Having Fun with Music; It’s All in Your Head
Some people play music for the sheer joy of it, others do it for the money, and many fall somewhere in between. But regardless of music being a career or a hobby, the level of personal enjoyment and satisfaction achieved is largely up to the individual.
I started out as a young boy learning how to play music because it intrigued me. I had made some kind of spiritual connection early on (although I couldn’t have described it in that way at that time), and I felt compelled to play music. I was drawn in to this exciting new world and it was fun for me. Many years later, the thought entered my mind that “Hey, I love playing music, why not make a career out of it?” I gradually began to move in that direction, albeit without a clue as to where I was heading or how I would get there.
In the article ‘Making It’ in the Music Business – An Alternate View for the Independent Musician Graeme Kirk explores this topic in depth. He talks about being in his first band as a teenager and how they had fun in spite of not being very good. At some point into this band expedition he reached a crossroads.
“Like most young bands we reached a stage where reality reared its ugly head. “Get some good equipment”, we were told. “Practice every day…”, “…get a good manager…”, “…learn about the business…”, “..learn to write catchier songs…”
This seemingly good advice proved ultimately demoralizing and eventually his band broke up.
He goes on to write:
“So what?” you may ask. “You just didn’t have the commitment to make it in the music business”. True, but only because we didn’t realize that there can be many different definitions of “making it”. The problem is that most people who were giving us advice don’t realize it either. If we had only been told that there could be more to being in a band than the hard slog, paying your dues, waiting for record companies to notice your path that everyone assumes is the only way to succeed, things could have been much different.
It all comes down to how you define success – how you define “making it”.
The article goes on to talk about the fact that “there is no one path to success because there is no one definition of success.”, a simple, yet poignant thought that speaks volumes about the quandary that faces many musicians.
When you try to make a living as a musician, you base a lot of the decisions regarding your musical activity on financial factors. When paying the bills is directly tied to your gigs and musical activities, sometimes you’ll take gigs you might not otherwise take, basing these decisions on the financial outcome. Sometimes you might join a band or take on work that you don’t enjoy at all, simply because it pays well. On the other hand, some professional musicians are able to enjoy a majority of their musical endeavors, finding at least some shred of enjoyment even in the most difficult situations.
If your career lies elsewhere, your musical life can be of a purer nature. As you are not in it for the money, you are free to play music strictly based on your personal wants and desires, paying no mind to commercial appeal or financial gains. Sometimes the life of a musician who has not made music his career can be more rewarding than that of his professional musician counterpart. Of course this is not always the case either.
So the bottom line is, you have to decide what you want to get out of music, what you want to get out of life, and if having a career in music is needed to accomplish these goals. Maybe you do, but then again maybe you don’t. If you’re thinking about diving in, arming yourself with as much pertinent knowledge as possible is always a good idea. If you’re already well on the path of a career minded musician, keep forging ahead. But whatever you do, always strive to make your musical activites as stress free and fun as possible. Because if you’re not enjoying it, what’s the difference between playing a gig and punching a time clock at a factory job you don’t like.
Enjoying any activity is as much about your perception of that activity as it is anything else. Fun is an attitude, not necessarily a condition, so do your best to maintain a positive outlook and you should be rewarded accordingly. Whether music is your career, your hobby, or something you do for a occasional enjoyment, music is the backdrop of life, and life can be hard. So do your best to make your music count. If you want to have fun with music, make it a conscious decision to do so, because having fun with music is all in your head.
“Decide, commit, succeed!” – Tony Horton
DIY Publicity Campaigns; Why You Need to Do Them, and How to Get Started
Whether you are an obscure musician trying to get your music heard, a first-time author putting forth a new book, or an independent filmmaker introducing your first film, you all share something in common; a desire to introduce your art to a world that has yet to learn of it. How do you create an awareness of your project? These are tough times and the aforementioned endeavors are not easy ones. The list doesn’t stop there either. Photographers, artists, songwriters, and others are in the same boat.
The new global economy and a variety of other factors has created an extremely competitive dog eat dog world when it comes to business, and this means we all might have to take some alternative approaches to getting the word out. Without the proper publicity and promotion, no one will know about your great project, products or services. Traditional advertising is too expensive for most, and not necessarily that effective anymore. There is no right or wrong approach, but many believe that social media combined with Internet marketing are essential to most startup creative businesses at this point in time. If you’re ready to take the plunge, here’s how you can dive in.
