When To Put Your Coat On

I get cold easy. And I don’t like being cold. So growing up in Minnesota had its natural challenges.

I was at a high school football game (attending not playing) wearing a long sleeve shirt on top of my t-shirt. And I brought my coat for when the temp really dropped later at night.

First quarter I’m ok. But by the second quarter I’m really getting cold. By halftime I’m completely distracted by what is now absolute arctic discomfort.

But my thought is this…The longer I can wait to put my coat on the more Ahhhh I’ll feel when I finally put it on.

So I push.

Like a proud Minnesotan, I push through the cold.  

I am shivering I am shaking. I am in an icy igloo of despair.

Keep in mind…I have had my coat with me, right next to me since the beginning of the football game.

Finally in the fourth quarter I put on my coat.

There was no Ahhhhh moment. Nothing got better. The wait was not worth it. By the time the fourth quarter hit, the coat could not rescue me. The damage was irreversibly done.

Don’t wait to get cold before putting your jacket on.

Put on your jacket on right before you get cold.

I’ll let you carry the metaphor from here.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

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

Before They Even See You

When people want you to be a good band they’re more likely to experience you and remember you as a good band.

So how can you get people to want you to be a good band?

Charge $30 instead of $10.

Charge $0 instead of $100.

Play a smaller venue.

Play a smaller market.

Play a market you’ve never played (let the power of streaming go before you).

Play a 4th of July celebration.

Play a frat bar (unless they turn on you…it can get ugly).

Make sure that any reputation that proceeds you has a heavy concentration on ‘you just have to see it live’.


If people want you to be good before they even arrive at the venue, you win.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

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

Whew...

Finally an email for you today today without a sale, a percentage off, a one-day-only, or the dreaded doorbuster savings.

I hope you’ve had a lovely, fulfilling, filling day.

The timing is never right for the turkey getting done at the same time as the mash potatoes were mashed. Someone is upset the cranberries never got passed around. The chairs that got added to the table aren’t very comfortable. Not everyone dressed up and the hosts are passively annoyed.

But regardless…thankfulness is a posture, attitude and outlook that you can choose. It’s free to choose. You don’t have to wait.

***My wife Sarah is a professional cook, but she entrusted me to do the turkey. She gave me a B+. I am thankful for her generous spirit and I will try harder next year.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

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

Learn vs. Do Wrong

What did you learn?…is not the same as…What did you do wrong?

It’s easy to make the mistake of answering the first question as though it was the second.

‘What did you learn?’ holds so many more possibilities looking toward the future.

***And pertaining to the things that were done wrong…if you’re not willing to reframe them in a learning lens they’re probably not worth rehashing in the first place.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

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

The Best Parts Of The Band

The best parts of being in a band are the boring parts.

When you’ve run out of adrenaline, no cheering crowds, all the funny stories have been told, everyone’s maxed out on internet and podcasts.

It’s in the boredom that each person shows a deeper glimpse of who they truly are. And those are the parts that we all want see in others, and also reveal ourselves.

And for better or worse…there’s a lot of boredom in bands, especially in the beginning.

But that’s how and why bands can become so close. It has everything to do with how you experience the boredom. What happens in the boredom. What you do with the boredom.

Said another way…

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” - Lester Bangs in Almost Famous

Boredom is uncool. There’s lots of boredom in bands. There’s lots of ‘true currency’ in bands.

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

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

Memorizing Piano

When I was a kid I had to take piano. My mom was right I wish I would have kept with it.

Here’s the thing…

I was much better at memorizing the music than reading the music.

So my process was, I would work and think really hard in order to memorize it so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

That was the fun part. And I would play it as fast as I could too.

But after a few days or weeks or months of cruising along without thinking…the thinking would creep back in.

And once I started thinking again I made a lot of mistakes, sometimes I forgot whole parts of the song as I was sitting at the piano…and it was really hard to go back to the ease of not thinking.

The muscle memory was gone…or spotty at best. It felt impossible to simply tell myself to stop thinking and just play.

I, begrudgingly, had to go back to the music and figure it all out again before I could move forward.


So the sequence is something like this…

Thinking/Learning (difficult)

Not Thinking/Muscle Memory (fun)

Re-Thinking/Understanding (meaningful)

Knowing (longevity)

Don’t miss a post. Sign up for free.

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