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About this blog

General thoughts and viewpoints amassed being around professional Music and Entertainment [See Profile].

Entries in this blog

Musicianship

Mediocrity

What is the worst quality of any artist?  By this I mean related to the art itself not interpersonal relationships or bad habits.   It is not lack of intelligence, artists do not need to be intellectuals.   It’s not even being bad.  People who are bad usually know it and try to compensate in other ways.   The worst problem is mediocrity, the gray area between good and bad.  This usually shows first as a lack of taste and discrimination.   The dictionary de
Career

Outlaws and Criminals

Do you know the difference between an outlaw and a criminal?  Most people think they are synonymous and interchangeable but they are often different concepts.   Criminals are outlaws in a legal sense but outlaws are not always criminals.  Outlaw is often a cultural or artistic construct more than a legal one.  Criminals break the law, outlaws are outside it.   The word outlaw originated from the term outcast.  This is someone who does not conform to the community and are cast
General

Different Worlds

One of the complexities of life is people are similar but different.  Everyone lives at the same time both in the world they perceive and the larger world referred to as reality or a commonly accepted form of what really exists.  Even that is not the final reality.  This is why there is both Religion and Science.  Each claim to be the final arbitrator but it is physically impossible for the finite to conceive the infinite.   Back to the original subject…   My neighbors and I
Education

Luck Education Opportunity

I view life as a combination of luck and education combined with opportunity .  I will give you a classic example of good luck.   I was born into a rural backwater and married a woman who grew up in Beverly Hills whom I met at an online dating site.  High odds, not a good match at first sight.   My original college education was Theater not Music.  Her entire family is composed of artists, writers, and producers.  Check the Box √   She has a Gay brother, which is a
General

Good People, Bad People

This is an illustration of Good and Bad people with two different stories.  One involves me, the other involves my wife, Adrienne.  The stories are based upon actual situations.  These are what in literature are referred to as morality stories and are set in a background centered around music.   The first story is mine.  I once played in a band which included two brothers, one played rhythm guitar, the other drums.  The elder was the guitarist.   The guitarist was OK, basical
Career

Helping Others

Everyone usually knows their strengths, but how many recognize their limitations?  How many people go anywhere without helping someone else other than themselves?   I know my limitations because I have a lot of them.  I am not so much a creative person as I am a good problem solver.  This is because I was trained to solve problems in one way or another.  Usually this was either formal university training or being mentored by a professional who knew what they were doing.   I g
Career

Branding

Why do people become successful?   Science says only 8% of people achieve their goal according to Inc.com.  However Woody Allen said 80% of success is just showing up.  Putting yourself in the public eye is crucial.   I got a tiny part in a very bad Hollywood movie although I am not an actor.  I did it for self promotion.  A friend told me about an audition for a part which was a musician.  I was tall and thin with hair below my shoulders so I looked the part and got the part
Education

Blog Writing

What is life?  What matters?  What is its meaning?   These are questions which mankind has pondered for thousands of years.  I am fortunate in that I follow a once well known philosophy called Stoicism which answers these questions. Life is temporal and fleeting.  It is a moment in time and space to be savored as much as possible as it will never reoccur. It is what you leave behind which matters not what you acquire.  What is your legacy? The meaning of Life is Dea
General

Storytelling

How did songwriting begin?   Most likely, although no one knows for sure, it was a form of storytelling.  People remembering and recounting events to the beat of a drum.  The drum was the first instrument.  It is still most often MY first instrument when I write because I generally, not always, write based around a Beat.   I posted the beginning of Fever Tree, which was only bass and drums, on a New Music Friday.  I knew what it was going to sound like when finished although
Career

Commercial Music

What makes commercial music successful?   There are four components to having successful commercial music and an act.  These are Melody, Beat, Lyrics, and Performance.   Any of them can be the driving force behind a song.  You have to have a combination of at least two for success.  No matter how good the first three are, a bad Performance will sink the ship unless your goal is to sell the song to someone else.   The Performance is major.  The song will be played f
Career

Chasing The Dream: Coda

Just what you want to be, you will be in the end   This is a line from The Moody Blues song Nights In White Satin.  The song has charted time and time again for the last 50 years by different artists.   This is not about the band or the song.  This is about the inherent truth contained in this line.   You are what you believe yourself to be.  If you believe yourself to be someone you will become that person.  You cannot create talent but you can create opportunity. 
Career

Chasing The Dream: Part Three

THE MUSIC BUSINESS   Professional Music Is A Business.  If you do not wish your Music to involve dealing with money then why would you ever choose this as a career move?   Pablo Picasso was a great artist.  He was also a great businessman.  So was Salvador Dali.  Business and art have lain side by side since the beginning of civilization.   Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel because of a burning desire to be creative.  This was a job.   Ludwig vo
Career

Chasing The Dream: Part Two

Goals and Systems   We will assume you have read Part One.  If not, it would probably be a good idea to click on that link and do so.   Now you have completed the first three steps. You have confirmed by other people’s reactions you really do have talent. You realize what you are going to give up in time, money, and aggravation. You know how you can possibly fit in.   Now we are going to move along to Goals and Systems.  Goals are important but i
General

Leadership and Unity

I want to make one thing very clear at the beginning of this post.  I have never been THE leader of a band.  NEVER!  I have owned three businesses, I have never owned a band.   The biggest disappointment of my career was because the leader of the band went to rehab not once, but twice, because of being a drug addict.  This resulted in the band, The Wolves, NOT being signed to Geffen Records and becoming a national tour act with major label backing.   He was the leader because
Career

Chasing The Dream: Part One

What do you want from life?  I knew what I wanted from an early age.  I wanted an adventure!   The first time I ever ran away from home I was six years old.  It wasn’t the last either but I finally made it through high school and left for college.   I grew up in a cow patty of an oil field town in west Texas by the name of Sweetwater.  It was a place where people got drunk on the weekend and got into fistfights for fun.  It did not take me long to realize this was no way to l
Education

Learning = Earning

Anyone who has followed any of my activities should know if nothing else I am eager to learn.  Whatever success I have had, which may not be Earthshaking but has kept me from otherwise working, is due to something I have learned from other people.  Those who have mentored me, those I have taken classes from, and those whom I have never met but read their book or taken their online course.   There is a world of relevant information available to help you boost your career(s), much of whi
Musicianship

Dynamics In A Band

Dynamics In A Band   There are three primary traits in choosing musicians Skill, Talent, and Imagination.  It is rare to find all three in one person and it not necessary to have all three in one person for success although it certainly can’t hurt.   I only score Medium in Skill, but High in Talent and Imagination.  I am technically not stellar but I can hit the target on emotion.  This means I can sometimes make a piece sound better than a more skilled musician who has less

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