Thinking And Telling pt. 2

I don’t think The Eagles or Carole King (etc, etc, etc) are worried about putting out a song or video or putting on a show where people are inspired to tell other people about how good it was.

They don’t need that anymore. They used to but now they don’t need to.

The people simply thinking ‘that was good’ (without ever telling other people ‘that was good’) is enough.  A certain critical mass of people listen to the music, watch the videos, come to the shows and sustain the artists’ career.

That’s enough. They don’t need anymore new fans.

What this really means is…they did the hard part a long time ago. They built that critical mass via being an artist that you had to tell people about.

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

Thinking And Telling

On the one hand people hearing your track, seeing your video, watching your show and thinking ‘that was good’ is a victory.  

But if you want your thing to spread you have to do something to where people hear your track, see your video, watch your show and think ‘that was good’ AND then go tell someone ‘that was good’.

Thinking it is great, telling it is even better.

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

The Other Persons Perfect

It has to get done my way: perfect.

vs

It has to get done to a level that is good enough that I (and we) can stand behind.


As long as you go with the first way you’ll always be limited to exactly what you can accomplish. You may act like you’re delegating but really you’re waiting to say “here give it to me, I’ll do it myself”.


As for the second way, ‘good enough’ is simply the price you pay in order to grow, in order to not go crazy, in order to enjoy and respect the people you work with, in order to create something bigger than yourself, in order to be less lonely, in order for you to delegate and focus on the part that needs to be exactly perfectly your way.

Demanding good enough allows room for the other persons perfect.

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

One More Grammys Until Next Time

Ok, I know Sunday nights’ Grammys have officially and completely faded into the forgotten column until next time, but a couple other things that are worth mentioning…

1. Every artist sitting in the audience and watching on TV who doesn’t win an award secretly has an acceptance speech waiting in their mind. It’s been subtly rehearsed over and over probably since high school, refined, tweaked, been compared to the speech you’re currently watching, maybe sometimes you cry in the speech, sometimes not, etc, etc.

Give the acceptance speech anyway. Get all your people together and give the speech. Every year. Win, lose or still playing 200cap rooms, give the speech.

2. The work you did (the music you made) doesn’t change if you win. The work is the work. That’s it. When you hit play on Kacey Musgraves album today it’s the same music as when you pressed play a year ago.

The music doesn’t get better if you win…except…it does change a little. Not the work, but the listener who knows about the winning. Now the listener is listening to a Grammy award winning album instead of a non Grammy award winning album. Some people like the former better, some people like the latter better.

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

The Strengths You Have

It’s easy to think that since you aren’t as successful as you want to be that the strengths you have must be the kind that aren’t worth very much.

But you’d be wrong. You’ll see. If you keep going.


***I know that the Grammys were a whole two days ago and are almost completely forgotten, but Kacey Musgraves’ album, which won album of the year, is fantastic. Daniel Tashian co-produced the album and co-wrote on a lot of the songs.

A bunch of years ago I, along with the other punks in this video, wrote a song with Daniel…ironically it sounds exactly like if the guy who did Kacey’s album worked with a rock band.

We were very into unbuttoned button ups at the time.

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

What I Saw On The Grammys

Presence trumps technique.

Because presence transforms technique.

Presence makes almost any technique look good.

It’s also where the phrases ‘they made it their own’ and ‘owning it’ and ‘they did their thing’ come from.

Technique can be copied (and you probably should) but presence cannot.

So making it their own, etc. simply means they stole, borrowed, mimicked, learned, adapted the technique and then had a strong enough presence which then transformed the technique into something remarkable.

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