- Build your social pool: Interact regularly on Facebook to slowly build a group of friends, fans, and followers on the Internet. With hundreds of millions of users, it shouldn’t be hard to find a couple hundred that are interested in you. Over time this can grow into thousands. Twittering can be productive as well.
- Start blogging: At this point in time, blogging is a powerful tool and can be used to promote literally any business. Create your own blog and write about your areas of expertise. The information you put forth should not only be directly or indirectly related to your products and services, it should also be useful to your targeted audience.
- Build a website: While a .com domain is optimum and will help to give your business a legitimate “face”, not everyone can afford one initially. There’s nothing wrong with starting out with a free WordPress (or similar) site. This will allow you to begin building your brand. Your blog should be built into this site or linked to it. This website/blog will serve as a central hub to all your Internet activity, with links to Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Guest Blogging: It can take a while to create heavy traffic on your site. Blogging as a guest on a higher traffic site can help build your readership and drive more traffic to your site.
- Online Discussions: Find message boards with themes that relate to your project and interact with group discussions. Offer advice and perspective where pertinent and provide links to articles on your site.
There is a recent article regarding working in the new social media paradigm that offers some useful tip’s that I highly recommend reading – Top Seven Reasons Why Artists Strongly Resist Social Media by Ariel Hyatt.
The online social interaction approach to publicity is no secret, but it is still a new concept to many. Over time, if done correctly, you will build a “readership” that is genuinely interested in what you have to say, so always strive to provide useful information. By building a large group of readers, or “friends”, fans, and followers, you are connecting with an audience that will potentially come to your shows, buy your book, watch your film, and enjoy your art.
Is this easy to accomplish? No. Does this take time and effort? Absolutely, but then again so does any career. Without the proper promotion, nobody will ever hear about your project. If you think you have something good to offer the world, put it out there. Sometimes the best way to learn how to swim is to just dive in to the pool. You might sink and then again you might not, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.
Are you ready to take the plunge yet?
For the Love of Vinyl – the Sounds of Inspiration
Where do you get your inspiration from? As a lifelong musician, I’ve now been playing music since the age of eight, about 34 years. But I’ve been listening to music even longer. As a young child, some of my earliest memories are of my dad playing records in our Boxford, MA home. Many an evening or weekend the sounds of the Woodstock era filled the air – Santana, Derek and the Dominoes, John Lee Hooker, even the Woodstock soundtrack. The mysterious black discs spinning around created a sense of wonderment, and even more alluring were the sounds 
they put forth.
I love music, and I especially love the sound of music that originates from vinyl recordings. There’s really nothing like it. As a teenager growing up in southern New Hampshire in the early 80s, I owned my own stereo and turntable and began buying albums regularly. In fact, I 
worked at an afterschool job just to support my vinyl habit (okay, maybe a few other habits at that time as well). Every week I would venture to the strawberries record store with my weekly pay burning a hole in my pocket. A short time later I would arrive home to give the new disk a spin, the sounds of Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Led Zeppelin, and others permeating my world daily. It wasn’t just an auditory experience, many records came with amazing artwork, of course you have the great double album which additionally lent itself to a variety of uses. Some albums even came with songbooks or posters.
Several years into this foray, along came CDs. They kind of looked like mini albums, but with noticeably less artwork. They also had a few other tendencies, for instance the unmusical sound of a digital skip. It took me a while, but I eventually climbed aboard the “CD wagon”, albeit kicking and screaming. It only took me a couple of years to realize the shortcomings of this new “digitally recorded music”, but I eventually did notice. The music just didn’t sound quite as real, warm, or friendly, but this was fast becoming the new medium. It wasn’t long before all my favorite record stores had replaced the bins for records 
with CDs. Not long after that point in time I stopped listening to my vinyl, as all new music I was purchasing was on CD.
Fast-forward to 2010, and CDs are now being phased out in favor of MP3s, an even harsher sounding representation of music. And of course, the MP3, often living in “the cloud” or an ipod, is completely void of artwork.
Stop, I’ve had enough! Earlier this year I made the realization that I wasn’t listening to music as much as I used to. At first I thought this might have been because I listened to so much music in my earlier years that I might be just “all listened out”. But then I got my turntable repaired, something I had been meaning to do for some time, and slowly, began rediscovering the magical world of vinyl.
I set up the turntable in my living room and began to check out some of my favorite old records. Right away I 
noticed they sounded so good, noticeably better than their harsh digital counterparts my ear had become accustomed to. This rediscovery led me to a few recent trips to a local used record store – let the bargains begin. I can’t believe some of the gems I’ve purchased for just a dollar or two. One in particular was a mint condition copy of “Montrose” Sammy Hagar’s earliest band, and this gem was just 68 cents! Delbert McClinton, James Taylor, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – all for just a dollar apiece?
Among some other recent scores were a mint condition copy of AC/DC’s Back in Black, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, and BB King live in London. A couple of weeks ago I found a yard sale with a collection of 4000 records all from the mid-70s or earlier.
Kelly and I spent about an hour pilfering through about half the collection and walked away with 25 gems for $20.
I’m hooked, what can I say. Since this recent vinyl resurrection I am listening to more music regularly than I have in years. It really does sound better. Listening to music like this reminds me of why I became so involved with music in the first place – why I became a musician. When I put a record on, it feels like I’m in the room with the band. The drums sound real, the guitars sound right, the bass is tight, and the vocals are deep. I know I can’t listen to these sounds in my car, and beyond the walls of my home the rest of world continues to suffer from the sounds of the sterile digital status quo and all of its shortcomings.
I know a lot of people enjoy digital music, I’m not saying it can’t be done. But if you haven’t ever ever experienced the joys of vinyl, check it out if you ever have the chance. If you’re ever over a friends house and you spot a turntable, request a side. I challenge you to listen to your favorite artist on vinyl and not be able to hear something new in their music.
Well I’ve got to go now, it’s time to give my new Ray Charles record a spin.
The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide Progress Update
For those of you who following my progress on this project, here is a status report.
Writing a book is quite a process, a process I knew nothing about when I embarked on this journey nearly 18 months ago, but one that I am fast learning about. A couple of months ago I purchased the book “Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual” and it has turned out to be a godsend. I learned that in this day and age, a niche book, such as mine, stands a greater chance of success with self-publishing as opposed to traditional publishing routes. That recent discovery has prompted Kelly and I to launch our own publishing company, Just Ducky Publishing.
I’ve also learned that editing and interior book designing can be quite expensive, so we are taking on these tasks as well. Kelly is an outstanding Web designer and has extensive abilities with computer-based graphic design. We already own a program commonly used for book design – Adobe’s Indesign, so now it just comes down to the learning curve regarding that software.
I recently conducted an in-depth interview about songwriting with one of the best in the business, my friend (and boss) Rhett Akins. This eye-opener will be included in the book.
One of the things recommended in the self-pub manual is peer reviews of chapters and content, as this not only serves as a fact checking mission, it also helps promote the book. For this I am enlisting the help of a wide range of experts and professionals. Included in this list so far is; Rich Eckhardt – lead guitarist for Toby Keith, Dan Kimpel – instructor at the Musicians Institute in California, James Wood – BMI, Kevin Neal – Buddy Lee Booking Agency, Serona Selton – University of Miami, and Brenda Coladay – The Grand Ole’ Opry, amongst many others.
This process is a bit time consuming but well worth it. The feedback I have received so far has allowed me to further tweak some of my writings, and I am grateful for the participation of these highly respected peers.
Not unlike everything in business and life, completing this book is taking longer than I initially projected. And with that I am now aiming to go to print in January. As much as I would like to have this completed for my original planned release date of September, at this point I feel it is imperative to get it right and not be hasty with a premature release.
So while I continue marching forward with this project I will continue to post articles regularly about music and music business topics on the Survival Guide blog. I recently added the much requested “Nashville 100” song list to the website and will try to add some more tidbits in the coming months as well.
Thanks again for your continued support and readership.
Peace
Eric
What do bands and artists owe the public and their fans?
I read an interesting message board post the other day in which this question was raised. The post was written by a musician who had just opened for Grand Funk Railroad. His account tells of an exciting day and show for his local band (and the 4000+ in attendance). They were treated well by the event staff, had their own backstage area, and performed to a packed house through state-of-the-art production. They were even able to bring their families to share in this experience.
The only negative was his perception of the day’s headliner. While giving GFR credit for having exceptional musicianship and putting on a “killer show”, he went on to say that they were “tremendous jerks”. This was apparently based on the fact that the band was nowhere to be found throughout the day despite an interest from some fans for autographs, and a desire for the musicians in the opening band to meet them. The fact that they were not hanging around backstage all day was interpreted to mean “GFR wanted nothing to do with the unwashed masses”. He went on to comment that there was a cooler backstage marked “Grand Funk Only” and that he opened it up only to find that “there was nothing in there but fruit juice anyway.”
Lastly he mentioned that he met a man with his son in the parking lot and that the young boy wanted his sticks signed by Grand Funk’s drummer. So during Grand Funk’s set this local musician takes the young boys sticks to a security guard requesting the autograph. Apparently the security guard declined, prompting the comment in this fellow’s post “How do you behave like that?”
This brings up some common false perceptions that many people have about national level touring acts and high profile artists.
First of all, touring is hard work. Despite what might be portrayed on some VH1 episode of behind the music, the life of a touring artist or band is not all that glamorous. When I went to Grand Funk’s website I noticed this particular show was a one-off, with no dates preceding or following it by a week. Likely, this appearance in Webster MA was a fly date for the band and crew. For a band like Grand Funk performing a show of this nature, they probably flew in the day of the show. They might have gotten up as early as 5 or 6 AM to drive to an airport, spent 8 to 10 hours trekking suitcases and guitars through airports, onto planes, through more airports and planes, eventually winding on a van ride to a hotel somewhere near the venue. They might have appeared at the venue for a mid-afternoon sound check and then returned to the hotel for dinner and a shower before the show. By the time they hit the stage for their performance at eight or nine at night they might have been up for 12 to 14 hours. Regardless of their daily activities and methods of transportation, it sounded like the concert was their primary focus as they supposedly put on a “killer show”.
According to Grand Funk’s website, one run of shows earlier in the summer brought them from back-to-back concerts in California, to Michigan, back to California, to Montana, Oregon, and then Washington, all in less than 10 days. Judging by the routing, these were undoubtedly fly dates with some long van rides likely in the mix. Just one fly date can be exhausting, let alone eight in a row. Other touring scenarios put acts like Grand Funk and others on a tour bus as a means of travel. While a half million dollar Prevost XLII might seem plush upon first examination, it is still, just a bus. And this means they are sleeping in a bunk about the size of a coffin while rolling down the highway at 75 mph. Sometimes the location of concert dates requires as much as 500 to 1000 miles of bus travel between shows (8 to 16 hours of driving time). I don’t care how nice the bus is, traveling thousands of miles in a week is exhausting.
This is all part of the job of a touring band, artist, or musician, and most take it in stride. While the musical performance might be the high point of the day, the long hours of travel, isolation from family and friends, and constantly being around other people causes many performers to cherish the occasional privacy they may have on the road.
So just because you didn’t “see them” doesn’t mean they weren’t there at some point before the show. Or maybe travel arrangements didn’t even get them on site until minutes before the show. Maybe they were on site well before showtime and hanging in some dressing room, tired from traveling and saving their strength to put on a “killer show”. Maybe the cooler was labeled “Grand Funk Only” because they only drink fruit juice, and this was their only beverage for the night. Many artists are required by event buyers to put on a “Meet and Greet” in which case they might have to meet, be photographed with, and sign autographs with as many as 50 people or more, likely all of whom are complete strangers. These Meet and Greets are not typically optional, and if an artist is tired or even ill they must put on a happy face and go out to shake hands with this roomful of strangers.
It would be no different than if you were standing in line at the bank on your lunch break and a complete stranger started talking to you and demanding your undivided attention. You might talk to him because you’re a nice person, but you might have actually preferred to be left alone, to enjoy your own privacy.
