Agree 100%. When we get on stage something WILL go wrong. There's no way around that. Equipment's gonna fail, somebody's gonna blank, etc, etc. All that planning and all that structure get thrown out the window.
We need to work on listening to each other and ourselves. Lean on these guys that have played out before. If you get off track, Ray will always be ready with hitting the downbeat. Mark can cut a solo at a moment's notice to help cover. I'll add visual and audio cues. While structure is something worth attaining, I'm not interested in having a recital. When we start doing that we're going to lose the drama and the impact and we're going to end up alienating the very people we want to enjoy, (and hopefully buy) our product.
Live music is a different beast and the only thing that can break that beast and make it our own is going out and actually playing. This web stuff is fine, but we can't cut out eye to eye human contact. You can have the best, highly produced demo in the world, but if you can't get people to come out and see you, it's just wasted money.
We need to go out, we need to experiment. We need to find out what works and what doesn't. We're not going to get that playing songs over and over and over again in a studio. We need to learn how to connect and interact with an audience. That's how we're going to get a following.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Reality Check for New Bands Wanting to Make Money...
I share this as a wake-up call to new bands, young bands, old bands, who are ready to get out and test the waters. Just remember the following sound advice or you may not last long...
Yea ok. We've missed some real good performance chances already and we gotta start somewhere. If anyone is not on board with playing out at some little place for free the first couple of times, that's the reality, then maybe this isn't the band for u.
Nuff said.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sometimes It's Just One Missing Piece.
Important and long-lasting opportunities present themselves to public school teachers several times a day. Opportunities to affect a student's life and future in positive and negative ways. A conceptual connection with your students is critical. What I mean is that even if it's only one thing that connects you to the student, it's enough to push the chances for suceess higher.
That has not been lost on me over the last two weeks as my "struggle" with an aggressive male student came to a head when I had to confront him on an issue of respect. Immediately after "the talk" things calmed down between us. In fact, he has since been a model student and has raised his performance level in class by 200%. His whole demeanor in class, and his modeling of correct and exacting technique, has not gone unoticed by the rest of the class. It has really served to pull everyone together. I am relieved and energized by the results.
Will we have a flawless rest of school year? Most likely not, some issue will come up between us. However, a life-lesson has been learned in the process: We don't have to agree on everything, we just have to find a way to realize how much stronger we are as a team then as adversaries.
Public school teaching is difficult, stressful, and unpredictable. In the end, that doesn't matter as the importance of inspiring, motivating, and sacrificing for, students becomes the only focus. In a world of unliminted opportunity, creative methods must be used to assure the success of our youth...the only future we have.
That has not been lost on me over the last two weeks as my "struggle" with an aggressive male student came to a head when I had to confront him on an issue of respect. Immediately after "the talk" things calmed down between us. In fact, he has since been a model student and has raised his performance level in class by 200%. His whole demeanor in class, and his modeling of correct and exacting technique, has not gone unoticed by the rest of the class. It has really served to pull everyone together. I am relieved and energized by the results.
Will we have a flawless rest of school year? Most likely not, some issue will come up between us. However, a life-lesson has been learned in the process: We don't have to agree on everything, we just have to find a way to realize how much stronger we are as a team then as adversaries.
Public school teaching is difficult, stressful, and unpredictable. In the end, that doesn't matter as the importance of inspiring, motivating, and sacrificing for, students becomes the only focus. In a world of unliminted opportunity, creative methods must be used to assure the success of our youth...the only future we have.
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