Third Update 26/06/2024 on my budget in regards to my Crete music school trip partially crowd funded by you!
Original post here: @montycashmusic/a-request-for-assistance-with-music-tuition-fees
Second main update: @montycashmusic/update-to-my-recent-callout-for-support-210624
I've received a few more donations and I am fast approaching my goal. Very grateful to you all!
So far it looks like this - 100 - 100 - 40 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 200 - 300 - 100 - 1200
I'm currently spending my days painting the roof of a tall building on a scaffold in South Fremantle! I pick up work anywhere I can - this is my second house sit in two weeks.
I've moved out of the bus I was living in on the property in Denmark - leaving on a good note - I actually did garden work and did it willingly when that was a requirement of the rent - so as a result I'll always have a place, even to put up a tent! So Denmark looks good for a place to return to - will see how my options pan out and what are my needs in regards to events!
Will start sleeping in my little car soon and initiate storage for my things.
I called up Labyrinth in Crete - I got Ross directly and was a little star struck! He's a really nice guy - had a small chat about the instruments I play and how to be prepared for his course with listening material etc.
I called to rectify exactly what my exchange was for filming and editing of a course for them that they have accepted. He wasn't the decider, as this is a not-for-profit and it goes to a board, but was of the affirmative. So I had to contact again and eventually got through by email. I am doing a full exchange for course fees and accomodation for the week seminar of Derya Turkan - a very skilled and well known Kemence player in Turkey - so I am excited to be part of the action! Labyrinth has achieved a lot and I think I could learn a lot from the way it is setup and what's required to run such an endeavour!
Will have a look at the amazing Instruments made by Stelios in Irakleio while I am in Crete - Cretan Lyras with Sympathetic strings and Tarhus - incredible craftsmanship. I look forward to looking at what it takes to work and run an instrument workshop. I'd love to make a Jarrah Lyra as a hard wood bass for the main construction of an instrument and use a soft wood or skin on top as the resonant material - then consider all the structural implications of making an instrument with sympathetic strings.
I will be bringing the Sarangi! There is a great skill I have learned in playing this instrument - it is known to be very difficult. I need to foster that skill - and as a result will include it as well as the kemence within my learnings - with similar tunings I can adapt the pieces!
I have registered for two more courses and plan to register for one final course - making 5 in total and not six. So I will be training with the following eminent musicians - Ross Daly, Derya Turkan, Hania Luthufi, Arslan Hazreti and the final music group workshop with Kelly Thoma and Eléonore Billy! WOW!
Good news about the Quick Response Grant! I am eligible! I waited on three different phone calls after being hung up on twice and waiting an hour to update the address on my ABN - which was a requirement for the grant - having lived in the south-west for a number of years now my ABN was still registered in Perth when I had a coffee cart in Fremantle 2020. I have lived in the region many times before that at other periods - always seemingly on the fly! (I have been trying to settle somewhat, however, with limited success.)
I have received a lovely endorsement letter from a friend who has experience with the Regional Arts Council. I have high hopes I will receive 3000 for this trip. Now I have a grant application to put in before FRIDAY! AHH! But it's totally possible, including writing a professional musician bio for myself - how does one write a bio for a street musician?! Will figure that out step by step! Have been in contact with the admin and got some great tips on grant writing - general reduced take-home from the communications - don't write diatribes about the arts being beneficial - stick to literal benefits within the community, name names, dates and places etc - be real in other words. My lovely flowery expressions must be saved for story writing and not grant writing - though be formal and have finesse and tact with professionalism. Ok, got it!
So once again - a big THANK YOU! To all who have assisted me so far! I am very grateful! I seek to give back in spades!
ps. I've received some backlash about being a narcissist from more than one individual after putting myself out there and posting pictures of me (the one I'm raising funds for) on the mad rollercoaster of life - for all the pictures I've posted I have a story tell - those stories mean real life lessons - I can write an entire book from it! I have avoided instagramming my travels and life - which has actually put me at a handicap in the industry - as my life experience as a well travelled street muso has high social capital value. I've avoided it because it affects my experience of living and shifts the focus away from who I really am. The pictures I do have, have largely been intentional and often taken by others traveling or wherever who have sent them to me - I have more recently had professional pictures taken at the storytelling gig August 2022 and Sean popped up out of nowhere and took some pictures of me for free at the Markets in Margs (which happen to be really good marketing pics).