High profile bands, musicians, and artists are just people. Touring on a national level is just a job for these folks, and a hard job at that. All the public sees at a concert is the finished product, a concert hall prepped for hours before the doors are even opened. The version of their favorite band or artist they see is the “showbiz” face all artists are required to wear. But the reality is that by the time that performer hits the stage they have likely had a hectic and busy day. They will likely leave that concert venue after the show only to do it all over again the next day. On the one day out of the year that you saw them in concert, they might be having a great day, or, they might be tired, sick, or having a not so great day. They might be missing their kids, experiencing marital problems, or even going through financial hardships. They are just people that happened to choose music as a profession – real people that experience real human emotions, have lives away from their job, and go through all of the same kinds of problems that life throws at the rest of us. The only difference is their profession doesn’t allow for sick days.
So, what do bands and artists owe the public and their fans? The answer is quite simple – a great show. Nothing less, and nothing more.
Cliffs of Dover: The Benefits of Taking on a Seemingly Impossible Challenge
Have you ever challenged yourself with something really, really hard. I mean something so difficult that initially you weren’t even sure if you could do it? Challenges like running a marathon or completing a triathlon, learning to speak a new language, losing 100 pounds, or mastering a musical instrument are all daunting tasks that can take months or years to accomplish and require an extreme level of “stick-to-it-ness”. Initially, this challenge might not be something that you need to do, but something that you want to do, or maybe even feel compelled to do. You take on this challenge simply to see if you can do it and because you sense it will make you a better person. The reward might be unknown at the onset and not come for a long time if ever, but still you march on with this challenge because it feels right.
Many years ago I was faced with such a challenge when I was playing guitar in the New England-based band “Crossfire”. The year was 1990 and the bands leader, Rob Gourley, suggested that I learn the Eric Johnson instrumental “Cliffs of Dover”, as he felt it might be a good showcase for me at our shows. He said that this was not something he expected me to do, but that if I wanted to learn it, the band would play it.
At this point of my life I had just finished my Berklee education, an extremely challenging experience in and of itself, so the idea of learning a four-minute piece of complex guitar music didn’t sound too daunting. At least that was my initial perception.
So I embarked on this new guitar journey. I outfitted a makeshift studio in an empty bedroom at my friend, Pete’s house with a practice amp, a boombox, a reel to reel tape deck, a metronome, and a music stand. I went out and purchased a copy of Eric Johnson’s “Ah Via Musicom” on CD as well as the guitar transcription and got to work. And work it was. When I had first heard this piece of guitar magic on the radio I recognized its brilliance, but Johnson’s impeccably fluid technique almost masks the songs difficulty. He made it sound easy, and easy was something I quickly discovered this song was not.
By the time I had put a couple of afternoons into it I realized this process was going to take weeks, maybe even months to be able to do the song justice, but that was no deterrent. I quickly realized if I could master this piece, not only would it be a great showcase for me with my band, it was going to make me a better guitar player in the process.
Crossfire was a steady working band and my only job at this point in my life, performing all over New England 3 to 4 nights a week. So my daily routine during this phase consisted of sleeping late, eating a late breakfast or early lunch, and then heading over to my “guitar studio” for an afternoon of extreme woodshedding.
I began with the intro and learned as much of the opening passage as I could by ear. When I came across a phrase I couldn’t interpret I used the sheet music. When things still didn’t make sense, I used the reel to reel tape deck to slow the song down to half speed. Gradually, one phrase at a time, it began coming together. After a couple of weeks of this I could make it halfway through the song, granted with many mistakes and not very smoothly. I labored on. After about five or six weeks I knew the entire song note for note but could still not play all of it at tempo. So I began practicing the most difficult passages at slower tempos, one phrase at a time, sometimes running a one bar phrase over and over for 10 or 15 minutes, gradually nudging up the tempo of the metronome. Of course a one bar phrase of Cliffs of Dover might be a flurry of 10 or 12 notes played in about a second.
Finally, after about three months of making my friends and family crazy, shredding my fingers to the bone, and a couple of ugly moments when I almost threw the guitar through a window, I was ready to present it to the band. We made a few passes one day during a sound check/rehearsal and we were good to go. The crowd loved it when we played it later that night, and it became a staple in our set for the next two years. My performance on this piece gradually improved over that period, as the experience of playing it live helped me to further kick it up a notch. The song was so difficult to execute that I still practiced it daily during this period. Eventually I left Crossfire for another band and although I continued to play this piece, it wasn’t long before I put it aside.
