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 20: My interview last night

Posted by admin on May 11th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

I had a great interview last night with a guy who runs a blog talk radio show called “Music on the Couch.”  Unlike a lot of interviews that I’ve been on, this one was a little more casual, and Vinny, the host, asked me some very interesting questions which got me thinking about some very interesting things.  The one question that he asked me that really stood out was about narcissism.  He had read an old post from this blog where I was talking about how I needed to give up my ego in order to give a good performance.  His questions was something like “don’t you need an ego and a sense of ‘me’ ‘me’ ‘me’ in order to get up onstage in the first place?”

It was a great question because I think it’s something that every artist needs to ask themselves.  At some point in every artists life, I actually remember the exact moment in mine, we had to have made a decision that went something like “I could do that.“  In other words, we looked at our idols, whoever they were and said to ourselves that we too, could be like them.  This is a statement that takes a tremendous amount of courage, or “me”-ness to it.

What I said last night was that that ego can only get us so far, or at least in my experience, has only gotten me so far.  It has helped me practice, use my will to get myself to a professional level and helped establish my sense of self as an artist that is destined for success and continued success.  However, as soon as I step onstage, that ego becomes a problem because once onstage, it’s no longer about me anymore.  It’s about something bigger than me.  Its about both the audience, and then something even greater than the audience. Some call it God, but whatever it is, it’s bigger than my tiny ego.  I want to disappear onstage and allow a greater creative force to live through me and I want to connect that greater force with the audience.  I want to be a vessel, a channel for something greater to move both me and the audience together in celebration.  This is the death of narcissism that I’m talking about.  In my experience, this can only happen in a humble place.