Time vs. Expertise

When George Martin told The Beatles to speed up Please Please Me by twenty beats per minute…how much was that worth?

If Rick Rubin walks into your session, snaps his fingers three times and your song turns into a smash…how much should he be paid?

All of a sudden you need a song mixed by tomorrow and the engineer who is booked six months out gets it done anyway…how should the payment be calculated?


Expertise doesn’t have an hourly rate. Neither does coming through for someone to relieve their anxiety, stress and fear.

It’s about transformation through expertise, not amount of time worked.

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

Specifying / Prefacing

“The chicken has nuts in it.”

vs

“The chicken might not be very good.”

The specifying is for them. The prefacing is for you.

Not all prefacing is this way, but I know you know what I’m talking about here.

The little things that we say (just before the main thing we mean to say) in order to protect ourselves and our egos.

It’s scarier and more thrilling to go without the preface.

***There are very few artists, writers, producers who are confident enough to play someone a new song without throwing in a few prefacing remarks. 

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

Throwing Away A Picture

Drawing a picture to throw it away.

Writing a song and not recording it.

Making a glorious meal for one.

It’s a different thing isn’t it? It changes the answer so drastically to the question, ‘what is it for?’

It’s most likely a less confusing answer too.

You might not do any one of those three things very often but it might be worth doing one of those things once in a while. To remember what simplified, specific purpose feels like.

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

Do / Doing

I love the difference in responses to the two questions…

What do you do?

What are you doing?

The first one is easier to wiggle out of, or white lie, or be ambiguously as successful as you want to be.

The second one demands more reality and less ideal.

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

Who’s Going To Believe First?

Most artists spend most of their time waiting to be picked.

Be picked by the best record label, the most connected manager, the high powered booking agent.

They spend all their time waiting to get picked instead of picking…instead of believing.

Artists want to be believed in before they’ve proved it, but don’t want to believe in others UNLESS they’ve proved it first. (aka…artists believe in the ones they want to be picked by, but not in the ones they themselves could pick)

Artists want the very thing that they’re not willing to give to others.

The only way to begin breaking the cycle is to go first and believe in someone who hasn’t proven it yet.

That’s what you’re hoping others will do for you, so go do it first.

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

Where Are The Tongs?

It turns out we like things in the kitchen more than just approximately right.

If it goes in the fourth drawer and it gets put in the third drawer, there is panic.

We don’t really want the babysitter to unload the dishwasher.

Or the babies.

There are some things in life that need to be just right.

And a lot of other things we only think need to be just right.

The price tag for delegating tasks is that they are not going to do it exactly like you.

The price tag for not delegating tasks is that you have to do it, and there’s only so much you can do.

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