A Little Commitment

It all starts with a little commitment.

Actually, I guess it starts before that. Before the first traces of commitment you have a completely wide open landscape, the whole world is at your fingertips, an infinite number of choices.

But it turns out we’re not very good at having the world at our fingertips. Boundary-less framework is pretty tough to build on.

So it takes a seed of commitment. Cause after that, the next part doesn’t have to come out of nowhere…it’s simply an extension of what’s already been committed to.

When you sit down to write a song, there’s too many options to stay in that limitless space for very long. So then you commit to starting with a C chord or to 105bpm or to a catchy phrase. Ok now we start building.

Commitment narrows the available choices and gives the endeavor an identity.

 

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Sometimes It Takes Eleven

First Monday of the month, new Hum Love playlist on Spotify and Apple

It took eleven songs for a ten song arc this month.

If you make a regularly scheduled playlist you will get better at putting your own albums together. You’ll get better at knowing what kind of song you want to come after this one. It will change the way you structure the arc, craft your intros and finish your outros.

Not a bad return on investment for something that’s fun and free.

 

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

The Loudspeaker

The music business is cluttered so your message needs to be clear if you wanna rise above. Razor sharp, in bold type, spoken of often enough to be thought about all the time. And thought about enough to go into the subconscious.

Let go of the ambiguous artist thing. Let go of we’ll just see what happens. Let go of we’ll figure it out later. Let go of I just wanna make music man.

Sharpen your edges and fire up the loudspeaker.

 

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Cheers And Hollers

Isn’t that what we all really want?

More than likes and hearts and playlists and followers we want to walk on stage to cheers and hollers…and have them reprised throughout the evening.

And sure, cheers and hollers aren’t going to satisfy your soul…but of all the audience connection indicators this is the best one.

So here’s a little tip…if you want people to cheer for you on stage then do things that people like to cheer for.

And one level deeper…giving someone the opportunity to cheer for you is a gift to them.

 

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Quiet Problems

We’re trained to notice the loud problems.

We were trained early on…parents, teachers and kids take note of and pay attention to noisy kids (and babies). We then use this training to assess our current landscape as adults.

Noise is easy to spot.

Loud is easy to prioritize.

No one can argue with taking care of a loud problem. It’s feels urgent. We just want the noise to go away.

We’re not trained to notice quiet problems…

The friend who ‘gladly’ works ninety hours weeks with no end in sight.

The associate you were really close to but now it’s all weather and sports talk.

The kid who is afraid of getting anything other than a A+ on the test.

The spouse who hasn’t hung out with friends in months.

Big problems wrapped in quietness. Quiet down and you’ll start noticing.

 

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple