Five Second IQ Test

We don’t want an IQ test to take five seconds.

We want it to take at least thirty minutes…or maybe a couple of hours just to make sure our brains were appropriately mined.

Even if it only actually takes five seconds, we don’t want to believe such important results about ourselves could be discovered so quickly…so make the test longer. It will make us feel better about ourselves no matter what the score is.

What do people want to believe about your product and process and how could you make it more true?

»» Michael just wanted the numbers re-crunched.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Skipping Ahead In Lord Of The Rings

Once you know the basic plot lines of Lord Of The Rings you could skip ahead a hundred pages and probably be ok.

And similarly, you could hit ‘summarize’ on the whole series and get the gist in three pages.

But the point Lord Of The Rings isn’t to know the story…it’s about reading the book. Living in it. Imagination. Stimulation. The fact that it’s long is one of the best things about it.

This is what we have to do as artists. Make things that are so compelling that being informed of them is not enough…it must be experienced. And when it is, it’s well worth it.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Song Timing

If you wait until your team wins the championship to put out your song about the team winning the championship, you’re too late.

If you wait until Christmas to put out your Christmas smash hit, it’s not going to hit this year.

If you wait until the summer solstice to put out your breezy summer jam, it’s not going to be the song of the summer.

Songs and timing and culture and seasons and phases.

It’s tricky.

But in all three of these cases (and many more), the song has to be out there ALREADY if it’s going to find the intersection of all these things.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Trying New Ideas

When someone comes up with an idea and tries it and it doesn’t work, what do we think of that person?

The way you answer that question probably goes a long way in answering how often you try (or offer up) a new idea.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Good And Useful Tools

A stump grinder is an amazing tool. If you’ve ever seen one in action, it’s pretty compelling. Like watching a bon fire.

But just because a stump grinder is a great tool doesn’t mean you should get one…It doesn’t mean you should spend time researching them online or checking your lines of credit to see what you could make happen.

You’re never going to grind a stump.

Good AND USEFUL tools are what you’re going for. Don’t get distracted by only the good.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Creative Service

Music making, as a profession, is both a creative industry and a service industry.

The amount of creativity vs. service depends…

If an artist is hiring you to play guitar on their song, ultimately they are the boss and you’re serving the artist through the song. But they hired you, specifically, because they like your creativity.

You might be a guitar player who likes to accommodate the artist no matter what…heavy on the service side. Or you might the type of guitar player who only wants to do your specific thing, stay true to your own artistic vision…and if the artist doesn’t like it, they are welcome to go elsewhere…heavy on the creative side.

And a thousand places in between.

The hope is that after we have gone too far in one direction or the other, or both…that we’ve found our place on that spectrum where music is both fulfilling and sustainable.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple