The Right Size Band

If everything goes fairly well, what is the ceiling for your as an artist?

The easy answer is the sky is the limit.

But think about that…As they’re building the new skyscrapers downtown right now, how tall are should they make them?

They don’t say, “we’ll just keep building till we can’t build anymore or we run out of money or supplies”.

They don’t say, “the more floors we build the more money we can make in rent payments so we project we’ll want to build a million floors high”.

No.

On the one hand it’s true…the sky IS the limit.

But in reality, based on the foundation of what the building was designed to be, it can only get so big.


So based on your foundation as an artist you have a more-than-likely ceiling if everything goes as planned.

What are you designed to be?

It can be huge it can be small. Either one can be important.

So it’s important to know what you’re building.


***Sure, you could be the one bluegrass band who sells out stadiums worldwide. But that’s a different blog post :)

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

Bouncing A Basketball

If I go to the park just down the street and start bouncing a basketball I’m probably not going to get a lot of compliments on my new glasses.

However, if I’m bouncing a basketball, eventually someone is going to walk up to me who is also interested in a bouncing basketball.

Then, after we shoot around for a while I might just get that compliment on my new glasses I want.


If I get frustrated at my new friend for not opening with the glasses compliment then I neither get the compliment nor the basketball partner.


We must understand what our magnet is…not necessarily what we want it to be…but what it IS.

Accept the magnet, learn it’s power and use it to connect.

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

The Little Things

They’re watching. They notice the little things. The little extra touches and changes.

And it’s probably only that small group of fans who notice. But they do, and they care.

And that’s why you do those little things.

If you’re doing them in hopes that everyone will notice, it will feel like no one is noticing.

If you’re doing them for that small group of fans, I guarantee they notice.


*** When I was a kid there was a band I saw a bazillion times and they had a song where after the song was over there was an unscripted amount of dead space and then the drummer would do a fill and cue an extended outro of the song.

Sometimes it was a short dead space, sometimes suuuuuuper long, sometimes somewhere in-between.

It was fun because I had figured out the drummer was the only one who knew when he was going to come in…so everyone else in the band was held in a funny tension just like us in the audience not knowing when the drummer was gonna come back in.

I always looked forward to that little part though. They didn’t do it for everyone, they did it for me.

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

Time Lapse Drawing Videos

Those super fast time lapse videos on Instagram of amazing drawings and artwork are fun to watch.

1. Because I know they’ll only post them if the final product is cool.

2. Because I don’t have to do any of the waiting around. There are no boring parts. They go from a blank piece of paper to a masterpiece in under sixty seconds. Perfect, that’s exactly the amount of time I have to spare.

We all know the real reason those videos are fun to watch is because the artist did the hard part of getting good at drawing, iPhones did the hard part of getting good at taking time lapse videos, and Instagram did the hard part of making the platform that we want to get on everyday.

The hard parts take a long time.

The videos only take sixty seconds to enjoy.

And most people just want to enjoy the video.

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

Must The Show Go On?

Maybe the actual problem IS that the show always goes on. The show always happens and artists take advantage of that.

See, there’s no person who stops you two or three songs into your show and says ‘this just isn’t good enough, try again in a few months’.

I would argue that if this sort of thing happened once or twice along the way to every artist, there would be a proper fear and respect for what a show needs to be in order to pass.

But this sort of thing doesn’t happen. So the show always goes on and in turn the audience gets a lot of lack luster, mediocre entertainment.

What if you had to prepare in a way that you were juuuuuuust a little afraid the boogie man was going to stop you if it wasn’t up to par?

I’m going to say you would prepare better. Because it would be REALLY embarrassing if the boogie man came on stage two songs into your set and announced it was over because it wasn’t good enough.

The fear of that possible embarrassment would cause you to prepare a better show.

I don’t anticipate any venue will be employing a boogie man with the threat of kicking you off stage…

…so if the ‘show goes on’, make sure it’s 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

(demo)

(demo) is an invitation for collaboration.

It says: Check out this really great song that isn’t even done yet and is only going to get better from here.

It’s an invitation for excitement and ultimately, hope.

If you send a song to someone with (demo) on the end, you might not actually want their opinion on how to make it better…but THEY feel as if their opinion might be have life. That their opinion might matter to the final outcome. That they matter. That the door is open even if they never get the chance to give it.

(demo) is an invitation.

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