Singing Freely

I listened to an episode of Invisiblia the other day called The Other Real World.

The basic gist was that people in Somalia, until recently, weren’t allowed to sing in public. It was punishable by death from the extremist group al-Shabab. It goes on to tell the story of their version of American Idol being started and ushering in a change where singing in public without the looming threat of death was possible.

Just to reiterate. Singing = probable death.

We can’t relate.

We get to sing. But not everyone gets to sing.

At it’s very foundation, music facilities emotion and connection. Even the Somalia bad guys knew that…that’s why they outlawed it: singing (emotion and connection) was anti what the bad guys were all about.

So you get to sing freely.

Make it a good one.

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

Horse Mask

When I was at SXSW a few years ago, I was walking down the madness of 6th street and something caught my eye…I turned my head and there about fifteen feet ahead of me and a little to the right a guy was walking toward me in a horse mask.

The horse mask stuck out and I focused on this guy in a horse mask for about two seconds and then went back to looking at everything else.

And as horse mask guy kept walking down the street, he also seemed to have the same effect on everyone else. Two or three seconds of attention and focus from them and then everyone was moving on.


While it might seem hard to get attention, getting attention isn’t really the point is it? Cause after all, horse masks aren’t that expensive…you could afford several.

What is worth while is learning how to KEEP attention once people are giving it to you.

That’s what the horse mask guy was missing (although maybe he gets the last laugh because here I am years later telling you about him :)

A horse mask is good at getting attention and bad at keeping it.

How do you want to not only get peoples’ attention, but more importantly keep peoples’ attention?

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

The Co-Write Trap

“Somebody has to write those mediocre middle of the road songs that get cut…why not us today…maybe we could write one of those average songs that a signed artist cuts and it’s so average that it goes to radio and makes everyone a bunch of money.”

The reason why it’s a trap is that it might work.

The danger is if you stay in the trap, those days that you wrote those songs aren’t good fulfilling days. Line up a bunch of days like that and you have a bad life.

The trap is not the writing of average songs…because that will happen sometimes.

The trap is in the intent.  The trap is in fooling yourself into thinking it’s a worthwhile intention to write average songs that will appeal to everyone and eek out a few dollars.

And for anyone who’s in the business and been in those writing rooms you know exactly what songs I’m talking about.

Get out of the trap. Write better. Write for the best. If it’s not great, that’s ok, lay it down and make another run…but always write for the best. Everyday. Every session.

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

Pay An Expert

Pay an expert to produce the record.

Pay an expert to mix the record.

Pay an export to book the tour.

Pay an expert to aid in putting together the show.

Pay an expert to work the streaming playlists.

Pay an expert to take the photographs.

Pay an expert to develop the story and how it’s told.

Pay an expert.


So you’re paying all these people. Spending all this money. It begs the question…

People should pay YOU because you’re an expert in…..???

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

If You Can’t Count To Ten

When you’re about to say something stupid…

Count to ten.

If you can’t count to ten…at least count to three.

But chances are if you can count to three you can probably count to ten too.

So if you’re the type of person who can count at all, then every second you count instead of speak, your response gets smarter.

***I know this doesn’t really have to do with the music business…except that there’s a lot of stupid stuff that gets said in this business…we can all get better at contributing better conversations.

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

Hey Alexa, Play Booty Booty Tutu...

…playlist.


That’s not a playlist. Not yet anyway. But it’s really fun to say out loud.  Go ahead, say it :)

And that’s going to be important in the near future…playlist names that are fun to say out loud.

(Also going to be popular, playlists with very practical names like…Alexa, play the Doing The Dishes playlist).

We like saying fun things.

And saying fun and funny things to a robot (Alexa, Siri, Google) makes them even more fun and funny.

It’s all going to be voice command soon enough, and it turns out what we like to say is different from what we like to type.  

And how we think about typing to find music is different from what we speak to find music.

There’s a ton of great playlist names out there (that are really fun to say out loud) for the taking right now that in three or five years you might “wish I had thought of that”.

Start now. It’ll pay off later.

Booty Booty Tutu.

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