Talking Guitar Tone

You spend a lot of time finding the perfect guitar tone to perfectly communicate the truth and feel of the song. 

Guitar tone X is really good, but a little more time and care and you discover guitar tone Z and it’s jus better for “some reason”.

You might consider the tone in which you lead your team too.

Having the exact right answer or a monumentally great idea or a truly helpful thought or a well thought out plan of action is pretty useless if you say it in a way that the receiver doesn’t receive it.

Finding and knowing the right tone for the right time takes a very long time…whether for your guitar or for your next conversation.

But both tones can change the world, so it’s probably worth paying attention and getting better.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

What Are We Suppose To Be Doing?

As a new band in front of a new audience, the audience is asking themselves (and/or subconsciously wondering)…what are we suppose to be doing? 

If you can and will answer that question as a new band early on, that will be helpful for everyone.

p.s. In the audience’s wondering “what are we suppose to be doing”…the word “suppose” supposes that there is in fact an answer to the question, a correct thing…and that the right answer has been figured out by the leaders on stage and will be shared (most likely by subtle yet pronounced actions) with the audience.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Here’s When To Tweak

Tweak the direction while things are good.

Because if you’re going to have staying power you’re going to tweak.

And the alternative(s) to tweaking while things are good is to tweak things while they’re bad…or even worse, stale.

Over the long term, the truth is you are going to tweak at all three of these stages, but it seems like the first one to we forget about is the good stage.

The best way to keep the good times rolling is to change them a little.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Key Factor(s)

Everyone thinks their contribution was the most important part, the key to making it happen. Even if theirs was the tiniest part, it was the most important…there’s a voice inside saying “this wouldn’t be what it is without me”.

And they’re right. And you’re right. And I’m right.

So you have an opportunity to tell them that they were the key.  Not in a patronizing way, but in a genuine way…and by doing that you’re also saying “what you were secretly thinking was the truth“ and that is something we LONG for. 

p.s. Most of us are afraid of admitting someone else was the key, because we then believe that if they are they key that we aren’t the key…and if we aren’t the key then what’s even the point.

That’s a lonely life.



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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Professional T-Ball

If you are a professional t-ball player you get to call yourself a professional.

But you are very different from a professional baseball player.

Tis true, the professional t-ball player and the professional baseball player are both professional, and they walk and talk and breathe and work as such.  They both hit a round ball with a bat and run bases and catch pop-ups.

But they are not the same.

A pro baseball player has the capacity to play pro t-ball, but will always choose not to because professional baseball is where all the t-ball players aspire to be. It’s the more mature, precise, direct version of the game.

A pro t-ball player does not have the capacity to play pro baseball (yet), even though he carries the tag of “professional”. 

So obviously the word “professional” does not mean the same thing for everyone, and it certainly does not mean the same thing for everyone in the music business.

Some people play at very high levels…levels the t-ball players can hardly imagine.

So it might be time to up your game.  It’s time to imagine bigger, to implement bigger, to begin operating on an extremely high level, to have razor sharp vision, to not waste anymore time (yours or theirs), to be clear and content with what you have to offer each situation at the given time.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Things You Had Right The First Time

There’s a lot you got wrong the first time around. 

But there is in fact some things you got right the first time…

believing you could

putting raw desire into action (be the action right or wrong)

being willing to step on stage performing like you had it all while knowing you didn’t…yet

playing that show to only the bartender (yes, that was the right decision back then)

the guts to put the band together

at every second of the day living out: I am doing this. I made this. I intend to rock the world.


It might not be a long, extensive list (and maybe you have some additions you can make), but it’s important to remember that you had some stuff right on the money from beginning.  Some things that you can actually look back on your younger self and say “You were right”.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com