source of musical therapy.  He is a quiet individual, but has so much positivity and happiness in his heart.  He came in for his lesson and showed me that he had been working on using one finger across all the strings on one fret, an amazing accomplishment.  Taking from what he learned, I showed him a simple power chord, or ‘cowboy chord’ as some may call it.  So he struggled a little bit with getting his finger up to the 2nd fret and keeping it there, but after a few minutes, he was able to play the E chord.  I showed him a strumming pattern, and before you know it, he was playing a simple blues pattern.  After a few more minutes, he was playing a few other notes as a solo, while I played a simple blues progression underneath.  After playing for a few minutes, he looked up, smiling ear to ear, and just started laughing, saying, ‘I’m playing the blues!  I’m playing the blues!’  Let me tell you all, there is no greater joy than that.  The rest of the day was amazing with the rest of my students as well, laughing about ‘scooping’ sounds on the saxophone, watching students play brand new songs that they learned on their own, and watching them progress exponentially in the short 30 minutes I have with them.  Once again, I’m so blessed to be a part of that growing process.

Later that evening, I played at Schaum’s Pizzeria, a local pizza bar that normally my wife and I perform at every first Friday of every month.  Since she is still recovering, I played the gig by myself, and it went very well.  One of my students and his family who always come out and support us was there, and the most beautiful thing happened- I invited him and his brother and sister on stage and they sang a couple songs with me.  It was so awesome!  It’s so very encouraging to see such young ones with a passion for all kinds of music.  What an amazing, loving family they are!  (The video is on facebook… those who are friends with me, check it out on my page!)

Saturday was a very busy day!  The day started off with some wonderful spiritual encouragement at the assembly.  Just what I needed for sure.  After that, I came home to my darling wife, and right back on the road for another gig, a benefit for the local UCS.  before I performed, I watched my beautiful daughter as she took pics for the prom she went to that evening.  Of course, I had to get a selfie before I had to run off to my gig.

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The gig went extremely well also!  I got to see some great and very talented fellow musicians, and their sound check was amazing!  Gotta love the love musicians can show towards one another.  Oh yeah, and the venue was incredibly beautiful (thank you ONB Downtown Evansville)!

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And then, there was yesterday.  So many amazing, talented individuals!  I had the grand privilege of performing with L.A. R&B/Jazz vocalist and Evansville native Clif Payne, as well as the incredibly talented family of Eli, Jordan and Bob Green.  I was so nervous, especially backing such an incredible artist on bass.  But I tell you, everyone had my back.  We had a huge wall-to-wall crowd, and we really had a party!  I had so much fun; thank you to all those guys, and everyone who came out to support!  It was such an amazing time.

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My weekend was amazing, but on top of all that, there is nothing like being a husband and a father.  Being able to come home after all of that and cook dinner for my family, take care of my wife, work in the garage (which is going to be really cool soon, hopefully lol), just the everyday things… it brings its own source of joy and happiness.

Give thanks for everything my friends!  We are a very blessed people!

 

Back on Schedule… and a new Vid!

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It’s been a little bit since the last post was supposed to arrive… life happens!  Hopefully I am back on schedule now, so look forward to some more updates, like this brand new video I made!  Now you can see from a ‘new perspective’ what I do and how I do it!

Let me know what you think of this idea!  I unfortunately do not own nor can I afford a GoPro camera, so I was pretty limited as to how I could accomplish what I wanted.  So, being the person that I am, I went to the garage to try to invent something that could hold my phone where I wanted it to be.  My solution?  Our daughter’s old softball helmet and duct tape!  That’s right, that video was all made with me awkwardly playing bass, saxophone, and EWI through the front guard of the helmet and a very large phone pretty much taped to my forehead.  But hey, it works!  Maybe the CEO of GoPro will stumble upon this blog post somehow and donate one for the advancement of musicians and video everywhere!  🙂

I’m going to try to push out some more posts very soon, so keep coming back for updates!  And please, continue sending me ways to improve the site, all suggestions are welcome!

And as a final note for this post:

Whatever you or your families or friends believe in, keep love close in your hearts.  Love conquers all things, and is the perfect bond of union.  Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Updates!

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First off, I want to thank all of you so much for the support you give my family and I!  We value and cherish all of our friends so much, and you’re always in our thoughts and prayers.

Are you in the Evansville area?  Looking for a place to have dinner tonight?  Come join me at Kanpai; I’ll be playing a solo loop set from 7-9pm.  Kanpai has some of the best sushi in town; you’ve gotta check it out!  In fact, go in there and ask for the Monte Roll.  Seriously!  🙂

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**Update**I actually fixed my car myself!  Well, for the most part.  There are a couple fragments still frozen in ice in the driveway, but besides a small hole, it looks pretty normal, haha!

Also coming up at the end of the week, Skelton’s Monoturage will be performing at Mojo’s Boneyard, starting at 9pm.  We’ll be playing some of our new tunes; don’t miss the fun times!  Also next week, my darling wife and I will be playing for the Brown Bag Luncheon downtown in Evansville!  That is always such a fun performance; don’t miss it!  That same day, I’ll be jamming on the top floor of Zuki Downtown around 6pm, so you can get a double dose of fun music!

I LOVE working with the students and staff at Evansville Music Academy.   My students have all been so great!  And it is just such a great experience to work one-on-one with someone else, to see how they think and grow, to watch the light bulb turn on when they really understand- there’s nothing like it!  And by the way, if you’re interested in taking lessons, let me know!

So the next post will be the exciting conclusion to my 2015 Reflection.  I can’t wait!  So, I leave you with this thought:

Never, ever underestimate the power of a genuine smile.