Looking back, Cliffs of Dover was the hardest piece of music I have ever learned. I probably put between 200 and 300 hours into it prior to ever playing it with the band. But I do remember feeling instant results after I could play it. Performing less technical songs and solos became easier. My hands and fingers were stronger and my stamina had improved. My ear had also improved making it forever easier to learn new pieces of music.
Lately I’ve been feeling the need to challenge my playing again so I decided to bring this piece out of the closet. I sat down with it a couple of weeks ago and have been working it back up to speed ever since. It’s been 15 years, and the process of sitting down with it again is like visiting an old friend. Although not as daunting for me as it was back in 1990, it’s still a bitch, and I have a ways to go yet. Once I can get it to a point I feel comfortable with, I’ll post a video for you all to check out.
Completing this challenge was hard back then, and it’s hard again right now. But I believe it is these kinds of challenges, self-imposed or other, and the new horizons they lead us to that encapsulate the best of the human spirit.
Getting Started in Nashville
So you just moved to Nashville, you’re a good solid player with a good attitude and excited to begin working. You don’t care about being a superstar, you just want to play music with others but you are quickly learning that this can be hard to do. You are having a hard time getting off the ground. What do you have to do to get started in this town?
Regardless of your talent level, the truth is simply that talent alone isn’t going to get you work. Nashville, like any major music Metropolis, attracts talented people by the masses. They literally flock to this place in droves. This creates a supply and demand problem that works against the musicians. Knowing and understanding this is crucial. Ultimately, the only way in is by slowly nurturing relationships that will lead to opportunities. The best place to build these relationships is in the nightclubs around town. There is no shortcut to this, it’s going to take some time so be patient.
A newcomer to Nashville recently told me his story. He moved to Nashville about a year ago with the goal of becoming a part of the country music scene here. He has been frequenting the clubs downtown with the intention of sitting in and getting to know some of the players. Even though he’s familiar with most of the standards that are being played, he’s having a hard time getting past the idea of hustling to sit in. He said that he views his reasons for networking as self-serving, and this prevents him from talking to musicians because he feels self-conscious about it – like he’s using them. The end result is that he just walks around watching bands, never talks to anybody, and then goes home.
I, as well as many others, can relate. When I first moved to Nashville I was in a similar situation. How does one introduce them self to all these total strangers and maneuver his or her way into sitting in without coming off to self-serving?
One thing that worked for me was seeking out groups of players and artists that I related to musically. This makes it much easier to form real relationships that can evolve over time. Try to find a group of players, or singer that you really connect with. Maybe you really dig their song list, or are inspired by the performances of one or more of the players in the band. If you can feel a real connection through the music, it should be easy to engage in some genuine conversations – the music is your common ground. Find out when they’re playing again and become a regular. Over time they’ll gradually get to know you and sitting in will be part of a natural progression. Maybe try to cultivate a handful of different situations like this. Also, try to find these kinds of inspiring groups that are playing either earlier shifts and/or at the less popular bars. Those situations will be more laid back and might make it more likely for them to take breaks. And that combined with a smaller crowd in general will make it easier to engage in conversation.
The key to gigging in Nashville is relationships. It’s hard to force friendships and relationships to happen, they need to naturally evolve. You need to regularly put yourself in different kinds of situations where this can happen. It just takes time, persistence, and patience. Most importantly, be a good person. Of course being proficient on your axe will help to.
There is no guarantee that this approach will allow you to achieve the kind of success you envision. But for that matter, there are no guarantees in the music business, or life in general. So just suck it up, be in it for the long haul, and get out there and start pounding the pavement. Be friendly and outgoing and put your best foot forward. Talk to people. Take an interest in their careers and lives. Try to find some common ground and build relationships with players that you relate to. If you have already tried this and haven’t yielded much results, try harder.
That’s what it takes to get started in Nashville.
Nashville; To Be in the Game, You Need to Go to the Game
So you’re thinking about moving to Nashville. You’ve heard there’s a big music industry centered here and you want to work in it. You’re ready to relocate for the right opportunity and just posted a craigslist ad to notify the Nashville music community about your availability. What kind of opportunities exist here for you?
