Policies

Policies … you gotta love them. Get your reading glasses out for the 2-pixel-sized font in all caps where you promise to name your first-born child after me.

No, seriously, in as little “legalese” as possible here’s the important policies for AdvancingMusician so that you know how and why I run this site the way I do.

If anything is unclear to you, you need clarification on some specific points – or might have some suggestion(s) for improvement, please head on over to the contact page and let me know.

Privacy

Your privacy is important – in this day and age of data mining it’s understandable to be concerned.

Rest assured – I don’t share, rent, sell, give away your data in any form. (I don’t have much data in the first place since there is NO registration necessary to use this site.)

Cookies

Cookies might be used to store information about visitor preferences and to record user-specific information on visits and pages the user views so as to provide a custom experience. In regard to third-party affiliate providers (like Amazon.com) AdvancingMusician has no access or control over these cookies.

You can turn off the use of cookies at anytime by changing your specific browser settings.

Additionally, you can review the respective privacy policies on any and all third-party ad servers for more information regarding their practices and how to opt out.

For instance:

1. check the various options (like browser add-ons) that Google provides you with on their Google policies page.
2. opt out of third-party vendor’s use of cookies via the Network Advertising Initiative.

Use of Analytics Software

Like many other websites I use Analytics software to analyze my traffic. This helps me see what works or where my site needs improvement.

Tracking can include:

• IP address
• browser type
• ISPs
• date and time stamp
• referring and exit pages
• number of clicks

I’m not able to trace any of the information presented to me by the Analytics program to an individual visitor.

Newsletter

No need to worry that I’d bombard you with unwanted mail. I’m not some affiliate marketer who sends out mail after mail wanting you to buy the latest gizmo gadget. I’ll only send out relevant updates about the site e.g. when a new article got published or when I have a new, valuable resource to share.

Again, I don’t share, rent, sell or give away your e-mail address. And of course it’s always possible to easily unsubscribe yourself by clicking the unsubscribe link that is included in each and every newsletter.

Advertising

There’s an ongoing cost involved in running a site: hosting, theme maintenance, plug-ins that provide additional functionality, etc.

And, not to be underestimated, it takes a lot of time and effort to create the actual content.

I definitely don’t want to annoy you with too many ads. But occasionally I will promote and link to selected offers throughout my site and display banner ads in the side bar etc.

Know that in most cases, should you follow my recommendations and make a purchase, I will get an affiliate commission. For instance, when I showcase a book like Mick Goodrick’s excellent The Advancing Guitarist and you click the link and buy the book, Amazon will pay me a (small) commission at no extra cost to you.

DISCLOSURE: AdvancingMusician is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com

I might not note the use of an affiliate link every time. Simply assume that any links leading you to products or services are affiliate links that I will receive compensation from. Use your own judgement to decide whether you want/need the recommended product and follow through with your purchase.

I’m not American and my blog is not hosted in the US, so the FTC Ruling for Bloggers regarding disclosures might not apply to me from a strictly legal standpoint. However, I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s important to me to gain and keep the trust of you – my reader.

My promise to you: I only link to relevant and high-quality offers. Thanks for your support.

Product Reviews and Promotions

As traffic to my site continues to grow, I’ve been getting more and more requests to review and feature various products, services, apps, websites, music or video on my site.

The requests (mostly) are polite and professional and the pitched​ items seem to be interesting. Unfortunately I need to decline these requests and say no.​ For my sake.

Here are the reasons why:

Time

Writing a review takes a lot of time. There’s the time to download and install, sign-up and poke around or simply repeatedly watch or listen to the item to be reviewed. I need to test out the product and implement it into my workflow and use, whatever it is, for a while to get a clear idea about the benefits, the positives as well as the shortcomings.

And then I’d still need to write and format the actual article, which is a lot of work​ and takes many hours. ​Sorry, but I need that time for taking care of business and for creating my own body of work.

I teach, I produce music, there’s various free-lance projects for clients, the video courses and administration for lessonz.com, writing articles for guitarlegendvideos.com – you get the picture.

I’m Not a Product Reviewer 

In all honesty, I don’t particularly enjoy writing reviews. Have I mentioned already that it is a lot of work and does take a lot of time?

Occassionally, I’ll review something that I do find interesting. It’s a product or service that I’ve been using myself for quite some time that I’m happy with and that I can recommend to you in good conscience.

Actually, then it mostly is something that I feel compelled to share because it has been so useful/relevant for me.​ And, with no obligations towards somebody providing the review copy I can feature stuff on my terms and on my schedule – and without any conflict of interest or feelings of obligation.

​Links

I link to other sites. However, I don’t necessarily agree with or endorse everything posted on those sites. I also don’t have any control whatsoever about the content published so I’m not responsible for their content and their accuracy of information.

Comments

Comments are awesome, however I’ve received too much comment SPAM so I’ve deactivated comments globally for the site. I might re-activate comments again at a later time. If you have a genuine comment to make and want to get in touch with me, use the form on the contact page.

Comments are awesome and I love to hear from you. Some ground rules that are in place:

• You are 100% responsible for your comments and “Hold Harmless” me and any blog post writer writing for this site. That means you hold all writers here on AdvancingMusician harmless of any and all repercussions, damages, and liabilities. Please take that into consideration when writing your comments.
• The comments are moderated (yes, I really do read them) so when you comment for the first time, it might take a while for your comment to be published. My apologies in advance.
• Please be respectful. No personal attacks and flames will be tolerated. If you can’t get your point across in a respectful, intelligent way, then your comment does NOT deserve to be published.
• No affiliate links and also don’t stuff your comment with links in general.
• SPAM will get deleted. Period.

Thanks for Reading

My policies are subject to change without notice and were last updated (refined section on ads, added blurb about comment deactivation) on April 17th, 2021. If you have any questions feel free to contact me via my contact page.