I opened my kitchen window and my neighbor was playing a really great playlist on her back porch.
What made it even better was that I didn’t pick it. What made it even better was that when I opened my window I didn’t know it was going to start playing. What made it even better was that I there was no way for me to know what song was coming next.
For how much we want find the thing we want…we want the thing we want to find us.
The show starts when you walk on stage and doesn’t end till you walk off stage.
The whole time you’re up there it’s the show. Even when you don’t feel like it is. Even when you think it’s just in between songs and isn’t part of the show and no one is really watching…it’s still the show.
How much intensity, what kind of intensity, what and where the big moments are, the silences, the script, the transitions, the beats and grooves and notes…that’s up to you. Those are your tools for your show.
But by far the most important thing to learn, remember, understand and play around with is that the entire time you are on stage you are putting on a show.
If talking and speculating about what you think will happen has no bearing on what will actually happen it might be time to change the conversation. Or…keep having the conversation but understand it’s just for fun.
»» Perhaps no better example of this than sports commentary in the days leading up to the game.
There’s the thing you’ve been wanting to do once you find a little extra time. It’s just that you’re so busy with everything that it’s tough to find the extra time.
And then you find some. But you’re so tired from being so busy that you decide it would really be best to do nothing with this extra time. That you need a break in order to properly climb aboard your busy schedule once again.
So the thing you’ve been wanting to do gets delayed again until you find a little more extra time within your busy schedule…the busy schedule that makes you tired that makes you want to take a nap when any extra time pops up rather than do the thing you actually want to do.
It’s not that we don’t have the time. It’s that it’s hard to re-focus our minds (after a long day or a long month) from one desire to another.
You have the time. Push through and make it happen.
It used to be hard to get on TV, now it’s easy. Just take a video with your phone, stream it to Apple TV and presto you’re on TV.
So that must not be what we’re talking about when we say ‘I want to get on TV’.
‘I want to get on TV’ means we want one of the TV spots that are difficult to get on. We want to feel the buzz of achieving something elusive and exclusive. We’ve seen the big artists we love on TV and now we’re on TV so now we’re the same as them. Maybe that’s what getting on TV is really for.
It’s not about getting on a TV screen, that’s the easy part. It’s all the other stuff that creates the desire.
Is it enough to tell the story well or does it need to be received (by someone or an audience) in order to be worth it?
The answer is akin to…sitting on the edge of your bed with a guitar vs. taking your guitar with you when you venture out into the world.
It’s a completely different game.
Is it enough to do a good job…or is the ‘good job’ predicated on others also thinking you did a good job? If so, what is the criteria?
(Here sits the frustration of so many artists. The criteria isn’t written down and it’s always inconsistent.)
Once you add one single person to the listening audience beyond yourself…it’s not just one more person, it suddenly becomes a whole new thing.
So if you’re going to play for an audience, don’t forget about the audience.