If you’re not already living here, then the answer is none. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any opportunities here for you, just that you need to live here if you want to be in the game. The most important thing to understand about the Nashville music industry is that it is very much community oriented. Most of the people earning a living from music in Nashville have been here for years, and many of these Nashville veterans have a long list of friends that are also working in the music business. When a tour needs to hire a new player, most band leaders want to hire someone they are familiar with and will start going down their list. They want to not only know that they are hiring a competent player, but one who is easy to get along with, someone that will fit into their touring “family”. In more cases than not, that player will either be someone they know personally, or who was referred by someone they know.
The same is true of the recording community as well. You’ve got to be proficient on your instrument, but you’ve also got to be someone that’s professional, easy to get along with and has already established these prerequisites. In most cases the session leader will hire others who are already established in the recording community and a part of that family.
For newcomers, this is the world you are entering and you can’t expect people to hire you before you’ve established this kind of reputation personally. Simply posting an ad from out-of-state with an audio link of your playing and your credentials doesn’t establish friendships and relationships. You need to be here. And you need to be here for a while (think in terms of years, not months) to establish the kind of relationships that might get you hired on a tour or recording session. You must invest yourself in the community, be a good person and work hard over a long period of time to establish your reputation. This is likely the case in any music community but holds especially true in Nashville where the supply far outweighs the demand.
The Internet can do a lot, and of course there are exceptions to every rule. I have met people online, be it message boards, craigslist, what have you, and some of these virtual connections have even led to real friendships and relationships. But in most of these cases, at least for me, any real friendship that might have started on the Internet only fully materialized after meeting the other party in the flesh, so to speak, or at least through telephone conversations.
Another way to look at it would be to compare it to becoming an actor in Hollywood. They’ve already got plenty of great actors that are out of work living right in Hollywood. Are they going to hire a stranger from an Internet ad that lives 2000 miles away? Probably not. They’re more than likely going to hire somebody that is already a part of that community first.
If you relocate to any city and invest yourself in the community, you will inevitably have many relationships and connections after 5, 10, 15 years or more. Nashville is no different. Shortcuts are simply not available for most of us.
So maybe a craigslist ad, or other Internet ad might work for some to make an initial introduction, or even to begin establishing some relationships. But if you truly want to be in the game, you should at least be present at the game.
How to Be Complementary without Complimenting
Most musicians, at one point or another, have, or probably will play a gig where one of the other musicians plays poorly or with bad taste resulting in a “painful” musical experience for some. But an even more awkward situation comes at the end of the night when the player in question starts fishing for compliments. You don’t feel a complement is warranted and don’t want to compromise your principles, but to state the totality of your feelings or say nothing might result in an awkward moment and/or damaged relationships. How do you save face without lying?
As the level of musicianship among the world’s performers can vary greatly, it is a near certainty that we will all wind up in this situation sooner later. Sometimes a less than qualified player can wind up in a situation where he or she has no business. By the time this is obvious, it’s too late and you just have to ride it out. Of course music is highly subjective, and therefore competence and taste can be subjective too. Sometimes the chemistry is just not there. Nevertheless, whether the player was an obvious hack or his or her style didn’t suit your taste, you are still faced with that odd moment at the end of the night when you might hear the words “I really enjoyed playing with you” or even worse “So what did you think of the gig?”
I recently played a gig with a local band at a nightclub in town. One of the regular members had subbed out his spot and his fill-in was a friend of the other players in the group. While this player was technically proficient and new the material, he overplayed. I mean, I didn’t know that number of notes even existed. Although the other players didn’t notice, or didn’t mind, I had great difficulty playing with this individual, and ultimately had a miserable time. At the end of the night this player said “You sound great, I really enjoyed playing with you.” Oh no, now what do I do? I was hoping he wouldn’t say anything. I thought he was tasteless and I hated playing with him, but saying that would have been construed as an insult, possibly damaging relationships within the group. To leave his complement hanging in the air and not respond would’ve also been construed as an insult. The minimal response of “thanks” might have been sufficient, but the lack of a complement in return might also have resulted in an awkward moment.
