The Dreaded Ballad

I guess I mean the sad ballad more than the dreaded.

Because I love a good sad song.

The issue arises when the sad song becomes the hit song.

Here’s the thing…when people come to see you play live, they are excited to see you. But your hit is a sad song. And it’s hard to sell excitement and sadness in the same package.

On the other hand, you don’t want to make people feel sad while they’re at your show just so it matches up with the sad song you’re about to play.

So what do you do with an exciting show and a sad song? Well, I think this is a problem for you to get creative with…but I’ll take a swing at a line of thinking…

It’s hard to connect Excitement with Sadness. But it’s easy to connect Excitement and Hope. And then Hope and Sadness can easily co-exist right next to each other.

»» Similarly, it’s tough for the amazing specialty dessert shop down the street to bring in a breakfast crowd. People love indulging in sweets but there’s a time and a place and a flow and a story we tell ourselves about when we’re going to indulge. That’s why they add coffee to the menu and add their chocolate to the croissant…aka breakfast pastry. Now we can open for breakfast.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Listening On Purpose

First Monday of the month means a new Hum Love playlist on Spotify and Apple.

Making a regularly scheduled playlist is fun and easy and free. Maybe this is the year you get on the bus.

It’s a way to share. To connect. To learn what you like. For others to hear what you’re into. To shine a light on an artist. To figure out what songs sound good together. To click around, listening to music on purpose.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Ever Since I Can Remember

‘We’ve been doing it ever since I can remember’ goes hand in hand with ‘this is the way it is’. Those two ideas are locked together. Why do we do it like this? Because I can’t remember doing it any other way.

But the problem is that we’re all too old to institute a new ‘ever since I can remember’. We can’t turn back the clock to when we were kids and change the life long ‘way it is’.

So our only choice is to make institute new ways for things to be…so that years from now we can say, ‘we’ve been doing this ever since we decided to.’

It’s not as romantic as ever since I can remember, but it will go a long way in changing the way it is.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Release Dates

If you wanted, you could tweak one song until the day you died. And still never finish it.

It’s almost done. It’s getting there. Just a few more tweaks. I’m not quite happy with it. It still needs a little extra something. I’m gonna keep tinkering.

It would be really easy to never bring anything to completion.

But somewhere along the way the idea of Release Dates was invented and became a normal practice. If you were an artist it became about making music and RELEASING music.

Releasing music is not only a gift to your audience but a gift to yourself as the artist. It’s a natural (much needed) jumping off point, break off point, setting yourself free to let this one go and go work on another with your full attention and effort.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Posters On The Wall

If you can get your poster on a kids wall it’s likely they’ll think about your music more and play your music more and tell more of their friends about you more.

And maybe that’s why the artists from our middle school and high school years are still our favorite. They occupied the space on our walls and occupied the space in our minds and ears.

So if you’re wanting to gain a young audience, it’d be a good idea to sell posters for them to put on the walls of their bedroom.

If poster-hangers aren’t your type of audience, it’s a good idea to find the equivalent.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Child Star

The good thing about being a child star is that you get an amazing amount of encouragement up front…that you’re doing a good job and should keep going.

The truth is, the talent might be there and it might not. But you’re a kid and you’re a star…so there’s a lot of positivity and you have plenty of TIME to actually get good.

It’s easy to get down on ourselves when we start getting confused about what role encouragement and time have on the thing we’re building.

You’re never going to get enough encouragement…but encouragement from respected sources is priceless and is wind in the sails.

You weren’t a child star so you’re already late to the game…It’s not too late. And the you five years from now will think the present day you was plenty young to start the thing or keep the thing going that you wanted to build.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple