Chapter 22…1/2: Transparency

Posted by admin on July 21st, 2010 | 1 Comment »

So in my last post I spoke about what was going on in my mind while we were playing our first set up in Burlington Vermont.  I confessed that I was stuck in my head and was not connecting to the music and that I was angry with myself for allowing that to happen.  After I published the post, I questioned whether or not I had made a mistake in sharing such personal information with my fans and had gone to far, perhaps encroaching upon the “4th” wall as it’s called in the theater…the invisible wall that separates the audience from the fictional world that is being created on the stage.

When I started this blog it was based on my belief that with a clear vision, a shit load of hard work and an unwavering belief in oneself, anybody can accomplish anything in life.  I set out to prove my theory by applying those same principles to becoming a world renown artist and I promised to share everything about my process with you all so that you could be part of a “real time” story.  I promised transparency and at first, I shared mostly the actual steps I was taking to move my career forward and spread the word about my music.  After my first couple of chapters I got some feedback that people wanted more from me…that they wanted not only to hear the happenings of how I was growing my business, but more so the emotional and creative experiences that I was having in this artistic journey.  In other words, a public diary or an online journal.

Taking this feedback I felt that I may run the risk of revealing too much of myself in such a public forum but I took the risk and wrote about my inner processes as much as my outer ones.  However, after my last post I began to question whether this was actually the right approach to take.  My fear is that by so clearly breaking down the “4th wall” so to speak, in sharing any fears or insecurities that have something to do with my creative and musical processes, I may be removing some of the “magic” that is part of being a performer, almost like a magician sharing how he does all of his tricks.

On the other hand though, I know of no artist that shares themselves and their processes to help inspire others to believe that they too can pursue anything in life.  I felt that if I chose full transparency as I promised in my initial post when I began this blog, that by showing people my own creative processes, it might help shed some light on their own as well.  By showing my “human-ness” so to speak…the commonality that we all have fears, insecurities and self doubt, and by thus, making those things public I would help inspire others to not be held back by their own inner deamons, and instead chose a different path as I try to do every day.

So I am still up in the air about how to proceed.  I will keep you all posted.  But as of now…I have deleted my last post…hence this being chapter 22…and 1/2.

Zach

Chapter 22: Working with Tom Jackson Productions and Amy Wolter

Posted by admin on July 6th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

This week I am going to post a blog post by Amy Wolter, the live music producer from Tom Jackson productions that we flew in from Nashville to work with us on our show last week.  She wrote a post about the experience on her own blog and I liked it so I’m going to repost it

Here is the link to it: http://bit.ly/9xXEu6

On a personal note, the experience was a very worthwhile one.  One of the things that Amy helped us understand as band is how to step out of our “musician heads” and step into the head of being a member of the audience.  Most audience members don’t speak the same musical language that musicians speak, so they will actually HEAR something better when they can SEE it.  Amy helped show us how to SHOW the audience what we were playing which at first, made some of us uncomfortable or feel insecure.  However as the band leader I encouraged everybody to take risks and trust Amy’s expertise in the subject of Live Performance Production and as we continued to work, we started to get more comfortable with some of the movement we were doing.  Even simple things like walking to the front of the stage to take a solo or highlight a bass line made huge differences.

Our first show since our work with Amy is tomorrow night in Burlington VT.  We are excited to see how our connection with our audience benefits from this work and are eager to share it with you all.

Stay tuned…