So I said “Thanks, we had some great moments. I had fun tonight.” These were all truths and I spoke this with sincerity. I was appreciative of his comment and responded accordingly with “thanks”. Even though I was in musical hell for most of the night, there were a couple of songs where it all came together – hence “some great moments”, and at a few points (probably those same moments) I actually had fun. I don’t care how bad a gig is going, there is always at least one point, even if it’s just one chorus or solo in one song, in which everything comes into alignment. Even though most of the musical moments of this night were not enjoyable for me, I chose to draw attention to the few good ones. Although I didn’t have much fun overall, I did have some fun at a couple of points, and in my mind it was those moments I was thinking of when I said “I had fun tonight”.
So I didn’t lie and I didn’t actually leave a complement, yet I was still “complimentary”. Nobody’s feelings were hurt and everybody wins.
Now I just hope I never have to play with him again.
The Dumbing Down of Music: Or, True Music for Life, and Life with True Music
Computer-based recording might possibly be the savior and destruction of music as a true art form. With computer based recording technology so affordable, it is now possible for anyone that wants to record music to do so. The plus side of this is that many poor struggling artists now have a chance to develop and preserve their work. The downside is new affordability has led to an oversaturation of mediocrity. There are over 4 million “bands” on MySpace, many that are terrible. Over the past two decades mediocre music has flooded cyberspace and media in general. Of course there are some undiscovered gems amongst the masses, but the percentage of poorly written and badly recorded pieces of music out there in the world is arguably much greater.
I believe this is part of what I call the dumbing down effect of music within our society. The ability for musicians of minimal proficiency to combine prerecorded loops and samples with less than optimal performances which can then be edited to something half palatable has greatly reduced the necessity for excellent musicianship in the recording process. Before the age of digital recording, most musicians that ever recorded had to have some minimum level of competency. Punching in mistakes and “flying over” whole sections of a performance were not yet practical, and in most situations this deemed it necessary to get it right on the first couple of takes. Of course there were some exceptions to this as there were plenty of recordings made of bands with minimal musicianship.
But aside from a few exceptions, prior to the digital age of recording, if you couldn’t play your ax, you didn’t record. The golden years of recording in America produced and revealed a vast collection of great musical composers and performers, many of whom possessed a depth of emotive ability and some technical prowess. Unfortunately, right around the time that computer-based recording was becoming commonplace, music education essentially vanished from our schools, and this further perpetuated a kind of musical illiteracy within the younger generation in a society that once excelled at it. Today, we have a society of “music-makers” that possess the ability to make musical recordings without necessarily needing to know how to play any instruments.
“Music for profit” is essentially a 20th-century invention, and one of its likely unintended byproducts is an overuse of music in media. Music has always been a big part of television and radio advertising, but the digital age has helped create a new level of oversaturation as generic sounding “computer music”, often the results of one composer working in a small home studio, are the backdrop to our television shows, and once great classic blues and rock anthems have been reduced to bad sounding MP3 ringtones and car commercials. With televisions on our phones and 24-7 connectivity on the web there is no escaping the constant barrage of media driven music. Music is everywhere, but all too often, without purpose.
There is one way out of this downward spiral of musical numbness. Learn to play an instrument. Commit yourself to musical excellence. Don’t just learn proficiency, learn how to express yourself with your instrument, as ultimately your instrument is an extension of your own being. Educate yourself about life and form real opinions. Have something to say and learn how to say it through the art of musical performance. When I was first learning how to play the guitar in the late 1970s, I worked at it. I practiced often. It was hard, but over the years it got easier, and I could eventually see tangible results. By the time I was into my adulthood I could consciously express emotions through musical performance. By the time I delved into computer-based recording in the early 2000s, I had already put a lifetime into the art of musical performance.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for computer-based recording. For it has allowed me to develop my compositional skills in new ways, improve my overall musicianship, and document my work, as it has for many. But the computer, and even the act of recording itself, are only as old as a newborn child when compared to the age of music itself. Music has always been there, and always will be. For music is life itself, as song and dance have always been a part of the human story.
At the end of the day, for music to survive as an art form yielding of true human expression, we must embrace music for music’s sake. Not for profit, but for life, and the expression of life. Music is an educator, a healer, and a savior. Music is the original human form of communication. Maybe one day again we will all use it for those means. True music for life, and life with true music.