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…

Chapter 10: What I’m Learning from Tom Jackson

Posted by admin on March 23rd, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Tom Jackson separates the reason that we (musicians and music lovers) do music into 4 “M’s.”

The Music       The Message       The Money       The Me

I’m going to talk about the “Me” because I’ve always had an issue with the “me.” A part of me has always felt like it’s self indulgent to be a musician or an artist. Like “who am I to think that I can/should/deserve to do this?” Anybody else ever feel like that?

Well, what Tom said is that the “me” could either one of two things. The first “me” is the “ME…” the look at “ME.” The “ME is performing so clap for ME.” We all hate this “me,” and this is not the “me” that he speaks about. The “me” that he speaks about is the “me” that has always known, that has always felt that I am here to do this…that my love for music is so deep it must be my calling and in order to honor the gifts that I was given by the Universe, or God if you don’t have a problem with that word, then I have to DO SOMETHING about it!

I used to think that I was selfish for thinking that I could be a world-renowned musician because I thought that everybody’s dream was to be some kind of performer if they really could choose anything. Wrong.

When lived in Colorado, I met a guy who told me his dream in life was to climb the 7 highest peaks in the world, and that he had already tackled 4 of them, K2 included. I thought about the fact that this dream was the apotheosis of what he thought was dream worthy…his ultimate goal in life, to climb all 7 peaks.

Now, I would never want to do that. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in mountain climbing. Skiing down a mountain, yes please. Climbing up a mountain. No fucking way.

My point is obvious: not everyone dreams about the same thing so maybe there’s a reason for why we have certain dreams, desires or callings in life: because that’s what we are supposed to do! We dream about it, yearn for it, desire it because we are supposed to have it!  Me! Me me me me me is supposed to be doing this because that’s what fulfills my hear the most!  And the truth is is that if I didn’t do my hearts calling, I would be cheating God so to speak, or cheating my life; turning my back on that which gives me the most fire and most fulfillment.

So thank you Tom Jackson for reminding me of “Me.”

More coming…