They’re lightly playing a song, singing along, maybe noodling something in the higher register…
And then as they smash into the mid and low-mid part of the piano they kinda lean back and to one side a bit. Like they’re pushing the piano with their hands and the piano is pushing back in beautiful tension and release.
I love that move.
I don’t have that move but I love when I see real players do it.
There’s a smooth professionalism that comes through. It’s so subtle. Yeah, I can play those chords too, but I can’t DO that.
On the same note…
I watched a documentary this past weekend having to do with an old Italian woman making handmade pasta.
For those of us who believe Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is pasta… To make handmade pasta, as the dough gets rolled really thin with a wooden rolling pin, flour gets sprinkled periodically on the table, the dough and rolling pin so the dough doesn’t stick to anything.
All this motion is happening at the same time and the dough gets paper thin but never breaks.
It’s amazing.
Watching her do this work, watching her hands…she wasn’t doing anything special, except that it was absolutely unbelievable. It probably took thirty or forty years to be that smooth and effortless. Truly a thing of beauty.
A day to learn a lifetime to master. It’s the little things.
This is a follow up to a post from a couple years ago.
In all the squabbling over ‘who pays for music?’…
There’s a good chance you’re spending time with people today who have paid dearly for music.
For your music.
For you making music.
Your spouse pays big time, your mom and dad (you were awful at the drums in high school and they never told you), your kids, the rest of your family and your friends.
That rollercoaster of writing songs for a record. They pay for it too.
That emotional turmoil of having the record done and wondering if it’s going to work. They pay for it too.
That relational distance and changes that being on the road cause. They pay for it too.
When you get hurt by the people you’re pursuing this crazy dream with. They pay for it too.
When you get the big opportunity, and then lose it and then it comes back and then you lose it and then…They pay for it too.
It’s worth pouring them a little extra egg nog tonight. Spending a little more time on the couch. Squeezing just a little harder during the hug.
When deciding to say yes or no to the future commitment, gig, thing…imagine yourself getting out of bed that morning, looking at your calendar and seeing that commitment, gig, thing on your calendar.
Yes or no?
***This is not a decision paradigm for all of life. You’re gonna have to do a lot of things you don’t want to do. But reframing the ‘hey can you do this gig in three weeks for me for $100’ is helpful. The easiest thing to do in the moment is say yes to your buddy. But when that day comes three weeks later, you wish you would have been nicer to yourself.
Too often artists (usually subconsciously) ask ‘what’s the minimum effort I can put into preparing for this show and still get a pass.’
By ‘pass’ I mean so know people won’t laugh at you…and so that you can feasibly bridge your minimum amount of effort with the maximum by lying to yourself that you put in the maximum amount of effort. Putting in juuuuust enough effort so that you’ll believe your own lie.
It’s much more exciting, scary, romantic, fulfilling, risky to venture down the road of (consciously) asking ‘what would it look like to do the maximum preparation for this show, tour, tv performance, acoustic performance, etc etc’.
Stop trying to get away with it.
That way you don’t ever have to worry about a pass again.