I've learned this life experience represented by these pictures is indeed valuable and I happen to be the star of this show in which I am in! I make a grand effort to decentralize any focused energy when I am collaborating - people I work with know this of me. It's about creating balanced representation. It's taken me a long-time to find the balance of acceptable use of 'image' as an artist avoiding the pitfall of attracting narcissistic energy or responding to that energy affirming that stereotype. I now clearly see - as an artist putting himself in the public sphere - that my previous judgements in times past of people in similar situations were ungrounded! Artists need representation and if you're the one representing yourself - you need to represent yourself! Also, if I come across as a guru wannabe - please also understand - I am sharing my truth, from real life experience - I'm just being me. If you find that threatening - I can't help it. I've stopped apologizing for being me! I've lived years on the streets, been through various cults and belief systems, lived off street music internationally many years, been a self-motivated activist for many years - and I've come out of a massive pit to get to a stage where I feel valued within the community and am finding my place and my role here which has power to assist others finding their way out of trauma and embracing the responsibility of life! I cannot apologize for this - the power of the potential to change and be something that helps other people to also see in themselves a greater path is a far greater priority than it is to sit in a pit of judgement! As a street performer, I've learned - you put yourself out there, you become the thumb that sticks out - and it doesn't matter what you do - you're out there - you're open, you're vulnerable - you become an object of easy blame - as an empath, hyper adaptable, mimic, performer, etc - this body literally channels projections - many performers understand this paradox of identity versus perception. And many humans face the same dilemma within without explicitly being a performer or providing an oiling of the social gears with an art. To resist and to be something intentional and deliberate living as this particular body/mind situation - takes a tremendous amount of inner strength! Only now have I the power to move through the projections! That's why I'm standing the f*** up! What choice do we have?! The time is definitely now!
I move forward! I seek to acknowledge the pain we've all gone through - in Australia the tall poppy thing - it's a reality! In a large degree it's why I've flown the coop so many times, the inability to cope with the general mentality of things here - I also become one of these people - we stoop ourselves in our own mental excretions then whinge about life and pull those around us down that seek to be different. The tendency within me to do the same for others has also been a bulwark in my life - moving into the future, I hope to allow others to flourish that I also can flourish! I see how it works now. I allow others to grow and they let me grow.
I acknowledge you Australia! I'm not abandoning you again! I'm gonna come back and will have another go. I need to receive greater validation from the outside - from other perspectives of reality - to come back to serve you better.
Here's another picture of this body which I inhabit and have no specific attachment to but happen to have the use of and can utilize its image as a tool in order to operate in the social sphere effectively. For an indepth article about this subject: @montycashmusic/navigating-the-self-representation-as-an-artist
Diatribe out the way - I'm gonna stop addressing and acknowledging these comments - and move forward! Thank you so much for bearing with me through this process - through my life! What a journey it's been!
Update on the budget situation with copy paste of previous details with changed number:
"I would like to stay 7 weeks in Crete. For this to happen - I have worked out I need approx. 800 extra per week - this includes accomodation 400 (minimum) weekly (for 6 of those weeks only as one week is included in the presently negotiated exchange for filming, also most accomodation is discounted for students of Labyrinth - discounted to 30-35 euro a night), weekly course fees 400 for 4 extra weekly courses (I am now only exchanging for filming for one course for a total budget request of 4 courses/seminars at 868 euro - at a discounted rate for purchasing more than one course), paying for storage of my gear instead for 200 for a month (400 for 2 months of the time of the course, not requesting assistance for storage outside of that period, if I choose to stay longer until December for Rumi Festival in Konya that expense I am covering and will play street music or volunteer as required), living expenses and other needs 200 weekly.
This works out to an updated request of - 2400 + 1400 + 400 + 1400 = 5600AUD (approx. 3500 Euro)
I've raised - 100 - 100 - 40 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 200 - 300 - 100 - 1200 = 2115
From originally an 8000 AUD (approx 5000 euro) request."
THANK YOU!
Here are my details again:
Opportunities for contact:
+61422563234
monty@montycash.au
Opportunities to gift:
Australian bank account (no fees for transfer):
BSB 116 879
Acc# 424 536 546
For international transfers to this account use:
Bank: St George
SWIFT code/SWIFT BIC Address: SGBLAU2S
Acc# 424 536 546
Branch address:
Gr Fl 152-158 St Georges Tce
Perth, WA 6000
Paypal: kelebekevrimi@gmail.com
Busking tip platform (with credit card or Apple Pay options available): https://busk.co/monty
Edit: Regarding scam alert on my bank account number - this is the correct account, the numbers are correct - it is coming up on some people's transfers as being a possible scam - please click through it and send anyway. Sorry about this, I can't do anything about this on my end. Grateful if you made it through the gauntlet and got some cash to me!