Critical Condition Confusion

This was a headline on the local Nashville news the other day.

“Man shot by roommate in critical condition.”

Ok, a couple things here.

It’s confusing. Who is/was in critical condition?

If a man X got shot by his roommate, and man X is now in critical condition…I’m not interested.  We’ve seen and heard that story a million times.

However (and this is how I read the headline initially)…if, while in critical condition, a roommate shot a man…THAT sounds like a story worth hearing!

Turns out it was the first scenario. Boring.


What you say is important.

How you say it is important.

The way you say it and how you say it has everything to do with the way people hear it, and what they expect next.

And if you want to make a career in the entertainment business, it’s worth it to have all of those things line up with one another. 

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

Rudolph

…the red nosed reindeer.

Yes, I’m going to use the Rudolph song as a metaphor.

So we listen through the whole song and Rudolph is the champion.  Rudolph was the unique red-nosed reindeer and all he needed the whole time was for someone to recognize that a red nose is even better than the more popular black nose.

Once the red nose had a chance to be seen as a cool thing, it was seen as a cool thing!!

We’re all dying to be Rudolph. For our chance. For people to finally recognize our genius and put us at the front of the line.

Oh to one day be Rudolph. To go down in history.

But I’d like to suggest another character that perhaps is holding more long term power and wisdom, and the character from the song we might really want to be like…

Santa

There are three things…

1. Santa understands exactly what the problem at hand is: it’s foggy, which makes it hard to see…and seeing is important for flying a sleigh all around the world on Christmas Eve.

2. He knows exactly where to take his problem: Rudolph…the only reindeer (that we know of :) with a light-up nose helpful for seeing through fog.

3. Santa presents an opportunity to Rudolph that will boost Rudolph’s social standing (literally putting him at the front of the line) while playing THE essential role in Santa carrying out his Santa duties.

It may sound silly…but this three step process will build a long long career in this business.

Knowing your problem/need.

Knowing where to take your need.

Helping someone else while at the same time having your need met.

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

Bruno TV Special

Last night I watched the Bruno Mars special on CBS.

You need to watch it. It’s going to take a little work, as CBS doesn’t make it one-click-easy but you can sign up for a free trial and watch it free.

It’s worth the effort. It’s worth making a priority and cancelling some other plans to make the time.

It’s next level stuff.

You’ll learn a lot…if you’re interested in learning a lot.

So many good ideas executed so well.

The way they incorporate Mary in the red dress into the story…elite level.

It was very clear to me that for the last few months while I haven’t been thinking about Bruno Mars…he has been thinking about me, and the next time I’d see him, on this tv special.

Practicing, creating, re-arranging songs, STAYING IN SHAPE, rehearsing, innovating, getting better, smoother, honing intuition…all so that our reunion would be memorable.

And it was.

p.s. And just so there’s no confusion…yes, what I’m saying is: watch this and steal the best ideas that occur to you and use them in your show. 

p.p.s If you watch and nothing occurs to you, watch it again. Most of the answers (a version of them) are being played out right before you.



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

We Want People To Dance pt. 2

I’d say most of the time…and i’ve been to thousands of shows…people use the fact that there’s a stage and humans playing music on the stage as a common focal point to dodge any sort of awkwardness or insecurity that could come about by interacting with the people around them…i.e. Dancing.

‘Looking at the stage’ is a safe place. (And it can be a wildly entertaining too.) 

And people value their safety more than anything in the world.

So perhaps as it pertains to dancing at your shows, it would be good to play for the type of people who don’t necessarily need a safety outlet via the stage…People who didn’t necessarily come to watch the artists on stage all night.

Because I guarantee you…if you want your people to dance and they don’t want to dance, they ain’t dancing.

(Unless you have the magic, the juice, to cause people to change their minds…that’s an elite skill)

p.s. People who don’t want to dance need you to not need them to dance in order to put on your best show.

p.p.s. This is a repeat note from the last post, but worth mentioning again…a dancing audience is an audience that is not looking at you.  Is this something you’re willing to work toward…to have the goal be that the audience looks at you less, not more?



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

We Want People To Dance

‘We want people to dance at our shows.’

That’s the most common (although certainly not the only) thing I hear artists want their audience to do.

What an interesting problem to dive into and (hopefully) solve.

So what causes people to not only WANT to dance but to ACTUALLY dance?

Most often: music. Good. You’ll be playing music on stage so you’re already part of the way there.

Beyond that there’s a lot of variables specific to you. But here’s a couple things worth pointing out…

1. If you’re sitting in a coffee shop and a reeeeally good song comes on, notice how you’re probably not the only one who physically reacts to it.  If you can’t help but smile or tap your foot, nod your head, mouth the words, etc…there are others.

2. When this happens, try to remember what song was playing just before this one.  The previous 3 minutes have an amazing power of setting up the current 3 minutes.  

3. What is it about the song that everyone is loving and what is it about the song that played just before it that set it up so perfectly.

This observational process isn’t confined to a coffee shop…it happens all the time in restaurants, Home Depot, club shows, theater shows, stadium shows.

The ‘answers’ you can observe here aren’t the only ingredient in getting your people moving, but one realization leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to an idea, which leads to another…and “all of a sudden” it just clicks for you.

Get moving. Get seeing.

p.s. Something to consider and usually overlooked if you’re goal is to get the crowd dancing:

-dancing crowds are almost never facing the stage…think of a wedding, people don’t face the speakers or the stage or the DJ, the attention is on the dancing and the music, not the source of the music (are you willing to give up that attention?)

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

Repeating Lyrics

For your next EP, LP, triple record…for your next project record, what if you repeated the same lyric in each song? 

In some way…maybe it gets sung in one, whispered in the next, then spoken, spoken by someone else, done with tons of vocal effects…use your imagination. 

But you get it, the same phrase shows up in each of these songs.

It might help a cool way to communicate the theme of the project. 

And if you’re doing a project (as opposed to singles), I’d argue it should have a theme.

And if you have a theme, it bears repeating. It bears driving home.

***At this point, for those who are scoffing at this idea thinking it’s pretty stupid/elementary/calculated/trying too hard, there is an album that came out this year by a band that you absolutely know of and respect who did something like this. And I’m not telling you who it was.  If you buy me a cup of coffee I’ll tell you.

****And now at this point, for those of you who are scoffing because this is no longer an original idea so you’re definitely not going to do it because you only do things that have never been done before…I can’t help you.

p.s. And maybe it’s not whether or not you employ this idea…but whether or not you COULD. As in, the distinct theme is there just waiting to be repeated in each song if you decide to.



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